Lords Sitting of 10 November 1960

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich

THE LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER
Lewis Mervyn, Lord Bishop of Worcester—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
3.7 p.m.
THE EARL OF SCARBROUGH: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a Message from Her Majesty the Queen, signed by her own hand. It is as follows:
"I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament".

HORTICULTURAL GRANTS
3.11 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many applications for grants under the Horticulture Act have so far been approved, and what will be the total contribution from Her Majesty's Treasury towards these approved schemes.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, by October 31 approval had been given to 667 applications, involving an estimated Exchequer liability of £ 369,486.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, does not the noble Earl regard this as an ex-Lamely small number, and an extremely
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small amount, compared with the 35,000 horticulturists who are eligible to apply and the £ 8 million which is available for distribution? How does he account for this slow rate of application? Does he not regard it as an indication of the desperate state of horticulture, in that the growers cannot find the other two-thirds of the capital expenditure?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: No, my Lords, I do not regard it as any such thing. This scheme has been in operation for only seven months, and one would not expect people to have plans worked out ready for submission to the authorities in order that they may attract grant, all in the first minute when the scheme is produced. This scheme has already attracted grants of one-third of £ 1 million and the total value of applications on which grant 'has been approved is over £ 1 In the first seven months of an entirely new and novel scheme I think the progress is satisfactory.

POLICE PAY
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper:
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government if the Royal Commission on the Police is expected to complete the Interim Report on police pay before the end of the present year.]
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I understand that the Royal Commission intend to sign their Report on police pay next week. The Report will, I hope, be published before the end of this month.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that most gratifying reply, may I ask whether the Home Secretary's statement in a broadcast last night, that we must have much better pay for the police force, means that there is likely to be increased pay before the end of the year? Will he also have in mind the fact that the Police Federation suspended the application for increased pay which they had in hand when the Royal Commission was appointed; and is it likely that any award will be retrospective?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I am sure my right honourable friend will bear in mind exactly what he said last night, although I did not have the pleasure of hearing him. Of course I cannot tell the noble Lord what is intended: he will see that when the Report is published.

COMMONWEALTH ADVISORY AND TECHNICAL SERVICE
3.15 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords. I 'beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they will take to implement the recommendation in the Fourth Report of the Select Committee on Estimates that a Committee of Inquiry be set up to consider the establishment of a Commonwealth Advisory and Technical Service.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, the views of Her Majesty's Government on the various recommendations of the Select Committee are being prepared, but until these have been communicated to the Select Committee itself I do not think it would be right for me to make a statement upon any one of them.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl this supplementary question: does he not agree, having travelled so much himself overseas, that Her 'Majesty's Oversea Civil Service is running down because of the uncertainty that many officers feel about their future? Is it not therefore necessary, in considering the Select Committee's recommendations, that Her Majesty's Government should give careful consideration to the possibility of doing something more to induce these excellent officers to stay on in the Service, particularly in newly independent countries where administrative and technical officers are so badly needed?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, certainly I would agree that it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should do all we can to encourage the overseas civil servants to remain in the countries where they have been serving once those countries have become independent. The noble Earl will recollect
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that towards the end of July we introduced new proposals in regard to Her Majesty's Oversea Civil Service to encourage those who were serving to remain.

PUBLIC HEALTH BILL [H.L.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR WELSH AFFAIRS (LORD BRECON: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1936, relating to building by-laws, to make such amendments of the law relating to public health and the functions of county councils and other local authorities as are commonly made in local Acts, to amend the law relating to trade effluents and to amend section two hundred and forty-nine of the said Act of 1936. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la.—(Lord Brecon.)
On Question, Bill read la, and to be printed.

DECIMAL CURRENCY
3.18 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are contemplating the study of, or the introduction of, currency decimalisation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. This Motion might have been called, to borrow the phrase attributed to Lord Randolph Churchill. "these damned dots". Most countries in the world have a decimal currency, and I hope to show in my few remarks that it is time that Britain began to consider this matter. Fingers were made before digital computers, but that may not be a reason why we should condemn our posterity to count up pounds, shillings and pence on their fingers, as I find I have to do, instead of doing it in their heads. Nor need we assume that for ever we must deny our manufacturers of calculating machines and the most complex electronic calculators which are now coming into use the opportunity of exporting standard machines which operate for monetary purposes on a decimal system instead of a duodecimal system.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association of Chambers of Commerce set up a Committee to study this matter and to make a Report. Their Report was published last May and was given confirmation by the annual meeting of the British Association last September. That Committee took evidence from over 1,000 persons and institutions, including learned societies, educational authorities and business institutions, large and small, and, basing themselves upon a very large majority opinion shown by their respondents, they produced a unanimous Report. They were themselves a very representative joint Committee of persons in education, business and the arts and sciences. The joint Committee were reporting on the decimalisation of the currency and of our weights and measures; but I propose, in this Motion which I am commending to your Lordships, to deal only with currency—not because I am in any way opposed to the decimalisation of weights and measures but because it seems enough, perhaps, to start with one complex subject rather than two.
Whereas an overwhelming majority of those who have given consideration to this matter, when they were asked to give evidence to this Committee expressed themselves as being in favour of the introduction of a decimal currency, the Committee did not test public opinion in the matter, and it is clear that the man in the street and the woman in the home will have a view about this matter and that their view must be taken into account. It seems to me, therefore, that at some stage or other, unless we are wholly to neglect this Report and this matter, Parliament must give it some thought; and that is my reason for putting down this Motion.
If we take the ten older Commonwealth countries we shall find that four of them, namely, Canada, India, Ceylon and the British West Indies, already have decimal coinage; that South Africa will have a decimal coinage in operation next February; that Australia has agreed in principle to the introduction of a decimal coinage and that a Committee very similar in its status and its broadness of purpose to the one we have had dealing with this matter here, has sat upon this matter and produced a most valuable Report. We shall find
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that New Zealand is in similar case and that Southern Rhodesia is now considering the matter. The only two countries that are not considering the matter publicly or with Government support are Pakistan and the United Kingdom; and it may well be that in a few years' time the United Kingdom will be alone, not only among the countries of the Commonwealth but among the countries of the world in not using a decimal currency system.
The cost of changing over in this complex business society of ours would be very considerable. On the mechanical side, there are cash registers, calculating machines, petrol pumps (so far as the financial charge recording element is concerned), telephones, taxis, slot machines and, of course, many other machines which either use a coin or make a calculation in currency. All of them would have to be converted over a time. It is estimated by the Committee that the cost of conversion of these machines alone might be as much as £ 128 million. Then there are many charges which will fall upon the nation which are incapable of accurate assessment. Business houses will have to change the forms of their accounts. Banks and insurance companies will be affected, and in the case of the latter there are the millions of industrial insurance policies which are often in units of pence—1d., 2d. or 3d.—which may have to be changed. It is therefore a formidable task and one upon which no nation could embark lightly.
Your Lordships may ask who is to pay for it. The advantage will inure to the nation as a whole and therefore the nation as a whole should perhaps pay for it. There are ways in which that could be done: for example, by way of cash grants or compensation to those firms who have to change heir machines. Another way would be to make a tax allowance for the expense of changing these machines; and that would be a way of sharing the cost between taxpayers as a whole and the companies who are put to the expense of making alterations. School books will have to be altered, and methods of teaching. By and large, the changeover, might take from three to five years and might cost £ 300 million; but that is a vague estimate and it is perhaps impossible to be more accurate than that.
The longer we put off considering this matter and undertaking this great change, the more it will cost, because the machines are becoming more and more expensive. That is perhaps a strong reason why one should ask Her Majesty's Government to give this matter consideration without delay, and more especially since this Report has now been on the table for some months and available for study. So far as education and the schools are concerned, it is estimated that there will be a substantial saving in the time occupied in teaching children to do sums in money—perhaps 5 or 10 per cent. for children up to the age of 10 or 11 years, with a smaller saving in time for the older children who undertake a much wider curriculum.
Another factor to be borne in mind, as regards both education and the general use of the system by the public, is that we are gradually becoming accustomed to the use of decimals for many purposes but cannot use them in our currency. If we could use them for both, then all the teaching in the use of decimals for ordinary purposes would automatically apply to the working out of the sums of currency. Every transaction in every shop, every calculation made by every person in his private life every day—every calculation which any of us makes in our private life—would be facilitated, and would be facilitated for ever. It might, therefore, be worth while paying a high price to place this business nation of ours—a nation much more educated than it used to be—in possession of this new tool which cannot but be of the greatest advantage to it. Errors would be eliminated to a much greater extent in all these calculations and we should be the more able to complete in making a living and in export trade and in all our various activities if we simplified these day-to-day processes which all of us must go through.
I do not propose to do more than introduce this subject to public notice, and will therefore not go into great detail. But perhaps I ought to say a word about the system. There are, of course, various systems. But we must have one which will easily, or relatively easily, be applied to our existing currency; which will not offend our national pride, and which will not be too difficult to translate during the two
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or three years of transition when the old system of currency and the new must be running concurrently.
Of the various systems which are discussed in this interesting Report I myself plump for what is called the "pound cent" system. The pound would be the main element of the currency—not because it is the one most used; it clearly is not. Coins of small denomination are the ones most used, but there are disadvantages in having a currency based upon a small denomination of money. The pound, on the other hand, is well known, well respected and, in spite of its vicissitudes (for which all of us at various times have had responsibility), it is a currency in which more than half the world's trade is conducted and it is one in which we in these islands are very proud. Therefore, some of us would not like to see the pound disappear in favour of some other fundamental unit. Indeed, the Committee recommend unanimously that the pound should be retained, and most of the evidence given in favour of a change agrees with that.
The cent would, of course, be one-hundredth part of the pound. I myself should hope that it would not be called a cent. I would rather find some Anglo-Saxon name for it, though I am bound to say that at present I have not found one. We should have a pound which would contain ten florins (there is nothing wrong with a florin) and the florin, in turn, would contain ten cents or ten "tickies" or ten coppers, or whatever they might be called, each of which would be worth 2· 4 of the present penny. It is said that that is not a small enough coin for common usage. It is rather surprising that it is not, because, of course, a coin which is worth 2· 4 pence to-day will buy only what a coin worth a penny would have bought ten or twenty years ago. The halfpenny, is, in fact, very little used: not at all in trade and commerce, but to some extent in retail trade, and certainly in travelling and in the purchase of newspapers. But who is not to say that the reason why it is used is that it is there rather than that it is necessary? If there were not a halfpenny it might well be that the newspapers and the manufacturers of lollipops would find some way of giving us equivalent value for some other round figure; and

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that is, of course, what has happened in other countries.
I happen to have a family business of some substance in South Africa, and I have already mentioned to your Lordships that in February South Africa is going over to a decimal coinage. I have therefore seen from the inside what effect it has upon a substantial trading concern; what difficulties the firm has to meet in the matter of changing over its machines, for we use a great many office machines; and what difficulties are anticipated among our staff. And it should be considered that a very large proportion of our staff is composed of Africans, and that 90 per cent. of all our customers are Africans, who have not the educational advantages that are enjoyed by our population generally in Britain; I assure your Lordships that we see no difficulty (perhaps I should not say "no difficulty", but we see no insuperable difficulty) in carrying out this transaction in our business and that that is the general opinion in South Africa.
My Lords, I wonder whether Britain is too old to make this change. I wonder whether the Houses of Parliament and the senior civil servants who advise the Ministers, and Ministers themselves, are too old to contemplate this change. The instinct of a man of my age might well be to say, "Well, I have put up with pounds, shillings and pence for 50 years. Why Not leave me alone?" That view is understandable; but I do not think it is a proper answer to the responsibility that rests upon us of dealing with new ideas when they come to our notice and of applying them if we feel that they are going to be of value. Will the Government grasp this awkward nettle, which will lead to a considerable amount of confusion and difficulty in the country generally; which will cost a lot of money and will not benefit the Government at all but will benefit only posterity? My own view is that they should do so; that it is a responsibility of Government to look into the future; and that on its merits this matter deserves the fullest possible consideration.
I have said that I am not speaking today about weights and measures. But I cannot help observing that the Government have been so forward looking as to produce, as mentioned in the Queen's Speech, a Bill which, among other things, will destroy the rod, pole and perch. I
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congratulate them upon that—I can hear Tory Benches asking for the return of the rod, but hardly for the perch—and I hope that the same enlightened view about this matter, as it comes to be better known, will prevail.
It is understood that the Post Office are a little averse to these proposals, though Government Departments generally, in giving evidence to this Committee, did not express great anxiety. It is not surprising that the Post Office should view the change with anxiety, because it would be an enormous change for them. But, my Lords, Government Departments are always very conservative, perhaps too conservative, when new schemes come before them. I have been told that when "Pay as you earn" was first suggested, in the first year of the war, the Treasury said that it was impracticable or undesirable. It has proved practicable, and I think that most people will agree that it has proved to be desirable. I am told that when it was first suggested that a universal method of providing insurance against war damage was suggested it was said to be impracticable or undesirable. I think that nearly everything is impracticable or undesirable until we set about doing it.
My Lords, I ask the Government to tell us whether they are studying this matter, and, if they are not, I ask them to set about it. And if they have no statement to make to-day, then I ask them to consider an immediate study of the matter and to bring to Parliament, in due course, some proposals of their own, whether directly as a result of this Committee's work or by setting up some Government Committee to give the authority that such a Committee would give to a further investigation. I beg to move for Papers.
3.40 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, the absence of speakers in the list may perhaps indicate, as I hope it does, that the measure of support upon which the noble Lord who has just spoken can count is very great. I feel that we are indebted to him for bringing this matter forward at this particular moment, and I refer especially to his reference, finally, to the Weights and Measures Bill.
The only contribution which I have felt I could make to your Lordships' consideration of the matter is that earlier

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this year I re-visited India, where I had previously spent many years, and where the decimal system has only recently been introduced. I should like your Lordships to know—and perhaps others will confirm what I say—that I was amazed at the facility with which a country of that size has dropped into the use of decimals. The naiya paisa seems to be fully accepted in the bazaars. I dare say that the small trader has managed to make a little bit here and there on the conversion of the anna and pie into the naiya paisa, but the fact remains that that great country, with its enormous population, a large proportion of them illiterate, has dropped into the decimal coinage with, as far as I can see, the minimum of trouble so far as the individual is concerned. The cost to the country, of course, is great, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, has said, I think everybody agrees that the advantages to the people as a whole greatly outweigh any cost that this step incurs.
So far as India is concerned, I happen to know, because my father was concerned with it, that this recommendation of a decimal coinage was made more than fifty years ago, and the point was then made which, again, the noble Lord has made to-day: that the longer we wait, the more it will cost. As he also said, we must appreciate that, with this rapid development of mechanical counting—the computer and the like—the snowball of mechanisation will soon become an avalanche, and with these machines the cost which he mentioned will increase in a marked degree the longer we delay this very necessary step. I hope that the noble Earl who is going to reply will be able to indicate what views the Government have on a speedy introduction of the system.
As to the Weights and Measures Bill, it is interesting that the definition of the yard has now been related to the metre although I am informed (I have not had time to read the Bill myself) that in fact there is no stepping stone, as it were, in the Weights and Measures Bill leading towards a decimalisation of weights and measures. The noble Lord referred to the length of time occupied in teaching children the complicated calculation of pounds, shillings and pence. That is bad enough, but ounces, pounds,
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quarters and hundredweights are infinitely more laborious.
I have only one further comment to make. If we were to keep to the pound—and, again, I agree with the noble Lord that the pound seems to be the right measure, divided into (I should like to call them) "bobs"—one regret to me would be that the disappearance of the shilling might also mean the disappearance of the "bob", particularly since nobody seems to know why it is called a "bob". My Lords, I would support with all my energy the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale.
3.44 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I will intervene just for three minutes, not only to support the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, in his admirable expose of decimalisation, but also to give a small illustration on the subject of currency. Three years ago, when I was at the Foreign Office, I had the pleasure of visiting practically all the countries in Latin America, and I was given a lunch in each of the capitals by our chambers of commerce. I think that, without exception, one of the major points they made to me was: "When can you do something about your money?" They said that many orders are lost all the year round owing to the inability of foreigners to understand our currency. One could easily say that they should, and that that is their fault; but that is not the point. We are losing orders because of this one fact. The noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, says it will cost money to alter, but it would seem to me to be well worth while doing in the long run, particularly as we consider ourselves one of the major exporting countries of the world. If we are losing exports due to this small technical matter, then, surely, my Lords, it is about time we did something about it.
3.46 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, I do not disagree with the suggestion that it would be a good thing if our currency were decimalised, but I think it is easy to exaggerate the advantages which would flow from it. To take the point which has just been made by the noble Earl, there is nothing whatever to prevent any British manufacturer from quoting the price of the articles

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which he is selling abroad as a pound and so many decimals of a pound. Nothing, I should think, would be easier than to do that. It does not matter whether there happens to be a coinage in this country which is on a decimal system or not. If his foreign customers find it difficult to calculate in shillings and pence, it is quite easy for him Ito make a quotation of, let us say, £3·175, or whatever the figure may be.
That brings me to one of the points which was made by the noble Lord who moved the Motion. It is suggested that the production of computers is handicapped because we have not a decimal system of coinage. But even at the present moment there is nothing easier than to turn shillings and pence into a decimal of a pound. Anybody who has had a little practice at it can do it in his head with the utmost facility, and can translate it back. In any case, so far as the computer is concerned, it does not work on a decimal system: it works upon a binary system, and everything which is fed into it has to be put into a binary system in order that the computer may work. It is then translated back into decimals or whatever is required. The apparatus which is necessary to convert it back into shillings and pence is a very small part of the machine. It is therefore a little fallacious to suggest that the manufacture of computing machines is seriously interfered with because we have not a decimal system of coinage. I mention these things because I think they ought to be pointed out, although in principle, naturally, everybody would like to see a decimal system introduced.
3.49 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, I am afraid that the few words I have to say on behalf of the Government may not be very satisfactory to my noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, because I cannot to-day go beyond what I said to my noble friend in reply to the Question which he put on May 31 this year, which was that the Government were very seriously considering this question, that we are grateful to the Committees appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce for the very valuable Report on which my
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noble friend has based his own observations, and that before we reach any decision we should like, if possible, to hear wider expressions of opinion from other people and other interests in the country who would be affected by it.
My noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale said he thought it was time we began to consider this matter, and he wondered if any of us were too old to do so. But in fact we have been considering it ever since decimal coinage was introduced by France in 1799, and, on the whole, the weight of that consideration has been against making a similar change in Great Britain. In the early part of the nineteenth century we were rather more in favour of the change than we have been since. There was a Royal Commission in 1838 and again in 1843, and they both recommended decimal coinage. That is more than 100 years ago. But since then two other Royal Commissions, in 1856 and in 1868, recommended decidedly against it, so evidently opinion in the second half of the century had swung the other way. In 1918, the most recent Royal Commission on coinage, the Report stated that they were against any change in the existing system because they thought
"the advantages to be gained by a change to the pound and mil scheme as regards keeping accounts is in no way commensurate with the loss of the convenience of the existing system for other purposes."
In the middle of the century it seems that opinion again is swinging rather in favour of changing to a decimal coinage, partly no doubt because so many other countries in the world are doing so, and partly, perhaps, because of the increasing use of machinery for the purpose of calculation. All I can do now is to give your Lordships a very brief summary of what we regard as the arguments both for and against this proposed change. The principal arguments in favour, of course, are: greater facility in the manipulation of figures, and a saving in office work. It has also been suggested by my noble friend Lord Gosford that it might be a great advantage to our export trade in South America and. I have no doubt, elsewhere in other countries where decimal coinage is in force.
The Committee to which Lord Fraser of Lonsdale referred sent out a questionnaire in which they consulted about 1,000

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bodies—companies, trade associations, chambers of commerce and local authorities—and I will just give your Lordships the results. Of the industrial and commercial companies who were sent the questionnaire, 421 were in favour of changing to a decimal coinage and only 72 were against. Of the trade associations, 65 were for and only 4 against. Of the chambers of commerce, 38 were in favour, none against. In reply to the question: "What attitude would your organisation take to a proposal to adopt decimal coinage?" of the industrial and commercial companies, 369 gave unqualified approval, 105 qualified approval, 9 unqualified opposition, and 34 qualified opposition. The trade associations and chambers of commerce were in much the same proportion. Of the local authorities, 18 gave unqualified approval, 15 qualified, and only 2 expressed opposition. I would ask your Lordships to observe that the main qualifications made were: (1) insistence on retention of the pound, and (2) compensation for transitional costs incurred. That is a very powerful assembly of opinion in favour of the change which has been compiled as a result of the inquiries made by this Committee.
Now, what are the considerations against it? From our point of view, the main reason against—or perhaps should say, the main difficulty which would be encountered in making a change—is the large amount of the pound sterling compared with other units of currency. Twenty shillings—240 pence. If you divide, as my noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale proposed that we should, the pound into 100 units—the pound-cent system, with no lower amounts than the cent—that will mean that your smallest coin, your smallest medium of exchange, will be about 2½ d. Although, as my noble friend said, we have got rid of farthings and perhaps we shall soon get rid of halfpennies, 2½d. is too large for the smallest unit of our currency. It will be inconvenient for people to have nothing less and for small tradesmen to be able to charge nothing less.
You can do it in only two ways. Either you must have half cents or quarter cents, which would largely destroy the simplicity of your new system—it would mean a sort of hybrid system be-
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tween decimalisation and fractionalisation—or you could have the pound-mil system in which every cent would be divided into ten mils. But that would mean you would have to use three places of decimals instead of two, and that would largely remove the advantages in the shape of easier manipulation, easier calculation and a smaller amount of office work which might be gained by a decimal system. To have three places of decimals instead of two, you would need much larger and more expensive calculating machines.
The other countries to which my noble friend referred who had their currency based on the pound but are now making the change are, so far as we can see, reducing the pound to 10s. That is what South Africa is doing now: they are going to have pounds worth only 10s., thereby cutting all their pounds in half and doubling the number which everybody has. That would give you a much more convenient unit, because a cent, on that basis, would be just under 1¼d instead of 2½d., which would not be too large for the smallest unit of currency. That is the reason why they are doing it. They are going to get the advantage of simplicity and avoid the necessity for having machines and calculations to three places of decimals.
So far as we are aware, in Australia and New Zealand, both of which countries are considering going on to the decimal currency system, they are also contemplating having a 10s. pound instead of a 20s. pound. It is all right for them, because the Australian pound and the South African pound are not great media of international currency like the pound sterling. Your Lordships will observe that in this Report it is recommended that we should maintain the pound sterling, and all the bodies who were consulted, or nearly all of them, were in favour of doing so and thought this should be a condition of decimalisation. I do not quite know whether they have thought out the corollaries which follow from that—namely, that if you retain so large a unit as the pound, you must forfeit some of the conveniences which you will gain by having a decimal currency.
Another reason that we have to consider, which has also been mentioned by my noble friend, is the expense. On page 14 of this Committee's Report there

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is a table which gives estimates of what it would cost. They estimate that the cost of changing and replacing cash registers would be over £51 million, of changing some adding machines £ 16 million and replacing others £47 million. The whole cost, including the cost of changing Post Office telephone boxes and stamp machines and taxi meters would be £128 million. The Committee conclude that the future advantages of having a decimal coinage would outweigh that loss, but of course the future advantages cannot be measured—they are largely hypothetical—whereas the immediate loss is certain and substantial.
My noble friend said that he was not going to talk about weights and measures, and neither am I, but of course many people regard a decimal coinage as a first step towards the decimalisation of weights and measures. 'The bodies consulted by the Committee expressed some views on this. The Institute of Production Engineers stated that:
"The cost of complete change to the metric system would be prohibitive for most firms, involving as it must do the scrapping and replacement of most machines."
The British Refrigeration Association said:
"Within our own resources we do not consider that we could make such a change in five or ten years and remain competitive."
I will not pursue this, because we are only talking now about currency, but it is a consideration which might weigh with some people.
Another objection, of course, is that the divisibility of the duo-decimal system is more convenient in many ways than that of the decimal system, although it may not fit in so simply with the working of an electronic calculating machine. A pound of twenty shillings, with each shilling of twelve pence, can be divided by two, three, four, five and six—giving ten shillings, 6s. 8d., 5s., 4s., and 3s. 4d.—whereas any unit of currency which is decimal, like the franc and dollar, can be divided only by two, four and five. One of the most ludicrous things about the decimal system is its complete inability to express the common and convenient fraction of one-third. You just cannot do it. The only way of expressing a third in the decimal system is by 0·333 recurring, and you can spend the rest of your life adding on more threes, but
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you never get home. You never succeed in reaching the simply and easily understood concept of one-third of any object.
I think that these objections are all appreciated, and your Lordships may well consider that the advantage of a decimal coinage would outweigh all of them. When my noble friend put his Question on May 31, I expressed the hope that he might thereby encourage more public interest in the subject, and that if both your Lordships' House and another place and everybody in the country who might be interested would try to make their views known, we could ascertain what people really thought about it. We have already got in this valuable report of the Committee the opinions of big business, the banks and the local authorities. We should like to know a little more about the opinion of the man in the street, the small shopkeeper, the little tradesman, the carpenter and grocer, the small worker of every kind, of people who cannot afford an office staff and an electronic calculating machine but who are continually accustomed to buying and selling small quantities of goods in shillings and pence. I am sorry to say that since my noble friend asked his Question the amount of interest which the country has shown has been exceedingly small. We received fewer than twenty letters on the subject.
The most interesting letter which was received by my noble friend Lord Amory, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, was from an eminent mathematical authority in Scotland. He gave a justification of the duo-decimal system, showing how superior it was to the decimal system in higher mathematics and science, and his views seemed to me to be entirely unanswerable, though of course they are more a matter for my noble friend the Minister for Science than for the Departments for whom I am speaking. This Scottish mathematician gave some interesting reasons why in his opinion it would not be a good thing to change our currency to a decimal system. I cannot quote anything he said, because his letter was marked "Confidential", but he is an eminent mathematician, and if he thought it right to make his views public in the Press or by any other medium of expression, not only would the public be very interested but it might help other people to express their views

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and encourage other people and organisations who are interested and whose views have not yet been heard to get together and pay some attention to this question.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, would he answer this point? This unknown gentleman may well have said that the duo-decimal system was fascinating for Einstein and him, but could he really say that it was advantageous to anybody else?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, he is a very eminent professor of mathematics and he definitely gave arguments relating to the more mundane matter of pounds, shillings and pence. What I am now saying is that if this great authority would think it right to publicise his views—the only reason I cannot quote them is that his letter was marked Confidential "—I think it would be a matter of great interest and value to the country. Before we make a final decision we should like to get as many views as we can from all those people who do not belong to industrial and commercial firms and chambers of commerce, so that we know how the country really feels about this.
As my noble friend says, we ought not to take too long about making up our minds because if we do there will be so many more electronic machines on a pound, shillings and pence basis that if we made a decision to decimalise the currency later on the cost might be far greater than it would be now. That is one reason for not delaying too long, although a matter of this kind is not a thing which ought to be decided in a tearing hurry. I would make it plain that the Government are seriously considering the matter. They are aware of the arguments for doing so without too much delay, and we should like everybody whose views have not yet been received to express them as soon as possible; otherwise, their opinions may go by default and it is possible that the Government might feel that the right thing to do was to take action on the views which have already been so clearly expressed by so large a number of representative bodies. Therefore I hope that no opportunity will be neglected of putting forward other views on behalf of other people, because this is a thing
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on which the mind of the country ought to be ascertained. For this reason I am grateful to the noble Lord for having raised this matter again and to those other noble Lords who have spoken. I think we ought to know a little more about the mind of the country before we decide to take action.
LORD FERRIER: Before the noble Earl sits down, may I make a point arising out of what he said about the value of the smallest coin? The Indian position is that there are 100 naiya paisa to the rupee, compared to 192 pies before. In other words, they have nearly doubled.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes. What we could easily do to make it more convenient would be to halve the size of the pound. The 10s. pound is what the South Africans and (I understand) the Australians are going to have. In our case we have other reasons—and they are fully expressed in the Report—for maintaining the 20s. pound sterling.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Earl for his courteous reply and for the evident trouble that he has taken to make it? I hope it will not be a hundred years before this matter again comes before your Lordships' House. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

OXFORD'S TRAFFIC PROBLEMS
4.11 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH rose to ask Her Majesty's Government if they consider that the appointment of a former official of the Ministry of Health to conduct the public inquiry into Oxford's traffic problems is in keeping with the spirit of the undertaking given to the House during the debate upon this subject on February 13, 1957; and to ask, further, why there has been grave delay in the completion of the outer by-pass roads, despite the assurances given by Her Majesty's Government during the above-mentioned debate, and repeated in the House on February 27, 1957, a delay which has resulted in the Western by-pass not being yet open to traffic and the starting date for

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the vital Sandford Link not even announced, when it was clearly accepted during the debate, that no inquiry could fulfil its true purpose unless it had before it the experience of the effect of these outer by-pass roads upon the problems to be considered; and to ask what action they propose to take. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have ventured to put this unstarred Question on the Order Paper because an inquiry which was forecast in a debate which took place in your Lordships' House 3¾ years ago is just coming to be held.
During that debate there was, I think, a remarkable spirit shown in your Lordships' House, and it was one of the best debates that I can remember listening to on a purely internal matter. I think the spirit of the debate can best be exampled by quoting two things that were said. The first was by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, who said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, VOL 201, col. 798]:
"Oxford cannot be treated just as a local or localised problem. It is not only a national monument, but something much more than that. It has become a shrine of the Commonwealth and of the English-speaking people."
The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who at that time was the much-respected Leader of your Lordships' House, commented on the controversy which had torn the City of Oxford and the University for years, and said (col. 833):
… this long controversy, which I am told has shaken Oxford to its foundations, and has had considerable repercussions outside, is not merely a local question affecting the City of Oxford alone. Oxford (and here I agree strongly with what was said by my noble friend Lord Swinton) is perhaps one of the most beautiful and most famous cities in the world—I can say so as a son of Oxford—and certainly, one of the glories of our country. Moreover, nowadays … it is a great industrial town, with a great industrial population in the suburbs:"
The noble Marquess finally added:
"As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, pointed out, and I entirely agree with him, it is a key point in our system of communications."
I hope that the same spirit as was shown in that debate may animate the discussion this afternoon.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, may I remind the noble Lord that, continuing Lord Salisbury's statement on that occasion, he added that on the most controversial point of all every noble Lord who had spoken had taken the same line; and there were fourteen who spoke.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Lord; I was coming to that later.
It was on February 13, 1957, that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, introduced a Motion in your Lordships' House on the tragic state of the traffic conditions in Oxford. He raised his Motion because all efforts for 20 years prior to that had failed. The noble Lord wanted a Royal Commission because of its prestige, and I think his argument ran that only a Royal Commission would bring these warring factions to anything like agreement. Her Majesty's Government took a different view: they wanted to suggest another method of approach. Upon that the main discussion ranged, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Salter, has said, there was complete unanimity. Eventually, owing to the fact that the noble Marquess, on behalf of the Government, gave an undertaking, the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, withdrew his Motion. If it is not too facetious a remark, I well remember that at the time the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, was greatly relieved, because the Government were facing imminent defeat in the Division Lobby, and the sigh of relief that he gave almost reverberated through the Chamber.
I hope that the noble Lord who is going to reply to-day will absolve me from having any other motive in asking the first of these questions than this simple one: that I hold strongly to the view that if the Government give an undertaking to this House, that undertaking should be honoured not only in the letter but in the spirit. The alternative to what the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, wanted, was stated by the noble Earl, Lord Munster, who was the first Government speaker. After the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, had had such unqualified support for his plea for a Royal Commission, the noble Earl, Lord Munster, said this (col. 792):
"However, I think the House would probbably like to know at this stage that Her Majesty's Government would, in all the circumstances, be prepared to arrange that the inspector who presides at this public inquiry should not be an official of the Ministry of Housing, but an independent person, specially chosen for that purpose."
The Government's suggestion was that the inquiry should not be a Royal Commission, but that it should be an inquiry held under the 1947 Act, whereby a departmental inspector would be appointed

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to report back to the Minister. I will not go into the reasons, but the Government had good reasons. I think the best thing I can do, without using words of my own, is to quote two extracts from the speeches that were made.
One is from the speech of the late Lord Halifax, who was at that time the Chancellor of Oxford University, an office now held by the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister. Lord Halifax, speaking on behalf of the University, was not at all enthusiastic, to put it mildly, about the Government's proposal. He said (col. 797):
"… if you had the firmly expressed unanimous opinion of two, three or four wise, impartial, uncommitted and trusted men … they would have a profound effect on the City Council, the colleges and the University, and might even be held to have some effect upon the Government."
The noble Earl, Lord Halifax, continued:
"I would beg him, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to think again and to see whether they cannot give us the conditions that we, and those who know best, judge to be essential for the restoration of confidence and the best hope of achieving agreement on this problem."
The other quotation I would make from the OFFICIAL REPORT is from the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. He said (col. 799):
"But what is proposed by the Government is that the ordinary, what I may call town planning inquiry should take place, with one single difference; that, instead of there being a functionary, a civil servant, to conduct the inquiry, it should be conducted by an independent person and his report should be published…"
The noble Earl went on to say (col. 800):
"… surely it is equally true that all the people in the Ministry of Town and Country Planning are equally committed, or have been, and will find it difficult to come to this matter with an impartial mind. At any rate, what is quite certain—and this has been said so often, almost for centuries—is that it is important not only to do justice but to appear to do justice. I do not believe the Government will give that appearance unless there is a completely independent inquiry, independent in its personnel, and independent and wide in its scope."
I do not think I need quote any of the other speeches that were made, but the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who wound up for the Government said (col. 841):
"… the Government are very ready that this inquiry should be held, as my noble
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friend Lord Munster has said, under some outside personality, not an official of the Ministry, whose report can be published"
After a plea from the noble Lord, Lord Salter, the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, then asked leave of your Lordships to withdraw his Motion.
My Lords, if we go on having inquiry after inquiry I do not know what will happen. In the words of my Question I ask: Do the Government
"consider that the appointment of a former official of the Ministry of Health to conduct the public inquiry into Oxford's traffic problems is in keeping with the spirit of the undertaking given to the House during the debate upon this subject on 13th February, 1957?"
I ask that question only because I have a jealous regard for the honour and prestige and dignity of this House, and because I feel that undertakings which are given should be honoured.
I think I ought to inform your Lordships that I have discussed this matter with the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. He has written to me, and I will quote from his letter. He regrets very much that he cannot be here this afternoon. He then says:
"I have refreshed my memory as to the words I used with reference to this conference"—
the noble Marquess calls it a "conference" but he means an inquiry—
"and it seems to me that they are quite unequivocal. I said: 'the Government are very ready that this inquiry should be held, as my noble friend Lord Munster has said, under some outside personality, not an official of the 'Ministry, whose report can be published. This outside personality … can make any report he likes and the Government will cansider it.' In view of the part I played in that debate. I feel bound to record my view that the Government must be regarded as having on that date given an undertaking that the chairman of the inquiry should be an outside person, and that it was in virtue of that undertaking that Lord Beveridge withdrew his Motion"
Perhaps the noble Marquess displayed in that debate a wonderful example of the wisdom he so often showed in your Lordships' House. So anxious was he to be conciliatory, that he said this (col. 845):
"Further, the Government will be very happy that there should be a further debate in this House, after the public inquiry has taken place and a report has been published, and will listen to what is said by noble Lords before taking any further action. I thought probably noble Lords would like that

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assurance, because it means that nothing further will be done until they have had another chance of voicing their views."
My Lords, I cannot think that the Government do not intend to honour such an undertaking. Perhaps the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, even at that time saw the difficulties that would arise in the compromise suggestion that Her Majesty's Government made. That is all I am going to say on that part of the question.
Now I come to the second part. This, to my mind, is the most serious, because, running right through the debate, echoed time and time again by every noble Lord who spoke, was the absolute necessity of completing the Oxford by-passes before this inquiry was held. Right the way through, noble Lord after noble Lord said: What is the good of having an inquiry into the state of Oxford traffic until these outer by-passes are completed, so that the inspecting authority, or the inquiry, or the chairman of the commission, whatever it might be that the Government set up, could have first-hand evidence as to the effect of these by-passes upon this deplorable problem?
If your Lordships will be patient with me, I should like to quote some of the strong things that were said. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said (col. 767):
"I agree with my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth that it is an urgent matter to complete those by-passes. Of course, it should be done."
The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, was even more insistent. He said (col. 801):
"I do not believe, whatever tribunal of inquiry is set up, that it will get any conclusive evidence, because the evidence depends on unknown factors which do not yet exist. I have tried to read everything on this matter, and I believe that the crux of it is: what will happen to the traffic when these circular by-pass roads are completed? I think it may well be that, when those roads are completed, the great heavy traffic will go circling round outside the city and that the Oxford problem will have solved itself."
The noble Earl, Lord Munster, said that there would be no difficulty in completing these by-passes. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, even in his peroration, said the same thing. He said (col. 840):
"The construction of the outer by-passes will not be held up until there is an agreement on the Oxford Traffic Plan."
On that assurance, that there would be no delay, that they would go right ahead
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and complete these by-passes, your Lordships were not asked to go into the Division Lobbies.
A few days later, so as to make assurance doubly sure, on February 27, 1957, I put this Question upon the Order Paper [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 202,
col. 76]:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the widespread agreement expressed in this House during the debate on. Oxford traffic on 13th February, and outside by responsible organisations of local opinion"—
I was referring then to the Oxford Preservation Trust and the University—
"that it is urgently necessary to complete the Oxford by-pass ring roads before other related problems can be objectively considered, they will authorise the necessary work upon these roads to be commenced forthwith."
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, gave a very encouraging reply, and I asked him this supplementary question:
"My Lords, will the noble Lord accept my thanks for his reply, and my assurance that it will be received with great satisfaction by those who have laboured so long to achieve the end he has just announced? May I ask him whether the House may take his reply to my Question as an earnest of the Government's desire to treat this as a matter of high national importance, which was the note running through the speech of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House during the debate to which my Question refers?"
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, speaking on behalf of Her Majesty's Government said (col. 77):
"My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's first supplementary question is, Yes."
That was on a matter of high national importance which was the subject of assurances on two occasions, one during the debate on February 13, 1957, another given on February 27, 1957. Yet, my Lords, they have not even started the Sandford Link; the vital link to connect these by-passes has not yet been started and is not yet in the starting programme. Is that honouring an undertaking on what the Leader of this House said was a matter of great national importance? Every speaker agreed on the futility of holding the inquiry in a vacuum. For three years and nine months the Ministry of Transport have side-stepped this issue.
Let me he perfectly frank. I indict the Ministry of Transport for deliberately delaying the completion of the Sandford Link. There is nothing that may happen in the planning and execution of something that the Government think is of

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high national importance that cannot be overcome by the ordinary processes of administration in three years and nine months. If it cannot be overcome in three years and nine months it means that the administration of that Department is pretty poor. No, my Lords; it was deliberate, and I am going to tell your Lordships why.
I will go back to 1955. In 1955 the then Minister of Housing and Local Government, after this discussion had raged in Oxford for years, went down to Oxford and said, "There is only one solution to the problem of Oxford traffic and that is to plough a road through Christ Church Meadow". That, as your Lordships may well imagine, raised the fury even more; but that was the policy of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. That is why the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said in his speech that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government were committed. That is the plan they were committed to. During all that controversy it was public knowledge that the Ministry of Transport were in favour of ploughing a road through Christ Church Meadow. I myself asked them, and they said, "Yes". That was the policy at the official level. So I am driven to the only conclusion that one can come to: that there was collusion between the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Transport, because the moment these bypasses are completed by this vital Sandford Link it will make such an outstanding contribution to easing the traffic congestion of Oxford that any talk of driving a road through Christ Church Meadow will disappear. And that is the reason why I put this Question down.
I have just one final thing to say. I also discussed this matter with the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and I have had a letter from him which I am going to read. Again it starts by apologising for not being here. Lord Swinton writes:
"Lord Salisbury's undertaking on behalf of the Government reflected that feeling"—
of unanimity in the House—
"and was warmly welcomed. He stated plainly that when a new inquiry was set up, the commissioner or chairman would be free to consider any alternative scheme. This of course included the suggestion, which obtained a wide measure of support, that no plan for interior roads should be adopted until the circular
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roads were completed and the result of those roads could be tested.
"I am sure the Government intend to give full effect to that undertaking. But I am glad you are asking your Question, which will allay anxiety which I know is felt in some quarters."
So, my Lords, with that I ask the Question that stands in my name.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whom that letter was from?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Lord Swinton.
4.38 pm.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, as you have heard from the noble Lord who has just spoken, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, this Question arises out of a Motion made by me in this House on February 13, 1957. As he has also told you, that Motion was supported by practically every speaker in the House not speaking for the Government. But it was withdrawn by me on rather urgent entreaties, may I say, from the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and also from some of the friends—I see one of them here to-day—Who had supported my Motion strongly. In those circumstances, I hope that before he replies the noble Lord who is speaking to-day for Her Majesty's Government will allow me to put certain considerations before him. First, while not accepting my proposal for a Royal Commission on Oxford traffic problems, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in 1957, not only agreed on behalf of the Government to the appointment of an independent person to make an inquiry but also agreed that the scope of the inquiry should be wide enough to examine any proposals that I might submit for dealing with the Oxford traffic problem.
I shall in a moment tell your Lordships that I have strong views as to the need for measures quite distinct from the making of by-passes or roads. I know what I am speaking about when I say that. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, also most kindly offered me any help that he could give me to secure that the inquiry took place without delay. As your Lordships have heard already, in spite of the hopes with which I withdrew my Motion, the inquiry promised in February, 1957, is only just beginning, after 33¾ years. How did that happen?

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I know how it began. It began because Oxford City Council definitely declined a request from the Government to submit a scheme for dealing with the Oxford traffic problem. They undertook instead, as a necessary preliminary to an inquiry, to make a survey of the traffic and parking in Oxford. In telling the House of this, as they did in answer to a Question which I put to them in July, 1957, Her Majesty's Government said that as soon as the survey was complete, action would clearly be necessary. I have not heard of any action, just as I have not heard whether the Oxford City Council ever made their survey or ever published it. They may or they may not, but nothing has been heard by me.
That suggests to me my third point: that the preservation of the beauty and inspiring influence of Oxford is a task far too important to be left to the initiative of the Oxford City Council, with their pitifully limited vision and, I would say also, in defence of them, their limited powers, because the Council are limited to the area of a county borough. This city of international significance calls for rescue today by the use of the best brains and all the necessary powers that the Government, and none other than the Government, can really command.
Let me come to my fourth point. In my view, as one who has lived in Oxford at intervals spread over 63 years and is living there now, as in the view of many others of equal or greater experience (here I am going to differ slightly, perhaps, from the noble Lord who has preceded me) the problem of traffic congestion in Oxford cannot be solved—I am not sure that it can even be lightened appreciably—by making roads or closing roads. I am not against making roads, but I beg of you not to put your trust only in them, and, above all not to postpone other action that it may be possible to take. This is Thursday afternoon. If any of your Lordships were in the High Street at Oxford at this moment, or at any time this afternoon, you would find the traffic problem vastly different from what it is on any other afternoon of the week, because this is early closing day. There is clear evidence that a great deal of the traffic block is created not by through traffic, and will not be affected in the least by
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by-passes. The situation to-day, Thursday, is that people are not coming from Cowley and everywhere around Oxford to shop in the Corn Market and in that neighbourhood. That is something to bear in mind.
The problem of Oxford is not mainly a problem of transport facilities. I am not against transport facilities; I say only that one should not pin one's faith in them. It is a problem of town planning, of deciding, when a city of historic beauty has become an industrial city also, just where the new population which comes there shall find each of their human needs met—their needs for housing, for shopping, for social life, for taking part in local government and all the rest. But if you can carry out this town planning wisely—it is still not too late—then Oxford, as a still beautiful meeting place for learning and industry, for people working in all kinds industrial occupation, for teachers and students, would, by the combination of those two necessities of learning and study and of working industry, render a service to humanity greater than it has ever rendered in the past. I am delighted at the thought of young men and women of Oxford and their teachers naturally and necessarily meeting the people already in industry and getting to understand the nature of the world into which they are growing up. That is a thing which is not given by a city like Cambridge. It is a good thing that it may be possible to do it well at Oxford.
LORD DALTON: My Lords, the noble Lord is becoming a little contentious.
LORD BEVERIDGE: It cannot be done by any other university city as well as Oxford can do it, and I plead that it may be possible for Oxford to do it. I have used the argument which has convinced me, after many years of study of Oxford, that it is primarily a problem of town planning and only secondarily a problem of by-passes and roads. I am sure that for the rescue of Oxford the need is for town planning even more than for roads. But I do not ask Her Majesty's Government to accept my view, or that of my many friends. I am perfectly content to make my case for town planning rather than, or as well as, for roads, through an independent inquirer of high quality, though I should prefer to have

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more than one first-rate mind brought to bear upon this problem. I think it is a case for two or three minds. Though I should not reject an independent single inquirer, I want to say that the Government are underrating the difficulties of the subject and the need for getting the best possible brains to work on the subject.
Let me end by making a final plea that this problem of Oxford should be dealt with urgently. Frankly, I am terrified that we cannot begin to make an inquiry into what causes congestion—whether it is through traffic or local traffic—until we have finished these roads and experimented, as I suppose the City Council would, for four more years to ascertain the effect. I live in Oxford and nearly every week-day I have to put to myself the problem: is it going to be more difficult for me to cook my own luncheon when my daily servant is not there than it would be to manage to drive my car up the High Street? I generally decide on cooking my own luncheon, except on Sundays, when it is possible to get across the High Street, or on Thursdays when also, if one goes after lunch time, it is possible to get across the High Street. But at any other time it is a lunatic proceeding to try to do that.
4.52 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I do not think it is for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge in his remarks, deeply as we respect him; nor in any way to disagree with the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, generally on the place of Oxford in the world. It is, of course, tempting to do so, and as I heard a voice from the Benches opposite remark, under the sting of the penultimate remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, that he was becoming controversial, it becomes doubly tempting to do so. But I believe that my function this afternoon is to attend strictly to the matters which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has raised in his Question, although I hope I shall succeed in doing so in what the noble Lord has rightly pointed out has been the spirit of this House, as evidenced before.
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Unless I am mistaken, I might disagree with the noble Lord because I thought he went to considerable pains to build up the background and atmosphere in which an undertaking was given to this House; and I thought I detected some kind of implication that he thought my answer would not be a very good one and that Her Majesty's Government have not fulfilled the assurance that was given at that time. I may be wrong about that, but if the noble Lord did make that implication then certainly I begin to disagree with him.
In the course of his remarks the noble Lord read out the words of my noble friend Lord Munster, but I should like to repeat them—I am quoting from col. 792:
"Her Majesty's Government would, in all the circumstances, be prepared to arrange that the inspector who presides at this public inquiry should not be an official of The Ministry of Housing, but an independent person, specially chosen for that purpose."
That is the undertaking that was confirmed by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury; confirmed at the time, and confirmed, it would appear, in a letter which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has received; and, indeed, confirmed by me in the sense that, so far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned, there has not been any intention of doing otherwise. I hope I may make that plain, because I intend to spend a few minutes explaining just how that has been carried out, and in showing your Lordships that the appointment of the inspector by my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government accords fully with both the spirit and the letter of that undertaking.
The gentleman appointed to hold the inquiry which is to begin in Oxford on December 1 next is Sir Frederick Armer. His appointment was made on September 8 this year and it was announced in the Press and on notice boards in the City of Oxford. It is perfectly true that Sir Frederick was, until 1956, Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Health. Since 1956 he has been Chairman of the Board of Control, on a part-time basis; and that post he has now given up. Some people have tended to argue and imply—and certain remarks that I have heard make me think that there is definitely some misunderstanding abroad on this matter—that it might be thought that an

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ex-officer of the Ministry of Health like Sir Frederick Armer is likely to be prejudiced in favour of what is presumed to be the "official" view—and I use the word "official" in inverted commas. That is the view, to which the noble Lord referred, expressed by the then Minister of Housing and Local Government in 1956 in favour of a road across Christ Church Meadow. But there is no solid basis at all for saying that.
Sir Frederick Armer has no previous connections with Oxford in any shape or form. He was educated at the University College of South Wales and Monmouth. He has had no part in the discussions which have been going on for so many years about Oxford roads. His career in the Civil Service has been in a Department which has not been directly concerned with planning or roads for many years and which is quite unconcerned in any way with this particular problem. At the end of this month he will be quite independent of the Civil Service. I submit that there is no ground whatever for any suggestion that his previous official position will expose him to any form of departmental influence or that he will approach the problem with anything but a completely open mind. I believe it would be hard to find anyone else with less previous connection with the discussions on the Oxford problems, yet who was at the same time so well equipped for the particular task as Sir Frederick Armer is.
If I may refer again to the debate in February, 1957, I would point out that it was the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who is sitting opposite, who mentioned the difficulty of finding independent and suitably qualified people to serve on what was then the proposed Royal Commission; and I think he was undoubtedly right. Sir Frederick Armer's experience has been administrative rather than legal or technical, but he has been dealing with lawyers and technicians all through his official life. He has already taken a difficult and far-reaching inquiry which raised complicated legal and technical issues under the Clean Air Legislation, and produced an excellent report upon it and he has other experience of this kind. Her Majesty's Government have no doubt about his independence or his competence, and they are, in addition, very grateful to him for agreeing to take the inquiry.
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The inquiry itself, beginning, as I have said, on December 1 will, in full accordance with undertakings given in 1957, be in the widest possible terms. No consideration affecting the problem of traffic congestion in Oxford will be excluded from it. If anyone appearing at the inquiry chooses to put forward arguments about the effect of the siting of various types of property, and about the traffic conditions concerned—for example, it might be shops or a shopping center—this will come within the terms of reference.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge (and may I express my gratitude to him for giving me advance notice of the points he was going to raise) entered a plea that the preservation of the beauty and influence of Oxford is too high a task to be left to the City Council. My Lords, I know again that we are all greatly respectful of his opinion in such matters; but I think we must just also remember that it is Parliament, in its wisdom, that has made the City Council the planning authority for Oxford, although, of course, it is true that the Government have in fact the final say in what is done and. of course, can intervene if necessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, inquired about a further assurance that was given: that when an inquiry had been held and reported, there would be another opportunity for your Lordships to discuss it; and he asked whether that assurance would be carried out. My Lords, of course it will. I hope that he had not really at the back of his mind any feelings which made him think that it would not be. That assurance was given, and when the report is made there will, of course, be an opportunity for your Lordships to debate it.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord forgive me? Perhaps I did not emphasise what I wanted to emphasise. I had no doubts that the debate will take place in this House, because the Government cannot control that. The House decides what it will debate. I will read the operative words. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 201, col. 845]:
"Further, the Government will be very happy that there should be further debate in this House, after the public inquiry has taken

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place and a report has been published, and will listen to what is said by noble Lords before"—
I repeat, before—
"taking any further action. I thought probably noble Lords would like that assurance, because it means"—
again, these are the operative words—
"that nothing further will be done until they have had another chance of voicing their views."
The point was not that we could not debate the report, but that no action would be taken until this House had had a debate. That is what I said. Those are the operative words.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I understand that. Perhaps I put in an unnecessary qualification or reservation. I will say simply that the answer to what the noble Lord asked me is, "Yes".
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I hope it is a better "Yes" than the last one I got.
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps I should leave it like that.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I ask one question of my noble friend, because it is of some importance; and it is this. Am I to understand from what he is now saying that when the inspector has made his inquiry his report will be published and made known to this House as soon as it is known to the Minister?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the assurance given was that the report would be published and that your Lordships would have a chance to say what you thought about it and the Government would listen to that before anything was done about it. That is the assurance that was given, and that is the assurance to which I am giving the answer "Yes" when asked whether it will be carried out.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, may I go on to the reason why the inquiry is being held now? It is that the Oxford City Council have asked my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government to hold it. In making the request, the Town Clerk asked that the inquiry be held at an
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early date. And I think it is important to remember what I have just mentioned: that the City Council is the planning authority and it has asked for the inquiry to be early, 'because the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, complained that there had been a long time in setting the inquiry up. He referred to the question of the traffic census and said he had not heard about it. Well, a survey was put into operation and a committee was formed to carry out the census and survey. The collection and the analysis proved a laborious task, as also was the careful and correct presentation of the report. They finished their part of it in March, 1958, and it then had to be further evaluated and was reported on by the Road Research Laboratory in July, 1959,—
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: And is now out of date.
LORD CHESHAM: —and was published in September, 1959. That is the answer to the noble Lord's implied question about the census. But to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, on the other hand, it would appear that the inquiry is too soon.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Which inquiry?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, let us not become confused about this. I am now talking about the inquiry which is being set up in Oxford on December 1. I have finished talking about the traffic survey.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am sorry. I do not think that the inquiry that can open on December 1 is too late, but I think that the road should have been finished two years ago, and perhaps then the inquiry could have been held before.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, it may well be that that is what the noble Lord meant. He made a considerable point and I am coming back to it again in a minute. He made rather a point that it was useless holding the inquiry until the road was finished.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Do not put those words into my mouth. I quoted the debate and said that that was the consensus of opinion of all the speakers who spoke in the debate.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I can go only on the evidence of my eyes and ears, but I am coming back to it. The noble Lord tells us, then, that that was the consensus of opinion: that the road should be finished before the inquiry was held. Never mind for the moment about the why and wherefor of its not being completed at this moment. But it follows from that, I should have thought, that if the inquiry is useless if the bypasses are not finished, then because they are not finished the inquiry is therefore useless. That is the way I interpreted what the noble Lord said. But be that as it may, it merely indicates that there is room for variation in opinion as to the timing of this inquiry, and evidently some balance must be needed because there is a considerable distance between the views of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, so far as I can see. Personally, I think this timing is right for reasons which I shall come on to in a moment.
I should like to say a word about the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, that the inquiry should have a good deal more emphasis on town planning than concern with problems of the roads. I suppose that, to an extent, this is so; and, indeed, it is why the inquiry is being set up by my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing until Local Government. But surely it must be right to say, in so complicated a set of circumstances as exist in Oxford, that we cannot possibly divorce the two. They go hand in hand and cannot possibly be split up into separate subjects; and I think it is perfectly right and proper that this comprehensive inquiry should take both town planning and road considerations into account.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me, in agreeing entirely with what he has just said, to add one more point that I want to feel with certainty is put before the man who holds the inquiry? I have definite reasons for what I said: that we cannot put too much of the burden of dealing with this problem upon the Oxford City Council. I hope that the inquiry is going to be wide enough for me to be able to give those reasons, as I am prepared to give them in black and white to the person holding the inquiry. I need not waste the time of the House in putting them now.
LORD CHESHAM: I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I should have thought that what I said would have indicated that that was so, as I understand it.
Now I should like to turn to the second part of the noble Lord's Question. He has made a considerable play, if I may call it such—and it is really almost the key phrase of the Question as he put it upon the Order Paper—about the clear acceptance during the debate that no inquiry could fulfil its true purpose unless it had before it the experience of the effect of these outer by-pass roads upon the problems to be considered. He spent some time drawing your Lordships' attention to just exactly upon what this acceptance, and the clarity of it, was based. My Lords, I have studied the OFFICIAL REPORT of that debate, and I do not find insistence on this point, shall we say, running through it quite so clearly as does the noble Lord. He said it himself at the time, and I have no doubt that, having said it, he accepted it, he quoted to us something said by the noble Lord, Lord Samuel, which did not, in fact, mention the point. He had confined himself to saying that the completion of the by-pass was important, but he did not attach it to the inquiry. The noble Lord also quoted another remark by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, who did say it. So, so far as I can find, it was the noble Lords, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and Lord Swinton, who made this point; but nowhere can I find any evidence that there was any clear acceptance of that point on the part of the Government—and I think that is important. I think it would be best if I were to state—
LORD LUCAS of CHILWORTH: Then what the noble Lord should do is to read column 793—all my interjections and the reply by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. That clearly states it.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, that is exactly the column which I have read and re-read in my endeavours to find some degree of acceptance on the part of the Government, which I have been unable to do. Therefore, in view of the amount which the noble Lord has made of this point, I think I ought to read it again—and, with your Lordships' permission, I think I ought to read it out aloud. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of

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Chilworth, said to my noble friend, Lord Munster (col. 793):
"I am grateful to the noble Earl. He referred to by-passes that are being built now. He knows that there are no by-passes being built now; they are all really in project. I should like to ask—perhaps the noble Marquess who leads the House would prefer to deal with this question—whether the building of the by-passes will be expedited. That, I think, in the opinion of every speaker up to now, is fundamental. If the completion of the by-passes is not going to be subject to this public inquiry, but only their future use after they have been built—that is what I under stand—"
Then the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said:
"Perhaps I might intervene. As I see it, the outer by-pass will not be subject to the result of the inquiry, but the relevance of the outer by-pass will come within the general scope of the traffic problem which will be considered by the inquiry."
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Quite. The noble Marquess said:
"… the outer by-pass will not be subject to the result of the inquiry, but the relevance of the outer by-pass will come within the general scope of the traffic problem which will be considered by the inquiry."
They cannot come within that unless they are completed, can they? I should not have thought so.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, that is where the noble Lord and I differ; because I should have thought that, if you were discussing traffic problems and there was going to be a certain road, you could consider it relevant to the problem which you are discussing without its ever existing. If the noble Lord is going to claim that as Government acceptance of his point, it is the most tenuous acceptance I have ever heard of in my life, and must be an understanding which is so tacit as to rival the endless silence of outer space. I do not think there is much point in going on about that. The noble Lord and I evidently do not understand things in quite the same way; and I think, therefore, that it would be better if I went on to make clear what is the Government's attitude on this question of the outer bypasses, which I shall do quite briefly.
My Lords, the by-passes are necessary anyway, whatever the final decision may be on whether there should be roads near the centre of Oxford or where they should be. The probable effect, which is what I understood was intended, of
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traffic on the outer by-passes is certainly a proper subject for the inquiry, but, if there was a case for them, there really was no acceptance that they must be completed first. There are other reasons, also, why decisions on whether or where any relief roads are to be built cannot be held up very much longer. My Lords, there are many other proposals for redevelopment in Oxford which are being held up by the uncertainty about the relief roads, if they are going to be and where they are going to be; and, on balance, I think it must be right to go ahead with an inquiry into the possible schemes now without waiting for the by-passes to be completed. But, quite apart from this, my Lords, as I said before, the City Council have, in fact, asked for the inquiry to be held now.
Now, my Lords, I turn to the question of the outer by-passes themselves, and to what, with his characteristic force and vigour, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, had to say about them. My Lords, he stood at the Despatch Box opposite, and he indicted the Ministry of Transport for delay over three years. Indicted, indeed, my Lords! I was simply amazed to hear him use that word, because I cannot find that there is any warrant for the suggestion that the time taken in planning the outer bypasses and getting them going runs counter to the assurances given by Her Majesty's Government during the debate in 1957.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I did not say that. I referred to the Sandford Link, not the outer by-passes: the vital Sandford Link. The other bypasses are progressing, but they will not assume their full importance until the vital Sandford Link is completed. That is what has taken three years to do; and it is not started yet.
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps, if I continue and say what I was going on to say, it will have a rather clearer meaning, because I know that the noble Lord said that, and I am coming on to what I have to say about it.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: beg the noble Lord's pardon.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I want to look at just what is the position today: at what has happened since 1957,

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when the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, got up and categorically said that nothing was happening. Let us just have a look at that. The Northern and Southern by-passes, I know, were completed before the war. The Eastern by-pass, connecting the London Road (the A.40) at Headington with the Henley Road, at Littlemore, was completed in July,. 1959. The Western by-pass was started in January, 1959, for completion in March, 1961. I agree that, due to difficulty in getting access to certain land, a three-months' extension was granted. Therefore, if all goes well—and as to whether it will go well, some of your Lordships may have noticed that it is raining rather a lot at the present time—we hope that the by-pass will be completed next summer.
So far as the Southern by-pass extension and the Sandford Link are concerned (perhaps I may refer to them collectively, as the noble Lord has done. as the "Sandford Link"), I would refer your Lordships to the Question of July 30, 1958, when my noble friend Lord Mancroft informed your Lordships that there had been no avoidable delay The necessary statutory order fixing the line of this road was made in 1959, and a draft order dealing with the side roads affected by the new trunk road will be advertised early next year. This draft order could not be prepared until details of the junctions to which it related had been settled. My Lords, they have now been settled. Acquisition of the land not affected by this side road order is now going ahead. In addition, my Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport has told the City and County Councils that he will be willing to consider their proposals for extending the Eastern by-pass in a South Westerly direction to join the Sandford Link so that these two schemes can be carried out at the same time
My Lords, is that nothing? Is that no progress in three years?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: No, not at all.
LORD CHESHAM: I think the noble Lord is being a little unfair. I do not know how many other cities he can find which have a by-pass system which, by next summer, will be round 340 degrees of the 360.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: It has been like that all the time.
LORD CHESHAM: "It is not like that yet", says the noble Lord, but it will be, and I do not think that, having regard to the road programme and the calls upon it, and, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister explained in another place, having regard to all the things we have to undertake in this country, Oxford has in fact had a very unfair crack of the whip. I do not think it is too bad.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, was very good to me—he always is—because he told me some of the points he would make, and he said that he would play the thing rough. Well, he has played it rough, I think. I do not mind that in the least, because when the noble Lord tells me that he is going to play it rough, I know for certain that he is going to play it straight, and that is a very valuable thing. He has, of course, as always, played it straight, but on this occasion he has, in my view, also played it a bit narrow.
My Lords, may I end with one more point which the noble Lord made, and that is the opinion stated by my noble friend Lord Mancroft in answer to his Question, that this was a matter of high national importance. Well, I stand here to-day and say that I agree with them both: that this is a matter of high national importance. The noble Lord has tended to interpret that remark, I think, as being "of the highest national importance". At least, I would have tended to get that impression from what he has said. Her Majesty's Government do regard it as a matter of high national importance, but it is not the only matter with which we have to deal. The noble Lord knows as well as I do—he has been told often enough—exactly what are the problems about authorising these schemes. But it does remain a matter of high national importance which will be attended to as soon as it can.

ESSO PETROLEUM COMPANY BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned at twenty five minutes past Five o'clock.