Lords Sitting of 15 November 1960

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester

FIREWORKS IN STREETS
2.35 p.m.
BARONESS RAVENSDALE of KEDLESTON: 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 Whether, having regard to the extra burden thrown upon the police forces and fire brigades, to the personal injuries caused and to the damage done to property, they will now take more effective steps, if necessary by legislation, to stop the letting-off of fire-works in streets and public places.]
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, it is already an offence under Section 80 of the Explosives Act, 1875, if any person lets off a firework in a street or public place. I do not think there is a case for further legislation.
BARONESS RAVENSDALE of KEDLESTON: My Lords, may I ask this supplementary question: would this carnage and bedlam that occurs be reduced if the fines were increased?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, at present the maximum fine is £5, and it is not felt that, should these fines be increased, it would have any effect on the types of people who let off fireworks in public places; but the adequacy of this fine will be taken into account in the general review that is now taking place.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, could the Government give an assurance that this also applies to country areas, where to owners of livestock November 5 has become the most dreaded day in the year?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Marquess
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about the letting off of fireworks in country areas near to animals; and the same applies to pet animals in the towns. In country areas, however, most of the fireworks are let off near bonfires which are taking place on private land, and the noble Lady's Question applies only to streets and public places.

COMMITTEE FOR PRIVILEGES
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Committee for Privileges be appointed, and that the following Lords, together with the Lord President (Viscount Hailsham), the Chairman of Committees and any four Lords of Appeal, be named of the Committee:

M. Salisbury.

E. Attlee.

E. Dundee.

E. Home.

E. Lucan.

E. St. Aldwyn.

E. Swinton.

V. Alexander of Hillsborough

V. Crookshank.

L. Amulree.

L. Hylton.

L. Layton.

L. Pethick-Lawrence

L. Rea.

L. Wilmot of Selmeston.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Committee be appointed to select and propose to the House the names of the five Lords to form a Select Committee for the consideration of each opposed Private Bill; and that the Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

M. Salisbury.

M. Willingdon

E. Lucan.

E. St. Aldwyn.

E. Swinton

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V. Hall.

L. Amulree.

L. Ogmore.

L. Silkin.

L. Terrington.

—(Lord merthyr)
On Question, Motion agreed to

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider any proposals for alterations in the procedure of this House which may arise from time to time, and whether the Standing Orders do or do not require to be altered to effect such alterations; and that the Lords following, with the Lord President (Viscount Hailsham) the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Select Committee:

M. Salisbury.

E. Home.

E. Lucan.

St. Aldwyn.

V. Alexander of Hillsborough.

V. Bridgeman.

V. Samuel.

V. Stansgate.

L. Ailwyn.

L. Amulree.

L. Macdonald of Gwaenysgor.

L. Morton of Henryton.

L. Newton.

L. Rea.

L. Saltoun.

L. Silkin.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES COMMITTEE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That a Select Committee on the House of Lords Offices be appointed and that the Lords following, with the Lord President (Viscount Hailsham), the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

D. Norfolk.

D. Wellington.

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M. Cholmondeley.

M. Lansdowne.

M. Salisbury.

M. Willingdon.

E. Attlee.

E. Crawford.

E. De La Warr.

E. Dundee.

E. Home.

E. Iveagh.

E. Limerick.

E. Lucan.

E. Munster.

E. Onslow.

E. St. Aldwyn.

E. Scarborough.

E. Swinton.

V. Alexander of Hillsborough.

V. Bridgeman.

V. Crookshank.

V. Esher.

V. Gage.

V. Goschen.

V. Hall.

V. Samuel.

V. Simonds.

V. Soulbury.

L. Airedale.

L. Amulree.

L. Balfour of Burleigh.

L. Bridges.

L. Burden.

L. Chorley.

L. Henderson.

L. Killearn.

L. Lucas of Chilworth.

L. Macpherson.

L. Mancroft.

L. Morrison of Lambeth.

L. Morton of Henryton.

L. Nathan.

L. Ogmore.

L. Pakenham.

L. Pethick-Lawrence.

L. Rea.

L. Reid.

L. Saltoun.

L. Shepherd.

L. Sherwood.

L. Silkin.

L. Terrington.

L. Wise.

B. Wootton of Abinger.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Leave given to the Committee to report from time to time.

SPECIAL ORDERS COMMITTEE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I beg to move the fifth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider all Special Orders of the present Session; and that the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

D. Atholl.

M. Willingdon.

E.Buckinghamshire.

E. Hardwicke.

E. Iveagh.

E. Munster.

V. Soulbury.

L. Ailwyn.

L. Birdwood.

L. Blackford.

L. Cawley.

L. Faringdon.

L. Goddard.

L. Hindlip.

L. Jessel.

L. Kershaw.

L. Latham.

L. Meston.

L. Morton of Henryton.

L. Shepherd.

L. Stonham.

L. Strang.

L. Terrington.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE (PRIVATE BILLS)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I beg to move the sixth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That a Standing Orders Committee be appointed, and that the Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

M. Salisbury.

M. Willingdon.

E. Buckinghamshire.

E. Munster.

L. Ailwyn.

L. Amulree.

L. Archibald.

L. Cawley.

L. Crook.

L. Faringdon.

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L. Shepherd.

L. Terrington.

L. Tweedsmuir.

—(Lord Merthyr)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PERSONAL BILLS COMMITTEE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I beg to move the seventh Motion on the Order Paper standing in my name.
Moved, That the Personal Bills Committee be appointed to whom all Petitions for Personal Bills shall stand referred; and that the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

E. Macclesfield.

V. Simonds.

L. Cohen.

L. Grantchester.

L. Morton of Henryton.

L. Silkin.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed for the general supervision of arrangements relating to leave of absence and that the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

E. Lucan,

E. St. Aldwyn,

L. Amulree.

—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEPUTY CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing on the Order Paper in my name.
Moved, That the Lord Blackford, the Lord Terrington, the Lord Crook, the Lord Chorley, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, the Lord Archibald, the Lord Ailwyn, the Earl of Munster, and the

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Lord Cawley, be appointed the panel of Lords to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session.—(Viscount Hailshcan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS (RENEWALS, EXTENSIONS AND FEES) BILL [H.L.]
2.39 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My
Lords, there is an Industrial Property Union, consisting of 49 countries, one Of which is the United Kingdom, which tries to achieve as much international uniformity as may be possible in the laws relating to patents and copyrights in designs. Its last meeting was held in Lisbon in 1958, and in October of that year a new Industrial Property Convention was agreed to. It makes a number of improvements in existing practices, but the only one which needs legislation here is the proposed extension from three months to six months in the period of grace which is allowed for the application for a renewal of a patent or copyright protection for a design.
At present a patent is normally granted for a period of 16 years, and it has to be renewed every year. Application for renewal normally has to be made before the end of the year but if, for some reason, the holder of the patent does not make it in time, he is allowed, on payment of an additional fee, to make an application during an extended period of three months. In the case of designs, copyright protection is usually given for a period of 15 years and a renewal has to be made not every year, but every five years, and in the same way there is a three months' period of grace.
The International Convention extends this period to six months, and in order that we may ratify the Convention, which it is to our advantage that we should do, it is necessary that we should amend our own Patents and Registered Designs Acts accordingly. This is done in subsection (1) of Clause 1 of the Bill. Subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 1 correct a mistake which was inadvertently
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made in our own Registered Designs Act, but not in the Patents Act, of 1949. According to the wording of that Act, as it is now in the Statute Book, it appears that the fee for a renewal application for a design may be paid during the three months' period of grace, but that the application for renewal may not be made during that three months' period and must be made before the end of the period. As the fee is always paid by affixing a stamp on the application notice, this is clearly nonsensical, but it was not noticed by anybody until the present Bill came to be drafted. During the last ten years about 300 applications for renewal of licence have been made in good faith by applicants and granted in good faith by the Board of Trade without anybody being in the least aware that it was not strictly in accordance with the wording of the Act. To put this right, subsection (2) corrects the mistake, and subsection (3) validates those 300 applications which in practice have been granted by the Board of Trade.
I do not expect that any of your Lordships will have many criticisms or comments to make on the proposals contained in Clause 1 of the Bill, but I know that there are one or two of your Lordships who are a little concerned about the only other thing which the Bill does. In Clause 2 it proposes to repeal the First Schedule to the Patents Act, 1949, which specifies certain maximum fees for the registration and renewal of patents but not designs and not trade marks. This Schedule in the Act of 1949 which we are proposing to repeal is exactly the same as the Schedule in the Patents and Designs Act, 1883: it is one of those things which has simply been repeated in one Act after another until now. Although, of course, in 1884the value of money was more than four times as much as it is now— £l now would buy only what 4s. 6d. would buy in 1884—the fact is that it has been the policy of the Government that the expenses and receipts of the Patents Office should balance each other. The Patents Office is not intended to make either a profit or a loss, and fees have been fixed with the purpose of bringing in just enough revenue to cover expenses and no more. The real protection of the

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inventor against being charged exorbitant fees is our policy of not charging more than is necessary to meet expenses.
The scale of fees fixed in 1884 was far higher than was necessary at that time to meet expenses, and in fact this scale of fees has never at any time had any relevance to the amount of fees which have actually been charged in practice and which have been fixed in relation to the expenses of the Patents Office. Even in 1947, when we had had a great deal of inflation since 1884, the fees charged by the Patents Office were still less than the maxima laid down in 1884. In that year, 1947, there was a Departmental Committee on Patents and Designs known as the Swan Committee which stated that they had come to the conclusion
"that a schedule fixing maximum fees is of value as setting a limit to the fees charged unless varied by further legislation."
The Swan Committee did not give any reason for expressing that opinion, but possibly the reason was simply that, since even in 1947 the fees which it was necessary to charge had not yet reached the maxima laid down in 1884, it did not seem necessary to bother about making any change at that time. But since 1947, unfortunately, there has been further inflation, and now for the first time in 76 years the fees which the Patents Office have to charge to cover their expenses have at last exceeded the maxima of 1884. There is now a deficit of, I think, £132,000 in the budget of the Patents Office.
This could be dealt with in two ways. You could introduce a new statutory limit to replace the Schedule which it is proposed here to repeal. If that were done, and if we were to allow the same kind of latitude as was allowed in 1884, the maxima should be about four times, or rather more than four times now, what they were then. But in fact we do not propose to make anything like so large an increase in the fees as that, and it seems rather unnecessary to have a new Schedule which again is much above the limit of what we actually propose to charge and which has never in fact had much relevance to what was done in practice. As I have said, it is done only in relation to patents; it is not done for fees charged for the registration of trade marks or designs. These are all controlled by Statutory Instruments.
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Before I conclude, I should tell your Lordships what increases in fees the Patents Office propose to make under the Statutory Instrument, which will have to be laid before both Houses of Parliament if this Bill goes through in its present form. The present fees being charged are £1 on the application for a patent (that is the maximum); £4 on filing of complete specification, and £3 on the sealing of a patent—that is less than the maximum which was fixed at £5. Then renewal fees vary from £5 in the first year to £20 in the sixteenth year, and most of these are still below the set maxima. The only increases which it is proposed to make are in the first two items: the application fee of £1 is to be increased to £2, and the fee for the filing of complete specification will be raised from £4 to £8. The reason for putting all the increases on to the first two items is, of course, that nearly all the expense of the Patents Office is in connection with filing the initial application and the complete specification, and comparatively little is in connection with renewals.
I think that is obviously the more sensible method of procedure and, of course Parliamentary control will still be retained, because it is possible to pray against the Statutory Instrument which will have to be laid in order to prescribe the new fees. In fact, from your Lordships' point of view, it is the more effective control, because if your Lordships were to insert in the Bill an Amendment providing for a new statutory maximum charge and the other place disagreed, then the Bill could still go through, in spite of your Lordships' Amendment, in one Session. But if your Lordships choose to pray successfully against a Statutory Instrument, the Parliament Act does not apply and so the Statutory Instrument will have to be withdrawn. It will fail whether another place agrees with your Lordships or not. But I think from every point of view it is more sensible and more convenient for everybody concerned that the maximum fees for patents should be controlled by Statutory Instrument, as already in the case of trade marks and designs. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
2.53 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will welcome the first part of this Bill. We all favour closer international co-operation in all kinds of matters, and in this question of patents we are very glad that it has been found possible to come to an agreement which we are now about to implement. I must confess that I was puzzled about subsection (3) of Clause 1. Nobody reading that subsection could possibly have guessed that the intention was to put right an error which had been made in the 1949 Act. I certainly could not make out what was the object. This was an error which was not noticed by the Parliamentary draftsmen, by the House of Commons or by this House. So much for the scrutiny we give to Parliamentary measures! Nor, indeed, has it been noticed, I gather, by anybody since. If the noble Earl had chosen to "lie doggo" nothing would have happened, and it could have gone on indefinitely. However, it is only right that we should amend these measures and formally put right mistakes as we discover them.
If Clause 1 were all that was in the Bill I could have sat down at this stage and welcomed the measure. But the Government have taken advantage of this measure to introduce something which is entirely out of keeping with the purpose of the Bill. Clause 1 is for the purpose of ratifying an international Convention. Clause 2 is for the purpose of increasing fees. I should have thought it would be more appropriate, if the Government had thought it necessary to increase fees, to do it by way of a separate measure. After all, it is increasing the difficulties for people who want to know the law. If you want to know what are the appropriate fees, or under what measures fees are being increased, you have to look at a Bill which has for its purpose the ratifying of an international patents Convention. Surely, there would have been no difficulty about introducing a one-clause Bill for the express purpose of dealing with this question of increasing fees. I am not going to dispute that there may be a justification for an increase of fees. Nor would I argue that, if there were a justification, the particular fees the noble Earl has in mind are wrong. I have no means of judging; but certainly the figures proposed do not seem to me to be out of the way. But I do wish to pro-
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test most strongly about the way in which it is proposed to do it.
The noble Earl referred to a Departmental Committee which was set up in 1947 for the express purpose of advising on what amendments to the patent laws were necessary. In paragraph 252 (I think it is) of their Report, to which he has referred, the Committee specifically deal with the Schedule to the previous Act—which deals with the question of fees—and said that they thought it was not necessary to amend it. The noble Earl agrees that that was the position at the time—that fees were, broadly speaking, covering the costs—and that if any charge was necessary it should be done by specific legislation, and not by way of Statutory Instrument. That advice was accepted in the 1949 Act, which provides that the fees shall be as set out in the Schedule to that Act, as they have been in all the previous Patent Acts.
The noble Earl now desires to get away from that procedure, and in future to do it by way of Statutory Instrument which would be laid on the Table. The noble Earl tried to hold out to us the bait that in fact that gave this House more rights than if the fees were included in an ordinary Patents Bill. I am not sure whether or not he is right. I shall have to get advice from constitutional lawyers on the matter. I am not sure whether we should have a right to say that if a specific Bill were introduced laying down the maximum fees which should be charged in future, this House would have a right to say that those maximum fees are too high or not. No doubt the noble Earl has sought advice on this subject before holding out this inducement to us, but I am inclined to doubt whether we should have a right to object to such a measure.
Whether that be so or not, the alternative which the noble Earl offers us is, in my view, quite objectionable and unacceptable. He is offering us the alternative of a Negative Resolution. It would have been more tempting if he had put before us the offer of a Statutory Instrument which required an Affirmative Resolution of each House. In that way, we should have has a definite opportunity of reviewing the matter. It would come before the House, and the noble Earl, or whoever was in charge of the measure, would have to submit it,

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argue it and justify it; and the onus would be upon him; and the House would then be in a position either to approve the resolution or not. But what he is offering us is to lay the Statutory Instrument on the Table, and then it is for the initiative of any individual Member to raise the matter if his attention happens to be drawn to it—and it is the easiest thing in the world to miss one of these things. So many Papers are laid on the Table that it is quite likely that nobody would take the initiative or notice it, and it would go through without any discussion at all.
I should therefore like to suggest, on Clause 2, either that the noble Earl should take that clause back and introduce a specific one-clause measure for the purpose of putting forward revised fees, or alternatively, if he thinks that course is not desirable, should provide that instead of this Statutory Instrument being subject to a Negative Resolution it should be subject to an Affirmative one. Apart from that—and it is quite a serious matter—I would welcome the Bill.
3.2 p.m.
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, I intend to speak only on Clause 2 of this Bill, because I think a very important question of principle is raised by it. I ought to say at the outset that I am afraid my noble friend has been misled on the subject of the Schedule. There has been an alteration in the Schedule. In 1907 a sealing fee of £1 was introduced, and that fee was raised to the sum of £5 in 1949 by the Patents Act, 1949. In my opinion, Clause 2 of this Bill is a determined attempt on the part of the Executive to free itself for ever from Parliamentary control, or, I should say, effective Parliamentary control, in a matter in which such control is vital.
Parliament has shown great interest in the importance of patents to industry in this country during the last 75 years. It has also done its best to protect the small patentee, the small inventor, from exploitation by officialdom—that is to say, by officialdom generally. But this has not always been so and I think I may be permitted to refer this House to a short story by Charles Dickens, with which some of your Lordships may not be acquainted. The short story is called
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A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent. The author puts these words into the man's mouth:
"I have been twenty years, off and on, completing an invention and perfecting it. I perfected it last Christmas Eve at ten o'clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall over the model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a look at it."
Your Lordships can see how keen Dickens was on Christmas Eve.
To cut a long story short, this poor man was advised by one William Butcher, who is described as a "Chartist Moderate" to patent it. He made a declaration: fees paid, 1 2s. 6d. Then he took it to the Home Office for the Home Secretary's signature: fees paid, £12s.6d. He took it to the Attorney-General's Chambers: fees paid, 4 guineas. He took it again to the Home Office, and they made a copy of the patent called a warrant: fees paid, £7 13s. 6d. The warrant was sent to Queen Victoria and signed by the Queen and signed by the Home Secretary a second time. It was taken to the Patent Office. A draft of the Queen's Bill and docket of the Bill were made: fees paid, £5 10s. 6d. two copies of the Bill were then engrossed, one for the Signet Office and one for the Privy Seal's Office: fees paid. £1 7s. 6d.; stamp duty, £3. The Queen's Bill was then engrossed: fee paid £1 Is.; stamp duty, £1 10s. The Queen's Bill was taken to the Attorney-General again and signed again: fees paid, £5. It went to the Home Secretary and to the Queen a second time: fees paid, £7 13s. 6d. The Queen's Bill was then taken to Somerset House, where a Signet Bill was made for the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal: fees paid, £4 7s.; and a Privy Seal Bill was made for the Lord Chancellor: fees paid, £4 2s. The Privy Seal Bill was engrossed by the Clerk of the Patents: fees paid, £5 17s. 8d.; stamp duty for the patent, £30. Boxes for the patent were bought for 9s. 6d. Fees paid to the deputy to the Lord Chancellor's Purse Bearer, were £2 2s.; to the Clerk of Hanaper, £7 13s., and to the Deputy Clerk of Hanaper, 10s. Last but not least, fees paid to the Deputy Sealer and Deputy Chaffwax, 10s. 6d.
The famous author puts these words into the mouth of his characters:
"I went through 35 stages. I began with the Queen on the Throne, I ended with the Deputy Chaffwax. Note: I should like to see

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the Deputy Chaffwax. Is it a man or what is it? How hard on me and how hard on the country, if there is any merit in me, to put me to all that expense before I can move a finger. If the laws of this country were as honest as they ought to be you would have to come to London, register an exact description and drawing of your invention, pay half a crown or so for doing it and therein and thereby have got your patent."
The Act of 1883 provided in Section 24 that a Schedule should be placed in the Act fixing the fees for the obtaining and keeping in force of a patent, and this I would call "the Poor Inventor's Chanter". There was a curious subsection to Section 24 which was this:
"The Board of Trade may from time to time, if they think fit, with the consent of the Treasury reduce any of these fees."
That is a very unusual thing nowadays. In the 1907 Act, as I said before, the Schedule was retained but a sealing fee was included. Then after the war, the Schedules having remained for all that time, a very distinguished Departmental Committee was appointed and studied the evidence carefully. The Committee was under Sir Kenneth Swan, Q.C., very well known in patent law, and the members included Mr. J. Mould, Q.C., Mr. Hubert Gill, and Sir Harold Saunders. They came to the unanimous recommendation that it was a good thing to perpetuate this Schedule, and they said also that the sealing fee ought to be increased. Both those recommendations were accepted and put into the 1949 Act, and it is now sought to sweep them on one side.
The point has been raised that in the case of trade marks and designs the fees are fixed by Statutory Instrument. I think there is a very radical difference, however. The maximum fees for a patent, if the Patent Office charged all the maximum fees in the Schedule, would be £200 to keep a patent alive for sixteen years. The fees for trade marks, to keep a trade mark alive for 21 years, not counting the payment of the 21-year renewal fee, would be only £10. So your Lordships will see that there is a very considerable difference between those figures.
I fully support my noble friend Lord Silkin in saying that, up till now, if a change in these fees was regarded as necessary, the Board of Trade had to justify any increase in the maximum. If these fees are now put into a Statutory
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Instrument then the onus will pass to the objectors in this House to prove that the fees are unjustified, and I should have said that the objectors would be at a serious disadvantage. In my submission, this clause as it stands flouts the advice of the Swan Committee and also the terms of what I have called "the Poor Inventor's Charter". I feel that if Charles Dickens were here to-day he would see that the Deputy Chaffwax no longer twittered as he feathered his own nest, but that a number of black-coated crows from Government Departments were waiting in a ring around us to-day awaiting the moment when this check on the Executive would be removed. I ask that the Government will reconsider this matter. It is perfectly easy for them to put before us a new Schedule. I fully agree that it is time, certainly in some cases, that the fees were raised. I am not going to dispute that fact at all. But cannot we have a new Schedule?
One other point has arisen. I understand that the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents have agreed to the clause in its present form. I can only say that I do not think they realised, when they had it before them, the full implications and extent of the abdication from Parliamentary control that this clause involves.
3.12 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, because of what other noble Lords who have already spoken have said, all I need say on the Bill is that Clause 1 is wholly necessary and entirely desirable, and, like other noble Lords, I will confine my attention to Clause 2. I would declare an interest, as it were, in that I am not only the chairman of a group of chemical companies—I was informed only to-day that in 1959 one-sixth of the patents registered concerned chemical formulæ—but also one of the little men, the small inventors, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, referred. I have two little patents of my own. I should not have gone on with them had it not been that I can say from my own personal experience that Charles Dickens, in his short story, which, like so much of his writing, was obviously a tract aimed at somebody, was successful, because I had little trouble in registering two simple patents. I have not looked up my papers, but my recollection is that the overall cost of my patents, including the fees of the patent

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agents who handled my patents most expertly and had properly drawn specifications prepared from rough sketches, amounted to £14 for each. My only horror is that, in referring to the Schedule in connection with this Act, I am not sure that I have not let my patents lapse. But, be that as it may, the experience that I have had is that, from the little man's point of view, it is not so difficult or so expensive.
I am no expert on Patent Law, but, as I have told your Lordships, I am concerned, and I would remind your Lordships that a patent is in a way a two-way traffic. The patentee, in return for a franchise limited by time and in that respect to some extent by his pocket, discloses for all the world to see what his idea or his discovery may be. He therefore makes a sacrifice in return for this franchise. If I speak somewhat slowly from now on, it is only because I am skipping the notes I had made because many of my points have already been dealt with by noble Lords who have already spoken. Here is an item which I feel should add to your Lordships' consideration. It concerns the First Schedule on Patent Regulations. The fees which are not covered by the Schedule to the Act, but which are covered by the maxima, extend to some 100 items. So it should be remembered that there are a large number of fees out with the Schedule which are already dealt with by regulation.
If Clause 2 is to form part of this Bill, then all the fees will be fixed by the Board of Trade by regulation. Here I would support what has already been said by the noble Lords, Lord Silkin and Lord Cawley: that it is all very well saying that they will be laid before Parliament, but I think I am correct in saying that even if one did notice a figure against which one wanted to pray, a Negative Resolution would have to refer to the whole regulation and not to any individual item. I make this point because it occurs to me that administratively this might be unsatisfactory, particularly when there are so many items. the great majority of which are probably just about right; but in case of dispute a Negative Resolution has to be moved affecting an entire regulation in order to correct one item which is at variance
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with what Parliament might decide to be the proper figure.
Turning to the existing Schedule to the Act, one finds that there are 15 maxima figures, most of which in fact exceed the fees which are charged. The actual fees charged are less than the maxima except in five cases. It can be held that certainly two fees—namely, the application and the filing fees—are inadequate in view of present conditions and the present value of money; but if we were to accept a multiplication by four as the noble Earl indicated, it would put up an application for patent of £1; and the filing of the specification of £4, multiplied by four would give us a £20 fee. The noble Earl was good enough to tell us that it was the intention of the Board of Trade that the £1 should be increased to £2 and the £4 to £8. That amounts to £10 in fees alone in respect of any one patent. To my mind, that makes it too expensive from the small man's point of view.
If this Bill is passed in its present form, of course the fees will be raised in this way. But the noble Earl indicated that one problem was the cost of the Patent Office and arranging that the fees collected under patents should meet the total cost of the Office. In this respect I would refer the noble Earl to the renewal fees which, as I have said, are, as to many of them, well below the maxima provided under the Schedule. The renewal fees which begin to apply in respect of the fifth year of the patent, if the patent is operable and is converted into a commercial proposition, go up from £5 for the fifth year, and £6 for the sixth year, by stages to a £20 maximum in the fifteenth and sixteenth years. The fees rise in that way because it is fair to assume that if a patent has been renewed over so long a period it is making money; and although it is, in a measure, taxation, I put it to the noble Earl that it would be at that end of the scale that it would be proper to raise money to meet the increasing costs of the Patent Office.
Most of the other points I would have mentioned have been made by noble Lords who have already spoken, but I feel it only proper to reinforce what has been said: that Parliament, as I submit,

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should see to it that nothing is done to inhibit inventiveness by making the cost of registration so high that the little man with an idea fails to register it on the grounds of expense. After all, ideas are rapidly becoming one of our most valuable exports. Industries with large research departments probably can look after themselves, by watching the submission of regulations or by absorbing increased fees into their costs. Not so the little man, with a little idea but perhaps a bright one. Your Lordships will realise that it would be imprudent for the little man to disclose his idea to a potential manufacturer, no matter how reputable, before he has protected it by a patent; and therefore the cost of the original patent must fall on the pocket of the inventor.
Certainly it will be considered quite wrong by many people that a matter of this kind which can affect profoundly the cost of obtaining or maintaining in force patents for inventions should be brought into a Bill of this kind. This point has been made already, but I would repeat in a mischievous way, by referring to the Hansard record of the Committee in the other place to which reference has already been made. In Column 720 of the Report for July 14, 1949, Mr. Manningham-Buller is reported as speaking as follows:
"I myself would deplore the acceptance of the Parliamentary Secretary's proposal that we should take from the Statute the code which now exists, leaving nothing in it dealing with these, and leaving the scale of fees to be determined from time to time by regulation."
Mr. Manningham-Buller deplored that idea in those days, and I hope it may be possible that he deplores it still. This Bill is, in fact, an attempt to introduce by legislation the very point that Mr. Manningham-Buller then deplored. I suggest that if the Board of Trade can satisfy Parliament that all, or any, of the existing maxima are too low, the proper procedure is amendment, not cancellation, of the First Schedule to the Act.
In expressing the hope that the noble Earl who is to reply will indicate that he will look into this matter again before the Committee stage, may I suggest that Her Majesty's Government might consult a number of trade associations representing those industries that might be affected by this regulation? And as a small inventor myself, may I again speak
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for the little man and urge the Government to re-examine the point which I have made and which has, in a measure, been developed by the previous speaker, namely, that fees—and particularly the early fees—should be kept as low as possible so as not to discourage British inventors from taking out protection for their ideas?
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, before the noble Earl the Minister replies may I ask the noble and learned. Viscount on the Woolsack for his advice on a point of order? Was the noble Lord who has just sat down in order in quoting verbatim from a speech in another place?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, my view is, of course, no more authoritative than that of any other Member of your Lordships' House, but I understood that it was a quotation from a debate in another place eleven years ago, and, secondly, that the noble Lord quoted only enough of the speech to support the point he was making. I have always been brought up to believe that there is no breach in quoting between the two Houses provided that the quotation does not relate to the current Session.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Viscount. I was not criticising but was only seeking information.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, if I have erred, I apologise; but I am grateful for what has been said by the noble and learned Viscount.
3.26 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I should like to try to meet, first, the arguments that have just been put forward by my noble friend Lord Ferrier. He suggested that in order to get enough money to meet the expenses of the Patent Office, those renewal fees which are not up to the maximum should be raised, rather than the fee for application. I think it is right to mention that 70 per cent. of the cost of the Patent Office is already met by renewal fees, although practically all the expenses are occasioned not by the business of renewal but by the business of application and registration. The amount which we estimate it will be necessary to charge on

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application, in order to meet the expenses of the Patent Office, will be £2, as against the present fee of £1. I should not have thought that a fee of £2 in these days was enough to deter any inventor from applying to have his patent registered.
With regard to the fee for complete specification, my noble friend spoke of the position of the man who wished to exploit his own invention. Surely if he had enough resources to exploit his own invention, a fee on specification of £8 would not be a very serious item. I believe that the usual practice of the small inventor of various things is that he does not try to use them himself but gets some company who can use them to take them up. In order to do that he has to pay, first of all, the application fee: but the specification fee is paid later by whoever is actually going to use the invention. I cannot feel that the new fees which are proposed to be charged will be any hardship or deterrent to the small inventor, whom everybody is very anxious to encourage. In fact, I believe that only about 5 per cent. of applications are from the small inventor; but that is no reason why we should not wish to encourage him.
There have been two major proposals put forward in regard to this Bill, by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and by my noble friend Lord Cawley, who was supported in his proposal by my noble friend Lord Ferrier. One was that instead of having a Statutory Instrument subject to Negative Resolution, we should make it subject to Affirmative Resolution, so that it will have to be discussed to see whether or not anybody objects to it. The other proposal was that we should substitute a new Schedule in this Bill for the Schedule to the 1949 Act, which we are repealing, and continue to have the statutory maxima for patent fees.
My Lords, I know that these suggestions of your Lordships are put forward with the intention of helping and improving the Bill. I will, of course, convey them to my right honourable friend and discuss with him your Lordships' arguments. I think it right to say that I have not been convinced by what your Lordships have said about the desirability of having a new Schedule
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in place of the one which we are repealing. It seems to me that the present proviso to Section 99 introduces a great many difficulties without any very clear advantages. If these passages in the Act are intended to check increases in fees, we can do that only by enumerating in the Schedule maximum fees which are very little above those required by the Patent Office to break even in existing circumstances. Every slight increase necessitated by a rise in expenses would involve Parliament in new legislation, which would consume valuable time. If, on the other hand, the maxima of fees in the Schedule are so high as to avoid any necessity for these revisions, then it seems to me that the function of the Schedule as a limit for fee raising becomes largely ineffective. And I think that that has been the position since 1884. I do not think anybody has paid much attention to the Schedule limiting fees. What has been done is simply to calculate the smallest fee which is necessary to meet the expenses of the Patent Office.
With regard to the proposal to have an Affirmative Resolution rather than the Negative Resolution procedure, I think it would perhaps be rather anomalous to have Affirmative Resolutions on patent fees alone. If all fees chargeable for administrative functions had to be debated in your Lordships' House, a great deal of Parliamentary time would be taken up. But I will, of course, consider what the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has said, and also what was said by my noble friend Lord Cawley.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I just want to make the point that of course we can always save time by preventing discussion in your Lordships' House. But that is not our main function concerning legislation. The main function is to enable us to discuss things that ought to be discussed.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: With great respect to the noble Lord, we are not preventing discussion at all. Anybody can raise a discussion on a Statutory Instrument subject to the Negative Resolution procedure and can pray against it. The position in regard to an Affirmative Resolution is that we are compelling people to discuss it, whether they want to or not. Of course, that

541
may sometimes be a good thing, but perhaps there would be rather a lot of them.
My Lords, I was just going to conclude by mentioning that my noble friend Lord Ferrier asked that we should discuss this matter with interested commercial bodies. We have already done so, and the organisations concerned have not offered any objection to the substitution of fees fixed by Statutory Instruments rather than a Schedule in an Act of Parliament. My noble friend Lord Cawley, I think, said that, although these bodies have agreed to the proposed change, they have done so under some misapprehension, and if they were consulted again they might take a different view. I will certainly make inquiries with regard to that point.
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, I think I ought to say that it was the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents alone to whom I referred.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That was one of the bodies I had in mind.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, may I, before the noble Earl resumes his seat, put this question to him? Have the Government considered whether it is really essential that the Patents Office should pay its way? I did not hear the noble Earl's opening remarks and it may be that he dealt with this matter. However, it has always seemed to me that this was one of the cases where there is a good deal of argument for the point of view that a patent is often a very valuable invention which may come from the work of a poorish man—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier. These patents do not redound only to the wealth of the men who invent them; they are of national value, and some of the greatest British industrial and commercial exploits have depended upon them. It seems to me that it is a narrow point of view to lay it down as the law of the Medes and Persians that the cost of the Patents Office must always be paid for out of these fees. Would it not be a good thing to look at it from a wider point of view and perhaps decide that the value of these patents to the country as a whole is so great that we ought not to take the risk of preventing inventions from being registered by a niggling attitude of this kind?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, there are, I think, some countries which subsidise patents and pay the expenses of registration. The fact that we should balance our expenses exactly by raising enough fees to meet them is not a law of the Medes and Persians, but it happens to have been the policy of Great Britain for some time. It is rather a wider question whether we should abandon that policy and start a new policy of subsidising patents. The fees necessary to be paid are a very small matter. I dare say there is a great deal to be said for and against subsidisation of patents by the Exchequer. But the fact is that we try to balance the expenses by the fees we collect, and our legislation has been based on that principle.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EGYPTIANISED BRITISH ASSETS IN EGYPT
3.38 p.m.
LORD BARNBY LORD BARNBY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are yet able to report, having regard to the registered total of British Egyptianised assets in Egypt which form part of the agreed global, sum entitled to attract compensation, when further distribution by the Foreign Compensation Commission is to be expected.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in asking leave to put the Question standing in my name I should report that I have no interest to disclose though I have a minute shareholding in one of the companies which are concerned in the subject which I am going to raise. But that is on sentimental grounds to which I shall refer later. I recognise in this matter the great difficulties that surround the problem from the Government's point of view, and indeed from all angles. My aim is to avoid any controversial ground. I speak mainly for the Egyptianised sector of the problem, and this in no way involves Egypt.
It will be within the knowledge of your Lordships that a sum has been put aside from which it is intended that distribution in the form of compensation will be made. I have taken the trouble to read most of the Questions and Answers

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and statements in both Houses of Parliament in the last eighteen months to two years, and I must admit that anybody looking at this question impartially would be seized with the conviction that there is a strong body of opinion in both Houses about it; and if that correctly reflects the thinkings of those in another place, there must be a strong body of feeling in the country about it.
I am motivated in raising this Question mainly to emphasise the slowness of distribution against the claims recognised as ranking. The fact is that, out of the £27½ million set aside by the Government from the amount in the Agreement, up till, at any rate, May of this year a sum of only £365,000 had been distributed in all forms.
I am going to take as an illustration one firm, although there are a great number in the category of subsidiaries of British firms who were Egyptianised. The firm which I am going to select is the Bradford Dyers Association, and I do that because they are a large firm that I know well; because they are based in Bradford, my native city, which I had the honour to represent in another place; and because I believe that a great injustice is being done to them—and I think that that is equally true of many other companies. This particular firm have had accepted, I believe, a claim for £1¾ million, against which they have to date received a distribution of only 5 per cent., or £97,000. The singular thing about this company is that they have 14,000 shareholders. I see no grounds for assuming that it may not be true that, in the case of some of those shareholders, hardship exists, perhaps not equal to but parallel to that of the other unfortunate individuals who come within this question.
This firm has done a great service to the wool textile industry, which it will be within your Lordships' knowledge is an industry which contributes very largely to exports. They were progressive; they established subsidiaries in the United States and in Canada and, subsequently, in Egypt. It is a very efficient firm, which I have reason to believe is at the present moment operating at a high activity, giving great service to the industry in the countries where it is located, including Egypt, and doubtless to the profit of the present owners. I believe that if this
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firm were to receive any substantial part of this money, it would be put to useful purpose; to the benefit of the United Kingdom industry, of the national economy, and, of course, of the company. It is for that reason that I have emphasised the position of companies.
This subject has been discussed by Question and Answer and by speeches in both Houses, and it has been debated with singular vigour by several Members of your Lordships' House. I think particularly of the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, who, as our former Ambassador in Egypt, must know the situation very well; the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who has spoken with great feeling on this matter; Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and many others. Furthermore, on turning up the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Business in the other place, I find it impressive to see how strong was the exhibition of feeling there. In the remarks of Government spokesmen, following the general contention that it is totally inequitable that one section of the community should be made responsible for an act committed by the community as a whole, I find that the statements included one by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 602, col. 42]:
"…while the Government are unable to accept any general commitment now, that does not mean that in no circumstances are we willing to provide any further financial assistance or contributions."
Then I read that the Prime Minister said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, VOl. 602, col. 150]:
"…the Government will watch how this works out and will play their part in reaching a settlement which will be reasonable and fair, and we do not exclude a further contribution from public funds."
In anticipation of the reply by the noble Earl, I would say that it is clear that the Government are not without sympathy in this matter, and I hope that raising the matter here will give comfort in many directions where there is great anxiety. It will be recognised that often the Government are assisted in doing right by emphasis laid in Parliament. My Lords, if I may be permitted to go back historically for twenty years (it is hard to think that 1940 is twenty years ago) I recollect that in this House, as well as in the Commons, there was strong pressure that the Government should assume liability for war damage. It was

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resisted by the then Lord Chancellor, and it is hard to believe now that the Government could have been thinking then that it was an unreasonable thing to provide for the hardships that might develop from the destruction of buildings in conditions of war. I make no suggestion that this is a parallel situation, but I think that has some analogy to the case.
I realise that the situation here may well not call for anything burdensome on public funds, but at least I think it can be advanced with emphasis that so meagre a distribution to date could well be replaced by a more generous distribution, even though it is kept well within the angle of caution. It is in that spirit that I ask my Question. I hope that the noble Earl who is to reply will not feel that we are pressing him too hard, but that he will reflect the feeling that action would be more acceptable than words in this reply. My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
3.49 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, I rise to support the thesis put before the House by the noble Lord, which I am sure will have the sympathy of every quarter of the House. I well know the affairs of the Bradford company to which Lord Barnby referred. They bad a big installation out there, like many others; and, like many others, they have been expropriated and have suffered grievous loss. Many of us, of course, have been doing our best over a number of years to secure what we think is equitable treatment for these unfortunate firms and individuals who were dispossessed and driven out of Egypt, many of them losing every stitch of clothing and all their belongings, as long ago as November, 1956. Many of us have felt that four years is a bit long for some of these people to have to wait.
It is true that in the interval, through representations made in your Lordships' House and in another place, ingenious devices have been evolved to meet hardship. So-called loans have been made, subject to rigorous receipts, under which the unfortunate recipient was made to pledge himself to refund any advances made as soon as he got anything out of Egypt. I felt at the time that that rigorous form of receipt was hardly
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justified. I still feel it. But it still exists. And I happen to know that now that the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement has been signed—I may add, much to my surprise—some of these unfortunate individuals are being called upon to refund a large proportion of what they receive.
I should like to turn from that aspect to a more general one. I was looking up papers before the debate to-day and saw that the Financial Agreement with Egypt was signed on February 29, 1959. It was debated in this House on March 19 of that year. The Agreement was introduced and was recommended for acceptance by the then Lord President of the Council. What he said in his introductory paragraph struck me as very appropriate. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 215, col. 80]:
"…whether or not the approval is wholehearted or enthusiastic, it may at least be unanimous."
Your Lordships will remember that it was unanimous, but your Lordships will also remember vividly that the acceptance was certainly neither wholehearted nor enthusiastic—very much to the contrary. Reading between the lines of the debate, it is pretty clear that no one really liked the Agreement. Some of us were more outspoken than others, and the Government were severely criticised; but at any rate they got unanimous acceptance of the Agreement.
The long and short of it is that Egypt got away with a lump sum down of £27½ million in full discharge of all claims against her. Some of us raised the point of whether the Government should have given that full discharge without any prior consultation with the claimants, which there certainly had not been. We were assured by the Front Bench that that was contrary to precedent; that the Government did not worry about that sort of thing—I forget the exact phrase, but I was rather brushed off on that point. The fact remains that by paying £27½ million Egypt has got full discharge of all claims against her. We know from the facts and figures quoted on various occasions that £27½ million is totally inadequate. But, of course, there are other points covered in that agreement besides the private claims. There were Government claims. The good point about the Agree
ment—and I said so at the

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time—was that the inter-Governmental claims were waived on both sides. I thought that this was a tremendous thing to have achieved. We all remember how contentious a good deal of it was. The Lord President made a fine case for it and emphasised that the rights of private individuals were in no measure sacrificed under the Agreement. Obviously that was what he thought; but I felt at the time, and still feel, that Egypt was very lucky to get away with this sum in total discharge; and probably the fact that inter-Governmental claims were waived had its effect. But I will not pursue this aspect any further.
British properties were seized in November, 1956, four long years ago, and since then we have wrung this £27½ million out of them and it is now in the hands of the Foreign Compensation Commission, a body which was legally instituted to deal with such matters. It is their task to administer the £27½ million and I think that they have been doing their best. The particular case raised by my noble friend is no doubt covered by the rates which are laid down in the Order in Council. Where the claim exceeds £25,000, an interim distribution is made of £9,750 down and 5 per cent. of the balance of the amount assessed over £25,000, which no doubt corresponds with the figure which my noble friend Lord Barnby mentioned. The point I should like to make is that I do not see how the Foreign Compensation Commission, a legal body bound by their instructions, can vary a scheme which I suppose has been laid before Parliament and has been imposed on them for them to administer. A very eminent lawyer is Chairman and I am sure that the Commission does extremely well.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend a question about something that is not quite clear? Have Egypt paid the £27½ million in one lump sum? Or how much has been paid?
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, rather elaborate arrangements are laid down in the Agreement. I understand that the money is in the hands of the Foreign Compensation Commission, but I am subject to correction.
I come to this point, which in a sense is accidental. There are two classes of
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property which are the subject of claims: property which has been Egyptianised—that is, nationalised—and property which has been sequestrated and on which claims for damage have to be met. My noble friend's case comes under the first class of nationalised property. The second class, I imagine, is more difficult to deal with, and there is the question of how far the Egyptian Government have been implementing the procedure which is prescribed in the Agreement for de-sequestration, which, of course, takes place in Egypt. According to our information, there has been a considerable delay over this in one way or another, quite apart from the fact that if and when the unfortunate claimant gets through the whole rigmarole of desequestration he is then faced with the rule that only £E5,000 can be transferred to this country. It is true that the Agreement said that Egypt
might consider further grants—a sort of pious hope. So far as I know, only a very few have got as far as the £E5,000. If you have been ejected from a country, so that the whole of your existence there has come to a full stop and you have no intention whatever of going back, what is the good of having your desequestrated property, which has been recovered only with the greatest difficulty, blocked, and only £E5,000 allowed to be sent home? That is one of the problems which Her Majesty's Government will have to face—no doubt they are facing it—because it is very serious.
I have strayed a little, and I would revert to what I was saying. There is the Egyptianised, which is a little difficult to deal with, and the sequestrated, which is local, and in which there are considerable delays. Until the total due for desequestration has been assessed, the unfortunate Foreign Compensation Commission cannot estimate how to distribute the £27½ million, because it has to cover both. One can well understand their perplexities and difficulties. It is true that £E5,000 is very little. What I personally hope that we shall get is the short-fall of the two classes. Until these unending delays in Egypt are overcome, and we know what the full amount of the desequestrated damage is, that holds up the whole thing, including the Foreign Compensation Commission.
In intervening in this debate I thought I should try to remind your Lordships of the two classes of property and the complications which have arisen as a

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result. I suppose that the only thing one can do—and I am sure Her Majesty's Government are well aware of this—is to press the Egyptians to get on with this matter. I do not know whether it is true, but I was informed the other day that the Agreement about which we are talking was negotiated and signed in English, but that it has never been translated into Arabic. These departments and so on are doing their work in Arabic, and to this day half of them do not know what is in the Agreement. I have been told that as a fact. Whether it is true or not, I cannot guarantee, but it may account for some of the delay.
I have delayed your Lordships for long enough. I have no doubt that the noble Earl is well seized of all these complexities, and I have no doubt that we have his goodwill in full measure. I would simply add a plea to that which my noble friend Lord Barnby has already made, that all possible pressure should be brought at the other end to get on with the desequestration procedure so that those here can get on with the full distribution. That, it seems to me, is where the shoe is pinching at the moment. As regards the actual amount of the distribution, I cannot criticise that; it has been done -by the Foreign Compensation Commission, no doubt on a fixed scale.
4.4 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, the Question which my noble friend Lord Barnby has put on the Order Paper is in its terms a narrow one, in that it deals with the narrow point of the distribution of the Foreign Compensation Commission, and my noble friend has said that it has nothing to do with Egypt. But, with respect to him, I do not think we can divorce this narrow point from the wider issues of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement which has just been touched upon by my noble friend Lord Killearn. The reason why the comparatively derisory amount of £365,000 out of £27½million is the total distributed to date by the Foreign Compensation Commission lies hi the matters which were raised in your Lordships' House when the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement was debated on (I think it was) March 19, 1959. It was pointed out in that debate that the £27½ million total has to meet claims of Egyptianised property estimated at £45 million and sequestrated property
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estimated at no less than £130 million. Until the Foreign Compensation Commission have been able to assess in full and in detail the rectitude of the claims put forward, they are unable to make a distribution beyond the small sum which your Lordships have been told about to-day. One then naturally asks: "Why have the claims not been assessed?", and one is brought straight back to the working in Egypt of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement.
My noble friend Lord Killearn cited certain difficulties. There have been up to October of this year, I understand, some 4,822 claims for sequestration put forward, of which some 2,536 have been admitted. That means that nearly four and a half years after Suez and nineteen months after the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement something approaching 50 per cent of sequestration claims have been admitted. But I would ask your Lordships not to think that admission means any satisfaction to the claimant, because the Agreement is not working out as I am sure Her Majesty's Government had hoped and your Lordships also had hoped When it was signed.
I will not go into any great detail, but I would cite five aspects where the Agreement seems not to be working satisfactorily. The Agreement lays down that all tax claims must be met in Egypt. The claim ants cannot obtain from the Egyptian authorities details of what those tax demands are. Then in regard to the £E5,000 transfer, grave difficulties are being met by the claimants in getting anything like £E5,000 transferred. The Agreement said that favourable consideration would be given to transfers of further funds. I have never heard of a case—I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be able to tell me that I am wrong—where any favourable consideration has been given to sums beyond the £E5,000.
There is refusal in certain cases to allow claimants to go to Egypt to put forward their claims. Some of these refusals may be on racial or on other grounds, but it is deplorable that they should exist. Then there is the unfortunate position of some people who have had desequestrated property finding that they are unable to get possession because it has already been requisitioned, or directly it is desequestrated it

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is requisitioned, by the Egyptian authorities. The five reasons which I have given to your Lordships quite briefly seem to me cogent ones as to why the sequestration claims cannot be completed and, therefore, the Foreign Compensation Commission cannot make this distribution.
In the original debate I asked the Government—and my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor replied—whether in the £271½ million there was priority for the Egyptianised claims or priority for the sequestrated claims or whether they went pari passu. My noble and learned friend on the Woolsack said that, so far as he understood, they went pari passu. That being so, it means that until all the sequestrated claims are cleared up and the Egyptianised claims are cleared up, the position about which my noble friend Lord Barnby complains to-day must continue.
Her Majesty's Government are talking now—and I think we are all glad of it—of closer relations with Egypt. We read in the newspapers that our Prime Minister saw the head of the Egyptian State at the United Nations. All to the good, But closer relations must mean closer relations on both sides; it cannot be all giving on our side and receiving nothing in good will in return. I hope that when the Foreign Secretary comes to reply to the narrow point raised by my noble friend Lord Barnby he will also feel it necessary, as I have, to touch on the wider aspects, because you cannot deal with a narrow issue without embarking on the wider issues. I hope the Foreign Secretary will also tell us that the Prime Minister received reassuring information from the chief of the Egyptian State that the present what I would call rather obstructionist attitude of the Egyptian authorities will be changed for one of co-operation.
4.12 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Barnby, and noble Lords who over many months have taken an interest in this problem, for raising this matter to-day. The noble Lord, Lord Barnby, said that he wished to avoid all controversy. Certainly that is the desire
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of myself, and indeed of all of us, because I think we all realise that in difficult circumstances we have to try to do our best for people who have had an extremely harassing time through no fault of their own.
The noble Lord, Lord Barnby, mentioned certain assets which had been Egyptianised, and he raised the case of a particular firm. Indeed, that is paralleled by the experience of other companies, but it shows that this is not an impersonal matter when you are dealing with companies or firms. As the noble Lord said, the company which he had in mind had 14,000 shareholders, each one of whom no doubt suffers in some respect for the loss of the company. And, of course, we know of many cases where people who had small one-man businesses or family businesses in Egypt have equally suffered. Therefore, we look within limits to a settlement which is both reasonable and fair.
Without going into the merits or demerits of the 1959 Agreement with the United Arab Republic, of course the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, was right when he reminded us that the total which Egypt agreed to hand over—and they have handed it all over at this time—is the sum of £272½ million. This, of course, covered the two types of claims: first, the property which was sold between 1956 and 1958 under an Egyptian Order—those, as your Lordships know, were called the Egyptianisation claims—and, secondly, property which suffered loss, injury or damage as a result of certain Egyptian measures of sequestration or restriction, and these are known as the sequestration claims. I agree with my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye that we cannot separate the two, and for the purposes of the short discussion this afternoon I propose to take them together.
May I deal with the Egyptianisation claims first? The latest position is that the Foreign Compensation Commission has assessed under this heading claims valued at some £23,437,483. That is no measure of the total claims; that is what the Foreign Compensation Commission has assessed at the present moment. May I turn to the other type of claim, the sequestration claim?

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Before the second type of claim can be made, the claimant has to get his property back in order to find out the extent of the loss or damage. This, as various noble Lords have said, is a slow process. When I was in New York I saw the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Republic, and I impressed upon him the importance of getting on with this job, and he promised to give it his personal attention on his return. I think that lately there are signs that progress is faster.
The position to-day, or at least up to the end of October, was this. There has been an interim distribution by the Foreign Compensation Commission who have paid out £1½ million for the Egyptianisation claims and just under £100,000 for the sequestration claims. I do not think I need repeat to your Lordships the basis on which that was calculated, although it may perhaps help if I go through it. Claims up to £5,000 have received 70 per cent. of the accepted claim. Those between £5,000 and £10,000 have been paid £3,500 plus 50 per cent. of the remainder. Those between £10,000 and £25,000 have been paid £6,000 plus 25 per cent. of the remainder, while those over £25,000 have received £9,750 plus 5 per cent. In all, 256 Egyptianisation claims and the 175 sequestration claims have received payment.
I take it that the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, and the wish of your Lordships, is for two things: first of all, that we should get on more speedily with the desequestration—and that, I hope, will follow the conversations I had in New York—and, secondly, that there should be before very long another distribution, because your Lordships have expressed your anxieties about the slowness of the advance and the fact that the last distribution was some way away—I think it was last May. I can tell your Lordships now that a further distribution by the Foreign Compensation Commission is being considered, and I hope that I shall be in a position to make a further statement dealing with an increased distribution before the Christmas Recess. Although I cannot go further this afternoon, I hope that that will show willingness by the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Barnby put it, to be assisted to do right.
4.18 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not wish to keep the House long over these matters, but I am one of those who has taken considerable interest in them since the very start. I do not wish to repeat all that has been so well said by my noble friends Lord Killearn and Lord Balfour of Inchrye as well, of course, by the asker of the Question, my noble friend Lord Barnby, but I should like to impress once more on the Foreign Secretary the deep feeling of anxiety, and the increasing feeling of anxiety, which many of us have over these matters. I think he has given a more encouraging answer to-day, and we are all grateful for that.
Of course, there are the improving relations between Britain and Egypt with which other speakers have dealt already. But up to now, even with the figures which the noble Earl has given, remarkably little has come back to these people for all they have lost. There are, to many of us, special considerations. When we originally embarked on our policy towards Egypt four years ago, one of the reasons given by the Government, of which I was then a member, was the wish to protect British interests in Egypt. These are the people who were to have been protected, and certainly the larger claimants among the people whose property has been sequestrated and who have not yet got it back—those who had more than £35,000, very often the earnings of a lifetime—have got only, I think the Foreign Secretary said, 5 per cent. back. That is a very small proportion, and they are getting older and weaker every year. I therefore urge on the noble Earl not to weary in well doing. He has so much respect from us all and we had so great high hopes of what he might be able to do when he came to the Foreign Office that I make this plea with special force. We shall, of course, wait and hear what the result is of the further distribution of which he spoke, but I hope he will realise that to many of us this is a debt of honour and until it is paid we shall not sleep happy in our beds.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, could the noble Earl say something about a point which I have raised before in this House and which is creating great hardship? It is that when claims are paid

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there is a very strict limit on the amount which can be transferred to the United Kingdom or outside Egypt.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, as one who has taken a great interest in the matter for a long time, I should like to take this opportunity of saying two short words on a matter which most of us feel strongly about. We are all grateful to the Foreign Secretary for the statement he has made; possibly it is the most encouraging statement we have had for some time, though I would remind your Lordships that this situation has continued now for four years, and every time we have been told that there was some favourable portent on the horizon and have hoped for better things, accept that all these statements were made in good faith, but I merely remind your Lordships that it has been a very long time, and we do hope that this new portent, the meeting between the Foreign Secretaries and the new relationship we are hoping to establish with Egypt, will mean something; because, frankly, the other portents have meant little. There has been some talk about Egyptianised property and sequestrated property. But of course the basic difference, apart from anything else, is that nobody who has had property sequestrated can hope to put in a claim until he has got his property back. In point of fact, it is the people with sequestrated property who are the people in the greatest need; they are the small people and the small businesses. The Egyptianised properties are the bigger businesses whose need, if one looks at it from an objective point of view, is probably less.
I do not know on what basis this new distribution is going to be made; but, quite clearly, unless something is done to enable the claimants with sequestrated property to make some progress—and that depends largely on the Egyptians—they cannot in the nature of things expect anything more in the new distribution. They cannot have their property de-sequestrated, because the Egyptians—and I am sorry to say this—appear to have made very little attempt to fulfil the terms of the Treaty we signed in 1959. I do not know whether the Foreign Secretary feels able to say anything about that, but I do think, when we are looking at need, that it is the sequestrated people
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whose need is greatest. They are the people who are still going to be under this appalling handicap, and they are getting older and poorer every day.
4.24 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, on a point of Order, and with the indulgence of the House, may I ask the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor whether I should be in order now (since before the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary sat down I said "Before the noble Earl resumes his seat, may I,…" and he made a gesture that I should properly make way for the noble Marquess the former Leader of the House) in putting one question to the noble Earl? When he said in regard to the Egyptianised property that there was a wide margin between the amounts on which these properties had been assessed for compensation and the amounts which it had been alleged they should claim, do I understand that it is not to be accepted from the statement he made that there cannot be a reopening of those claims in the event of the smaller amount not being considered to meet the reasonable claims of the larger amount?
THE EARL OF HOME: I hope there is no misunderstanding. What I said was that a certain number of claims had been assessed giving a certain figure, but I made it quite clear that it probably bore little relation to the total amount of claims yet to be assessed
LORD BARNBY: I thank the noble Earl and the House for its indulgence

ADJOURNMENT: L.C.C. PLAQUE TO INDIAN LEADER
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
Moved, That the House do now adjourn.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, may I take a moment to raise a point? The London County Council is charged with the duty of affixing tablets to houses where distinguished people, famous people, lived when visiting London. They have under consideration putting such a tablet on a house which was occupied for a time by Mr. Tilak, the famous Indian leader. Whether that is done, or is right to be done, is a matter for the

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London County Council, and it would feelings of hatred and antagonism and be presumptuous on my part, or any other body, to offer an opinion. I observe, however, that this occasion is being seized upon by some people to try to revive the old enmities between our country and India, and, as one who many years ago had a slight share of responsibility for Indian affairs, I should like to say that I hope every effort will be made to prevent a revival of the old
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feeling of hatred and antagonism and that every effort will be made to preserve what is a very precious thing, namely, friendship with the Indian Republic.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past four o'clock.