Lords Sitting of 29 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 Oxford
The Lord Kenlis (M. Headfort)—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

THE M.1 ANTI-DAZZLE FENCE
2.35 p.m.
LORD ALLERTON: 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 the result of the experiments with the anti-dazzle fence on the motor way M.1 may now be given, and whether any further action is to be taken.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I have nothing to add to the Answer which I gave my noble friend on July 27th concerning this experimental anti-dazzle fence. As I then stated, the experiment to date has not established that in present traffic conditions there is a good case for providing such a screen. Studies are continuing. Pending further experience my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport decided not to extend the installation on the M.1.
LORD ALLERTON: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask whether he is aware that there have been five cases of motor cars skidding off the road, three of which have been stopped by the anti-dazzle fence instead of going on to the carriageway running in the opposite direction? This would seem to be an additional factor of safety, quite apart from any benefits that may arise from the anti-dazzle properties of the fence.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I know that this is one of the considerations
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that are being thought about. My noble friend must not suppose that nothing has been done since I replied to his last question. My right honourable friend has referred this matter to his Departmental Committee on Traffic Engineering, who have considered all the relevant factors (I do not think I need to go into them), including the division of the road aspect, and still think that the time is not ripe to come to a decision on this matter.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether his right honourable friend will consider extending the anti-dazzle experiment physically, because at the present time cars travelling at 60 m.p.h. pass it within two minutes, and that is hardly sufficient to see whether it causes dazzle on cars in front of them going in the same direction—a matter which is causing considerable anxiety?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords, that is true. If my noble friend recalls the Answer I made in July, he will remember that one of the doubtful factors about the anti-dazzle fence was that it caused people to drive with headlights full on, so dazzling people in front of them. This is one of the possible objections to it. Although at 60 m.p.h. this fence may be passed in two minutes, I think that a stretch of two miles, which is quite a costly affair anyway, should be adequate for experimental purposes.

OFFICE BLOCKS IN CENTRAL LONDON
LORD AMULREE: 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 to what extent they are aware of the planning policy of the London County Council, under which residential accommodation in central London is being demolished to make way for office blocks.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, the policy of the London County Council, approved by my right honourable friend

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the Minister of Housing and Local Government, is the opposite of what the noble Lord suggests. It is to preserve residential uses wherever possible and to curb excessive office building. This policy does not mean that there should be no offices at all in central London, but that each case will be looked at on its merits within the London County Council's broad policy. In amendments to the Development Plan, which have been submitted to my right honourable friend, a further strengthening of this policy is proposed.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for his reply, but I would put one question to him. Do Her Majesty's Government think it right that a block of buildings in Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, which contains some good residential accommodation, should be pulled down, as it is now proposed, and replaced by a ten-storey office block?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, the noble Lord was good enough to warn me that he might raise this particular case; therefore I am able to inform him that although, as he knows, negotiations have been taking place for several years past about the development of this site in Percy Street, planning permission has not yet been granted for any development. If and when any planning permission is granted, of course, it will fall within the policy I have outlined in my answer to the noble Lord's first Question.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, would the noble Earl explain why, if the policy of the London County Council is to favour residential accommodation rather than office accommodation, this policy has not been effective and whether Her Majesty's Government take some responsibility for that?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I should not agree that the policy has not been effective, but no doubt the policy now needs strengthening; and, as I have already said, there are proposals of amendments to the Development Plan which would have the effect of strengthening the policy, in detail and in general. Those proposals are at the moment under consideration between the London County Council and my right honourable friend.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his answer. Do we understand that the policy of Her Majesty's Government is now to be strengthened by the policy of the London County Council? If so, it will give great satisfaction on these Benches.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl a further question? Supposing this building is pulled down, can the noble Earl assure the House that there will be sufficient accommodation for parking and garaging the cars of people using these offices in this already very overcrowded part of London?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, of course I cannot give the noble Lord any assurance on that point, but I can say that provision of parking accommodation for cars when new blocks of offices are put up is normally made in the plans. I believe that the standard rate is one car space for every 2,000 square feet of office space in new buildings.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for this reply.

INTEREST ON EGYPTIAN COMPENSATION FUND
LORD KILLEARN: 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 any interest is accruing on the £27½ million sterling paid by Egypt under the Anglo-Egyptian Financial Agreement of February 28, 1959; if so, at what rate, as from what date, and how much has already accrued.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): Yes, my Lords, interest has accrued and is accruing from the sum's invested by the Foreign Compensation Commission and is being added to the Egyptian Compensation Fund. The rate of interest Obtained upon Treasury Bills in which the money has been invested has varied between £3 7s. 4d. and £5 11s. 4d. per cent.: the average rate has been £4 Is. 4d. per cent. On June 1, 1959, £3½ million was

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paid to the Commission and the balance of £24 million was paid on February 29, 1960: interest on this money amounting to £1,116,690 has accrued to the Egyptian Compensation Fund.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, while thanking the noble Marquess for the figures he has been good enough to give to the House, I wonder if he could answer this supplementary question, of which I tried to give him notice before we came in, though I am not sure whether I succeeded. Of the £1½ paid out by the Foreign Compensation Commission against Egyptianised claims and the £100,000 for sequestration claims, what amount has been paid to private claimants and companies, and what amount has been deducted against so-called "hardship loans"?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Lord, because I have not got those figures and I shall have to ask him for notice of that question. I will certainly obtain them for him.

PRIVATE BILL STANDING ORDERS
2.45 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Perhaps I should apologise to the House for the large number of Amendments to the Standing Orders to which I am asking your Lordships to agree, but I should like to attempt to justify the length of the list by saying that I think it is most desirable that the book containing the Standing Orders should now be reprinted, and I am sure the House will agree that, before reprinting, it would be wise to go through the Standing Orders in order to clarify them and bring them up to date. That is what I am attempting to do in moving this Motion to-day.
I propose to mention only a few of the Amendments on the Order Paper, but it may he needless for me to say that, if any noble Lord wishes to ask a question. I will do my utmost to give him the necessary information.
Of the total number of Amendments on the Paper, which, if I have counted them aright, number 66, I am in a posi-
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tion to say that, in my opinion, none of these is controversial. Furthermore, of this number of 66, 37 appear to me to be drafting Amendments. Of the remainder, perhaps I might mention that some of them refer to Scotland, and it has been found possible to simplify several of the Standing Orders referring to Scotland because, as no doubt your Lordships are aware, the Private Bill procedure in relation to Scotland is largely replaced by the Provisional Order procedure and there is a separate set of Standing Orders relating to Provisional Orders. Then, I am advised that the phrase "administrative county" is a legal terminology which is not known in Scotland, and therefore, it has been replaced in the Standing Orders. Then, again, there is in the whole country, I understand, only one city that is not also a borough; and, that being so, it has been found possible to simplify the wording and to cut out a good many words from the Standing Orders.
The new Standing Order 19B is inserted for the protection of debenture holders. Ordinary shareholders are already protected, and it seems to me, therefore, wise that debenture holders should be likewise protected. The Amendment to Standing Order 22 results from the fact that it is often extremely difficult to serve a notice on a parish council or a parish meeting because of the large number of those bodies that there are in this country. There are some which have no office and others which have no clerk. There are several Amendments to Standing Order 61, but I will mention only one of them. It seems to me that where it is necessary to advertise in local newspapers, in such a way as to make a fact as widely known as possible, it is better to advertise in a paper which circulates in the locality rather than one which is published in the locality; because, of course, there may be papers which are published in one place but which circulate in another place some distance away.
Finally, my Lords, I would just mention the long letter which is printed as Appendix A. That deals with notices to owners of land on compulsory acquisition of land and cases where, during the passage of a Bill through Parliament, it is necessary for the works mentioned in the Bill to be altered and fresh notices therefore have to be served. That letter

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has been extensively revised and brought up to date. In particular, it has been altered in such a way as to deal with late Bills—that is, Bills deposited after the due date in each year and necessitating the Standing Orders being waived accordingly. I hope that I have sufficiently dealt with this long list, but if there are any other points with which noble Lords wish me to deal, I will try to do so. I bee to move.
Moved, That the Standing Orders relating to Private Bills be amended as follows:
Standing Order 1, page 11, line 6, after ("county") insert ("in relation to England or Wales")
Standing Order 1, leave out lines 7 to 9
Standing Order 1, page 11, line 34, leave out from the first ("London") to the end of line 37
Standing Order 4A, line 18, leave out ("county boroughs and burghs") and insert ("and county boroughs")
Standing Order 4A, line 28, leave out ("county borough or burgh") and insert ("or county borough")
Standing Order 4A, line 31, leave out ("county borough or burgh") and insert ("or county borough")
Sanding Order 5, page 15, line 4, leave out ("cities")
Sanding Order 5, page 15, line 25, leave out ("city")
Sanding Order 5, page 15, line 29, at end insert—
("(2) This Order shall apply to the City of London as if it were a borough.")
Standing Order 6, page 15, line 36, leave out ("city")
Standing Order 6, page 15, line 40, at end insert—
("(2) This Order shall apply to the City of London as if it were a borough.")
Standing Order 10, lines 18 and 19, leave out ("county boroughs and burghs") and insert ("and county boroughs")
Standing Order 10, line 27, leave out ("county borough or burgh") and insert ("or county borough")
Standing Order 10, lines 30 and 31, leave out ("county borough or burgh") and insert ("or county borough")
Standing Order 13, page 18, line 23, leave out ("or user")
Standing Order 13, page 18, after ("land") insert ("or of rights to use land")
After Standing Order 19A, page 20, insert as a new Standing Order 19B—
"Notice to debenture holders
19B.—(1) On or before the Eleventh day of December in the case of a Bill whereby it is proposed to vary the rights of all or any of the debenture holders of any local authority, or of any company within the meaning of the Companies Act. 1948, or otherwise constituted, notice in writing of the proposal
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shall be given to each of the debenture holders whose rights it is proposed to vary.
(2) A Bill shall be deemed for the purposes of this Order to vary the rights of the holder of a debenture only if it authorizes—

(a) in the case of an irredeemable debenture, its redemption:

(b) in the case of a redeemable debenture, the alteration of the date or the terms on which it may he redeemed;

(c) the creation or issue of any debenture with priority over, or ranking pari passu with, the first-mentioned debenture contrary to the terms on which that debenture was created or issued.

(3) In this Order "debenture" means any debenture, debenture stock, mortgage or other similar security issued by a local authority or company, whether or not it entitles the holders thereof to a charge on the whole or any part of the property of the authority or company, and "debenture holder" shall be construed accordingly.")
Standing Order 22, page 20, line 46, at end insert—
("(1A) This Order, in its application to a local authority being a parish council, shall have effect as if the reference to the clerk of the authority included a reference to the chairman thereof and as if the reference to the principal office of the authority included a reference to the usual place of abode of the clerk or chairman thereof, and in its application to a local authority being a parish meeting, shall have effect as if the reference to the clerk of the authority and the principal office thereof were a reference to the chairman thereof and his usual place of abode.")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 19, leave out ("district") and insert ("area")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 22, leave out ("road") in both places and insert ("highway")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 26, leave out ("districts") and insert ("areas")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 27, leave out ("road") and insert ("highway")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 27, leave out ("districts") and insert ("areas")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 28, leave out ("road") and insert ("highway")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 29, leave out ("road") and insert ("highway")
Standing Order 25, page 21, line 29, leave out lines 32 and 37 and insert—
("In this Order 'road' has the same meaning as in the Tramways Act. 1870. local authority means the council of a county borough or county district, the Common Council of the City of London or the London County Council, and references to the area of a local authority are, in relation to the London County Council, references to the county of London exclusive of the City.")
Standing Order 27, page 22, line 1, leave out ("or user")
Standing Order 27, page 22, line 2, after ("buildings") insert ("or of rights to use any lands or buildings")
Standing Order 28, page 23, line 19, leave out ("city")
Standing Order 28, page 23, line 22, leave out ("city")
Standing Order 28, page 23, line 41, at end insert—
("(4) This Order shall apply to the county of London as if it consisted of two counties, namely, the City of London and the rest of the administrative county; and 'local authority' and 'clerk' shall be construed accordingly.")
Standing Order 37, page 26, line 22, leave out ("or user")
Standing Order 37, page 26, line 23, after ("thereof") insert ("or of rights to use any churchyard, burial ground or cemetery, or any part thereof")
Standing Order 37, page 26, line 29, leave out ("or user")
Standing Order 37, page 26, line 29, after ("land") insert ("or of rights to use any land")
Standing Order 39, page 27, line 41, leave out ("city") and insert ("of the City of London or of any")
Standing Order 39, page 27, line 44, leave out ("Acts, 1836 to 1947, and") and insert ("Act, 1953, or the Registration Service Act, 1953, or")
Standing Order 39, page 28, line 3, leave out ("city") and insert ("of the City of London or of any")
Standing Order 41, page 28, lines 33 and 34, leave out ("county or borough, or district council") and insert ("highway authority")
Standing Order 44, page 29, line 22, leave out from ("Clerk") to ("comprises") in line 24 and insert ("of each local authority whose area")
Standing Order 44, page 29, line 26, at end insert—
("In this Order 'local authority' does not include a parish council or a parish meeting, or a borough which has been included in a rural district.")
Standing Order 45, page 30, line 10, at end insert—
("(4) In this Order local authority includes any local or public authority having power to levy a rate or having power by precept or otherwise to require the payment from some other authority of money which is, or can ultimately be, raised by the levy of a rate, and 'rate' means a rate the proceeds of which are applicable to public local purposes and which is leviable on the basis of an assessment in respect of the yearly value of property")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 16, leave out from the beginning to the second ("in") in line 17
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 18, leave out from ("made") to ("and") in line 22
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 31, leave out ("or Edinburgh")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 32, leave out ("successive") and insert ("consecutive")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 33, leave out ("some one and the same") and insert ("a")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 33, leave out ("published") and insert ("circulating")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 34, after ("county") insert ("or county borough")
Standing Order 62, page 37, lines 12 and 13, leave out ("some one and the same") and insert ("a")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 14, leave out ("some one and the same") and insert ("a local")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 15, leave out ("published") and insert ("circulating")
Standing Order 61, page 36, line 15, after ("county") insert ("(other than London), county borough or burgh")
Standing Order 65, page 41, lines 7 and 8, leave out ("some one and the same") and insert ("a")
Standing Order 65, page 41, line 9, leave out ("some one and the same") and insert ("a local")
Standing Order 65, page 41, line 10, leave out ("published") and insert ("circulating")
Standing Order 65, page 41, line 10, after ("county") insert ("(other than London), county borough or burgh")
Standing Order 118, page 57, lines 38 and 39, leave out ("borough or districts so alleged to be affected") and insert ("such area")
Standing Order 119, page 57, line 42, leave out ("such city") and insert ("the City or the")
Standing Order 119, page 57, line 42, after ("district") insert ("as the case may be")
Standing Order, 132, page 60, line 11, after ("by") insert ("or under the authority of")
Standing Order 140, page 62, line 15, at end insert—
("(2) In this Order local authority includes any local or public authority having power to levy a rate or having power by precept or otherwise to require the payment from some other authority of money which is, or ultimately can be, raised by the levy of a rate, and 'rate' means a rate the proceeds of which are applicable to public local purposes and which is leviable on the basis of an assessment in respect of the yearly value of property.")
Standing Order 179, page 73, line 47, leave out ("or user")
Standing Order 179, page 73, line 47, after ("land") insert ("or of rights to use land")
Standing Order 205A, page 82, line 12, leave out ("or use")
Standing Order 205A, page 82, line 12, after ("land") insert ("or of rights to use land")
Part XII, Appendix A, leave out page 90 and insert—

PART XII
Appendix A
Form of Notice to Owner, etc.
[FORM referred to in STANDING ORDERS 13 and 61]
No
Sir,
[Short title of Bill]
We beg to inform you that application [has been] [is intended to be] made to Parliament in the [present] [ensuing] Session for leave to introduce this Bill.
We understand that your interest in this property is as stated in Part(s) I [& II] of the annexed Schedule. If the Bill passes into law, the property mentioned in Part I of the Schedule, or a right to use the same, will be liable to be acquired compulsorily under the powers of the Act [and that the property mentioned in Part II of the annexed Schedule will be liable to the imposition of an improvement charge].
A plan [and section] relating to the purposes of the Bill, with a book of reference thereto, [was] [were] [will be on or before the 20th November next] deposited for public inspection with the [here insert the several clerks of county councils, town clerks of county boroughs, or principal sheriff clerks, as the case may be] of the counties or county boroughs of [specify the counties or county boroughs in which the property is situate]. A copy of so much of the said plan land section] as relates to the [parish or other area in accordance with the terms of Standing Order 36] in which the property in which you are interested is situate, with a book of reference thereto, [has been] [will be on or before the 20th November next] deposited for public inspection with the [clerk, or other officer mentioned in the said Order], on which plan the said property is designated by the number or numbers in the annexed Schedule.
If the annexed Schedule contains any error or misdescription will you kindly inform us at your earliest convenience?
Copies of the Bill or the relevant parts thereof [have been] [will be on or before the 4th December next] deposited for public inspection and for sale at the [here insert the several offices at which deposits have been or are to be made in accordance with S.O. 4A].
[We also beg to inform you that it is intended that the Act shall provide that, notwithstanding Section 92 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845 [or Section 90 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1845], you may be required to sell and convey a part only of your property, numbered on the deposited plan.]
[We also beg to inform you that it is intended that the Act shall exclude Section 92 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, and shall substitute therefor a provision restricting the power of acquiring compulsorily a part only of a house, building or manufactory to cases where the part can be taken without material detriment to the house, building or manufactory and restricting the power of acquiring compulsorily a part only of a park or garden belonging to a house to cases where the part can be taken without seriously affecting the amenity or convenience of the house.]
Objection to the Bill may be made by depositing a Petition against it. The latest date for such deposit will normally he 6th February if the Bill originates in the House of Lords or 30th January if the Bill originates in the House of Commons; [but as the Bill is a late Bill the last date for lodging petitions against the Bill in the House in which it originates will normally be the tenth day after the Bill is read a first time in that House.
This date has not yet been ascertained, but it will not be before the. If you require to be informed of this date, when it is ascertained, we shall be glad to inform you upon being requested in writing to do so.]
Copies of the Standing Orders of both Houses of Parliament relating to the time and mode of presenting Petitions in opposition to Bills are annexed hereto.
We are, Sir,
Your most obedient servants,
To")
page 91 line 7, after ("Property") insert ("[rights to use]") leave out ("[or used]")
—(Lord Merthyr.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that I feel a little guilty about this very long list of amendments. Fortunately, the Lord Chairman of Committees has explained a good many of them. I only express the hope that all my colleagues in the House have not been as remiss about studying them in detail as I have been. Certainly I have heard no objections from my side of the House since they were first printed in the Notices of Proceedings, but I hope that the Lord Chairman is completely confident that there is nothing controversial in them.
I would only say, in passing, speaking as one who lives in a rural area, that when the noble Lord talks about advertisement, which is fundamental to the procedure in seeing that citizens are properly informed in certain circumstances, I hope there will be no question, in the proposed practice to which

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he referred, of omitting from the present list any local newspaper in which it has been the practice to publish these notices; because I have found that the locally published paper is almost the only weekly reading that people in rural areas take, apart from the Sunday morning newspaper. I hope there is going to be no real break in the present practice.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I ask whether I am right in thinking that the point which the noble Viscount opposite has raised was exhaustively dealt with by the Committee under my late noble friend, Lord Reading?
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, in answer to the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, I think I can quite safely assure the House that none of these Standing Orders can properly be described as controversial. I have been through them all very carefully, and I could not find one which, so far as I am aware, should arouse any controversy.
With regard to the publication point, I agree with the noble Viscount behind me that this arises from the recommendations of the Reading Committee. I will take careful note of what the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has said about individual newspapers, but, as I said in my original speech, I think it is more sensible to publish in a paper which is circulated in the area concerned. Of course, in most cases that paper will also be published in that area, so this point is not likely to arise except in a few cases, and that only where a paper circulates in one area but is actually published in another. As I say, in most cases there will be no change. But I undertake to look again into the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. What I had in mind was this. In a good many rural areas, perhaps known to your Lordships, you will find a daily newspaper which is regional in character and circulation. But there are weekly newspapers of considerable circulation, perhaps 40,000 or 50,000 a week, in the immediate area,
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and I was anxious that, in choosing between the two types of journals, the weekly newspaper was not going to be omitted.
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Standing Orders amended accordingly.

FORTH ROAD BRIDGE ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1ª, and (pursuant to the Private Legislature Procedure (Scotland) Bill, 1936) deemed to have been read 2ª and reported from the Committee.

ARMY ACT, 1955 (CONTINUATION) ORDER, 1960
2.56 p.m.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Army Act, 1955 (Continuation) Order, 1960, be approved. This is the fourth and last time on which your Lordships will be asked to approve the extension of the current Army Act. It is proposed to introduce a new Army Bill in the near future for the consideration of both Houses of Parliament, and this will come into force at the beginning of 1962. This new Bill will, of course, give your Lordships an opportunity, which is not available to-day, to consider the whole structure of the Army Act. All this Order does is to continue the existing Army Act in force for another year.
Broadly speaking, the Army Act covers two fields: first, the recruiting of men and women into the Regular Army; and, secondly, of equal importance, the maintenance of discipline. I should like to say a short word about both these aspects. First, with regard to discipline. During the last twelve months there have been about 3,400 courts-martial, a very small figure in relation to the total strength of the Army, and it has been a steadily decreasing percentage since the war. From these courts-martial, there were only seven applications to the Courts-Martial Appeal Court and in none of them was the finding reversed. I think your Lordships will agree that this small number is a tribute to the high standard of conduct of Army courts-martial.

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But for most soldiers, the really important thing is the less spectacular part of their code of discipline with which they come into contact every day. As I mentioned to your Lordships last summer, it has been the intention, and remains the intention, of my right honourable friend and his predecessors, to do away with as many petty restrictions as is possible—for instance, restrictions on the wearing of plain clothes. Permanent passes may now be granted after sixteen weeks' recruit training; less time is spent on cleaning barracks and equipment, and, where possible, these tasks are performed during working hours. These reforms in themselves will not attract recruits, but the more it is possible to equate the off-duty conditions of the modern Army with civilian life the better will be the tale which the soldier tells of life in the Army to his friends outside, all of them potential soldiers.
Recruiting, however, is the aspect in which your Lordships no doubt will be most interested. I have very little to add to what I said in the summer when I told the House that the target which the Army has been set is to reach a volunteer strength of 165,000 by 1963—a target which my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State, indicated last week would be met—and an ultimate ceiling, or higher target figure, of 182,000 to which it is hoped to build up in due course. It is perfectly true, as broadly speaking it almost always is true, that recruiting figures for the Services are not as good as we should like, and the War Office are taking special measures to attract the maximum number of recruits. They are carrying out a further investigation to see what can be done, without prejudicing efficiency or discipline, to remove the drawbacks to Army life which discourage men from joining; and, as my right honourable friend has said, he is carrying out some experiments in television advertising which have shown that there may be considerable scope in this field. I can assure your Lordships that no effort will be spared in the drive for an all-Regular Army.
I should like to conclude, my Lords, by paying a tribute to the National Servicemen who are also subject to this Act. They and their predecessors have done a splendid job, and the country owes a great debt to them. They have borne a large part of the burden of the defence
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of this country, and we are grateful. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Army Act, 1955 (Continuation) Order, 1960, be approved. —(Lord Carrington.)
3.0 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, the opening comments on this Statutory Order by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, were very much shorter than those of the Secretary of State in another place last Friday, but I cannot say, having read the speech very carefully, that in the greater number of columns they fill he said any more than the noble Lord who has just spoken. I have also read very carefully the rest of the debate in another place and noted the extraordinary anxiety which was displayed in all parts of the House as to what so far is the general result of the position, of the Army especially, since that monument to defence policy failure, the 1957 White Paper, was first published. The extraordinary thing is that although such a detailed case was made in another place last Friday, there was no real reply to it. I could find nothing in the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary which varies one iota from that extraordinarily brisk speech which the noble Lord has made, in his usual efficient fashion, in dealing with this Order to-day. This lack of really detailed reply to Parliamentary debate is something which always gives sound Parliamentarians real concern; and it does not matter whether it happens in another place or this place. Where Parliamentary debates take place on great matters of public policy, then detailed criticisms ought to be answered in detail, and that certainly failed to be done on Friday last.
What is the real picture of the position? I will deal with recruiting first, because the other part was quite satisfactory, though I will say a word about that afterwards. The position, surely, is one which must give very grave concern to all who are interested in the adequate defence of our country, and especially those who are knowledgeable as to what is the make-up of battle order for the Army side of our defences. When we look at the extraordinary change in the organisation, the training and the allocation of duties of the battle order in 1960 compared to 1914, when before the war we had a Regular Army of round about

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the same strength, I should say (I would not tie myself to hundreds), as the known strength of the Regular Army to-day, can you possibly undertake a battle order in 1960 to meet modern conditions with the same limited figures for land forces upon which you relied for your battle order in 1914? You have all the extra services, the expert mechanics, the different supplementary services.
What we were always being charged with in my day in defence matters was that now the Forces carried such a very long tail. A good deal is made of the fact that in modern circumstances more can be done with fewer men, by reason of those other services that is, by improved and more efficient mobile transport. I know that we have got rid of a lot of commitments (perhaps we ought not to have got rid of all of them) but in the light of our firm commitments, such as, for example, our pledge about occupational forces in Germany; our pledged responsibility under the fixed treaty of agreement between ourselves and Malaya; our known obligations to the Baghdad Pact Powers, and our known promises, at any rate—not quite such a strong position—under S.E.A.T.O. for the South East Asia region, plus the fact that the Government is also under the pledge given to the public at large in this country, that it will always maintain a home force containing within it a skilled reserve capable of being despatched at any given emergency to any part of the area of our commitments; and when you look at your numbers and rate of recruiting, I think the present situation must give all of us cause for anxiety.
Is there anybody who would contend that there has ever been a much more dangerous situation in the world—dangerous both to our various interests throughout our Commonwealth and in regard to the area in which we are in alliance? Has there ever been a more dangerous position? Could we say to-day that we are in anything like as strong a position to deal with it, as regards manpower, as we were when this fatal Paper of 1957 was introduced? There is the situation that I want the House of Lords to face up to.
If you come back to the question of numbers in the forces, to paragraph 48,
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which was quoted in the other House the other day, of the Statement on Defence for 1957, your Lordships will see there that a specific pledge was given that if the Regular recruiting campaign did not prove to be successful in getting the minimum numbers required, the Government would have to have recourse to National Service. I agree with the statement in that Paper three years ago, that it was the desire of all Parties, as soon as might be with safety, to go from National Service to voluntary forces. We were told that there would be substantial economies: that the reliance to a far greater extent upon the nuclear deterrent would enable us to cut the Forces tremendously. For example, we started on the course right away by cutting our Continental commitments. At the beginning of 1957 we had 77,000 men in Germany. That number was cut, in two stages, and I think the nominal figure of men there to-day is 55,000. But I told your Lordships the other day that we understood there was a regular tussle going on now between the Treasury and the War Office —and I think that was evident from a report in the London Times—as to whether that occupational force there should be reduced by a further 15,000 this year.
When we come to give consent to the continuance of an Act of this kind, which provides for recruiting, Parliament ought to be told more about what is the present situation in regard to these pledges and in regard to what forces we have actually in existence. It was pointed out in the other place again and again—and not from one side only, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree. I take two speeches particularly, the one of the honourable Member for Dudley, on the Labour side, and the one of the Conservative Member for Wycombe, Bucks, on the other side. These were not by any means the only critics of the present personnel condition of the Army who expressed their doubts as to the future.
It is true, as the noble Lord said to-day, that at the moment, as the result of a special T.V. campaign, in three areas only out of all your recruiting areas—I think the Midlands, Ulster and one other district, the name of which I have forgotten—there has been some improvement in recruitment over a matter of five or six weeks. On that, apparently, both

1009
the Secretary of State and the Parliamentary Secretary at the War Office felt that they could assure the other place that they were certainly going to reach, not the proper target but the lower ceiling, as it is called, of recruiting, of 165,000. I should have thought it would have been fairer to Parliament if, in presenting this last extension by a year of the Army Act and dealing with these figures, the Government had been prepared to tell us what is at this moment the actual strength of the Regular Army, and whether there is any variation from the actual strength of the Regular Army as foreshadowed in the statistics issued in the Defence White Paper for 1960. I have them here somewhere, but I will not hold up the proceedings to look for them now.
I am still most doubtful whether, on the present basis of your strength and with fluctuations around the kind of recruitment you bad in the last twelve months, the figure of 165,000 wild be reached in 1963. Of course, the figure of 165,000 was projected in one place in the White Paper on Defence in 1957 as likely to be reached by the end of 1962. It seems to me that we have all the way through been behind the figure of Regular strength which has been relied upon.
The other matter that you ought to get cleared up, so far as the Army's contribution to the overall picture is concerned, is the Government's target for personnel for all three Forces, because the Army has a certain function to perform within those Farces. We want to know what the total is. In the White Paper on Defence in 1957, the target which was projected by the then Minister, Mr. Duncan Sandys, was 375,000 for the three; but there have been such variants since then that I have seen figures rang-Mg between 375,000 and 405,000. What is the target for the three Services, and what is to be the final target for the Army? Is the figure of 165,000 to be treated in the spirit of the language of the speech of the present Minister for Defence only a short time ago, I think down in Wiltshire—that if we get 165,000 and cannot get any more we must make do? Alternatively, is the overall target for the whole of the Services to be about 400,000, and is the contribution that the Army is to make to that figure to be 182,000 or 165,000?
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It seems to me that there has been far too little examination, even yet, of what we are going to do about these things. It is perfectly true—I grant this to the noble Lord—that it cannot be many weeks now before we shall have to consider the now White Paper on Defence for the year; but before we give approval to this Statutory Order I think we ought to have the real views of the Government at the present time. We now have commitments that must be met from day to day—commitments which make it imperative, so it seems to me, that when a unit is sent to do an emergency job or merely to cover for us in an area in Which danger may arise, it is not sent in under strength. Yet we have seen again and again in the last few years battalions sent in under strength. As was mentioned by one speaker yesterday in another place, even when what was thought to be the whole regiment of Irish Guards was sent, they were so under strength that a company of Welsh Guards had to be sent with them to bring the unit up to proper Army strength.
If we take the reports as well as the rumours that we have had from time to time With regard to the expedition to Suez in 1956, and if we take the general anxieties expressed, not always perhaps in what the Government would regard as the proper and most pukka terms by senior commanding officers at regimental dinners, and the like, about the dangers of the situation, I think Parliament and the public require a far greater reassurance on the fighting efficiency of the Forces to-day, including the Army—and the Forces are on a much higher budget and at a greatly reduced strength, compared with only three years ago. Those are the facts. I hope that we shall get a more detailed answer than was afforded in the other place yesterday.
Finally, I would say a word upon discipline. We can all agree with what the noble Lord said about the disciplinary position. I think that what was said the other day is perfectly true—that where, for various reasons, you find this one or that one in a particular unit at a particular place now and again jumping over the ropes, all the publicity seems to be given to it and not to the enormously high percentage of the Forces of the Crown who are just ordinary, day-to-day, good citizens, doing their job, perhaps

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working under what is sometimes a strict and almost repressive discipline, even though that code of discipline has been altered in recent years. I think that the Forces themselves deserve considerable credit for that state of affairs.
As regards the position of the National Serviceman, I am glad that it has fallen to a Conservative Service Minister in this House to pay the tribute that he has paid to National Service. I am the guilty culprit who, in 1947, had to engineer through the Houses of Parliament the National Service Scheme. I am glad that a Conservative Minister, in the Government which now feels able to do without National Service, is content to pay such a tribute to the services rendered. Without the action which was taken in 1947, in some of the most difficult days of the cold war, sometimes extending over large areas of conflict like Malaya, and had it not been for the provision to the Services of the numbers of personnel required—even though perhaps there were sometimes grounds on which they could be criticised—we could not have achieved the amount of peace and general prosperity that has been achieved in this country in the last twelve years. So I make no apology in that regard to-day. What we ought to know now is whether the Government are certain to get not merely the 165,000 to make do with, but the proper total that they themselves and their advisers admit is required—the higher number—as the minimum strength for the Army. But if they cannot get them, let them tell the country what steps they propose to take to make up the deficiency.
3.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, there is one aspect of recruiting on which everybody is agreed: that it is not as good as we should like. When it comes to the causes of its being not as good as we should like, there are, I have no doubt, as many opinions as there are Members of your Lordships' House. I favour the view that the most important influence on potential recruits is the mothers, wives and families, and therefore the most important thing is to satisfy those families that the soldier in the Service and his wife get a square deal. In the last few months I have had two instances come to my notice that throw an ugly light on some of the conditions.
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There was a battalion disbanded, and in consequence its personnel were posted to other battalions out of London. The wives were not allowed to accompany their husbands to the new posting, for lack of married quarters. That is quite understandable, but those wives are not being allowed to remain in their married quarters in London. There we get a number of families put to great trouble, distress and anxiety for what seems at least a piece of quite unnecessary bureaucracy. There was another case. When pay and allowances were increased some time ago a great deal of publicity was given to it. What was not publicised, however, was that there was a change in the method of assessing electricity bills in married quarters, so that all those in married quarters had to pay at a much higher rate for the current they consumed. What was given with one hand was taken away with the other.
I quote those two instances to show that there are grounds for families discouraging their young men from joining up. When will Whitehall learn that petty meannesses are the most important deterrent to men joining the Forces? As I said the other day, the Army not only must be a good employer but must be seen to be a good employer.
3.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I want to say only a few words on what has fallen from noble Lords opposite. I agree with the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition that the situation in regard to recruiting gives no ground for complacency; but we shall not help the situation by failing to approve the Order which my noble friend is proposing. It was good news that district courts-martial figures are so good, for that, in its turn, shows that the type of recruit is good; and good recruits will encourage more recruits to join the Army. Where I believe we are in a certain amount of difficulty is with regard to recruiting, but this is a situation which has been plain to those of us who think we understand the position, ever since the 1957 White Paper was produced. We knew that we should go through a period of two or three years during which it would be anybody's guess whether the measures we were taking in a period of full employment would or would not provide the recruits.

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This is a free country and men can join or not, as they like, and there are ample opportunities for doing jobs elsewhere. The good soldier will never be news, any more than the trade unionist is news unless he goes on strike. That is something we have to put up with. What we have to do, if we wish to avoid at a later date the special measures which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State envisaged, is to do everything we can by public support to help my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War to get the recruits. We want, if we can, to avoid an atmosphere of criticism and to take as constructive and helpful an attitude as we can, in and out of this House. I am not saying that because I necessarily mean that a destructive attitude is being taken but because, as I have said, it is so easy to criticise and so boring to praise people.
Unless we want to be faced with the problem so many of us have seen looming in the distant future if the recruiting target fails, we have to do everything we can to see that the public relations and advertising measures that my noble friend has just announced really succeed and are given their full effect. But in that connection may I say that I hope that the advertising will be advertising of goods which are for sale, and that the Army will not be represented to be anything it is not.
I should also like to say how glad I am that attention is being paid to the families of Servicemen. But my noble friend must not mind if I hark back to the debate we had on Wednesday last and remind him of certain suggestions we then made on pensions. There it is. The Army is going through a very testing time. As the noble Viscount has said, if we are not careful the shortage of recruits will produce a state of affairs where the number of men in the Army is not sufficient to make good the order of battle. It is not easy to talk about that now, because we have not the figures or the facts. No doubt those will appear with the annual White Paper accompanying the Army Estimates, and we shall have a chance to talk about them and have a good deal more knowledge than we have now as to whether the number of men actually in the Army is or is not overstraining the order of battle. Meanwhile, let us do everything we can, inside and
1014
outside this House, to help the Army get its recruits and thus avoid a situation where stronger measures have to be taken which would be as bad for Parliament as it would for the Army.
3.28 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am very grateful for what has been said by my noble friend who has just sat down. I agree wholeheartedly with him. I thought I was rather taken to task by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition for having made so short a speech in introducing the Order. I confess that one is a little confused, because I understood that many of your Lordships who sit on the Front Bench had been told they spoke too long; so I am rather surprised to be told I have spoken for too short a time. At any rate, I hope your Lordships will not judge the content of a speech by its length.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, let us be quite fair. I think I am within the recollection of the House in saying that the speech of the noble Lord covered as much ground as a much longer speech in another place; so why complain?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Viscount. That was exactly what I tried to do: to paraphrase what had been said in another place, and to say what was necessary and no more; because your Lordships have a lot of business this afternoon and, as the noble Viscount said, there will be an opportunity to discuss at very much greater length in the near future the whole of the Army Estimates. Having listened to the speech of the noble Viscount, however, I am satisfied that I answered all his questions before he asked them. Indeed, I believe that I answered word for word most of those he asked. I got a very different impression from that which he got of the debate in another place. I thought the debate there was not so much critical of the Government and of Government policy but very helpful about the recruiting aspects. I think the speech of the Under-Secretary of State at the end of that debate indicated how grateful Her Majesty's Government were for the suggestions on recruiting which had been made.

1015
The policy of Her Majesty's Government on recruiting and the size of the Army is, I believe, quite clear; and I deplore efforts made by some people—not the noble Viscount—to confuse it. Since my words at the beginning of this debate do not seem to have been sufficient, perhaps I might quote the words of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War in another place on that occasion. He said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 630 (No. 19), col. 1457]:
"My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture"—
that is Mr. Soames—
"said in the summer that we should on current trends reach our lower target in the early days of 1963. I am sure he is right."
The lower target is 165,000. He continued:
"Even the latest recruiting figures which have been published, and which are regarded by some as being depressing do, I assure the House, show clearly that this is still the case. I do not want to speculate in any precise terms, but I believe that we may well be able to do better than our minimum target by 1963 if we go flat out—and we mean to go flat out."
So perhaps, to put it in a phrase already used before, the floor target of the Army is 165,000 and the ceiling is 182,000.
I will look at the points which the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, made, and I will write to him about them. But in conclusion, before I ask your Lordships to approve the Order, I would assure the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition that there is no complacency about recruiting or the size of the Army. I believe I said in opening that recruiting is never very good and that we seek to do what we possibly can to improve it. I know that with the help of the noble Viscount and any suggestions he has to make, and with the help of the proposals already put before another place by my right honourable friend, we shall in fact achieve our target of 165,000 at the beginning of 1963.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, I wanted only to say one thing. I do not want to do more than raise the point now, because many of your Lordships speak with far greater knowledge and authority on this subject than I do. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty will be aware that in the last
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few days there have been some very interesting comments in the Press in which it is assumed that, if Her Majesty's Government do not get the lower figure of 165,000, they will use the door which was opened, I think, in the 1957 Statement, and which was not closed, by once again applying some measure of obtaining men by compulsion. No doubt the noble Lord will bring to his colleague's attention the fact that this statement has been made in the Press and that there has been no answer to it.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, if I may have the leave of the House to speak again, I think this point was actually made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State when he said that if we do not produce the numbers required for the Army exceptional measures will have to be taken.
EARL WINTERTON: I thank the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, that seems to leave us to assume that there may be a general or selective reapplication of National Service. But what was said at a later stage did not, I thought, quite support that. Of course, we shall have to wait and see in the Defence White Paper exactly what is meant by that. But what I should like to ask, before the Question is finally put, is whether we might take as correct the figures estimated in Annex 1 in the Defence White Paper for 1960: that the strength of the Army on April 1 next year, 1961, would be Regulars 166,600 and National Servicemen 57,000. Are those figures still holding for April 1, 1961?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, would the noble Viscount repeat his question?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am quoting from Annex 1, which states that in the case of the Army an estimate of the active strength by April 1, 1961, would be 166,600 Regulars, 57,000 National Servicemen and 6,500 women. That brings the total of the Armed Forces to 230,000. Is that still the estimate of our strength on April 1?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Viscount.

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I have almost every other piece of paper except, the one he was reading from. However, I can tell him—though I cannot teal him the exact date—that the total strength of the Army now, both officers and men, is about 230,000.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AIR FORCE ACT, 1955 (CONTINUATION) ORDER, 1960
3.35 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, this Order seeks to prolong the Air Force Act for another year. It is similar to the Army Order which I have just moved. There will be opportunities later to discuss the Royal Air Force, during the debate on Air Estimates, and beg to move that the Order be approved. The draft Order to which I now seek your Lordships' approval will maintain the Air Force Act in operation for the year 1961. It provides the statutory basis for the recruitment and discipline of the Royal Air Force. This is the last time the Act will be renewed in this way. Next year it will be necessary to consider a fresh Act. It is similar to the Army Act (Continuation) Order which your Lordships have just been discussing.
Discipline remains at a very high level of which the Royal Air Force can be proud. The number of serious breaches of Air Force law—serious enough to lead to court martial—has dropped to only 2·7 in every 1,000 strength. This is really remarkably low. Of course, most disciplinary action does not achieve the prominence of a court martial. Your Lordships may recall that at the beginning of this year a new form of punishment called "Restrictions" was introduced into the Royal Air Force in place of the old confinement to camp. I am pleased to be able to assure your Lordships that this has proved to be as effective as was hoped for.
I should like now to turn to the subject of recruitment. The target figure for the Royal Air Force is 135,000 trained adult males by 1963. During the first nine months of this year there was a slight fall in the number of adults recruited compared with the same period last year. But happily this is not the whole of the story. More and more airmen are signing on for the longer terms of engagement. In fact, two airmen in every three
1018
are now serving on engagements of nine years or over. The number of entrants to boys' service during the year has doubled compared with last year. This is most satisfactory. But again there is another side to the coin. The Royal Air Force is not getting enough apprentices of the right quality. However, the "bulge" of school leavers should provide some help to this problem and there is every hope that the Royal Air Force will solve the problem during the next year or two. Meanwhile, great reliance must be placed on the last remaining National Servicemen, to whom I pay a tribute, on behalf of the Royal Air Forces in exactly the same way as I did for the Army. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Air Force Act, 1955 (Continuation) Order, 1960, be approved —(Lord Carrington.)
3.37 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, there is not very much time, with so much Business to-day, to go through the whole of the Air Force, but I think we ought not to let this occasion pass without paying a tribute to the former Secretary of State for Air, the noble Viscount, Lord Ward of Willey, who has now joined us in this House. I am glad that he has not shown the same reluctance as another former Royal Air Force pilot to come with us. As somebody who has had a fair amount of dealing over the years with the noble Viscount, I should like to say that he was very highly regarded in the Air Force; and certainly those among us who are interested in the Air Force knew his heart was in the right place, even though on occasions he went wrong on such matters as Aden and one or two other places, and especially on matters in which the noble Lord, Lord Tedder, was concerned. I would also say that I congratulate his successor who is an old colleague and friend of mine, Mr. Amery.
The only worrying thing about the position of the Air Force so far as this debate is concerned is the question of balance between the needs. I should like to urge on the Government—and this is, of course, applicable to the previous debate—that now is the time when we have to hit our recruitment targets. If we cannot hit them now, it is very unlikely that we are going to do it in another three or four years' time. It is while the "bulge" is on that a special effort must be made, particularly—as I

1019
know the Government are keen to do —in regard to recruiting, especially of apprentices, about whom there has been reference to a decline in quality.
I hope that at the same time something more will be done in this case to make conditions a little more attractive for the Women's Royal Air Force. I do not know what particular additional lures there are, but it is of great importance that recruits should be found, because we must hit the minimum target. It is clear that failure to do this will produce the most drastic and disastrous results. We know, in fact, that the order of battle in the Army is overstrained at the moment and that there is a remark-able loss of efficiency as a result: and the same thing will be true of the Air Force. I hope, therefore, that the Government will not think that we are just saying again what they know as well as we do, but that they will approach this matter with extra urgency and will see whether, even now, there is not more that can be done with regard to stimulating recruitment.
3.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I wonder whether I might make a suggestion to the First Lord. I hesitate to ask for more White Papers, because they fall rather like leaves in Vallombrosa. On the other hand, I agree with what has been said on all sides of the House, I think: that we are all very anxious about the recruiting figures in all the Services, and certainly in the Army and the Air Force. Frankly, I am still very vague as to what the position really is. It is inadequate, certainly, in both the Army and the Air Force. The noble Lord said that we are getting some more of a particular kind in the Air Force. As against that, there are not enough boys —and I very much regret it—going into Halton.
He said that we shall all have an opportunity of discussing this when we come on to the defence debate early, or reasonably early, next year. But what I think we should all like to have now (I am not asking for a firm statement of policy, as to exactly how the deficiencies are going to be met: I think it would be wrong to ask for that, certainly in a debate like this, until the facts are known) is some idea of what is required.
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It is no good waiting until it is too late. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that now is the acceptable time. If we cannot get the numbers required now, I do not think we are going to get them later on—unless, indeed, we get some frightful slump, which I sincerely hope we shall not, and which we certainly do not look like getting. But could we have a simple White Paper setting out for the three Services what are the numbers that are required in different categories; then, against that, how many they have; and then, in a third column, how many must be recruited, and within what time, in order to reach what is the absolute minimum that the noble Lord has now stated? To give that information would not commit the noble Lord or the Government in any way on a matter of policy. On the other hand, it would make it a great deal easier for us—and, indeed, for other people outside who are commenting on these matters—to talk sense, and to give, so far as they can, wise advice. I hope my noble friend will consider the possibility of doing that.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I first of all join with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in welcoming the noble Viscount, Lord Ward of Witley? I had not realised that he was in the House when I moved the Order. He must find it rather curious that the First Lord of the Admiralty should be doing his erstwhile Department's business.
I very greatly welcome what the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, have said about recruiting. I think it is very helpful to the Government that they should be paying such a great deal of attention to it. I do not think we want to be too gloomy about Air Force recruitment: I do not think it is too bad. I do not think there is going to be difficulty in getting to the target, although, as my noble friend said, there may be some difficulty about the balance of trades. However, I will most certainly look into his suggestion. I will pass it on to my honourable friend and will ask him to read the remarks which my noble friend has made.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: All three. I think that the Minister of Defence should be approached, too.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS (RENEWALS, EXTENSIONS AND FEES) BILL [H.L.]
3.44 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, I beg to move that this House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. In doing so, I have to correct a statement which I made to your Lordships on Second Reading, towards the end of my speech, in a purely hypothetical and extremely trivial context. I mentioned, in passing, that if another place were to disagree with some hypothetical Amendment which your Lordships might make to the Bill, the other place might then pass the Bill under the Parliament Act without the Amendment. I have since learned what I did not know then: that the Parliament Act does not apply to Bills introduced in your Lordships' House. What would happen in the event of disagreement (which of course will not happen) would be that the Bill would have to be dropped at the end of the Session. However, it could then be re-introduced in the next Session in another place, and then the Parliament Act would apply: so my statement would then become correct, after an interval of one Session. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Patent fees
2. Section ninety-nine of the Patents Act, 1949, shall apply to the fees payable in respect of an application for a patent, the filing of a complete specification. and the sealing or renewal of a patent as it applies to fees payable in respect of other matters relating to patents, and accordingly the proviso to that section and the First Schedule to that Act (which specify certain maxima for fees) are hereby repealed.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH moved to leave out Clause 2 and insert instead:
("2. The First Schedule (Maximum Fees) to the Patents Act, 1949, shall be amended by omitting the words

'On application for patent

1

0

0

On filing of complete specification

4

0

0'").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper. This is the only clause in the Bill to which any objection was taken upon Second Reading, and had I not been unavoidably prevented from being present I should have joined with those who criticised it.
Under the existing law as contained in the Patents Act, 1949, power is given to the Board of Trade, with the assent of the Treasury, to make regulations with regard to the fees to be charged in the Patent Office for matters transacted there, but that power is subject to a limitation that any such order shall not increase certain fees specified in the Schedule to the Statute beyond the amount there stated. The clause we are now considering proposes to abolish that limitation and, therefore, to give the Board of Trade unlimited power to alter the whole of the fees which may be charged in the Patent Office for business transacted there. The fees which are at present subject to a statutory maximum are: the fee on applying for a patent, the fee on filing a complete specification, the fee on the letters patent themselves and the annual fees which have to be paid for renewal in order to keep the letters patent in force, Now these fees are of fundamental importance.
The noble Earl who is in charge of the Bill said on Second Reading that the object in view was to make the expenditure and the revenue of the Patent Office balance: that it was a principle that the Patent Office should be self-supporting. As taxpayers, no doubt most of us will be attracted at first sight by that doctrine but there are some other considerations which ought to be borne in mind. The Patent Office exists in order to perform a public function of very great importance. It exists not merely for the sake of encouraging inventors by giving them a temporary monopoly of the subject-matter of their invention. It exists also for the purpose of ensuring that the nature of those inventions shall

1023
be communicated to the public, because no inventor can get the statutory monopoly granted by letters patent unless he discloses, fully and sufficiently, the nature of his invention. That disclosure helps to encourage technological progress, and to encourage other inventions, whereas if this system did not exist and people were not entitled to patents for their inventions, naturally inventions would be concealed so far as possible and progress in technological matters would be impeded.
Consequently, the Patent Office exists not merely for the benefit of inventors themselves but also for the benefit of the general public and for the encouragement of manufacture and invention generally. On those grounds I do not accept the doctrine that it is essential that the revenue and expenditure of the Patent Office should necessarily be brought into balance. But even if it be granted that that should be done, I still do not accept the proposition that the statutory limit upon the amount of fees which may be made payable should be entirely removed, as this Bill provides. We must remember that, in effect, this constitutes a bargain, or at any rate an undertaking, which is held out to inventors, not only in this country but in other countries as well, because foreign inventors can, and do, take out patents in this country, to the complete advantage of this country. At present they have an assurance that the fees which will be charged—and I am referring particularly to the fees for the renewal of a patent payable year by year—will not exceed the sums which are at present stated in the Statute. If this clause is passed as it stands, it will mean that the expectations of people who have taken out patents can be defeated, and that they can find that the fees which will be charged to them for renewals in the future, after their existing patents have been granted on the faith of the Statute as it stands, can be increased—and, indeed, might be considerably increased because there will be no limit whatsoever.
I understand that in another place the Minister stated that the only step which it was intended to take was to increase the first two of the fees which I have mentioned—namely, those upon filing an
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application for a patent and those upon filing the complete specification, disclosing the nature of the invention. Therefore, in the Amendment which I am moving, taking that declaration as its basis, I suggest that the only alteration that should be made is to remove the limit upon those two fees, and that the Act should otherwise be left as it stands at the present moment. I venture to suggest that that is only right and fair. After people have obtained their letters patent they should not be threatened with the prospect of an order being made by the Board of Trade altering the fees which have to be paid year by year for its renewal. I should feel still happier if the Amendment which is in the name of my noble friends, Lord Silkin and Lord Chorley, could be adopted—namely, to leave this clause out of the Bill entirely; but failing that, I think that what I am suggesting is the maximum which ought to be done. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 2 and insert—
("2. The First Schedule (Maximum Fees) to the Patents Act, 949, shall be amended by omitting the words

'On application for patent

1

0

0

On filing of complete specification

4

0

0'")

—(Lord Douglas of Barloch.)
LORD SILKIN: I wonder whether it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we discussed the three Amendments that are on the Paper together.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I was certainly going to suggest that the second two should be taken together. I thought that might be more to the convenience of your Lordships, because they seem to raise entirely the same points, whereas the present Amendment draws a distinction between the two classes of fees under the old Schedule. Could I reply to this Amendment now, and then could we take the other two together? I think that would be best.
LORD CAWLEY: I do not think I could possibly support this Amendment, because these two fees are the two fees which affect the small inventor. The renewal fees become payable only at the fifth year and onwards, and I could not accept an Amendment which would allow the Board of Trade carte blanche to raise

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the fees affecting the small inventors but restrict the Board to a maximum in those fees which affect the inventor who has "made a go" of his invention and is keeping it alive for the remainder of his life.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My noble friend behind me has relieved me of part of the task of answering the noble Lord's Amendment by making the point which I was going to make in reply. The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would be to remove statutory protection against the raising of the application fee and the raising of the filing fee on specification, but to leave statutory protection for the sealing fee and all the renewal fees. As it happens, that would have the effect of enabling the Government to do exactly what we are proposing to do. Because, as I told your Lordships on Second Reading, we propose to raise the application fee to £2 and the specification fee to £8, and to leave all the other fees as they are, although some of them, in fact most of them, are at present below the old statutory limit. The sealing fee is only £3 whereas the limit is £5; and of the twelve annual renewal fees, nine out of the twelve are actually below the limit fixed in 1884.
But in spite of this I would suggest respectfully to the noble Lord that he is putting the emphasis in the wrong place, because I think the main purpose of having in mind a statutory limit on fees is not to protect renewal fees but to protect the inventor, on getting his patent, against undue trouble and expense. Therefore, although it would fit in with what I told your Lordships the Government were proposing to do about the fees, I would suggest to the noble Lord that he should not press his Amendment.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord has said, I am not disposed to press my Amendment. I gathered that he sympathised with the noble Lord opposite who objected to arty increase in the fees on application, although his colleague in another place is proposing to more than double them. Therefore I should feel a great deal more happy if the Amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Silkin were carried, and consequently propose to withdraw this one.
4.0 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: Before the noble Lord actually withdraws his Amendment, may I say that it seems to me that it would be logical to discuss Amendment No. 3 before we discuss this one. If, by some chance, the Committee were to agree to leave out this clause, then, of course, any question of amending it would not arise. I presume that it is in accordance with precedent that an Amendment to leave out the clause comes last, after all the Amendments have been considered, but, with great respect, it seems quite illogical. It seems to me that we ought to decide first of all whether the clause stands part of the Bill or not, and then, having disposed of that question, we can begin to think about Amendments. Therefore I think it might be convenient if I said a word at this stage on the general question of whether we should allow this clause to become part of the Bill or not, while, of course, I will move my Amendment when it is called.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am most ready to agree to whatever is most convenient to your Lordships. I am not responsible for the order in which the Amendments are put on the Marshalled List and do not care how your Lordships choose to discuss them. I should be delighted to fall in with any arrangement. It seems to me that if the noble Lord wishes to discuss this Amendment together with his, then we should discuss the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, at the same time, and not give leave for this Amendment to be withdrawn. If that would be most convenient and aceptable to your Lordships, I should be very willing to agree.
LORD SILKIN: We are really discussing the same thing in different ways. I do not want to detain the Committee very long, because I said what I wanted to say on Second Reading, but I think that here we have a Bill which has for its primary purpose the ratification of the Convention which was agreed to in Lisbon. But for that Convention this Bill would never have been introduced. So we have Clause 1 ratifying the Convention. I am glad that we are carrying out this task. But then the Government tack on to that something which has nothing to do with the ratification of the Convention—a clause altering the fees which have been in existence since the

1027
1880's. If the Government want to do that, why cannot they introduce a separate Bill, which we can then discuss on its merits, without tacking it on to something to which it bears no relation at all?
Speaking from the point of view of a practitioner, I would point out that if a practitioner wants to look at the question of the ratification of the Lisbon Agreement, he would not think of looking in a Bill called the Patents and Designs (Renewals, Extensions and Fees) Bill. That seems to me to be quite remote. I should have thought that the proper thing was to have a Bill which would express in its Title what it was intended for and, even side by side with that Bill, a separate Bill of this kind. After all, a Bill ratifying the Lisbon Agreement could have gone through "on the nod"; nobody would have said a word about it except to bless it. It is Clause 2 which raises the controversy.
Having said that I hope the Government may think again about tacking this clause on to a wholly inappropriate Bill, I hope that if I say a word on its merits that will not be regarded in any sense as weakening my contention that Clause 2 ought not to be in the Bill at all. If the Government, in their wisdom or lack of wisdom, decide that it has to be in the Bill, then I think that the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, ought to be accepted. If the Government think that they must make provision in this Bill for the amending of the fees and that in future it should be done by a regulation of the Board of Trade, which will enable them from time to time to alter the fees in accordance with the circumstances of the time, then that should be done in such a way that your Lordships can express their view. The onus should be on the Government and they should do it by means of a specific Resolution of each House of Parliament, so that the matter would come before your Lordships and be dealt with in a straightforward way and not left to the chance of a Negative Resolution.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch that the question of fees in respect of patents is a highly important one, not merely from the point of view of the inventor but also from the point of view of the general public.
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I am inclined to agree with him that the balancing of expenditure by receipts
should not necessarily be taken for granted. On the other hand, I feel that the onus of proof should be on those who say that they should not balance and that there should be some contribution from the Exchequer. Unless a case can clearly be made out that this is a service and ought to be subsidised, I should have thought that the fees should balance; but I should be very willing to listen to a case that it would be in the public interest to have some kind of contribution from the Exchequer.
Coming back to my first point, I would add that there is a good deal in having legislation which is appropriate, which is inserted in the right kind of Bill and which specifies in its Title what it is intended to do. I would ask the Government whether they would not seriously take back this clause and put what they want to do in another Bill. If they do, then would ask them to make any regulations they want to provide for subject to the conditions set out in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cawley—that is, subject to an Affirmative Resolution.
LORD CAWLEY: The evil which arises from this clause as it stands is not a present evil; it is an evil in the future. I am certain that the Board of Trade are acting perfectly properly and bona fide by asking for some increase in fees, but one must consider the future and the fact that (as I stated on Second Reading) there is a ring of black crows waiting to hop down and make this a source of revenue. I was not then referring to the Board of Trade; I was referring to the Treasury in the future. If the Negative Resolution procedure is adopted, it would be only too easy for the Treasury to prevail upon the Board of Trade to increase fees in order to pay them a dividend. I think that that would be very undesirable. I hope that never in another place in future will one of the Treasury Ministers get up and say, with reference to raising the fees in the Patent Office, that it is the duty of inventors to shoulder some of the burden of general taxation. We do not want a Patents Funds which can be raided in the same manner as the Road Fund has been raided in the past. If we have an Order which is subject only to Negative

1029
Resolution, that is what I feel may happen in future. It may not, but the road is open and ready for that to occur.
My Amendment is a compromise and, as I think, a good compromise. The objection to alteration of the maximum fees by Statute is fairly obvious. It requires Parliamentary time; it requires three Readings—Committee stage, Report stage and so on—in each House, and I can see the objection. However, I can see little objection to making these changes in the maximum fees subject to a Special Order. Special Orders are not very common. I am on the Special Orders Committee and we are not overworked at present. Your Lordships have seen this afternoon what happens when a Special Order does come before this House and is debated. I think it is a healthy thing that any raising of the patent fees should be debated by the House. I feel certain that the Special Orders Committee—of course, one cannot commit them—if they saw that an Order unnecessarily raising the maximum for patent fees was going to be placed before Parliament, would exercise their powers to warn Parliament that particular attention ought to be drawn to the Order. Therefore, I feel that my Amendment would meet all the conditions that are necessary to make this Bi11 a suitable Bill to pass.
LORD CHORLEY: I do not wish to repeat the arguments which have been so cogently put before your Lordships this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Silkin, but I was glad to add my name to the Amendment which stands in his name because I was so dissatisfied with the answer the noble Earl gave to my suggestion that the time had now come in the industrial history of this country when we should abolish altogether these fees in connection with patents. I was glad that my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch adverted to this suggestion, in a rather wider and perhaps a more cogent way than I was able to do in my intervention. The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, took up a typically conservative attitude, if I may say so, without necessarily a capital "C"—namely, that we had done this ever since we started, and that was a very good reason for going on with it. That, in my view, is the sort of attitude which is going to lead to this
1030
country's falling behind in the industrial race.
The situation is quite different in regard to this country, as an industrial competing country, from that when the original Patents Act was passed in the last century. We were then well ahead of all our competitors, and really there was no particular point in encouraging inventors in connection with our overseas exports by remitting fees in connection with patent specifications and that sort of thing. But we are now—although we may not quite realise it at the moment—on the point of having to fight for our lives, and we just cannot afford to take this ostrich-in-the-sand attitude in regard to matters of this kind.
The small inventor, in particular, is still well worth encouraging. I know there is an idea about that nowadays all inventions require team work; that that team work is supplied by the great industrial and commercial corporations, who can put up the money quite easily, and a few pounds here or there will not make any difference to them. That is no doubt perfectly true. But when one thinks of inventors like Sir Frank Whittle, working month by month in a small garage, with perhaps a boy to help, and producing one of the great inventions of the century, surely it is obvious that the small private inventor still has a great contribution to make. I think there is no country in the world which produces that type of individual better than this country. I am not the sort of person who continuously, on every occasion, says that our country is better than all other countries in the world—that is a narrow and absurd attitude—but there are certain ways in which I think our own people have shown in the past that they have a particular advantage. This ability to bring to bear and combine both intellectual calibre and practical experience has been a peculiarly English excellence and Sir Frank Whittle affords a good example of the sort of way in which it has been done. And, of course, it has been done down the ages.
It is in this way that we can help. I object to its being regarded as a subsidisation of the inventor. These inventors are fulfilling a national purpose of the highest quality and of the greatest advantage to this nation, and it is really up to us to encourage them in every way

1031
we can. We are now, through the D.S.I.R. and in other ways, giving a great deal of help. It seems to me rather absurd to provide help in those ways and at the same time to withdraw it in a niggling way by insistence on fees of this kind. Therefore I should like to see this clause dropped out of the Bill in order that the matter can be looked at again from the point of view of giving greater assistance to inventors, and possibly with the object of removing all these fees, which at the present time to a certain degree press upon the smaller inventor.
4.17 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I should like to add a word or two, having as President of the Board of Trade had to administer the Patents Office for a good many years. I think we ought to have a little sense of proportion in this matter. In all the years I was President of the Board of Trade I never heard any corn-plaint that inventions were handicapped because the man who took out a patent had to pay a fee. I should think there is something to be said for keeping those fees under the control of Parliament; they have hitherto been laid down by Statute, and that, I feel, is not a bad thing. But I think the general experience of inventors (Lord Silkin's practice is more recent than mine) would be that the fees which are paid, not unreasonably, to patent agents, whom every inventor has to employ to go and search the whole of the register to see whether there are patents and that the application for the patent and the specification is properly drawn up—and they are very able and necessary people—amount to a good deal more than the fee paid to the Patent Office.
Generally, I do not think we ought to have an indiscriminate reduction of fees —that is not a good way of giving help to inventors. I believe that the way the Government are giving help to inventors in desirable cases at the present time is a much better way. If you just abolished the fees, or failed to raise them to what in the costs of to-day would be a reasonably economic level, you would, believe, be wasting a great deal of the taxpayers' money. That would give it to the just and the unjust; it would give it to applicants for patents who were poor and who were rich; it would give it whether the patent applied for was a
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valuable patent or something of no great value. We had better have a little sense of proportion in this matter, if I may respectfully say so to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, and continue to charge our fees.
4.20 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: Perhaps it would suit your Lordships if I were to refer to what the noble Earl has just said in his reference to fees, based, as I told your Lordships in the debate on Second Reading, on experience. The noble Earl is correct in saying that a sense of balance is necessary because a patent agent's fees may exceed the fee for registration. On the other hand, that depends largely upon what the patent agent has to do: the extent of the searches he has to carry out, the necessity for extra drawings to fit in with requirements of the Board of Trade, and the like. Nevertheless, I feel that, whatever the proportion may be between the fees and the cost of the patent agents, it is important that the overall cost should be kept at the absolute minimum. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that ideas are one of our most valuable exports to-day, and that everything possible should be done to encourage the registration of ideas which may be national assets if they can be produced in patent form and protected throughout the world, all of which costs additional money.
But in expressing the view that I should also like to see Clause 2 removed from this Bill altogether, I feel that it is not necessary to go over the points that have been made by noble Lords. I would, however, emphasise one point that has not been made during this debate in Committee as strongly as it was in Second Reading—namely, that it is the duty upon Parliament to keep an eye upon what Lord Hewart described as "the new despotism". It is so easy to recognise small matters of this sort as being minor engagements in what can never be a battle on a broad front but which, though little enough in themselves, when put together build up an increasing power with which Parliament is not able to interfere; or, if able to interfere, has only the cumbrous method of objecting to the regulations in toto under the Negative Resolution procedure.
With those sentiments, I would express my support for the idea that the whole

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clause should be taken out. I think that, if possible, the Government should con-skier another small Bill to deal with the question of the fees, though it is just possible that there are one or two i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed in patent affairs, and that provisions to this end might be included. On the other hand, if the Government find it impossible to do what I and other noble Lords consider to be right, which is to cut this clause out of the Bill the Title is definitely one to accord with an International Convention—then I would support the via media suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Cawley. But I could not support the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, because, as the noble Earl who is to reply said, it seems to be on a different level from the other two Amendments, which I support in that order.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Does the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, wish to withdraw his Amendment?
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: Not at this stage. I should like to hear what the noble Earl has to say on this discussion.
4.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am glad to have had this arrangement which has enabled me to hear what everybody has to say before replying. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is, of course, quite right in saying that Clauses 1 and 2 of this Bill do different things. But, after all, the different things which they do are both about patents. I would say that it seems a little unnecessary to have two different Bills about the same subject because there are two different aspects of the legislation you want to enact. It would take up much more Parliamentary time and, as everybody is entirely agreed to let Clause 1 go through on the nod, surely this could be regarded as a second Bill introducing Clause 2.
Most of your Lordships, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, have been inclined to agree that it is not a serious deterrent to inventors that some fee should be charged for patents. I think that every country except the United States and Canada does the same as we do—that is, try to balance the expenses of the Patent Office by the fees; and I believe that
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Canada is now changing her policy and is going to charge fees. As the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said, the theme that these small payments may be a serious deterrent to inventions can be greatly exaggerated. I should like to remind your Lordships very briefly of what I said on the Second Reading in justifying Clause 2. The maximum fees which are laid down, with one small exception, which my noble friend Lord Cawley pointed out, have been the same since 1884. No one has paid much attention to these maximum fees in deciding how much should actually be charged, because the criterion of the fees has been not what is the amount or even the maximum laid down by Act of Parliament, but how much the Board of Trade need to collect in order to meet their expenses. Since the maximum scales laid down 76 years ago were far greater than was necessary to do that, the Board of Trade have never found it necessary to charge as much as the maximum fees. Even in future we are still proposing to charge less than the maximum in the case of the sealing fee and most of the renewal fees.
With the change in the value of money, the maximum fees for application and for filing a specification have, for the first time since 1884, become inadequate to meet expenses. What we felt was that if we had chosen to have a new statutory Schedule for the whole lot, in order to allow flexibility following the example of 1884, it would have had to be much higher than was necessary and would not have afforded any protection; whereas if we were to have a scale of fees which were just enough that might have involved continual new legislation. We felt, therefore, that the right way to deal with the matter was by a statutory instrument which was subject to a Prayer—that is, to the Negative Resolution procedure in both Houses of Parliament. I do not feel that in modern times there could be much danger that the Board of Trade would seek to charge exhorbitant fees; and if they did do so, do not think there is much chance that they would get away with it, because in a matter of this kind, even if a Member of Parliament did not happen to observe the statutory instrument, somebody would call his attention to it. There is no possibility of anything like the analogy which Lord Cawley gave of

1035
the Road Fund, because it is not proposed to accumulate any surplus. The policy of the Board of Trade is to charge just as much as will meet their expenses, and no more.
But I was impressed on Second Reading by those vestigial memories, which have survived from the days of the Deputy Chaffwax, which were so forcefully presented by your Lordships. I do not think I could agree to putting any statutory limitation on the renewal fees or on the specification and sealing fees. I think that would be unnecessary. I think they are far more appropriately and more flexibly dealt with by a statutory instrument. It seems to me that your Lordships' main concern, both this afternoon and on Second Reading, has been for the small impecunious inventor who, in order to get his patent and be entitled to find someone who will exploit his invention, must first pay this application fee.
Looking at the pathetic the which my noble friend Lord Cawley quoted from Dickens of the man who, before he could get even that length, had to go through 35 stages, interview 35 people, from the Queen on her Throne to the Deputy Chaffwax, which took so many years, it reminded me rather of what I had to do in recovering my Peerage. All this had to be done in order to get to the first stage; that is, to get the patent registered and the right to ask somebody to take it up. I think perhaps that there may be still some psychological fear that the circumstances which prevailed in the time of the Deputy Chaffwax might recur, although I do not myself see them recurring in the twentieth century. I have no doubt that was what the Act of 1883 was designed to stop.
If it would meet your Lordships' wishes I should be prepared to undertake to introduce a new Amendment on the Third Reading of this Bill which would limit by Statute this application fee to a sum of £2. I would just remind your Lordships that, if you allow for changes in the value of money, £2 now is equal to 9s. in 1884, when the fee was fixed at £1; so that our new fee of £2 will, in terms of money, be less than half the maximum imposed in 1884. Or, if you prefer to put it the other way round,
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a fee of £1 in 1884, allowing for the change in the value of money, could be used to justify a fee of £4 8s. now, instead of our actual proposal of £2. I think the course I suggest would perhaps be more satisfactory to my noble friend Lord Cawley than an Affirmative Resolution. He mentioned that an Affirmative Resolution would take up some time. This, if it had to be changed, would take up even more time, because a new Act of Parliament would have to be brought in to alter this new statutory limitation. I think that it would give some psychological reassurance, perhaps, to the small inventor, whom all your Lordships, and certainly the Government, are most anxious to encourage, and I hope your Lordships will agree to accept the proposal which I am putting before you.
LORD SILKIN: I hope the noble Earl will look at this again. What he is suggesting is all very well, but he is rather assuming that all small inventors are impecunious. He referred to small impecunious inventors. They are not all impecunious, and I do not think the bait he is holding out is all that attractive. On the assumption that Clause 2 remains in the Bill—and I shall have one short word to say about that later—I think that what most of us want is Parliamentary control over these fees. We want them to come before Parliament for Parliament to judge whether any Amendment is reasonable or not. I cannot see what possible objection there can be to that. The question of Parliamentary control is one which appeals to every Member of this Committee and the House.
If the noble Earl will seriously consider putting something in the Bill or, better still, accepting the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, which I think is drafted in the correct terms for that purpose, so that whenever there is a change of fee (we do not want to restrict Parliament, and we do not want a new Act of Parliament, if it becomes necessary to increase fees, we quite see that), whether it is an increase or reduction, if such a thing is conceivable, it will come before the House, I think that most of us will be satisfied. I feel that in asking for that we are asking for something that is perfectly reasonable. I would ask the noble Earl to have

1037
another look at it. Furthermore, he did refer to doing this on the Third Reading, but there is such a thing as Report stage.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: With respect to the noble Lord, there is no Report stage if there are no Amendments in Committee.
LORD SILKIN: With respect to the noble Earl, there is. The procedure was changed not long ago; and there is a Report stage, although it can be dispensed with. I hope that my version of the Standing Orders is correct. I gather that is so. There is a Report stage.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: To be quite accurate, there would be a Report stage if I did not move "That this Report be now received" at the end of the Committee. Of course if the noble Lord would prefer me not to do that, and would prefer to have a separate Report stage later, that will be a matter to be discussed through the usual channels. I should have thought that, as a matter of procedure, if there were no further Amendments it would be more convenient that I should introduce my Amendment on Third Reading. But I did not mean to lay down that there could not be a Report stage if your Lordships desired one.
LORD SILKIN: If the noble Earl is going to consider favourably the Amendment that I have in mind, then I do not mind whether he does it on Report stage or Third Reading; but if the reply is going to be a negative one, I think we should have the usual Report stage and Third Reading. I hope that he will at least say that he will give the matter further consideration, because that, I believe, is the feeling of those noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion and have been interested in this Bill.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I assure the noble Lord that I have given this matter very profound consideration between Second Reading and now, and I have, I think, both to-day and on Second Reading, given the fullest answers which I can give to what the noble Lord has just said. I do not feel that the method of statutory instrument, which does allow a discussion when any variation is made in the fees, is taking away reason-
1038
able Parliamentary control. What I am suggesting is that, in addition to this Parliamentary control by means of a Prayer against the Order, a statutory limitation for the application fee should be inserted. I do not think it would do any harm, although I would not admit that it is really necessary. I am suggesting that it should be inserted in order to satisfy the concern of those of your Lordships who have so strongly expressed your views both this afternoon and on Second Reading.
It is not entirely a question of inventors being impecunious. I think that the first of these fees is really the one about which your Lordships have been principally concerned, and it is the only one in regard to which I have honestly felt that I should be justified in making any departure from what we had intended to do on Second Reading. I hope that your Lordships will be agreeable to this course and will accept the proposal I am making, which I have not made on the spur of the moment but is the result of most careful and thorough consideration of all the merits of the case.
LORD CONESFORD: May I say a few words in support of what my noble friend the Minister has just said? Subject to anything that my noble friend Lord Cawley may say, I should have thought that the Minister's present offer was rather better than Lord Cawley's Amendment taken alone without the proposed statutory safeguard. I think one can exaggerate the difference between an Affirmative and a Negative Resolution, though there is one important difference—more important in another place than it is here—that for an Affirmative Resolution the Government of the day have to find time. There is some difference as regards finding time. I think that I am right about that; certainly there used to be. But I should have thought that with a Negative Resolution available on the other matters, and the statutory safeguard indicated by the Minister on this one matter, the point that I think Lord Cawley has in mind will be rather better safeguarded than it would be but for the Minister's last proposal.
LORD SILKIN: I do not want to weary the Committee but there is a big difference between a Negative and an

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Affirmative Resolution, as those who have been in another place well know. A Negative Resolution is taken at some unearthly hour when everybody is most anxious to go home, and in practice it does not give anyone who prays a reasonable opportunity. An Affirmative Resolution has to come before the House on a Government Motion, and not on the Motion of the person who prays, and it gets proper consideration. In an important matter of this kind I should have thought it would be desirable that the Government should, where they want to change the basis of fees, find time to have the matter properly discussed.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The application fee cannot be changed without a new Act of Parliament.
LORD SILKIN: At the present time.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No; if my proposal is accepted vie cannot change the application fee without Act of Parliament.
LORD SILKIN: I am referring to the remaining fees, which of course will be subject to a Negative Resolution. I am suggesting that if Parliament wants to alter the remaining fees they should come before the House. I gladly accept the offer of the noble Earl. I do not want to appear ungrateful for small mercies. Of course I accept that. But I am referring to the remaining fees, which will still be subject to an unsatisfactory Negative Resolution. I would ask the noble Earl, in spite of what he has said, to give further consideration to that point, and I would also ask that there should be a Report stage.
LORD CONESFORD: May I say, in answer to the last point, that perhaps I have a little more recent experience than the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, because between the years 1951 and 1955 I had to move several Affirmative Resolutions, and I assure him that in another place they come on at the end of the day, at almost precisely the same hour as the Negative Resolutions.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: There is, however, a most important difference between the two forms of pro-
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cedure. It is simply this: that on the Affirmative Resolution procedure the Government of the day have to justify the proposal which they are making and put before the House the facts which, in their opinion, are the foundation of the policy that they are putting forward; whereas upon the Negative Resolution procedure the Private Member is left to try to ferret out some facts, probably with great difficulty, in order to support the case. That is a most important difference.
I certainly welcome the suggestion which the noble Earl has made, that the maximum fee to be paid on application for a patent should be controlled by Statute and should not be left to the discretion of the Board of Trade; and certainly it should not be more than £2, because at that stage the Patent Office do no work worth speaking about. All they do is to receive the application, give it a serial number and so on. It is not examined in the Patent Office at that stage; nothing whatever is done, and a fee of £2 is ample for the merely mechanical processes which are gone through at the time when the application is first filed. Afterwards, when the complete specification is filed, I agree that the Patent Office have more to do and that their work is skilled and important.
On the other hand, do not let us confuse this discussion by comparing the fees which are paid to the Patent Office with the fees which are paid to a patent agent for the work which he does, which in many cases is a great deal more extensive and more difficult and indeed forms the foundation upon which the official in the Patent Office begins his work. One might just as well compare the fees which are paid to solicitors and counsel in cases in the High Court with the fees which are paid to the Court itself. That is an entirely fallacious comparison, if I may say so with all respect to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Swinton.
However, to come back to this point, I would say that we are still (and this enforces what my noble friend Lord Silkin said) in the position that the noble Earl has not told us, so far as I can recollect, anything at all about the justification for this proposal; nothing about the income and expenditure of the Patent

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Office. All he has said is that it is an inflexible principle that the revenue and the expenditure ought to balance; but he has not in fact given any information which would show what level of fees might be reasonable at this stage to cover that principle.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I did tell your Lordships on that subject—I do not know whether the noble Lord was here —that there was a deficit of £133,000 in the accounts of the Patent Office, owing to the fact that the existing maxima were out of keeping with modern prices.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: Yes. I wonder whether the noble Earl has in his mind the number of applications which are filed in the Patent Office in the course of a single year. I should think that doubling the application fees alone would make a considerable inroad into that £133,000. But to quote a figure like that is not sufficient, because it may be a balance on a total expenditure of £100,000, £500,000 or £1 million. We just do not know, and these things have to be put into perspective. That is why my noble friend Lord Silkin is entirely correct in saying that the obligation is upon Her Majesty's Government, and clearly laid down, to justify proposals of this kind so that we may have the facts of the case.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
4.51 p.m.
LORD CAWLEY LORD CAWLEY had given Notice of his intention to move to leave out Clause 2 and to insert:
"2. Her Majesty may from time to time by Order in Council vary the maximum fees set out in the First Schedule to the Patents Act, 1949:
Provided that no recommendation shall be made to Her Majesty in Council to make an order under this section unless a draft thereof has been laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament."
The noble Lord said: The noble Earl has said that somebody was bound to bring a Negative Resolution. I think I may say that it is only because I am a practitioner in this branch of the law that the provision in this Bill has been debated. I believe that that would show how necessary it is that the increases in maxima should at any rate come before the House. I have made my protest. I have no doubt it will come up in another
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place, and so I do not propose to move my Amendment.
LORD SILKIN: If the noble Lord does not do so it will be put down again on the Report stage, because I feel it is a matter which requires more consideration than we have given it to-day. I firmly believe that a matter of this kind, which up to this moment would have required legislation, should not be dealt with in the way in which Her Majesty's Government now propose to deal with it, by means of an Order subject to a Negative Resolution. While, therefore, I will not object to the noble Lord's not moving his Amendment, I give notice that it will be put down again.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA BILL
4.57 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, this Bill, which comes to us from another place, provides that the British North America Acts, which embody the Canadian Constitution, may be amended so that Judges of the Superior Courts of Canada shall in future retire at the age of 75, instead of holding office during good behaviour. It has been introduced to comply with the request in Addresses to Her Majesty the Queen adopted by both Houses of the Canadian Parliament. Your Lordships may wonder why it is necessary for Parliament to pass legislation of this kind on behalf of Canada, when Canada was one of the Dominions, as they were formerly called, which by Statute of Westminster were given full powers to legislate on all matters affecting themselves without recourse to this Parliament.
When the British North America Act, 1867, which established the Dominion of Canada, was passed, it contained no provision for its amendment save by the United Kingdom Parliament, and, when from time to time amendments were desired in Canada it has been necessary

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for the Canadian Government and Parliament to ask us to take the necessary action. Such requests have invariably been complied with. Thus Canada remains the only Member of the Commonwealth which has not sole power to amend its Constitution. When the drafting of the Statute of Westminster was under consideration in 1930, the Canadian Government asked expressly that this position might be preserved, and the necessary provision was made in Section 7 of the Statute.
The restriction was later modified by the British North America (No. 2) Act, 1949, which provided that the Constitution should be capable of amendment by the Canadian Federal Parliament in relation to matters within the sole jurisdiction of that Parliament—that is to say, the Federal Parliament. But legislation by the United Kingdom Parliament is still necessary in the case of other matters. The only basic reason for this is that hitherto no Canadian Government has found it possible to devise a procedure, acceptable to the Provinces, for enabling the Constitution to be amended in Canada itself, when Provincial rights are at stake.
It was agreed, however, at a recent conference between the Federal and Provincial authorities that Canada should now work out a means of amending her Constitution single-handed. So it may be that, as suggested by Sir Alan Herbert in an article in yesterday's Times, when the centenary of the British North America Act occurs in 1967, the question will have been settled so far as Canada is concerned; and if we are asked to introduce the necessary legislation I am sure that Parliament will readily agree. But until we receive such a request it is not for us to raise any question about maintenance of the present procedure, which is entirely a Canadian matter. Accordingly I commend the Bill to Your Lordships and beg to move that it may receive a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.— (The Duke of Devonshire.)
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, my noble friend, in moving the Second Reading, has alluded to the article by our friend, Sir Alan Herbert, which appeared in yesterday's Times. Sir Alan
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had at an earlier date brought what he thought on this subject to my notice, and I had mentioned it to my noble friend who has just moved this Second Reading. I am very glad to hear from what he said that the Canadian authorities are now considering the measure Sir Alan Herbert desired, and I am sure my noble friend's speech will be read with as much pleasure outside as the pleasure with which it has been heard in this House.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

INDUS BASIN DEVELOPMENT FUND BILL
5.0 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to authorise Her Majesty's Government to take part in setting up a Fund which will make possible the development work in the Indus Basin which will arise from the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty. The proposed United Kingdom contribution to the Fund is a grant of £20,860,000. As the House will know, the Indus Waters Treaty was signed on September 9 this year in Karachi, and on the same day representatives of the International Bank and of the Governments who are to be contributors to the Fund —that is, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Germany, the United States and ourselves—signed the Indus Basin Development Fund Agreement. The purpose of the Fund is set out in the Paper (Cmnd. 1199) which has been laid before this House. That Paper also contains the full text of the Agreement, together with a summary of the Indus Waters Treaty.
The Indus Waters Treaty marks the conclusion of a long and difficult period of negotiation between the Governments of India and Pakistan over the division of the waters of the Indus Basin. I am aware that many noble Lords have personal knowledge and experience of these two great countries, and, indeed, of this particular problem, going back over many years. It is a particular pleasure to see my noble and right honourable friend Lord Swinton in his place here this afternoon, as it was during his time

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as Secretary of State that the foundations were laid for the settlement which has now been reached. May I, nevertheless, be forgiven if I set out, very briefly, the background of the present most welcome settlement?
The rivers of the Indus Basin consist of the great Indus itself and five major tributaries: the Jhelum, Chenab, Sutlej, Ravi and Beas. These rivers rise in the Himalayas and are fed mainly by the melting snows in early summer and by the rains which fall there in late summer. The total amount of this water is more than sufficient for the needs of the vast area of the Indus Basin, but nature makes it available only at those times of the year. In order to bring the water to cultivators in the Punjab, a system of irrigation canals was constructed which, during the days of British rule in India, was built up to the largest irrigation scheme in the world. A feature of this system is a number of link canals which enable the surplus water in one river system to be carried across country and to be used to make good shortages elsewhere.
In 1947, when India and Pakistan became separate and independent countries, the boundary which was drawn between them cut across this whole complicated network. Some large canals which had been designed to supply areas in Pakistan were controlled by headworks which in 1947 became Indian territory. Some of the major canals were also divided by the frontier. The two countries therefore were faced with the immense problem, not only of how to control the existing canals fairly and equitably, but also on what basis future developments could be carried out. The irrigation system has been continually developed over the years, and without some solution of the problem of how to divide the waters developments which both countries wished to carry out could not be proceeded with. The problem is one of great magnitude. The waters of the Indus Basin are essential to the prosperity and wellbeing of a population roughly equal to that of the entire United Kingdom. The vast majority of this population make their living by cultivation. The problem was, therefore, not merely one of a political nature, but one of direct and urgent importance to the lives of many millions of people—
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about one-tenth of the total population of India and Pakistan.
In 1951 the International Bank made a suggestion which will be, I think, an historic one. It made available its good offices to help the two Governments to arrive at a solution of the problem. The examination which the Bank's officials made led them, in 1954, to propose the basis of a settlement which involved Pakistan having the full use of the three western rivers (the Indus itself, the Jhelum and the Chenab) and the Indians the full use of the three eastern rivers (the Sutlej, the Ravi, and the Beas). Taking into account the complexity of the irrigation system already in existence and the immense schemes of development under consideration by the two Governments concerned, this division, although it sounds as straightforward as the judgment of Solomon, required an immense amount of working out and negotiation. This has now all been done, and the result is the Indus Waters Treaty.
A number of important canals which supply areas in Pakistan are at present fed by the rivers which, under the terms of the Treaty, will be reserved for the use of India. It will therefore be necessary to construct a number of new canals to enable Pakistan to replace this water from the three rivers which will be reserved for her use. In order to make the best use of the available water, large reservoirs will also be necessary to store water becoming available during the two seasons of high flow so that it can be used in the dry seasons. This involves a programme of works far beyond the ability of the Pakistan Government to finance. Accordingly, the International Bank invited certain Governments to join it in setting up a fund which would make the necessary money available. These Governments all agreed to do so, and it is they who have signed the Indus Basin Development Fund Agreement.
The Fund will amount in total to about £320 million, of which £62 million will be contributed by the Government of India under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty. The International Bank will provide some £30 million, in the form of a loan. The remainder, some £230 million, is to be provided by those Governments who have signed the Agreement, with the United States, as the House will see, making by far the largest

1047
contribution. The fund is to be administered by the International Bank, and the Agreement provides for contributions to be called for according to a schedule which the Bank have prepared. The Treaty provides for the whole programme of works to be carried out over a period of ten years, although it will be possible for this to be extended up to a maximum of a further three years should this prove necessary. The schedule of contributions from the Governments concerned at present envisages that the money they provide will be contributed over ten years, starting in the current financial year. So far as the United Kingdom is concerned, the maximum contribution in any one year will be of the order of £3 million, and this will be in the financial year 1964–65.
The works themselves will be carried out by the Pakistan Government, and the Agreement lays down that all goods required for the project shall be procured on the basis of international competition under arrangements satisfactory to the Bank. We can therefore hope that British industry will have a chance to play its part in this enterprise, and I am sure that it is fully alive to the opportunities thus offered.
The United Kingdom has in the past provided substantial help for the development programmes of both India and Pakistan, and will no doubt continue to do so. But this has been done mainly in the form of loans which have not required specific legislation. However, on this occasion, partly because we are providing a grant of a substantial sum of money, and partly because the Bank wishes to be assured at once that all the contributions which have been promised by Governments will be forthcoming, it has been felt appropriate to authorise United Kingdom participation in the fund by specific legislation. I am sure that we are all glad that this is so, because it gives us an opportunity to express our great pleasure and satisfaction that, after this long period of negotiation, a settlement has been reached. For, my Lords, this problem is of vital importance to two of our friends and partners in the Commonwealth. It is of vital importance to the Governments concerned, and, also, as I have said, to many millions of our fellow men and women in those two countries.
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It also gives us an opportunity to express our readiness—indeed, our enthusiasm—to join in a unique example of international co-operation, together with seven other Governments, five of them our partners in the Commonwealth, and to enter into partnership with the International Bank. This great enterprise will remove a potential source of danger to the relations between India and Pakistan. In addition, the programme of development planned by the two Governments, including not only irrigation and water storage, but also the generation of electric power, will make a substantial contribution to the prosperity and welfare of the two countries, both of them very close to us in the United Kingdom. It will also make the Indus Basin irrigation system an impressive monument to the spirit of international co-operation which gave birth to the Indus Basin Development Fund Agreement.
In welcoming this settlement, it is right that we should record our admiration for the work of all those who have brought it about. An agreement of this kind would not have been possible without the statesmanship and spirit of co-operation shown by both Governments concerned. A settlement would have been far more difficult but for the imagination and vision of the International Bank, and the wisdom, patience and understanding which they have shown throughout the long and complicated negotiations. I am sure that I speak for all Members of your Lordships' House—and, indeed, for everybody in this country—when I say that we rejoice that this settlement has been achieved, and are more than happy to play our part in turning it into a working reality. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(The Duke of Devonshire.)
5.13 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, the noble Duke has given us such a lucid and comprehensive speech that there is little left for me or, I think, for anyone in this House to say. Nevertheless, it would be wrong on this, as he said, historic occasion not to make it perfectly clear that in every part of this House we are in full support of the generous action that is being taken. The

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noble Duke made it perfectly plain that this was a very large enterprise, even in terms of the colossal figures with which we are accustomed to deal at the present time; and it is a very large area that is being affected. Not only is that the case, but this rivers issue was one which might have led not merely to friction but even to war between two members of the British Commonwealth, if it had not been averted by the action of the International Monetary Fund. I am certainly speaking without exaggeration when I say that the rivers issue was so vital and so serious for the inhabitants of both those countries that unless a solution had been found war might have broken out. There have been other issues between those two countries, but this one was pre-eminently one of gravity, because the livelihood of 50 million people was at stake; and had one of the countries jumped the barrier and excluded the other from its livelihood the situation would have been so serious that the consequences could not have been foreseen.
Now it is a very remarkable thing, I think, that a matter of war or peace was in fact decided by a financial body, the International Monetary Fund. When the International Monetary Fund was set up, many of us who supported it had great hopes for its future, and believed that it might serve a very useful, if prosaic, purpose in the finances of the world. Few of us would have expected that it would solve a great political question—but that is what it has done. But it could not have done that without the goodwill of all the parties concerned, and it is really wonderful that, of the sum of over £300 million which this scheme is going to cost, something like, think the noble Duke said, £200 million is being found by voluntary gifts from the various countries that are taking part. They are not loans, as I understand it; they are gifts. I think that is correct.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: With the exception of a loan from the American Government. The American Government have given a very large gift, but they have supplemented their gift by a loan.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: At any rate, a large part of all the money that has been found is in the nature of
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gift; and that, again, is a very interesting and hopeful feature for the future of the world. I hope that those countries which will benefit, as I am sure they will, and even other countries in other parts of the world, will appreciate that there is in the world a spirit of service and a spirit of generosity which is a good omen for the future.
There is one point more. Many countries make grants to other countries, but there are certain strings attached to them —namely, that all the money is to be spent in the country which is making the gift or loan. Now as I understand it, that is not at all the case at the present time. It is a gift which can be used anywhere; and, though the participating countries may get a share of doing the work, there is not a predestined, predetermined, figure by which the countries concerned are themselves going to benefit. That, I think, again, is a very good omen for future trading and for the goodwill of the world. Therefore, my Lords, speaking for those on my Benches here, I have the greatest pleasure in welcoming the scheme of which we have heard to-day. I regard it as of tremendous importance, not only for human need, having regard to the economic position of those two great parts of the British Commonwealth, but also for the political future of mankind, that this scheme goes through at the present time.
5.18 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I, too, agree that this is an historic occasion, and I do not think it is one which should be allowed to pass without something being said from all parts of the House. I should like to congratulate the Government on this most imaginative proposal of theirs. I should also like to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, in whose period of office, I gather, this was started. He and I have often crossed swords, but on this occasion I hope he will accept a bouquet instead of the rather more forceful projectile which sometimes whizzes across the House to him.
This, I believe, is an excellent example of international co-operation in the development field. Here we have seven countries and the International. Bank joining together to develop a vast region and to bring hope to people who, up to now, have seen little opportunity of

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using the great waters to the best advantage. Furthermore, I think it is an answer to much of the abuse and criticism which is constantly levelled at this country and at other Western Powers by the Soviet bloc. I would ask the noble Duke whether the Government is taking any steps to make known what we are doing in this particular scheme.
Only last week several Members of your Lordships' House, including myself, were representatives of the United Kingdom Parliament at the N.A.T.O. Parliamentarians' Conference at Paris, and a good deal of the time of the Conference this year was taken up with consideration of the problems of the underdeveloped territories and how best the more developed countries can help them. I was amazed at the very slight knowledge of what is being done, particularly by this country, which existed among other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty area. And when you get outside that area, I should imagine that, far from having any knowledge of what we are doing, there is a great deal of misrepresentation. There are no strings attached at all; there is an out-and-out grant of £20 million by this country, as well as grants from other countries, and I feel that this is an answer to that sort of allegation. Believe me, my Lords, I know that we are not winning the propaganda battle in many of the so-called uncommitted countries. This is largely due to the fact that the information about what we are doing is not being put over by the Government or by any other means; so perhaps the noble Duke, when he replies, will tell us how he is going to get these points over.
There are two other points I should like to make on this particular aspect of the problem. The first is that we ought to make an acknowledgment of the generosity of the United States.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD OGMORE: Surely, never in history has any country been as generous as the United States; and however much we may like to criticise them in other ways, for generosity and warm-heartedness I do not believe there has ever been a country which has shown the same example as she has. And here is another example of what, to her, must be, I should imagine, of little benefit.
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There are many others here, including the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who played such a great part in the development of these two Commonwealth countries, who have long been concerned at the division between Pakistan and India and the fact that these two Commonwealth countries were often at loggerheads. This is another reason for rejoicing in this particualr scheme: these two countries have come together. I should like to pay tribute both to Mr. Nehru and President Ayub Khan for the way they have come together and agreed. Furthermore, at the time of the signing of this Agreement they also agreed on six points which, one might say, to some extent were tied up with it. First of all, it was agreed between them that the Finance Ministers of the two countries would meet to resolve financial disputes created by partition; secondly, that a Ministerial Meeting would be held to review border settlements; thirdly, that efforts would be made to settle at an early date the dispute over movable properties left behind by refugees who fled in partition days fourthly, that there should be promotion of scientific, technical and agricultural co-operation; fifthly, that there should be an exchange of water resources information in the East Pakistan area; and sixthly, that there should be an exploration of the possibilities of increasing trade. They are all signs which we welcome.
In addition, President Ayub Khan said at the time of the signing of this Treaty that he hoped that the problem of Kashmir would soon be solved. I am sure we should all be glad to know that, because it has constantly been a source of possible danger between these two great countries. With this money which is to come to them, Pakistan will build mighty dams, barrages and linking canals. No doubt these and the works which will follow will have an enormous effect on the development of this area and will bring hope to people who possibly had little hope before.
I have just one last point, and it is really also a question. Command Paper No. 1199 refers in paragraph 2 to the fact that the works—that is, the works which will be put in hand with money available—will
"make possible land reclamation in waterlogged and saline areas in the West Punjab …"

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My information, which is new and from a highly reputable source, is that the salinity in this whole area is becoming a very serious problem. No one quite knows why the whole area is becoming saline. It may be because it is low-lying, but I do not quite know why, and I gather that no one else does. It is a great problem, inasmuch as the water-table is becoming saline, and it may need a vast expenditure of money, in addition to this, to deal with it. That is one point to bear in mind: that there is this very serious threat to the whole region.
When I hear of a problem like this, it makes me sorry that so much of the money and resources of the world have to go on armaments, when there are these vast problems which we could tackle if we had the resources in money, materials and scientists to deal with them. This is a problem which the world will have to tackle before long; I am sure of that. Not, I may say, that I am against armaments under present conditions at all your Lordships will understand that. I know only too well that, unhappily, they are necessary; but I do think it is a matter for regret that we have to employ so many of our resources in that field instead of in this particular development field. My Lords, I have nothing more to say on this Bill except to welcome it from these Benches and to congratulate the Government on the most imaginative proposal which they have put before the House.
5.28 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, as my noble friend who introduced this Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, in very kind references have said, I was closely associated with this project during all its early years. I should therefore like to add my tribute of praise and thanksgiving for the great result which has been achieved.
During those years I had many discussions with Mr. Eugene Black, the President of the International Bank, with Mr. Iliff and with successions of Pakistani Ministers. At the very outset I told Mr. Black that I was convinced that this problem of the Indus waters was far and away the most serious problem between India and Pakistan. I was very interested, as I am sure, was the whole House, to have that so eloquently
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confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, with his almost unique knowledge, now, in this House of that great sub-Continent. I was convinced, as he was, that unless the problem was solved there would be increasing suspicion, friction and bitterness. If the farmers of Pakistan were deprived of water they would starve; and starvation would lead to bloodshed.
No one could have been more understanding or more helpful than was Mr. Black throughout. I remember his saying to me after some years that this problem was far and away the most difficult and intractable problem with which the Bank had ever had to deal. But Mr. Black, Mr. Iliff, who devoted years to this, and the engineers, never failed in their faith or their determination. Obviously, technically (and this was what we considered at the start), much the easier solution was to agree on a sharing of the water of the eastern rivers as they fed the Indus Basin. But we were very soon convinced that, even if a formula for a division could be agreed upon, there would still he always suspicion and friction. One side would be accusing the other of using too much and passing away too little, and in the long run there would not have been enough water for either country. So the engineers tackled the much more difficult and costly problem of conserving and canalising the supply to Pakistan from the western rivers, not only a vast undertaking financially but, as an engineering feat, unique. I understand that in one place a vast river the size of the Thames has to pass under another great canal or waterway. They succeeded, and this imaginative and ingenious plan which is now embodied in the Treaty is the result. The skill and ingenuity of these engineers, the patience and tenacity of Mr. Iliff, were beyond all praise.
Now, to carry this out, we have this great co-operative partnership, of which so much has been said: India herself making a large contribution; the United States (how right the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, was!) behaving with princely generosity in the gift—it is a free gift —which is being given; and Canada, Australia and New Zealand joining with us in liberal support, and Germany standing in and helping, too. This, indeed, is a great co-operative enterprise, and one

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hopes that it may be the prototype of things to come. Certainly this is a pact we can all subscribe to without reservation. It is a great, perhaps the greatest, guarantee of peace and harmony for India and Pakistan. The architects of this unique project have earned the gratitude, not only of the people of India and Pakistan, but of all in the free world who seek peace and goodwill.
5.34 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, in view of the experience and eloquence to which we have listened, I hesitated to intervene; but I feel, speaking as one who spent a great many years crossing and recrossing those six rivers, that a footnote might be of some use, added in the light of that experience. It always seemed to me extraordinary, when we had to face the eventual partition of this great sub-continent, that so few people realised that we had in fact to partition, as the noble Duke said, the greatest irrigation system in the whole world. I think that it was only about two years later, when it was suddenly found that the State of Bahawalpur, in southern Pakistan, would be deprived of its water, that we awoke to the seriousness of the situation.
In paying a tribute to the World Bank, I believe that we should also remember Mr. Daniel Lilienthal, of Tennessee Valley Authority fame, who I understand was responsible for putting this idea in the minds of the World Bank by an article he wrote in an American magazine after having been round the Indus country. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, has referred to the engineering complications. I would underline the point that the valleys and watersheds run from northeast to south-west and that the water has to be moved from the north-west to the south-east, right across the grain of the country; and, as he says, in many cases the water has to be siphoned under rivers and under other canals. That will be no mean accomplishment by the engineers. I feel that I should add one word about Kashmir, not because there are any misapprehensions in your Lordships' House of the situation, but because elsewhere one hears it said, under complete misapprehension, that the fact that a great deal of Kashmir is held by India may jeopardise the supply of water to
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Pakistan. This is a complete misapprehension. It is true that two of the rivers —the Jhelum and Chenab—flow from Indian-held Kashmir to Pakistan, but India could jeopardise that flow of water only by storing up of lot of useless water in Kashmir, and Kashmir has as much water as she needs. The only way in which this possibility might make sense would be if India were in a position to retain the water on Indian soil; but that, I think, is an impossibility.
We are reminded that Command Paper 1199 tells us that all the goods required for planning will be procured on a basis of international competition. In view of the fact that this is particularly a Commonwealth enterprise, I hope that British industry will be alive to its opportunities in the hundred and one ways which will arise, not only from the development works themselves but also in all the subsidiary enterprises that must flow from the opening up of these new canals. Apart from that, I can only add my gratitude to two member States of the Commonwealth who, at least in one of the great issues that separate them, have managed to reach agreement, under international auspices. I think that £20 million spread over some twelve years is not too high a price to pay.
5.38 p.m.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am most grateful for the generous tribute that has been paid to this Bill from all sides of your Lordships' House. I should like to say how gratifying it is that such distinguished speakers, with so great a knowledge of the countries involved, have found time in their busy lives to make these tributes. It adds enormous weight to them. I am particularly pleased that special reference has been made to the great generosity of the United States of America, and I trust that those tributes will reach the proper ears.
I turn to the two specific questions which the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore raised; first, to the question of whether we are sufficiently publicising what we are doing, and our aim. I would wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord about the vital importance of this, but I cannot agree that we are failing in doing this. Certainly so far as the two receiving countries are concerned, India and Pakistan, our aid is widely known and

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widely acknowledged. It occurs to me that it is more widely known in the countries of Asia than in Europe.
LORD OGMORE: I was referring to the countries of Africa. That is where the fight is now: that is the cold war battlefield, and that is where we want this known.
5.40 p.m.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, again I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore; and I was going on to say that, speaking on behalf of the Commonwealth Relations Office, I can assure him that great efforts, resulting in considerable success, are being made in all the countries of the Commonwealth to make it well known that we are making this considerable contribution to this great scheme. The fact that four other countries of the Commonwealth are also partaking in it will mean that throughout the Commonwealth, and particularly in the less developed countries, it will be known that the richer countries in the Commonwealth are prepared to help their poorer brethren in that community. However, we appreciate the great importance of this and due note will be taken of what the noble Lord has said.
On the question of the salinity of the Western Punjab I am afraid I cannot answer the noble Lord this afternoon. I do not know the answer, and it is no good pretending that I do. However, I will make it my business to find out and, if I may, I will get in touch with him and let him have as much information as I possibly can. We have further business on the Paper, and I would only end as I began by thanking noble Lords on sides of the House for their contributions to this debate and by saying how delighted Her Majesty's Government are that this Bill has met with such general and universal pleasure.
On Question, Bill read 2ª: Committee negatived.

MODERN AIDS IN EDUCATION
5.42 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH rose to draw attention to the use of modern means of communication in education; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am very grateful that the Government should have given time for us to discuss this Motion, even if it is at rather a late hour, because I believe it to be one not only of the greatest possible importance in this country but also now in the Whole world. During the previous Session we had four debates on educational matters. The first was on opportunities for leisure; there was the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Green-hill, on adult education; then one on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, on the Crowther Report; and finally, in May, the late Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, whose death is so great a loss to your Lordships' House, put forward his Motion regarding university and other higher education.
It occurred to me during those debates that a discussion in this House on the use of modern methods in education would not come amiss, and I was encouraged to find that several other noble Lords were in agreement with me. I had in the first instance intended to limit the discussion to television, the new medium, but at the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Aberdare (who I hope is with us in the House) I widened the subject matter so that any noble Lord who wished to discuss matters arising out of school broadcasting by sound radio, or even the use of gramophone records or tape recordings in education, would be at liberty to do so.
I propose to confine my own remarks merely to television. In saying this, I must at the outset declare an interest, in so far as I am a director of an independent television company and am also associated with an electronics firm that manufactures equipment, although what I have to say is entirely on my own responsibility and the views I express are not necessarily those of the companies I have mentioned. I am most anxious that in this debate, especially as it is so late, we should not get into a controversial discussion about the merits

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of public service versus commercial broadcasting. Your Lordships will doubtless have several opportunities of speaking on this when the Pilkington Committee's Report is issued. I hope it will be possible for us to confine ourselves to the educational side.
My remarks fall into three parts. In the first place, I should like to refer to the educational television programmes put out by the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. in this country; then to say something about what is happening in America; then to deal with the question of educational television overseas, particularly in the new emergent, uncommitted nations, and to end by making a few humble suggestions. In regard to the B.B.C. and I.T.A. in this country, it will be remembered that they started their regular educational programmes in 1957. The scope of their respective programmes is given in the Annual Reports of the Corporation and the Authority. They provide, on the whole, complementary services. Hitherto both have concentrated principally on secondary schools, although lately there has been an extension both ways to primary schools and also the grammar school sixth forms. The subjects covered include science, farming, natural history, geography, literature, civics and now even languages. My own company are, for example, producing a series of French language programmes in France itself for schools in this country: for the first time this really will be French from France.
I think that the programmes of both Associated Rediffusion, who were the pioneers, and of the B.B.C. are quite excellent. Both organisations produce admirable brochures which go with the programmes (your Lordships might care to look at them) and undoubtedly these two services provide something quite adequate, within certain limits. However, the regrettable fact is that out of some 30,000 or so schools in this country not more than around 2,500 are now taking these programmes. Surely, at least, say, 15,000 could be equipped to receive them. There are a number of reasons why the incentive to take them has not been so strong. First, of course, there is the financial problem of purchasing the receivers. Your Lordships may have seen that the London County
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Council recently authorised the purchase of a further mere twenty receivers, ten of which will be for secondary schools and ten for primary schools. The independent companies have helped by providing a number of sets on permanent loan—receivers which can, of course, take the B.B.C. as well—but it is obviously impossible for them to do this for all the schools in the country. I think, indeed, there is a good deal to be said for lifting the purchase tax on receivers used exclusively for school purposes.
The second difficulty has been that of fitting these programmes into the school curricula, since school timetables differ a great deal in this country. Education here is not as standardised as it is on the Continent, and particularly in France. In the interesting Report by the O.E.E.C. on Teaching Through Television there is a comparison of the methods used in this country, France, Germany and Italy, which are the countries most involved from that point of view. It is clear that in France, where the system is more standardised under the Ministry, it is easier to integrate the programmes into the curricula. But I hope that these problems here may be overcome.
Perhaps the third reason for the slow growth in the development of this medium in schools is the great success of education by sound radio. Having got one system, is there any particular reason why we should switch to the newer medium? I believe that there is. Sound radio cannot deal with subjects such as science or medicine, where visual presentation is essential. I read this morning a most interesting article in the T.V. Times entitled, "The Rewards of Classroom Television." It is by Richard Hickman, who is Head of the Education Department of the National Union of Teachers: I assume that he is an independent authority. It is an extremely interesting article, and there is just one passage that I should like, if your Lordships would permit me, to read. He says:
"What of the future? Firstly, we need many more programmes, and, as they are costly, there is a duty to make sure that there is the utmost co-ordination and co-operation among the initiating companies.
"Secondly, initiating companies must build up and maintain units which are not only sufficient to become expert in teaching methods

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and techniques, but are able to help the closest possible contact with schools.
"Thirdly, it looks as if programmes for primary schools and sixth forms must have an important place in future plans."
Now I come to one of the more important points in my remarks, and that is the question of the present hours of television broadcasting.
In view of the undoubted value of educational television, I hope that the Government will authorise an extension in the existing hours. Like my right honourable friend the Minister of Education, I should particularly like to see programmes on adult education started on Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, it is not possible to put in strictly school programmes at peak hours, when the public require entertainment of some kind. It is true that some excellent features and documentaries are from time to time given in peak hours. I think of that excellent programme on the B.B.C. recently "The Lawyers", and that really supremely moving "Ceremony of the Clothing of a Nun" on Independent Television two Sundays ago. But these programmes, while they have a great educational value are not, strictly speaking for schools.
In speaking of the extension of hours, I could add, of course, as most of your Lordships know, that in the United States programmes like "Continental Classroom", on the National Broadcasting Corporation's Network, and the C.B.S. "Sunrise Semester" start around 6.30 a.m. every morning. Whether we should like to follow a similar pattern, I do not know. Some of your Lordships might dislike getting out of bed at 6.30 a.m. to turn on the "telly". But a lot of keen learners among your Lordships, I am sure, would be interested to do so. However, I think that some extension, especially at the week-end, would be desirable. After all, even the existing channels are not at present fully used. Such extensions should enable organisations concerned to encourage extra-mural studies, and perhaps establish a kind of "university of the air", of which there has been more than one champion of late. I wonder whether the Workers' Educational Society, the further education colleges and the women's institutes might not like to help in organising such programmes.
Reference to television in the United States brings me to the second part of my remarks. In America, the medium in education has developed quite differently from this country. Whereas in Britain, from the outset in 1957, the programmes were put out by the two broadcasting bodies within their existing services, in America stations exclusively devoted to education were established as early as May, 1953, in Houston, in Texas; and now there are 51 non-commercial educational stations taking programmes produced largely by the Ford Foundation, as well as by other foundations and educational bodies. They are co-ordinated by the National Educational Television and Radio Centre in New York. I wonder whether we could not perhaps establish some similar kind of co-ordinating body in this country. The Federal Communications Commission in the United States has reserved 257 channels for such stations. Your Lordships may have heard of K.Q.E.D., in San Francisco, which has been running since 1954 and has received a number of awards for outstanding achievements.
What is particularly remarkable to my mind is that the cost for a full year of running programmes from a station such as K.Q.E.D., which is broadcasting entirely educational programmes throughout the day, equals the cost of production of one major network entertainment-spectacular, if I may be permitted to use the jargon of show business—that is to say, to run a station for one year costs about 350,000 dollars. One big entertainment programme in the year could pay for the running of this station in the United States. Can there be any reason why this should not be done here? The channels are, of course, available.
I will not here go into the details of the operation of other university television stations in America. I will only say that I believe they perform art important function, even if we may think that some of the programmes are not up to the standard we might require in this country. What I think is interesting, however, is that a station such as that of the University of North Carolina serves not only the University but nearly all the schools in that State. There they have fully integrated the programmes into the curricula. It seems to me rather extraordinary that we have not yet introduced

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this kind of station in this country. I gather that Cambridge University and Leeds University have been considering possibilities, but that no definite decisions have yet been taken. I hope that universities in the making, such as our own in the South, the new University of Sussex, are giving careful consideration to this matter. Although I recognise the great value of the existing services on the B.B.C. and I.T.A., providing as they do the basic educational programmes for primary and secondary schools, I still think there is room for further specialised teaching by television, possibly even, in some circumstances, direct or so-called master-teaching within a university, either by closed or open circuit.
I think that full advantage should be taken of the subjects in which a particular university excels. If they are recognised as surpassing others, say, in the field of engineering, then their recorded television programmes might be exported and made available to other universities. I should not like to think that in this, of all countries, teaching by television was completely standardised over virtually the whole population.
In addition to university courses, there seems to me to be another extension beyond the present services which might be of value. By that I mean possibly closed circuit or short micro-wave relay between nearby schools. As your Lordships will have gathered, the existing services consider that their function should be to enrich and supplement the work of teachers, and not to do the job of teaching themselves. But I believe there are cases where direct instruction may be desirable—for instance, where the shortage of teachers is particularly acute in certain subjects. This idea has been exploited a good deal in the United States, and I am glad to learn that the experimental linking for this purpose of two secondary schools in Middlesex, Hayes and Harlington, is now planned for science lessons throughout the spring term of next year. I believe that this experiment should be watched carefully, as we should also watch the other experiments in the United States, such as Hagerstown in Maryland, which brings in all the schools in the county, and in Alabama where 67 hours of lessons a week are broadcast over three stations.
Compare that with the joint weekly output—high quality, it is true—of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. in this country. All in all, I feel there should be more experimentation in an attempt to fill in the gaps which schools, even with the assistance of films and radio, cannot do on their own. Perhaps a new co-ordinating body such as I have suggested might at the same time be responsible for the necessary research, working closely perhaps with the Minister himself and any foundations in this country which may be interested.
The last part of my remarks concerns overseas territories, and the new emergent nations in Africa and Asia. Already there is an educational television service operating in West Nigeria. It was started a few months ago. The International Co-operation Agency in America, which administers the Point Four programme, has provided an American to take charge of the West Nigerian service. He is doing an excellent job. He is using both American and British programmes equally. He is bending over backwards to be scrupulously fair in this respect. I know the great contribution which Point Four makes in this way.
We have already had expressed this afternoon great gratitude to the generosity of the United States over the Indus Basin. Here again there is no doubt that we owe a great deal to the United States in filling a gap which we should probably have filled ourselves at the outset. I know, too, from experience in other countries where new television stations have been established, what a contribution they have made in those countries. Then the Ford Foundation, which I have already mentioned, is going into Latin America and is now also thinking of helping in Africa. There is no reason whatever why we should not co-operate closely with our American friends in this field as is at present being done in the countries I have mentioned; but we must make a substantial programme contribution of our own.
Within the next year or two some 12 to 20 other countries in Africa will have set up television stations. The American agencies which I have mentioned are making special allocations for the provision of programmes in those areas, and

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I feel that we must also do so in a bigger way, because programmes of the B.B.C. and I.T.A., whether strictly educational or of the current affairs type, are not by any means all suitable for these new territories. Perhaps one of the first requirements in some of these countries would be a service for the illiterates, such as was recently established in Italy where there is a rather high percentage of illiteracy, especially in the south. The Italians are planning to run 3½ hours each week to teach adults in the poverty stricken villages in Southern Italy how to read and write, and they are providing 2,000 receivers for this purpose. I would not compare that with the mere additional 20 recently bought by the L.C.C., for the objects are different. But still we should watch the Italian experiment, especially from the point of view of what we cart help to provide for these new emergent nations.
I hope, therefore, that both in respect of an extension of television facilities in this country and in respect of their introduction in the new African territories some of the great trusts and foundations in this country will help. I am very glad that the Colonial Office appointed a special officer, Commander Proud, to look into this matter. He was head of Cyprus Broadcasting (I knew him there); and later became chairman of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. I think he is to be congratulated on the progress he has made in arousing interest, and I hope that perhaps we shall notice that interest from the noble Lord who is answering for the Government tonight.
Finally, may I quote two out of numerous educational authorities who have spoken of the value of the new medium. The first is by the President of the National School Boards Association in the United States. He says:
"In my opinion television will eventually become one of the major tools in the teaching procedure. I feel that it will supplement but not replace the personal teacher-pupil relationship. It will, in my opinion, greatly enhance the effectiveness of the good teacher; it will be of considerable aid to the mediocre teacher, and it will help to minimise negative results of the poor teacher. Although it will take some time to evolve techniques to realise its maximum effectiveness I think it is off to an encouraging start."
Another great American educational authority, the President of the Now York Board of Education says:
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"I look forward to the day when television will be one of the most powerful and stimulating instruments at the disposal of the classroom teacher. Its power of immediacy, its intimate appeal to children, the effectiveness with which it can pinpoint the smallest detail of whatever it looks at, these are just some of the reasons why we must learn how to fit it into the administration and methodology"—
I hope that noble Lords will accept the word—
"of modern schools".
I entirely agree with those great educational experts that television can never, I repeat never, supplant the teacher. Only where there are exceptional shortages will television temporarily take over in direct, rather than merely supplementary, tuition.
To summarise, my Lords, may I make these points? One, I hope that more schools will make use of the existing programmes of the B.B.C. and I.T.A.; two, that schools will make every attempt to adjust their curricula; three, that purchase tax may be lifted from receivers used in schools; four, that the Government may see fit to authorise an extension of the hours of viewing to enable more adult education programmes to be shown; five, that the Postmaster General will grant licences to enable universities, perhaps with the assistance of foundations in this country, to start pilot schemes with low-powered transmitters covering the immediate vicinity of universities, and six, that similar foundations may also assist in the provision of services for the overseas countries, so that we in Britain can play our part with our American friends in this vast new field. My last hope would be that the Ministry of Education may decide to create a co-ordinating body similar to that which exists already in the United States. I beg to move for Papers.
6.8 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Earl for bringing this subject forward, but I am sorry that I shall be unable to fall in with his earnest request and avoid being con troversial. It is not often that I have to be controversial in this House, and it certainly is not a matter of Party politics, but I rather wonder why the noble Earl has brought this subject forward and why in the first instance he concentrated on television, which is certainly at the moment the least important—and I say

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this advisedly—of modern means of communication so far as education is concerned. I am sure your Lordships will agree that the most expensive type of instrument for communication is not always the ideal one and that there may be other types on which we ought to be concentrating as part of the whole pattern of education and for helping education, in preference to television. I will try to say something in the first instance about some of these modern aids, and then go on to discuss the position of television in education both at home and certainly more notably abroad.
All teachers to-day, except perhaps a few in privately run schools, and I should not think many of those, are accustomed to using some form of aids, and some of those aids may not be completely modern, although sometimes the use of old aids is modern. Undoubtedly, at the moment the most important of these aids in the schools is the film strip, which has the great advantage of being comparatively cheap. Then there are the cine film, the tape recorder, and also what are sometimes called non-projected aids—just simple objects like wall charts, sometimes things that are made in the schools themselves, like flannel graphs. These are modern in their use, many of them are cheap, and they are of real assistance as a tool in the hand of the teacher, in the same way, of course, that the television set will in due course become a tool in the hands of the teacher. Before we start worrying about whether there should be 15,000 television sets, it would be as well if we could increase the number of film strip projectors in schools. There are now 23,000 schools with film strip projectors, but probably every school ought to have one. If we are to add television sets and there is a limited budget, it becomes a straight choice as to which should have priority.
As the noble Earl said—at least, I think this was the burden of his remarks—visual aids can only increase the efficiency of the teacher; only in exceptional cases can they replace the teacher. But the most important thing, if the teacher is to remain in control, is that he himself has control of the aids that he wishes to use, and one of the
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disadvantages of a centrally provided programme is that it is exceedingly inflexible when it comes to planning your school curriculum. After all, there are a number of large schools, but one television set will not go very far in relation to the number of children in that school. It is the fact that it may be much easier to provide a large number of sound radio sets, if one wants to make use of them, or, of course, more film strip projectors, than to provide television sets.
I should like to put to the Government this point: that there is a need for a lot more work and help in this matter. There are some admirable institutions—there is the National Committee for Visual Aids in Education, and there is, I think, an Educational Foundation. These are financed wholly without direct Government subvention. The local authorities provide much of the money, and one of the consequences is that practically no research is being done in this field. A great deal of research is being done in regard to visual and other aids in other countries, particularly in the United States, but the only research we are doing from this country is a survey of research in Europe, which is in fact being paid for by the United States Government. I hope that on this matter the Government will listen to some of the views that have been expressed by those who are concerned in this field.
Even teaching films are short. Science, which is generally agreed as being one of the subjects in which some extra help is especially needed, is not receiving enough funds for providing the type of films that are wanted. The value of this can, I think, be shown by some of the advanced science films which have been made with the support of industry. Twelve films which have been made are being given something like 5,000 to 7,000 showings each in over 50 countries. There are other films that ought to be made for our schools. I think Sir Winston Churchill in his memoirs suggested that we ought to have a series of films on the Commonwealth. We have not got them yet. This is what is needed.
At the moment the money available for production from local authority contributions is £9,000 a year. Germany

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spends £170,000 and the United States spent 4½ million dollars on one science project alone. When we look at it, this is a rather sorry tale in comparison to the value of these, on the whole, much cheaper and more flexible aids to education. We have to bear in mind that Governments have not been kind in support of these matters. Of course, they were responsible for one of the great tragedies of our time, the destruction of the Crown Film Unit, which saved us no money—indeed, cost us more money, because a lot of other people, such as local authorities and many others, had to move in to do the work that the Crown Film Unit was doing so well.
I should now like to look at the question of visual aids overseas. Here we find a rather exciting position. There is a body called the Overseas Visual Aids Centre, which is also concerned with audio aids and which is financed partly by the Colonial Office and partly by the Nuffield Foundation. It is one of these exciting, small units which are full of enthusiasm, doing a really important job with little resources and having an extremely significant effect in overseas territories. Its influence spreads not only to the British Commonwealth but to other countries. The Russians and many people have been to see the work it does, and what it seeks to do is, not to provide expensive equipment, but to enable people by modern teaching to make their own aids—simple little devices like flash cards which are held up in order to produce a subluminal effect on a child's mind in teaching him to spell; or again, as I mentioned before, the flannel graph, which is just a piece of cloth on which are stuck, perhaps, maps, and so on, and which may be folded up and put away. Anybody can make them; they are easy to make, they are cheap and they have a stimulating effect.
There are many other such devices, even the use of puppets—a most interesting psychological use with a difficult or perhaps frightened class, by which the teacher can use the puppet with his hand in order to speak to the children. He does not have to go in for ventriloquism; he merely produces a sympathetic figure. Those are some of the important things in education which I think we should encourage, and it is the enthusiastic people who are working in this field to
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whom we should be grateful and whom we should support.
I should now like to turn again to the question of the television and sound radio education services. There are other noble Lords who are more competent than I to talk on the B.B.C. sound services. They are, of course, much more important in extent than television, and. again they are more flexible. They are cheaper. There are something like 1,300 sound programmes to over 600 television programmes. The B.B.C. television service for schools was started only after the most careful consideration. I want to emphasise to your Lordships that we ought not lightly to charge into the field of the educationists and start giving them what they have not decided they want. The B.B.C. set up a special council in order to advise them on the introduction of television.
And here I must, I am afraid, make some criticisms of the commercial television companies. Associated Rediffusion set up their services before they had even established an advisory committee; and they only set up that advisory committee afterwards, under pressure from the educational world. Admittedly, they "scooped" the B.B.C. in the process, but it is not the kind of thing in which we want to see "scooping". This is not a field in which we necessarily want to see competition.
It is perfectly true that the Associated Rediffusion programmes do not clash with the B.B.C. programmes. They are put on in the morning; and I am not in the position to make any comment on how good or how bad they are. I am quite willing to accept that they match up to the standard of the B.B.C. Some may be better, some may be worse. But this is not true of all the commercial television companies. The Granada Company, quite independently have been putting on programmes which, in fact, do clash with the B.B.C. programmes; and so far as I know there has been no attempt to co-operate and the situation is becoming more confused. I understand that the noble Earl's own company—the Associated Television Company—have announced their intention of producing a schools' programme in January and that they very properly tried to associate themselves with the

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Associated Rediffusion Advisory Committee, only to find that the two companies could not agree. The Associated Television Company, even though the Independent Television Authority's Children's Committee attempted to mediate, are now to set up on their own. It is possible they will carry some of the Granada programmes. I am told also that the Scottish and Welsh commercial television services may carry some of these programmes.
This piecemeal expansion of commercial television schools' programmes is not going to meet the needs of the schools. It is not going to be subject to the control and advice of educationists and it is going only to confuse the issue. It may possibly produce the danger of bringing this whole very important medium into disrepute. I accept that the people who run the commercial television schools' services are people who are genuinely devoted to and interested in education, but this is something which, again, has to be thought about very carefully. It is not possible to divide the service, nor can the B.B.C. accept that they do part and the commercial television companies do another part, because the B.B.C. is the only service which at the moment is providing a national coverage, or something like it. There is, too, the problem of reception. Television sets are by no means as pleasant or as easy to look at as a film. They lack colour. They are not so easy to watch, and there are even some children who have said they have to watch television all the evening at home: must they watch it at school all the time? There may not be many of those, but this is something we have to take into account.
The noble Earl said that the television sets which are provided by the commercial companies and others can receive both wavelengths. I am informed that the Granada Company presented 200 receivers and that those were capable of receiving only the commercial programme. If this is true, it is an intolerable piece of hypocrisy. The excuse, when it was pointed out, as I am told it was, by the Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, was that it was a technical error. Technical errors may be unavoidable in television, but surely they do not have to take this particular form; and I
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am told that that has still not been put right. We do not want to see competing television educational programmes. We want education services on television where they are appropriate to the role they have to fill, meeting particular needs, and we must particularly make sure that we get proper research on the value of those programmes. This is not merely the value so generally expressed by important panjandrums in the United States or elsewhere. We can always find people who will genuinely hail any modern invention as a world-shaker. We want definite and expert opinion from teachers and others on the value of these particular developments.
One of the advantages of the B.B.C. is that the Schools Broadcasting Council carry out proper statistical surveys. There are panels of teachers, and the Council have fifteen education officers to advise them. In my opinion, these methods of assessment are necessary throughout the whole of the development of this medium. We are in danger of thinking there is a short cut in regard to the teaching of children. Perhaps it is worth while looking at the reports that are available. The London County Council, who have been carrying out an experiment with their twenty television sets mentioned by the noble Earl, plus a few more, have already given some judgment on the matter. They have said that the time is too early yet to estimate the value of this medium. They say the educational film has the great advantage over television that it can be selected to fit into a course of lessons as appropriate, instead of the choice and timing being imposed by an external agency. The reports of experts—teachers, the L.C.C. and others—have been that there is in fact some very real value to be obtained from television in schools, but that it has been in operation in this country for only a relatively short period and it does not necessarily follow that because television provides entertainment or even education in the home it can necessarily make an effective contribution to teaching in the classroom.
It was pointed out by, I believe, the Nuffield investigation into Television and the Child that one of the matters that has to be considered in assessing the value of television is that it must be judged against the background of the

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activity that it replaces. If that activity is direct teaching, then we have to think very carefully and assess whether or not t is in fact providing something better. Here, again, we have to do so against the background of the existence of visual education—film strips, charts and films, whose value is already established. The teacher has some 6,000 teaching films and film strips from which to choose.
As I understand it, the declared aim of schools television programmes is not teaching but to stimulate interest, to provide a spring-board for further activities and generally to provide enrichment in some class and extra-curricula subjects. In this matter it has an important part to play. Obviously there are certain subject—science maybe, current affairs and others—where when it is really first class it will have great value; and I am all in favour that it should continue to develop. But we must let it develop in a properly co-ordinated way. I would not be opposed to the suggestion of the noble Earl that there should be some co-ordinating body to oversee it. I am not sure whether perhaps there is not already a body suitable for this task. These problems would not have arisen if there had been co-ordination—but I will not go into this question of the setting up of commercial television.
I am certain that we must carry through proper pilot schemes if we are not to run the risk of doing real damage. It is too early to attempt a proper evaluation. And whereas I admire the noble Earl's enthusiasm—and I give him full credit for his enthusiasm and devotion in this matter; I am sure he genuinely believes that this is something of great importance—I beg leave to think that beside and in comparison with the development at the moment of conventional aids and the improvement of teaching generally, and possibly the better instruction of teachers in the use of these new aids, television must drop, for the moment, very much into the second place; and only at a much later date, when we have gone much further, should we start thinking about setting up special educational television programmes in this country.
6.30 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, broadcasting and television, as every one of us knows, are extremely powerful
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instruments for absorbing the attention and occupying the time of the public. In the light of that I welcome the Motion of the noble Earl: in my view these two methods of communication should be used, among others, more and more for education. But when I examine the actual working of these modern means of communication to-day I find myself unable to avoid two observations. The first is that to some extent the most powerful of these modern means of communication, television, is being used for mis-education. The second is that these modern means are so different in technique from the old methods of education which we used to have, and which have brought me up, and most of us here, that they need the most careful study of technique.
On the first point I am going, after hearing the opening speech of the noble Earl, to say practically nothing. I shall send him, and to anyone else who is interested, what I regard as my evidence of mis-education by television to-day. I cannot conceal from him, as I have not concealed from this House, my feeling that television is too powerful a means of influencing the public mind to be left in any way under the control of persons who have any purpose of making wealth through it for themselves. I look forward to the time when that will be so widely recognised by any Government we have that they will see that television ought to be a public service, not concerned with money for itself or anyone else at all. That is all I am going to say upon that point.
On the second point, most of us here have had the experience of being educated or, at any rate, of masters trying to educate us—all of us in schools, and some in the universities also. My experience in schools and universities alike suggests the enormous value to the learner of the personal contact with his teacher and of the example of the teacher. The problem in using the new methods of communication in education is that of whether one can in any way import that personal contact into the new means of communication, into broadcasting and television, as we spread their use. For personal contact, television has certain advantages over broadcasting: the televiser is seen by the people to whom he is speaking looking at them; he is heard speaking to his audience. I

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wonder whether something could not be done to help him to follow up that contact. Could it not be made a practice, even at some expense of time, to invite questions and to answer them? Asking questions would apply to television and broadcasting alike. Of course, that would take more time of the televiser or the broadcaster. But do not even televisers and broadcasters like to know the effect of what they have said upon the people to whom they have talked? I always like to know, and I should be glad to go back, to hear questions and to answer questions, and to make a fresh contact.
I believe that when we begin to make these new means of communication more and more a part of our educational system we shall find them becoming more and more like our ordinary teachers themselves in some of the things they do, in wishing to pursue personal contacts with those whom they teach. Of course, all this sort of thing will have to come about, and can come about only by agreement and co-operation between the existing body of teachers and the communicators who are going to come into it. In some ways this problem looks to me a little like the problem we were discussing in this House recently of the Federation of Nyasaland and the two Rhodesias. The school system needs more teachers. It has not easily got all the teachers that it needs. It would benefit by getting more, and some slightly different help. The question whether we can bring about the kind of federation that exists between the Rhodesias and Nyasaland so that we can make use of these new means of communication that have themselves become public services and school services.
Of course, the best use of these new means of communication in education lies in choosing them for the right subjects. I notice that the British Broadcasting Corporation, in one of their documents, say that broadcasting is naturally specially strong in music, in modern languages, in history and in literature, while television is naturally strong in science, in current affairs and geography. I have not yet made out whether economic science is part of current affairs or a science at all, or whether mathematics is a science at all from that point of view. I am rather sorry that
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there should not be time for television to deal with history. There is a great deal of history that one can learn better by television than by anything else. But I am not going to quarrel with the B.B.C. about that, or over anything that they are doing. I have studied what they sent me with great interest, and I am delighted to learn that there are now 29,000 schools registered as listening to school broadcasting. At present, only 2,500 follow schools television, but the number is steadily growing.
Although I perhaps differ from him on something else, on the form of some of the machinery, I should like to join with the mover of this Motion in giving to the B.B.C., and to any other service which regards itself as primarily a service, every encouragement to go on and help our citizens, young and old alike, to fill their growing leisure not with silly ideals but to more and more advantage by acquiring more and more understanding of the world and their fellow citizens.
6.40 p.m.
LORD JAMES OF RUSHOLME: My Lords, I am sure that everyone concerned with education professionally would want to thank the noble Earl, Lord Bess-borough, for raising this subject, for it is right that we should remind ourselves of these great new powers of mass communication that we have in our hands, through radio and television, because they quite obviously have educational results, both direct and indirect.
First, let me say something about their direct results—the direct use in the classroom, that is to say, of radio and television. I pay tribute to their influence the more willingly because I have in the past been suspected of being a somewhat lukewarm admirer. I think that the only saying of mine which may last for a year or two is the one that I was alleged to have made, that television would enter my school "over my dead body." Alas! my Lords, I did not actually make that remark. What I said was in answer to the question: if I had to choose between libraries or television for my school, which would I choose? And I said that if it was a choice between books and television, then in my school, in my particular circumstances, television had lost. That does, of course, bring out this very important point: that one always must ask, what is one replacing? One cannot

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say that any particular medium is right for every kind of school. But let me come back to this very great contribution which television and, of course, far more, radio, have made to education in this country.
I am not an expert in this field, but know enough to realise that over the past 30 years radio has become an integral, a valuable, in fact an almost indispensable, element in the life of many schools. Television, of course, is still new in our education, but I think it is already clear that it is going to play a still more important part in the years ahead—a more important part even than radio. The value which the schools attach to these media reflects, if I may say so, the greatest possible credit on the B.B.C., who have really done all the work as regards research and development. Anyone concerned with education at all must at once acknowledge this tremendous debt, not only for what the B.B.C. have done but for the way in which it has been done. This is very important, because the Corporation have administered the schools service through the Schools Broadcasting Council, which has meant that the service has been run for the schools by those either working in schools or in very close touch with them. The B.B.C. have not laid on programmes themselves, but only at the request of the Schools Broadcasting Council.
Secondly, and still more important, that Council has its own team of quite first-class officers constantly in the classrooms, watching, reporting on the programmes, conferring with the teachers and sitting side by side with the children, so that they do know what the programmes are doing. Thirdly, of course, the B.B.C. have always taken the line that, while radio and television can in no sense replace the teacher, they can help him by providing his pupils with information or stimulus, or demonstrations or illustrative material not otherwise accessible. The B.B.C.'s attitude is expressed in a sentence from the last report of the Schools Broadcasting Council. That says:
"The effective use of everything that T.V. can offer depends, as does everything else in schools, ultimately on the classroom teacher's imagination and skill."
This, my Lords, is a vitally important point, because there are, after all, two
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ways of looking at this problem. Television can be an aid and a stimulus—the B.B.C. way—or it can be thought of as a substitute. That is the line which a great deal of work that has been done in America has followed. It involves one particularly gifted teacher, or sometimes simply one distinguished speaker, who may be a very bad teacher indeed, speaking on either closed or open-circuit television to a very large number of pupils. At its worst, it degenerates into the talking face which characterised the early Granada production, "Science in the Sixth Form".
Such devices may be justified as a last resort, when teacher-shortage becomes an altogether overwhelming problem, as it has in parts of the United States; but it must always be something different in kind from actual teaching. It may be something of an effective method for the inculcation of information, but for educative teaching the teacher must be able to see his audience; to sense their reactions; to realise their difficulties; to know who is going to sleep on the third row; to recapitulate; to ask and answer questions, and to stimulate discussion at the right moment. That is I what teaching is. Television, in fact, provides us with no easy escape from the obligation to attract teachers of the right quality into the service of our schools. It does, indeed, underline that obligation; and the linking of two schools in Middlesex for science teaching by a closed-circuit television is not a triumph for technology: it is a failure of the education system.
If the teacher and the educational world generally are full of praise for what the B.B.C. and the Schools Broadcasting Council have accomplished, what are the next steps? We may, in the first place, hope that the independent companies, at present sometimes tentative and somewhat inexpert, inevitably, in their methods (because they have not the same background; they have not the same school officers; they have not the same traditions or the same organisation) will copy the B.B.C. in its pattern of organisation and in its method—in other words, that they will learn.
But, faced with the really great expansion of the use of these new media, what else can we demand? First, we have to realise that these very great educational activities, affecting hundreds of

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thousands of children, have been carried out within the financial limits of ordinary licence revenues. If the television service for schools is to develop freely, and without being hampered by lack of facilities, there is an overwhelming case, not only for the retention by the B.B.C. of the whole of the licence fee, but for increasing the licence fee to an economic figure. We are, if we consider it in the light of this Motion, getting an extraordinarily cheap educational service, as well as a very cheap entertainment business. That point, I think, although it concerns sordid matters of money, is of the first importance.
Secondly, there is room for much research in the use of this medium. Let us realise that we are on the threshold of developments which may be really fundamental. We are at the moment without real knowledge of many factors which are involved in making the most effective use of these media. In spite of the efforts of the B.B.C.'s schools officers, and in spite of their years of experience, we are still not sure what the best subjects are, what the best ages are, what the best intelligences are, to tackle by these various techniques; and we must find out.
We may go on to ask whether it is only at the school age that this type of approach is effective. Some years ago there were adult listening groups for sound radio which met to discuss the sound programmes, and, as the noble Earl said, one cannot but feel that there is a very great field here for W.E.A. and extra-mural classes with television, provided, and always provided, that suitable material is available at the right times of the day—and that, I think, must inevitably mean that the third channel must go to the B.B.C. One cannot but feel that, if that is done, then one will have the leeway, the scope, the knowledge, to provide this kind of specifically educational material. Similarly, one able, young educational officer in the Corporation expressed to me his belief that there was a very great field here for providing suitable programmes for the general education of young men in colleges of advanced technology. Given means in the shape of money and broadcasting time, and enlightened group leaders and producers, which I believe we have, one can find in these new media
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very powerful means of post-school education.
The last field in which we can see the new media playing a major and perhaps decisive part—and this for many years will be radio, and not television—is in the under-developed countries. Everyone can rejoice to hear the noble Earl refer to that problem. Anyone, for example, who is interested in education, particularly a teacher who has visited, say, East Africa, must know what I mean when I talk about the alternations of optimism and despair which one gets: optimism because of the sight of the great human potentialities which simply await development—and, incidentally, because of the quality of some of the people working to develop them—and the despair of those days when one sees the widely scattered and illiterate populations to whom education must come, not over the centuries but now.
In the education of these emergent peoples radio is being used, and may well, I think, play a major part in giving them education. It will be quite a different part from that which it plays in this country. There the task will be much more one of primary instruction than of assisting trained and qualified teachers. There the problem will be one of providing a basis of literacy rather than enriching an established curriculum. To that task I believe we have to devote resources of money, of skilled manpower and of idealism, for there can be few more important educational tasks in the world.
My Lords, I have confined my remarks so far to the direct use of the new media to education in the formal sense. In conclusion, let me turn to what I believe to be a much more important problem: the general educative effect of radio, and particularly of television, on children. The school represents one of many influences on the child, and for every hour spent in looking at schools' programmes the average child spends literally many more hours looking at the ordinary output in the bosom of his home.
Some years ago the Nuffield Foundation sponsored the inquiry under Dr. Himmelweit called "Television and the Child". As noble Lords will know, the B.B.C. and I.T.A. jointly set up the O'Connor Committee to make recommendations in the light of that inquiry,

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and the O'Connor Committee reported earlier this year. Never has a report been disowned more promptly by those who asked that it should be made, because the statement disowning it was actually published inside the front cover of the report. But the facts cannot be disowned. Between 8.30 and 9 o'clock on any night of the week between one-third and one-half of all children between the ages of five and fourteen are watching television, which means that between three million and five million children are watching television at this moment and will go on watching it until 9 o'clock tonight. They will be looking at whatever appears on the screen during that time. In the words of the O'Connor report, all the available evidence shows that the greatest concentration of child viewers occurs between the hours of, not. 4 and 5, not during the Children's Hour, but 6 and 9. Yet because those are the peak viewing hours, and because—I hope I am not being controversial—we have sold our broadcasting system to advertising—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD JAMES OF RUSHOLME:—those are the very hours when matter of an educational importance or entertainment above the level of the most trivial is less likely to be broadcast. My Lords, it is futile to talk at great length about the value of television in schools—although that is jolly good—when the programmes broadcast in the day time are having to fight against the diseducative effect of those broadcast at night.
Faced with this picture of millions of children staring night after night at the screen, we have to realise certain new responsibilities. There is the responsibility of the teacher: he must reckon, as he often does not now, with the existence and power of this medium in children's lives. It is of no avail for a teacher to live in an ivory tower where Laramie and Rawhide do not exist. He has to discuss and evaluate them. It may well be held that one great task of television in the schools is to teach the pupils to bring discrimination to bear on the evening programmes they will inevitably see, so that they can see how bad very many of them are. Here is a task for training colleges and university departments of education, to give
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teachers standards by which they can judge this kind of activity.
Secondly, there is a new responsibility on the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. to look again at the recommendations of the O'Connor Committee. It is unrealistic to take shelter behind the responsibility of parents. Of course parents have responsibilities, but it is necessary even for corporate bodies to realise the facts of life and to know about homes with one living room but with a T.V. in it. They have to realise that in such homes the hours from 6 to 9 are hours of family viewing, not adult viewing. That does not mean that the programmes have to be beamed at the youngest members of the family. It does not mean that they have all to be solemn. There is a place for Bilko as well as for Look. But it does mean that those programmes should not, at any rate, be corrupting.
Finally, the development of these new media, and most important of all, television, puts responsibility not only upon the teacher and upon the authorities but on the whole community. It is a responsibility to realise that here we have an agency of immense potency in determining the whole character of our culture that can be used as a means of education in life, but which can also be used to cheapen taste, to make people acquiescent and to make the quality of life trivial. And in the last resort it is for the community to decide which way it is going to be.
6.57 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Bessborough for giving us the opportunity of discussing this Motion, and in particular for having met my request and broadening the original terms of his Motion to include all aspects of modern means of communication in education, rather than television only.
Television is a new medium and certainly has great possibilities, but I think it would be a mistake were we to consider it in isolation, and I am glad that to-day we have an opportunity of surveying the whole field in proper perspective. I do not want in any way to belittle the efforts of commercial television to enter the field of schools broadcasting; I think we should welcome it

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and commend the way in which Associated-Rediffusion, in spite of certain obvious drawbacks, have set about their task. They have shown a willingness to co-operate with the existing services provided by the B.B.C., which is admirable, and I hope that other commercial companies entering this field will be equally willing to co-operate with the B.B.C.
At the outset I should like, as have both Lord Shackleton and Lord James of Rusholme, to emphasise the vastly greater importance at the present moment of sound broadcasting. The figures speak for themselves. The B.B.C. is broadcasting in sound 37 programmes every week, plus another fifteen programmes in Scotland and Wales, making a total of 52 programmes weekly, compared to a television output of nine. There are registered for sound broadcasting 28,875 schools, which is over 70 per cent. of all the schools in the country, compared to the figure we have heard of 2,500 on television. The school audience for the very popular religious broadcasts in the Schools Broadcasting Service in sound is something of the order of 1½million, and for the popular programmes broadcast mainly in the range of primary schools is about 300,000, while the television school audience is of the order of 30,000. Though the latter total may grow, it cannot hope to compete with sound broadcasting for many years to come, owing to the simple fact of lack of time on the air.
The B.B.C. regards its school broadcasting, both television and sound, as one co-ordinated operation. Television and sound are different media and fulfil different purposes in schools. It is important that these should be co-ordinated and be able to offer a service to schools which provides a suitable programme through the best medium. In its school broadcasting programme the B.B.C. has two distinct advantages. In the first place, it is organised on a national basis, centrally planned, except for certain broadcasts in Scotland and Wales which demand regional planning and which in some cases are in the native language. This is an advantage which is not enjoyed at present by the commercial companies. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has said sufficient on this subject for me not to go over the
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ground again, but it is a striking fact that the B.B.C. has a national programme while the commercial companies are not able to get agreement even among themselves.
In the second place, the B.B.C. has a special advantage in the existence of the Schools Broadcasting Council, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme. This Council consists of representatives of all major educational organisations in the United Kingdom—the Ministry of Education, the local education authorities and their officers, the professional organisations, the teachers and the training colleges. Indeed, this Council speaks for the educational world. It not only gives advice to the B.B.C., but it has executive power to formulate the educational policy of the B.B.C., to arrange year by year with the Corporation the scale of the service and to determine the general aims of the broadcast themselves. It is served by a secretariat of professional staff and employs a team of fifteen regionally based officers to ensure liaison with all parts of the United Kingdom. This method of organisation of schools broadcasts through the Schools Broadcasting Council was highly praised at the time of the inquiry by the Commission under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge; in fact, his Report draws special attention to the praise given by education authorities at the time. This has been reinforced to-day by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, and I think I need say no more about it, except to commend it as a pattern of organisation for others to follow.
Better than any words of mine, the scale and thoroughness of the B.B.C. schools broadcasting can best be seen from the documents which are issued in conjunction with these broadcasts. There are two sorts. In the first place, there are illustrated pamphlets designed to supplement broadcasts, of which about 8 million copies, many in colour, are sold to schools every year, and secondly, leaflets for teachers which, besides giving advance information about broadcasts, also suggest ways of doing follow-up work after the broadcast. These pamphlets are carefully and beautifully prepared, and they are essential to

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programmes which are based on assisting the teacher rather than doing his work for him. I have placed in your Lordships' Library, in the care of the Librarian, a selection of these pamphlets for any noble Lords who may be interested. There are many more of them than there are noble Lords in the House at the present moment, but I hope that some of the other Members of your Lordships' House may care to look at them at another time, as they are indeed most impressive.
My noble friends, Lord Bessborough and Lord James of Rusholme mentioned the use of schools broadcasting overseas, particularly in Commonwealth countries. This has always been a particular care of the B.B.C. Overseas, as well as at home, it is still true that the educational impact of sound broadcasting is greater than that of television. Television facilities are limited, coverage is small and resources inadequate. We must welcome the Nuffield Foundation's initiative in convening a meeting in December to review the supply of material from British sources for television overseas. In the meantime, the B.B.C. has recently embarked on a large-scale co-operative venture with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation to start a Federal Sound Schools Broadcasting Service in Nigeria. I think that this is a very significant step forward, which all of us should welcome. The B.B.C. is also in process of negotiating with the Colonial Office to ensure the continued development of its special schools transcription service for colonial and other undeveloped territories.
The B.B.C. provides a service of school broadcasting more complete and effective than any other in the world. But broadcasting is not the only modern means of communication available for teachers in schools. There are films, gramophone records, tapes and all the visual aids which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, mentioned. Each in its own way has something to offer; and most of these other methods, as opposed to broadcasting, have the advantage that they can be used in school over and over again at any time convenient to the teacher.
So far in this debate no one has mentioned gramophone records. At this point I must declare an interest, as I am a director of a small company which
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makes gramophone records. I have no direct connection, however, with E.M.I. Records, which is the only record-producing company with an education department, whose function is to act as an information centre and produce records for use in schools and colleges. I believe that the E.M.I. education department is doing an excellent job in keeping in close touch with teachers, training college lecturers and county music advisers, to ensure that they are giving the best possible service to schools and colleges. It is a sad reflection that while a commercial company such as E.M.I. allow a 10 per cent. discount on official educational orders, Her Majesty's Government still exact their full price in purchase tax.
From this brief survey of the field, I should like to draw the attention of the Minister who is to reply to two principal points. The first, and perhaps the most important, is the need to educate teachers themselves in the services which exist for their assistance. I feel that this could be done through the medium of the teachers' training colleges. Now that the courses at these colleges have been increased to three years, there should be time available for the full discussion of all modern means of communication, not only to acquaint the teachers in training with the material that exists in the different media, but also to give demonstrations, conduct experiments and discuss the relative advantages of each for the teaching of particular subjects and the best way of making the fullest use of them. I hope that the Ministry of Education will look closely into this point and perhaps try to encourage all teacher-training colleges to include this subject in their syllabus.
The second principal point is the need for proper equipment in the schools. This is an expensive item, of course, but I hope that local education authorities will appreciate the value of these modern services to teachers and will be generous in the provision of proper equipment for their schools. To take one example, it is now Important that schools which have a gramophone should have a three-speed gramophone if they are to make use of any of the modern records which are available to them. I had the privilege recently of visiting a very fine comprehensive school

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in the south of London, at Sedgehill, and I was enormously impressed by the vast range of facilities that exist there. But I have the impression that there is a tendency for new schools to be very properly equipped and for older schools to be neglected. This is unfortunate, because it is the older schools that have the greatest difficulties, both in obtaining the services of teachers and in providing such facilities as laboratories and workshops, which to a certain extent are supplemented by the provision of programmes through films, television, broadcasting and so forth. They have the greatest need for equipment, but I feel that sometimes it is the modern schools, with slightly less need, that are better equipped. I believe that there is a wide variety of facilities available to help both teacher and pupil, and I hope that all education authorities, both the Ministry and local education authorities, will do their best to make sure that the best use is made of the facilities available.
7.12 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, my appeal to your Lordships is on a different line from that of other speakers who have made such eloquent pros and cons on the subject we are discussing. My appeal is that the machinery for the research and development both of sound and television broadcasting should be helped by all concerned. For some years I acted as Vice-Chairman of the B.B.C., and it was then that I first developed a deep and lasting admiration for the work which was being done in educational broadcasting. It was then, and ever since, that I have kept a keen look-out on the way these undertakings are shaping themselves both at home and abroad, and especially in the United States of America. Great work is being done in this field by really dedicated workers all over the world, but I firmly believe that this country still leads, and I am sure that we have the ability and the capacity to continue to do so.
I should like to quote a sentence in a different context that my noble friend Lord James of Rusholme used. I wish that everyone would bring discrimination to bear on judging the information we get about broadcasting and television in other countries. In a different context,
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I had an experience which taught me a good deal. I was in the United States of America discussing forms of teaching practical work, and I was asked to lecture on the medium through which certain of this work was being carried out. I explained this and that, and then I said that in certain circumstances it seemed a good idea to use playlets to demonstrate the "Do's" and "Dont's". Later, when these training officers on the other side of the Atlantic began to talk, they turned to me and said, with great kindness and indulgence, that they were very interested to know that in Great Britain psychodrama was also being used.
I think that we over-exaggerate the things we hear about what other people are doing, and do not know enough of what we are doing in our own country. For years I have kept up with my friends in the universities and the other groups of people in America interested in the development and strength of this new medium, which has come to stay and which obviously we must master in all its intricacies; and although we have heard much about what is done by them, I am absolutely convinced that our own work in Great Britain in this field, were it known, would be found to surpass that anywhere else.
The noble Lord who has just spoken said that last year 8 million pamphlets were sold. My information is that it was 9 million, and I prefer 9 million to 8 million so, if I may, I am going to take that figure. If it is so—that they were sold and not given away—surely that is evidence of something very fine indeed. I think that perfection in the preparation of material for teacher and pupil alike is something which is quite outstanding, and if your Lordships were to see the brochures and pamphlets to which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare referred, I am sure you would find them of tremendous interest.
But I also think that if you have ever been privileged to watch, as many of us have, the infinite patience and trouble put into every single lesson that is sent out across space, then you have realised to the full the tremendous need for further research and investigation into the strength of the future of the media we are discussing. Many things could and should be done quite easily by Her Majesty's Government to help those who

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are actively engaged in pioneering the work. Red tape can be unknotted or, if necessary, cut with a minimum of difficulty; blocks in the flow of the work could be removed by slight attention to detail; helpful contacts and quick results could be ensured by the real and ready co-operation of all concerned. I say these things because in my day of responsibility I have been staggered by the unbelievable delays and complications which have arisen from decisions taken In all good faith at the start, but which in time have made barriers and blocks for subsequent administration.
If, as a nation, we are to continue to have the greatest influence on those who look to us for a load in these things, it is of paramount importance that the men and women doing the work should be assured, in deed as well as the constantly promised word, that Her Majesty's Government are equally interested in the achievement and that this interest is real and practical; that difficulties can be minimised and obstacles really, and not just vaguely, tackled. If Her Majesty's Government were to take a real interest in these educational developments they would be rewarded by results far beyond their own or anyone else's rosiest dreams.
7.19 p.m.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, we are much indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, for initiating this debate. For reasons which he has explained he has concentrated on television, but, like the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I propose to take advantage of the widening of the scope of the Motion to talk chiefly about sound broadcasting. But it is fair to say that, even in the sphere of television, in point of volume the B.B.C. now still do more than the programme companies combined—I think the figure is about twenty periods a week compared with about twelve. Then again, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said, the B.B.C. have the advantage of national coverage, whereas the programme companies' coverage is regional.
But there is another and, I think, more important distinction where the B.B.C. have the advantage. Television for the B.B.C. is only a part, and a small part, of their programme of broadcasting for schools. The main body is still made up of sound programmes: 40 periods a
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week, not counting special programmes for Scotland and Wales, as against about 20. They do twice as much on sound as on television. As has been said, a total of about 30,000 schools are registered for sound, as against 2,500 or so for television. It is important to note that the number registered for sound has increased in the last year. It is fashionable these days to say that sound broadcasting is a dying medium; that sound is on the way out, and that television is on the way in. I am sure your Lordships will have seen some interesting correspondence in The Times recently, where a strong case was made in a letter for the importance of sound broadcasting; and the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, pointed oat one sphere where sound is of the highest importance —namely, as a service for the blind.
There are good reasons for thinking that sound has a future. It is estimated that in the summer of 1960 (I have these figures from the B.B.C.) an average of 23 million people turned to sound radio for some purpose or another in the course of a day. The maximum audience for sound is about 11 million between noon and 2 p.m. on Sundays. For some reason that is the peak hour for sound listening. Between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. daily, there is an average of about 2 million, so there is still a wide demand for sound broadcasting in the country as a whole.
Apart from that general consideration, there are grounds for saying that for school broadcasting as a special service, sound can be, though not necessarily always is, a better medium than television. As to this, one can only take the best advice one can get. Take music, for example. Except for certain special purposes, such as the recognition of the character, rôole and method of playing of separate instruments, vision may be a distraction rather than a help. In point of fact, in the B.B.C. Schools programmes there is over twenty times as much music broadcast on sound as on television. That seems to me to show practical proof of this contention. Then take religious services. Here the advice which the B.B.C. receive is quite clear. A large congregation in a school hall cannot see a screen, and in any event vision tends to distract from the solemnity and impact of the words. Take again the case where there is a serious

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exposition of a theme, for example to sixth forms—an important subject dealt with in a serious way. Sound has, I am told, a great advantage where it is a matter of abstract thought appealing to the reason. The screen rather stands in the way. It seems to be a matter of psychological fact that schoolchildren can tolerate up to 20 minutes of talk on sound, but are inclined to become restive, even sixth formers, after two minutes of talk on television. On television they hanker after more pictures. They resist the talk. Their minds are set upon a different kind of objective.
Where, on the other hand—and this is a different situation—the screen has an advantage over the microphone, is in the special case where what is important is not merely the voice of the speaker, but the whole personality of the speaker, and the impact it makes on the viewer or listener. Even apart from logical exposition there are other spheres where word pictures are simpler to produce, and perhaps more effective as a medium, than something one can see on a screen. Take the sweep and drama of history. Here what is appealed to is the imagination and the dramatic sense of the listener. With a short talk before the programme, a few names and simple diagrams on a blackboard, the scene is set and the microphone makes its effect. Then again, there is the straight presentation of works of literature, prose and poetry. These do not need the adventitious aid of the screen to make their effect. Here are spheres where words are supereme—literature, poetry or prose.
Finally, modern languages. Here the advantages of the screen seem to be very dubious indeed. Again, it is the sound of words that matters. In practice, the B.B.C. still have no modern language programmes on television, though they tell me that they are proposing one as an experiment in the near future. Of course, as some noble Lords have said, there are spheres where television may be a better medium than sound for school broadcasting. This is generally held to be the case in some aspects of science. It may be that in science there is a special role for television. In current affairs also, recent history, a situation can be brought to life much more
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easily than by the microphone, particularly if it is possible to draw on filmed records, which exist for recent years but do not exist for the earlier years of our history.
Then there are such things as what one might call the informative programmes with dramatised inserts, like the current B.B.C. television programme for school-leavers in secondary modern schools. I have in mind a programme called "First Years at Work." I attended a rehearsal of this programme, and it is to show boys about to leave school how they can make the best of themselves at an interview when they present themselves for employment. Here the impact of the screen is very powerful indeed. Here is a case where there is an advantage in television.
Now a few general remarks. It has been said, and rightly, that the B.B.C. operations have a nation-wide range, as is proved by the fact that 90 per cent. of all the primary schools in the country, and 60 per cent. of the grammar schools, are registered for broadcasting, sound and television. The great virtue of B.B.C. programmes is that they are under unified direction, both sound and television. There is a Schools Broadcasting Department under a single head, the Head of Educational Broadcasting. It presents an integrated programme, from programmes designed for the youngest children aged five or six, or even younger, like a programme called "Music and Movement", to advanced programmes for sixth forms.
It is also important to note that school broadcasting programmes, whether sound or television, do not take the place of the teacher. Several speakers have emphasised this point, and quite rightly. This is just as true of I.T.V. as it is of the B.B.C. In the United States, it is otherwise. There there is a wide programme of direct teaching supported by the Ford Foundation and, according to a recent Report presented to the O.E.E.C., it does not appear that those programmes are always of a very high standard. They have considerable shortcomings. But here in this country there is as yet no direct teaching. Programmes are designed to supplement the teacher's own efforts and help him do his job. They can do this sometimes by supplying a degree of specialisation which he himself

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does not possess. In a small school the teacher may not have this kind of knowledge. They can also bring into currency matters which have not yet got into the text books at all, things like the latest developments of science. Aids to this supplementary work are the notes for teachers to which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and others have referred. These notes for teachers are quite remarkable. Those who produce the programmes and organise the programmes for teachers themselves produce these notes which go to the teachers to be read and commented upon and used in parallel with the actual broadcasts themselves. They are geared to the programmes.
There is this further important point. It is the claim of the B.B.C.—and I think it is probably a well-founded claim—that they have a closer and more intimate contact with their audiences in the sphere of school broadcasting than any other organisation in the world. The noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, has emphasised this point. The whole of their operations in school broadcasting are subject to the suggestion, the initiative and the scrutiny, and if need be the veto, of the Schools Broadcasting Council, to which both the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, have referred. That Council is composed of representatives of the Ministry of Education, of local education authorities and a whole wide range of professional educational associations. The Council has a staff of about 60 people in London and the provinces; and, side by side with this, the B.B.C. themselves have their own education officers and their own panels of teachers and their own contacts with individual schools.
The B.B.C. is one. The school broadcasting services do not stand alone. They are only part of the whole complex of educational and public service work of the B.B.C., and it is important to note that all the educational work, properly so-called, of the B.B.C., not simply school broadcasting, is under the direction of the Head of Schools Broadcasting. In this wider field the purpose of the B.B.C. is to help to create an informed society, to inculcate knowledge of the nature of the physical world, an idea of the political and industrial situation, and enjoyment of our cultural traditions. So
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that if they will, if they can, children who have learned to value school broadcasts, both sound and T.V., when they are at school, will find some analogous programmes in the Home Service and in Network Three, as well as on television.
One need only mention here that truly magnificent and majestic series of fifteen television broadcasts of Shakespeare's historical plays called "The Age of Kings". Later, when they get older, if they can and if they will, these children will have the Third Programme, the like of which does not exist anywhere else in the world. If they have the will, and want to follow up from their school broadcasts to analogous items in other broadcasts, if they exercise this discrimination, they will be swimming against the stream of triviality which fills so many of the hours of our programmes. In this they will have to be taught, and one of the things they might be taught at school is to look for proper programmes later on, when they have left school. The B.B.C., as we all know, has a great record of achievement. It is an institution unique in the world, and one of its greatest achievements is its school broadcasting service, in sound as well as in television. It is hoped that everything will be done in the future to enable this great service to be developed and expanded along sound and well-tried lines.
7.36 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, has indeed initiated an important debate today, even if one considers only the calibre of the speakers who have spoken so far. The Motion before us is the use of modern means of communication in education. The question, as I see it, is, to what extent should those means of communication be applied and how should they be applied? It would seem so far that to-day's debate has been mainly concerned with the media of television and sound broadcasts—in other words, video and audio broadcasts—and also with the question of the application of visual aids, which were so eloquently gone into by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. The question of records was also gone into by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare.
It is my intention to concentrate my remarks solely on the principle of closed circuit television. Whilst considering this question, I am very conscious of a

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few words which were printed in a Report which was produced by the O.E.E.C. in July, 1960. The Report, as your Lordships know, has the title, Teaching Through Television. Those words are:
"The real problem is still how to make the best use of this medium."
In this context the medium referred to is the closed circuit television method. The reason Why I wish to concentrate on that aspect of television in education is that it has been authoritatively stated that closed circuit television would seem to be highly suitable for the teaching of science. It is a method which is fairly commonly used in industry. It has become a part of medical teaching. It is used abroad for illustration purposes in the teaching of physics and chemistry. But in this country, as far as I can gather, it has been used in Landon only at the Northern Polytechnic, purely to demonstrate experiments carried out in a none too accessible laboratory, and that only for a few minutes at a time and, I believe, only five or six times throughout the year.
In France an experiment in the closed circuit principle has been carried out at the Lycée de Sèvres which is a secondary school. The purpose of this experiment was to see whether programmes could be worked out which would directly reinforce the teaching now being given in the lycées—in other words, the French national schools—taking into consideration the problem of newly qualified or inadequately trained teachers. The problem is no doubt an easier one across the Channel, particularly in France, as stressed by the noble Earl who initiated this Motion, due to the fact that it has a standardised curricula. However, I feel, like the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, that the 1961 Spring Term experiment which is to be undertaken by the Middlesex Education Authority should be carefully watched by other local education authorities.
I understand that the purpose of this experiment is to see whether the expert teaching of a grammar school master can be of use to classes in a less well equipped secondary school. Although I am well aware that this country may not suffer from the acute shortage of qualified teachers that the United States is suffering from, I feel I am correct in saying
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that there is a shortage of qualified teachers in science in this country. It is therefore in the realm of such teaching that I feel that much can be achieved, provided the educational authorities are willing to co-operate on the question of the application of the closed circuit principle of television. This would cause no disturbance to the national network of television schools' broadcasts, and I am advised that normal television sets can easily be adapted to take in closed circuit programmes.
Here I think it is interesting to remember some words in the Report of the O.E.C.C. to which I referred earlier, on the importance of considering the emotional attitude of pupils towards education by television, and the psychological and physiological problems, such as fatigue, receptiveness and self-discipline, which may arise. I should like to stress here that I am particularly glad that in this country there has been no great or substantial demand for direct teaching by television, and that so far, as I believe other noble Lords have mentioned, the services provided by the B.B.C. and Associated Rediffusion have been solely of a type designed to supplement and enrich the work of the classroom teachers—in other words, they have been complementary to the usual curriculum. However, in the field of science teaching I feel that possibly a more direct approach could be made and that complete courses could be provided. These could be centrally produced, possibly under the auspices of the Ministry of Education or local education authorities. In that way the material produced could be transmitted over various closed circuit systems.
The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, mentioned Hagerstown in Maryland, which caters for 92 per cent. of the children of the County of Washington by providing part of their education. I would add that I am against the indiscriminate development of direct television education because, like many noble Lords here, I believe that the personal contact between the teacher and the pupil is highly important. I believe in the importance of the presence of a teacher and the influence that a teacher can have upon a pupil. I am greatly in favour, too, of the principle, which is I

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think generally recognised in this country, that there should be smaller classes and not classes with an increasingly large attendance, which makes personal con tact even more difficult. But in certain instances a case can be made out for direct teaching by television.
To get the best out of educational television I feel that a study should be made to separate the subjects better suited to propagation over the national system of broadcasting, like that of the B.B.C. or the Independent Television Authority, from the type of subjects which would better be suited for closed circuit viewing. Provided, too, that there was a reasonable chance of unanimity, I feel that a study could be made into which would be the most suitable subjects, first, for direct instruction and, secondly, for enrichment only purposes.
I should like to refer to an article which the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, referred to earlier on and which I think bears me out on this question of whether or not insufficient thought may have gone into the question of appropriate subjects. This is an article written by Richard Hickman, and it says:
"The programmes have reached a surprisingly high level, but in my view the resources have not always been used for the best subjects and the most appropriate age groups."
In view of the cost of specialised equipment, the shortage of teachers (particularly in science) and the exiguity of certain laboratories, for instance, I feel that there is a need for extending the teaching of science by the medium of television.
Part II of the 1959–60 Report of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy (Cmd. 1167), and in particular paragraph 48, states that extensive studies on the content of school science courses are in progress in the United States under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. I understand that the Ministry of Education are in contact with this body to follow developments. I should therefore like to ask the noble Lord who will be replying for Her Majesty's Government whether he has any information as to the suitability of these science courses for use in this country, particularly via the medium of television. Up till now, there have been 47 of what may be termed "community stations" in the
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United States—I believe that figure is correct.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: It was 47; but the figure is now 51, I think.
LORD MERRIVALE: I am grateful to the noble Earl for correcting me. These are low-power local or closed circuit stations. In conclusion, may I say that I hope that Her Majesty's Government will seriously consider the feasibility of encouraging the provision of closed circuits—in other words, local television broadcasts—for educational purposes, whether by means of micro-wave beamed transmissions, as in the case of the Middlesex Education Authority scheme, or wired transmissions for short distances, or, finally, localised broadcasts covering a number of schools in a particular area.
7.49 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, we have had a great wealth of ideas given to us this afternoon, and as a layman I confess I am a little confused, having listened to the views of the noble Earl, who is a master on the actual machinery, and then to such as the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, who is a master from the point of view of morality and ethics, and has great experience inside schools. I am comforted by the reflection that a great economist, Lord Keynes, probably thinking particularly of the economic system, said that all systems confine the subject to the character of the men and the manners of the men who have to manipulate them. I believe that that is true of economics, politics and education. I feel that that is a comfort when one hears, as we have heard this evening, the merits and defects of television, sound, gramophones and every kind of media played up with great conviction either way.
While I was listening to speakers I amused myself by drawing up a kind of forward football line of views. I find that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, is outside left; the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is centre forward; the noble Earl. Lord Bessborough, is outside right, with the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, perhaps, as referee and possibly myself as inside right. I remember my grandfather years ago used to entertain his grandchildren home

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for the holidays with a toy of wonderment as it was then—the magic lantern. It did not matter whether the slides were the equivalent of the Mickey Mouse of to-day or his own coloured photographs of Lhasa in Tibet; we used to sit there absolutely fascinated by the screen. To-day, children of this modern scientific age are more sophisticated, and maybe there is no magic attached to television; but, even so, I cannot help thinking there is novelty and excitement in the background; and it seems to me that there is the teacher's great opportunity. In fact, my ideas, such as they are, are all for championing television and an extension of television. I can put the ideas which come to me only from knowing, as we all know, the increased part that television obviously plays in the national life.
I have been wondering about the extremely interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme—the contrast between school viewing for the child and home viewing. I expect many of us have had the experience of going round to see friends in the evening and discovering that the whole evening is to be monopolised by a wretched child who is glued to the television screen. One greets the child with studied cheerfulness, and he takes not the slightest notice; and one is left with gloomy thoughts on the manners of the modern generation. If television in school is in any way to take the child away from television in the home, then I am all for more viewing at school.
Listening to the noble Lord speaking on the American experience, I gathered that we have not in any way approached the degree of integration as between the television studio and the classroom that they have achieved in the United States. Here I am not thinking of the size and scope of the American set-up so much as the co-operation between the teacher in the classroom and the teacher on the screen. It seems to me that if we could achieve such a degree of centralisation that not only local educational officers but the actual school teacher could play his part in consulting and planning with the teacher in the studio—which seems to me the consummation of the ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge—then we should surely have
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made the optimum impact on the child, and that impact must be of the highest standard attainable.
Such liaison between these two streams of instructions sounds at first too good to be true, but having regard to what they are attempting in America which has been confirmed by the noble Earl—and there it has been done with the help of the Ford Foundation—one realises that such closely integrated team work is possible. I would suggest, therefore, that we aim at that as our standard—and nothing less than that. But in admiring the American methods I would again underline what many of your Lordships have referred to: this great danger. We have the impression that the Americans are regarding television as a means to help them out of their problem of a shortage of teachers, and there is a tendency over there to regard television as the substitute for the teacher. Indeed, I believe they have produced statistics to show that children taught by television can attain a higher percentage of success in examinations than those taught by normal methods. For us this is a danger. It may be that if the teacher is a very poor specimen there is some advantage in supplementing him by television: but, of course, the real answer is to aim at better teaching rather than to regard television as a remedy in itself.
I can recall at school a certain master who was discovered by the headmaster in the middle of a class, buried under a pyramid of struggling boys. The headmaster's protest was answered by a still small voice from under the confusion saying: "Leave me and my system alone". I have told that story merely to indicate that in this country school is going to be, always has been and always will be, something more than merely the absorbing of knowledge; and that "something more" is provided by thousands of teachers, a fine community, conscious of their responsibility for building up the national life; and it would be quite impossible to imagine that they should ever be replaced by television.
When we turn from the domestic situation to the prospects abroad—and I am thinking particularly of colonial territories where we still have influence and control—I feel that we must stick

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closely to that principle. I would submit that at a forthcoming meeting to which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has referred, sponsored by the Colonial Office and to be convened by the Nuffield Foundation, the background should be to create abroad television services that can, with the passing of time, be regarded as completely indigenous and able to stand on their own feet. I do not, of course, refer to the supply of equipment or to the availability of technical know-how". I do refer to the material that appears on the screen; in other words, to the teachers in the class room and the teacher in the television studio.
May I put it in another way? I regard it as no service whatsoever to a young emerging country to have their young generation brought up in any sense of disloyalty to their own environment; and in effect I would simply ask for the same principles that we recognise in political development to be observed in the field of education so far as television or anything else is concerned. If I may quote an example typical of the opportunities, I would cite the case of Aden, which I see does not figure in this long list in the B.B.C. notes as yet having a television service or being due for one in the near future; but undoubtedly it will have one one day. When I last visited Aden I was very much impressed by the young officer of the Oversea Service who, having done a course with the B.B.C., was busily building up a sound-radio service based entirely on the availability and training of local talent. In other words, Aden was to be their main interest —not the United Arab Republic, not the Yemen, not even Whitehall. Again I would say, what is right in the political and social fields must also be right in the educational field.
Even if the local teacher is a little out of his depth at first in trying to master the mysteries of television as an aid to education, let him struggle on, let him make his own mistakes. In the long run lie will find the right answer for his school, even though the standard may not quite measure up to the standard in a secondary modern school in Britain. It is in this way that I see the interests of such a territory as Aden and the interests of Britain, and their mutual interests, far better served than by attempting to impose in one breath all
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the learning and blessings of our own careful experience.
In the particular case of Aden, I think we accept that the Aden Government cannot afford television either for education or for entertainment; they have other priority demands on their limited resources and on their share of Colonial Development and Welfare Funds. I believe that this particular position is being discussed as between the Colonial Office and an independent company, Associated Television. If television, shall we say for example, in Aden, is to be run by an independent company—and in my view this is the practical answer—it is obvious that politics can form no part of the curriculum; and that I regard as an advantage. Because the mere fact that a good local service will be available will divert the Adenese, the Aden public, from less desirable sources of entertainment, and education is bound to benefit just as much as any other kind of viewing in this way. Bringing politics into the classroom has bedevilled development in many countries in the East; and though it is tempting in such a country as Aden to show up the propaganda of the enemy for what it is worth, I think in the long run it must pay to educate children and adults to believe in themselves rather than disbelieve in others.
Finally, my Lords, there is one other feature that I think should require attention at this Conference to be called by the Colonial Office, and I refer to adult education. Here, I am convinced that television can make a very firm impact as an educational medium on adults in emerging countries. When I was last in Kuwait, I was told that long before a Kuwait youth could master the three "Rs," he could draw a perfectly accurate silhouette of a Cadillac car. To-day the boys and girls of Kuwait can obtain mastery of their three "Rs" in schools costing something like £300,000, and in those circumstances one imagines television will equally be abundantly available. But what of the parent? While the child has this ample opportunity to supplement his inclination to draw streamlined limousines and can get something far more substantial now, the parents, who could never even draw a silhouette, have stood still.

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Education of the backward adult in the backward country is a vast subject; and I refer to backwardness in the perfectly normal sense of recognising stages in developing the knowledge necessary for the citizen to take his place in the modern State. All of us can think of the child, all over Asia and the Middle East, who is absolutely avid for education. And anyone who has seen the children sitting down under the large tree in the centre of the village by the village pond on a hot afternoon in India will realise exactly what I mean. But not so the parent. How can he be enticed to learn and to know? I just do not pretend to know the answer. I merely put forward this question in the hope and belief that those who are in charge of these matters will regard it as of priority importance to search for the remedy; and I cannot help but believe that television, which, after all, has some sort of a primitive attraction, is the right medium for this particular problem. The preacher in Ecclesiasticus told us:
"Of making books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh."
I cannot help feeling that had television been available in his time he would not have taken quite such a gloomy view, and I think this is a lesson that we can apply with those in a modern world who merely, as I see it, through the exigencies of climate and geography have been left behind in this constant quest for knowledge.
8.6 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am quite sure that the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, will be very satisfied with the standard of debate this evening. I think that the House will also be grateful to my noble friend Lord Shackleton, who, when speaking immediately after the noble Earl, widened the debate away from the question of television and its part in education. For the modern means of showing and bringing forth the truth lie in many fields: in the cinema, in sound radio, in the small film projector. There are many ways in which science has brought its aid to the ordinary teacher.
Last week I was attending an international conference in Paris, and time and time again the motto of the British
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Broadcasting Corporation kept going through my mind. I could not remember exactly what the words were, but I believe they are:
"Nation shall speak peace unto nation".
The reason why these words were very much in my mind was that in this conference, time after time, I heard the words "psychological warfare" —psychological warfare beamed not to the Soviet Union but to what we call the uncommitted nations. We know that psychological warfare is a very dangerous weapon. We saw it used by the Germans during the war, and we saw how it boomeranged upon them. Undoubtedly we are going to face a Soviet propaganda effort right through the uncommitted countries. But we shall not reply to that by propaganda; we shall achieve something only by showing clearly the truth. And education is truth. How do we get education and the truth to these millions of people in Africa and in India? Undoubtedly, sound radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation for this country, is the best method.
I spoke on this subject in a foreign affairs debate the other day, and I drew the Government's attention to the number of hours that we were now using to put the British side to these uncommitted countries. The number of hours continues to fall. The B.B.C. are very short of funds, and if they are to extend what I believe are educational services, they will require more funds. Therefore we must look to the Government to make these funds available. Because, although we are beaming to these countries more hours of transmission than we do in our own services in this country, they are spread over many, many languages; and languages that are going into certain parts of Africa occupy only one or two hours a week. Great efforts have to be made. My Lords, I am not departing from the theme of this debate, because this service which I would ask the Government to assist should be of an educational value —not a propaganda value, but an educational value. It should be directed, in the first case, not to the youngsters, but to the more adult population. It should be on a broad educational basis. My Lords, I do ask the Government, on this matter, because it is vital, to provide more finance for the B.B.C. to perform their important task.

1105
Now, my Lords, I come back to the main theme of this debate—and that, of course, is the part of television and sound radio, acting as an ancillary in our schools. Personally, I am far from convinced that television has any useful part to play in school. It has not the personal touch, the personal qualities of the teacher; and I do not think that the Government should listen too carefully to the appeals that were made by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, for an increase in transmission hours on the excuse that it is for education.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: I think it would be better to say "on condition" that they were for education, not as an excuse.
LORD SHEPHERD: Very well, I will accept that; "on condition". My Lords, I listened to the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme. I thought that his speech was one that should be very carefully considered by the Government, because what is the good of the teachers in our schools trying to teach the children a moral side to their lives when they come home in the evening, night after night, to be bombarded with the baser sides of life? I often wonder, when my children look at television in the evening, just what sort of world they think they are entering. What sort of world is it? A world of murder, of theft? No, my Lords. I think that the television service—particularly, I must say, the I.T.V. —has done a very grave disservice to our youngsters and to the country. It is not as though they have not the funds available. The programme-producing companies are making vast fortunes. It is not as though they have not the money to provide a better type of programme. They provide this type of programme because it sells advertising space.
I accept that advertising must have some part in our life, but I think it is quite wrong that our children should be bombarded with commercial advertising and its supporting programmes as they are to-day. Therefore, I question whether it is right for the Government to allow commercial programmes to enter our schools to-day. I wonder why the commercial programme contractors wish to go into the schools. Why do they? I think it is not entirely a question of
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their wanting to take part in the educational programmes of the schools and of our country: it is entirely commercial. They want to create in the minds of the youngsters the habit of looking at commercial programmes; and, no doubt, the commercial companies are finding this good business. Admittedly they give these programmes free, in the sense that they do not have advertising programmes before, after or in the middle of their school programmes, but they get compensating advertising time in the evening because of these school programmes, and I wondered, when the appeal was made for longer hours for school programmes, whether this was a means, an excuse, by which longer advertising periods were obtained at the peak hours in the evening. My Lords, I ask the Government to stand very firm in this matter; not to allow any increase in time for television broadcasting to the schools unless it is through their own authority—an authority which, over the years, has acted with the greatest of responsibility to all its listeners—because it is in our young that we have our heritage, and we must guard them against all pollution.
8.18 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I feel that I must begin by apologising to your Lordships for the fact that it is I who am replying to this debate tonight and not a more important member of Her Majesty's Government, and I confess that I was somewhat shaken when I knew that the task was going to fall to me. I was even more appalled when I saw the distinguished names upon the provisional list of speakers. And having listened carefully to all the speeches that have been made in this House this evening, I feel that I was right in being rather appalled at my task. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Birdwood for having, at the beginning of his quite fascinating speech, if I may say so, placed in their correct positions on the football field some of the speakers in the debate this afternoon. Because I felt that he was telling me, although not intentionally, that I had a pretty tricky task in trying to tie up the threads of this debate.
My Lords I have not been a Member Of your Lordships' House for very long, but I have been here long enough to

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know that every speaker in this debate to-day carries great weight in the counsels of your Lordships' House. Moreover, several of the speakers know so much about education and matters related to the training of the young that I feel they have probably forgotten much more about those matters than I ever learned; and all this adds to my awareness of my own inadequacy. However, I have done my best to prepare myself for this debate, and I have studied quite a lot of literature in one form and another.
On Monday of last week, when, your Lordships may remember, this House was not sitting, I took the opportunity of watching two schools broadcasts which had been prepared by Associated Rediffusion, and I should like to refer to them for a moment, because they bear out, I think, what I believe to be a balanced view, certainly the view of Her Majesty's Government, and I think the view of many of your Lordships who have spoken to-day—namely, that these school television broadcasts, whether they are put out by the B.B.C. or by the independent companies, are of high quality and of great integrity, even though they range from being educational in what one might say is more or less an academic sense to being educational in the broadest sense of simply disseminating facts and information about life.
The two programmes were these. The first I wish to mention was one in the series of programmes known as "The Story of Medicine", and this one was concerned with the eighteenth century. It explained how modern methods of diagnosis began to be used and how it was realised that post-mortems were very valuable for the advance of medicine. I am bound to tell your Lordships that from this broadcast I learned a great deal which I did not know before. The other programme was one in the series known as "The Farming Year", and it was concerned with poultry-keeping. There was certainly nothing academic about this programme, but it seemed to me to contain useful information and also facts which would, I thought, play a part in helping children who live in the towns to understand more about the way of life in the country. I was very
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interested to notice an article in this week's T.V. Times, to which several noble Lords have referred, by Mr. Richard Hickman, Head of the Education Department of the National Union of Teachers. He praises this series of programmes known as "The Farming Year" as having stimulated interest in the activities of the countryside. I was also pleased to see this programme, because the compére—or "anchor man", as I believe he is known professionally in the trade—was an old friend of mine, Mr. Denys Bullard, who is a farmer of great experience and now the Member of Parliament for King's Lynn.
But there is one minor criticism about this programme that I should like to make. It was explained that after a lot of chicks are born in the hatchery, it is very necessary to determine the sex of chicks as quickly as possible. We were told that if you cross a Rhode Island Red with a White Leghorn, the sex of the chicks can always be determined perfectly easily by their colour; and that was perfectly apparent on the screen. But then it was explained that you could not do that when you did not cross the birds. We were shown a picture of an elegant young woman in a white coat, sitting at a table with a tray of chicks in front of her and two trays on either side. She deftly picked up chicks, examined them for a second or two under a bright light, and then placed them delicately into the tray on her right-hand side or the tray on her left-hand side. We were told that this was an extremely difficult thing to do, that it was based on a process which was perfected in Japan, and that the young woman was paid £30 a week for doing it.
My Lords, I wanted to know something, about that process after that buildup, but we were told nothing about the process, what she was doing or how she was doing it. It may have been excluded for reasons of delicacy; it may have been excluded in order to protect a valuable commercial asset, I do not know. But my reflection was this: that it is the purpose of education to disseminate education, not to conceal it; and that if it was not possible to explain something of the theory practised by this woman who earned so much money, it might have been wiser to exclude that part of

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the programme altogether. But that is, as I say, only a mild comment.
In general, my Lords, may I say at once that Her Majesty's Government have watched this television experiment with interest and with goodwill, and in the view of the Government it is desirable that more schools should use these broadcasts. We can already see enough to justify the effort and expenditure which has already been put into these broadcasts, and the further effort and expenditure which will be needed in the future if there is to be effective development of them. The Government certainly believe that there is scope for development, provided that it is organised and co-ordinated. The need for co-ordination has been stressed by, among others, my noble friend Lord Aberdare; and the noble Earl in opening the debate made the interesting suggestion that there should be some co-ordinating body in this country, as there is in the United States of America.
Having said that, may I go on to say that there are three general points which I must make about the position of my right honourable friend the Minister of Education in relation to the use of both sound and television broadcasting in schools in England and Wales. The first is that my right honourable friend has no control over what is taught in schools or how it is taught. That is an absolutely basic principle of education in this country. Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, in the course of their visits to the schools, advise teachers. They organise courses for teachers, and the Ministry publishes pamphlets on such subjects as, for example, the teaching of mathematics and history. But teachers may use as they choose what is offered to them in the way of ideas or advice by the Minister; or they may not use it at all. Teaching is in the hands of the teachers, and, there is no intention of departing from this tradition.
Secondly, since the introduction of the system of general grants to local authorities in April, 1959, my right honourable friend exercises no direct financial control over the purchase of television sets or other equipment for schools by local education authorities. Local education authorities are free to supply their schools with television sets on whatever scale they regard as necessary or desir-
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able. Thirdly, there is no question of meeting the present shortage of teachers by attempting to treat broadcasts as a substitute for teachers. The shortage of teachers will be met by the training of an adequate supply in teacher-training colleges and universities, and the Government plan to provide for this.
Statistics about the numbers of schools using school television programmes were not collected by my right honourable friend. But the most recent figures supplied by the B.B.C. and Associated-Rediffusion show that about 2,500 schools are registered by the B.B.C. to use their broadcasts, over 1,500 are registered with the A.R.D., and there are 30,000 maintained schools in England and Wales altogether. I do not think that any figures substantially different from these have been put forward in this debate. It would seem to Her Majesty's. Government that school television programmes may develop in two ways. More schools may be provided with sets and use programmes to a greater extent, and the producers may provide more programmes. So far as I can judge, present production is ahead of use, and local education authorities and schools are not demanding more programmes. But it is possible that one of the effects of this debate may be to increase the demand.
A little later on, I should like to discuss the value of these school broadcasts, something in which many noble Lords are deeply interested, but may I first deal with some of the other points which have been raised? First of all, the use of television for educational purposes in undeveloped countries is a matter on which my noble friend Lord Bessborough expressed his interest, as did the noble Lords, Lord Shackleton, Lord James of Rusholme and Lord Shepherd. In the colonial territories, there are actual television services only in Bermuda and Hong Kong. Television is likely to start soon in Ghana, Kenya and Singapore. The under-developed countries in the independent Commonwealth in which there are television services are Western Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and Cyprus. An experimental service is in operation in India. There are plans for television in Ghana and the Federation of Malaya, and the Federal Government of Nigeria and

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the Government of Northern Nigeria are also planning for television.
Colonial Governments and the Colonial Office are very much alive to the potential use of television as an educational medium. In Western Nigeria, the first television service to operate in tropical Africa, the Colonial Development and Welfare Scheme provided the services of an educational and television organiser, who was seconded by Associated-Rediffusion. When the secondment expired, another expert was provided, this time by the United States, under an International Co-operation Assistance grant.
In the Ashley Report on post-school certificates and higher education in Nigeria there are specific recommendations on the use of new education techniques, including sound radio and television. The Report said that teaching through the medium of television is in its infancy, and that it seems possible that, where television sets can be installed in training colleges, television can be useful in overcoming the shortage of trained teachers. There are three limiting factors. The first is that a television transmitter has a limited range and it will be many years before the underdeveloped countries can afford television coverage. The second, as your Lordships will appreciate, is that television receivers are relatively expensive and depend upon mains electricity supply. No wholly successful and economic battery-operated set, suitable for tropical conditions and selling cheaply, has been put on the market so far. Though mains electricity is steadily being developed, it will be many years before every small town and village will be on the grid. As the Ashley Committee said, the use of television is in its infancy and in the under-developed tropical territories even the equipment studies have hardly begun. There is a shortage of suitable material; firm information about techniques is lacking and there is a need to build up a body of knowledge and experience.
A little more is known about the use of television for teaching English. Various countries have experimented with English language teaching, and the British Council has been assisting in experiments in Teheran with open-circuit television,
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and in the Western Region of Nigeria with closed-circuit television. But further experiment is required. The Government warmly welcome the initiative of the Nuffield Foundation in convening a meeting, which is to be held in December, of the principal interests involved, to discuss various questions relating to the supply to television stations overseas of material from British sources which is broadly educational and cultural, particularly for use in under-developed countries. The Government Departments, the B.B.C. and the Central Office of Information will all participate in this meeting, and Her Majesty's Government will be most interested to study the results, and so, I feel sure, will all those who have any part to play in the future use of television as an educational and cultural medium overseas.
My noble friend Lord Bessborough and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred to the possibility of the extension of the hours of viewing to enable adult educational programmes to be shown, or more school broadcasts. The hours during which the B.B.C. and I.T.A. may broadcast are prescribed by my right honourable friend the Postmaster General, and basically the rules provide that broadcasting shall not exceed 50 hours a week and eight hours of any one day. Certain broadcasts, including school broadcasts, are not taken into account for the purpose of assessing the maximum number of hours of broadcasting. The I.T.A. are seeking to increase their basic hours by 21 a week and would like an immediate increase of 3½ hours weekly.
In March of this year, the I.T.A. also sought my right honourable friend's permission to add the following three further types of broadcast to the categories of broadcasts which do not count against basic hours—first, adult educational programmes forming part of a series of instructional programmes on a defined course prepared in association with an educational organisation; secondly, repeats of schools broadcasts made outside school hours for educational purposes; and thirdly, programmes consisting of reports of and comments on recent Parliamentary proceedings. Those applications are now being considered by Her Majesty's Government, and I think it likely that their conclusions will be announced before very long. I am sure

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that Her Majesty's Government will be glad of the opinions which have been expressed on this subject in this debate.
In his speech, my noble friend Lord Bessborough referred to what has been happening in the United States in the last few years. Certainly what has been happening there is extremely interesting, but I feel sure that he will agree that conditions there are very different from those in this country. For instance, school broadcasts there reflect the fact that there is a shortage of schools and teachers and that there has been a sharp increase in the number of pupils. Moreover, educational television in the United States is nearly always left under the control of the director and concentrates mainly on direct teaching, which is not favoured by educationalists here: nor is it favoured, I think, by most of the noble Lords who have spoken to-day. The Ford Foundation has been conducting experiments to determine whether it is possible to teach large classes of teachers by television and at the same time to upgrade the quality of education. It is not surprising, therefore, that many American teachers fear that television will degrade their status and lead in the end to a reduction in their numbers. That is not a development which we should wish to see in this country.
My noble friend Lord Bessborough referred to the operation of university television stations in America and suggested that it would be valuable if similar stations were started in this country; and I think my noble friend Lord Merrivale was interested in this subject, too. I would suggest that the initiative over this matter must come mainly from the universities themselves and that it is not a matter for the Government to dictate to them. But universities seem to be showing some interest, and that is evidenced by the University of Leeds Development Plan to which my noble friend Lord Bessborough referred. In addition, it may well be that the Pilkington Committee on the Future of Sound and Television Broadcasting will express opinions on the merits of university television stations; their terms of reference are certainly wide enough to enable them to do that if they so wish.
Now I should like to say a word or two about sound broadcasting, to which several noble Lords have referred. My
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noble friend Lord Aberdare and the noble Lord, Lord Strang, stressed the greater importance, in their view, of sound broadcasting in many instances. These sound schools' broadcasts have been running now for about 30 years. There are roughly 1,700 transmissions planned for the current academic year, and the main subjects covered are music, science, modern languages, geography, history and English. These programmes, as I think this debate has testified, are widely used and highly thought of. It may be that their quality and usefulness is generally taken for granted, and, if that is so, perhaps it is the highest compliment that can be paid to them. But I should imagine that, apart from anything else, the sound broadcasts which have been described to-day have set the tone for the television broadcasts which we can now see every day.
The noble Lord, Lord Strang, said that, in his view, sound is a better medium than television in many cases, and he gave instances where logical exposition is needed. The noble Lord also instanced religious broadcasts and broadcasts of music, and said that vision may often be distracting. I would say to the noble Lord how much I agree with him in the case of music. When I am listening to a symphony concert I do not wish to see the look of strain which sometimes appears on the faces of even the best oboe players; nor do I want to see the french horn player take his instrument to pieces and then shake it out, as even the best french horn players have to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, began his speech by taking a mild swipe at my noble friend Lord Bessborough for bringing up at all this question of television schools' broadcasts. My noble friend will have the last word in this debate and so I do not think it is necessary for me to attempt to intervene in this passage of arms between him and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, except perhaps to say this: that I, at any rate, am grateful to my noble friend for initiating the debate, because it has enabled the House to hear what I think are some extraordinarily interesting speeches this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, also spoke, and spoke with some approval, of visual aids of other kinds. Possibly he was a little pessimistic in his picture of the present

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use of visual aids other than television in the schools, because the number of cinema projectors in our schools has more than doubled in the last ten years —it has gone up from 2,800 in 1949 to 9,500 in 1959; the number of film strip projectors, to which the noble Lord referred, has increased from 18,000 to 23,000 between 1955 and 1959; over two-thirds of the local education authorities in England and Wales now have film strip libraries, and over 40 have a full or part-time visual aids officer.
The noble Lord also spoke about the lack of research. I should certainly agree with him that we could do with more research. Since 1946 there has been in existence a National Committee for Visual Aids in Education, consisting of representatives from the local authorities, the teachers and the Ministry of Education, which considers the development of visual aids and the dissemination of experience about their use. The noble Lord referred to the use of other forms—
LORD SHACKLETON: May I interrupt the noble Lord before he leaves that point? I was not pessimistic about visual aids of other kinds: I was merely trying to get them into perspective as being more immediately important and available. What I complained about—and I repeat that the information comes from the bodies mentioned—is that there is no research and no Government support for this method.
LORD NEWTON: I thought the noble Lord was pessimistic about the development in the use of other aids. I am sorry if I am wrong, but that was one of the impressions that I got. I noted that he thought, for instance, that the National Committee on Visual Aids in Education might be financed by the Government rather than by the local education authorities. Did the noble Lord say that?
LORD SHACKLETON: I am sorry to interrupt again, but I did not say that. I did say that it was financed by local authorities and not by the Government, and that the Government might help in addition.
LORD NEWTON: That, I think, is not very far from what I said. I am sure the
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noble Lord will not expect me to announce a change of policy on that this evening; but I have followed what he said.
Then the noble Lord referred to the importance of using visual aids in school broadcasts or in educational broadcasts for overseas countries, and he referred particularly to the Overseas Visual Aids Centre in Tavistock Square. This started at the end of 1958. A grant of £40,000 has been provided in equal shares by Her Majesty's Government and the Nuffield Foundation for the first few years, and sympathetic consideration is now being given to financial aid for the next period. I should like to endorse what the noble Lord said about the valuable work of the centre. It has on view visual aids from the humblest kind, suitable for village schools, to the most modern. It runs courses and provides equipment and literature.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, saw signs, he said, of mis-education; but as he is going to send the evidence to my noble friend Lord Bessborough I do not think that calls for any comment from me. He considered that television is too powerful a means to be in the hands of people who make wealth out of it. That raises a very wide issue which I do not think I ought to talk about at this hour of night. The noble Lord also offered us wide advice on what the subjects of these broadcasts should be. My noble friend Lord Aberdare talked about teacher-training colleges, and expressed the view that these colleges ought to teach the use and the value of modern means of communication. I understand that this subject is normally included in the syllabus of teacher-training colleges, but I have no doubt that those who are responsible for preparing these programmes will take note of what the noble Lord has said.
The noble Lord also stressed the importance of there being sufficient and proper equipment in our schools, but this is, I think, a matter for the local education authorities. My noble friend Lord Merrivale asked if I could say anything on the recent O.E.E.C. Report, Teaching Through Television, which deals with teaching science in schools through television. I do not think I can say more than that this Report, which is a

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recent one, is being studied with interest by my right honourable friend. It makes a number of detailed suggestions to which he wishes to give further study.
In reply to my noble friend Lord Birdwood, I would say emphatically that the policy of the Colonial Office is definitely to encourage development of sound and television broadcasting on local lines and with the use of local talent. I understand that it is the case, as he said, that Associated Television are studying the prospects of television in Aden. We have made a substantial contribution to sound broadcasting development in Aden. Grants amounting to over £130,000 from Colonial Development and Welfare Funds have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said that there should be more funds made available for the development of broadcasts for overseas countries, and that they should be for adults and not only children. Again I am sure that he will not expect me, any more than the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, did, to make a pronouncement to-night about changes in international policy.
The noble Lord went on to discuss the value of these television programmes, and that is something with which I might perhaps finish; because to me it has been the most fascinating part of this debate to listen to what your Lordships have said on this subject. I was glad to find that the views which I had tentatively formed from studying these problems accorded reasonably closely with those expressed by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, from his great depth of experience.
I would say that the producers of these television programmes for schools deserve our respect and our gratitude for the integrity and standards which they have maintained. I believe it is the case that no other country produces anything of the same scope or quality. So far as I have been able to discover. educationists seem generally agreed that the main function of broadcasting in Britain, both on sound and on television, is enrichment of teaching, as opposed to the direct teaching method of the kind found in the United States. My noble friend Lord Bessborough and the noble Lords, Lord Beveridge, Lord James of Rusholme. Lord Strang and Lord Merrivale, all made that point in their own way and in their own words.
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As I understand it, enrichment means that broadcasts can reinforce a teacher, extend the range of teaching, and give him new help in the classroom. It should not seem to make the use of words uncertain, but should help to assure children that words are about something. Teachers cannot stand down and let the broadcast lessons take over from them. What, then, do teachers themselves feel about the school television broadcasts? Again I have tried to inquire about this and form some sort of balanced opinion. So far as I can make out, among teachers there is much serious thought and much goodwill, though little wild enthusiasm, with, on the other hand, a sober feeling that this television experiment is something to be taken seriously and something of great potential importance.
But there are also, I gather, some misgivings among teachers. There is a certain amount of fear that television might end by supplanting the teacher, and I hope that what. I have said earlier in this debate about that matter will show them that that fear is groundless. There appears to be a certain mistrust of television on principle because of disapproval of many of the evening programmes and their quality. Then there is the problem of fitting television into the curricula and timetables, which is something my noble friend mentioned earlier. It may be that some curricula, especially in arts subjects, are more rigid than is essential. Certainly, these broadcasts have a lot to offer, and efforts to fit more of them into school timetables would probably be worthwhile, despite the real difficulties which arise.
This debate will have been of real value if it stimulates constructive thought in educational circles about the possibilities of school broadcasts on television. What then about the impact upon the pupils? Perhaps the pupils are more familiar with television than many of their teachers. At any rate, many teachers do not have television sets. I am told that children in schools understand the medium of television and take it seriously, and that opinion certainly coincides with my own judgment of my own children. I am told that most children display a genuine though critical interest, rather than any special enthusiasm for these programmes, and

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that they probably recognise the second-rate more quickly in broadcasting than in their reading. There is apparently nothing to suggest that viewing is a passive process, as is sometimes suggested, except where the programme is dull or beyond the child's understanding. And, as one would expect, the pupil usually reflects his teacher's attitude.
Apparently a television broadcast often seems to make a better impression than traditional teaching, but the retention does not necessarily last unless there has been preparation beforehand and a follow-up afterwards. These are considerations which naturally teachers have to ponder, and I feel that those who wish to see greater use made of school broadcasts should consider how teachers may be encouraged to look upon television as an ally and not as an extra burden.
I am pretty sure that the teachers' attitude is going to be the main factor in determining the future of educational television, and perhaps the attitude of the teachers will be influenced by the results of further research. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, and the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, stressed the importance for further research. I agree that that is very true. I would agree with my noble friend Lord Bessborough that this is a field in which the great trusts and foundations could give a most useful lead. I should also like to suggest that the independent television companies might care to consider giving up some of their money.
The noble Lord, Lord Strang, in, if I may respectfully say so, his deeply interesting speech, and the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, talked about the effect on children of all broadcasts, and I think your Lordships enjoyed the vigour with which the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, made his point. But I am quite sure that all broadcasts are educational to a greater or lesser extent. There are quite clearly a number of Members of your Lordships' House who think that some of the evening programmes display a false view of life and encourage a wrong standard of values. I think, too, there are other people who fear more importance is attached to the opinions of the so-called celebrities of
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television than those opinions really merit. I do not want to make any comment on these views except to say this: I believe that when one compares school broadcasts with some of the other programmes the children see at home the real quality of the school broadcasts is manifest. For that reason alone, even if there were no others—and there are—I wish the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, well in the cause he espouses.
I have tried to reply to at any rate most of those points which seemed to be points for me. I have not attempted to comment upon the stream of entrancing ideas and judgments and theories which have characterised this debate this afternoon, and I am certain your Lordships would not have expected me to try to do so. But I am grateful to your Lordships for participating and for making this debate, for me at any rate, a most fascinating one to listen to. I am grateful to my noble friend for initiating it. I hope he will feel satisfied, and particularly that he will feel that in my reply I have been sufficiently sympathetic for him to be able to withdraw his Motion.
9.3 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, it has certainly been a most gratifying debate; I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. And I think it could not have been more wide ranging. I would say, first, how grateful we are to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, for having given us such full and detailed replies. He dealt with his brief in the most masterly manner; and as this is, I believe, the first time he has wound up for the Government in this House, I feel we must give him most grateful thanks and appreciation for the trouble he has taken.
I am glad I extended the Motion so that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, could have a sort of mild crack at me. I am glad he referred to the other aids, and especially film strips. He seemed to disagree with me, but I would not wholly disagree with him, although I believe he perhaps does underestimate the importance of "T.V.", if not at present at any rate in the future. I was glad he seemed to agree, as other noble Lords have agreed, with the necessity for a co-ordinating body which would co-ordinate not only the B.B.C. and I.T.A. but all the other organisations

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like W.E.A. and other adult educational organisations. I believe there is a need for a body of that kind in this country. At present the co-ordination between the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. is, I understand, fortuitious. The services are complementary, and they have seen they do not clash, but I feel there should be some body in existence similar to the one in the United States.
There is one point I should like to make in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd: that the independent companies do not make money out of these programmes; in fact they are a financial liability. There really is no commercial motive there. I think it is generally agreed that they certainly rank with those of the B.B.C., although I recognise that the B.B.C. has its great knowledge of these matters, and they, certainly with their school broadcasts, which started in 1924, have greater experience. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, in his vigorous speech—perhaps he was the star of the evening—never said "over my dead body". I thought his remarks were very wise and far sighted, and I am glad that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Strang, in a most interesting contribution, referred to the excellent liaison service of the B.B.C., which I know is better than that of the independent companies.
I am glad, too, that both the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, and the noble Lord, Lord Strang, referred to the importance of the problem of overseas territories. We are all glad to have heard from the Government, as well as from the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, of the forthcoming Conference on December 19, which has I think been spon-
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sored largely by the Nuffield Foundation with the very sound advice of my friend Commander Proud. I am sure your Lordships will forgive me if I do not burden you longer on that point. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, speak of the importance, limited as it is, of certain specialised closed circuit "T.V." instruction, and I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, mentioned the possibilities in Aden. I hope that there something will materialise. As the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said, education is truth and propaganda may be a lie.
Of course, in all these matters more finance is needed. I only hope that through the foundations and trusts— maybe assisted by the Government and other industrial undertakings, including perhaps those companies which the noble Lord mentioned specifically just now—a larger contribution will be made, so that the existing services in this country may be made more effective and comprehensive and that, above all, we shall be able to provide material for the new stations overseas in the emerging countries.
I have to go to the theatre now, not to see a play nor to act in one; I have to make an appeal for our Chichester Festival Theatre in Sussex, which is an entirely educational project. We are actually wiring it for television. I have to arrive there in about eight minutes in order to make this final appeal; and therefore I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at nine minutes past nine o'clock.