Lords Sitting of 25 April 1961

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

DESTRUCTION OF BUILDINGS OF ARCHITECTURAL MERIT
2.35 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: 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 gain or benefit to the community is created when such bodies as the Crown Estate Commissioners destroy or allow to be destroyed perfectly satisfactory buildings of some architectural or historical merit, even when they form an effective part of a larger architectural grouping, and permit these to be replaced by far less attractive structures which in time inevitably become a magnet for many road vehicles in the already overcrowded traffic arteries in their neighbourhood.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, the replacement of some of our older buildings is inevitable as part of the redevelopment of central areas. While there may sometimes be room for argument about the appearance of the new buildings which replace them —for on these matters people can hold widely different views—the machinery of the Planning Acts provides for consideration to be given to the design and external appearance of the proposed new buildings at the plan stage, and to the provision of adequate car-parking facilities. In appropriate cases there is consultation with the Royal Fine Art Commission.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he does not feel that it would be much more desir-
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able that the Government should make a recommendation to the Crown Commissioners to set an example to other people and thereby preserve the good things we have had in the past? In this case I have to declare that at one time I had an interest in this matter, for the Crown Commissioners decided to pull down my own home; but I have no longer that interest because I have left that property altogether.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, buildings in which the Crown (including Government Departments) has an interest are not listed, but if such a building has such merit that it would be listed but for the Crown interest the Government Department concerned are informed and their co-operation requested in securing preservation of the architectural or historic features of the building. If works were proposed that would normally be notifiable under Section 30, the Minister of Housing and Local Government would expect to be consulted. The Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, contains no provision for contributions from public funds towards the cost of preservation, but steps are taken to consult the Royal Fine Art Commission about the matter and about any new buildings which may replace the old ones.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may ask my noble friend two questions? He will have noticed that the importance of Carlton Gardens is recognised in paragraph 49 of the current Report of the Royal Fine Art Commission. In view of what they say, can my noble friend assure the House that the approval of the Royal Fine Art Commission will be sought for any development proposed in Carlton Gardens? Secondly, is it really Government policy to replace residential by office building in this area in order to increase the number of those who have to travel into and out of London daily?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, in reply to the first question, the Royal Fine Art Commission will be consulted about the architecture and scale of this new building. My noble friend's other question raises matters which I think might be more the concern of the local authority than of the Government, and the question of whether or not we want

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more offices in London is a much wider one than that which arises out of the Question on the Paper.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, may I inquire of my noble friend whether he is aware that many ambassadors of art, if they could rent this property, would thereby keep it in good condition and make it equally paying to the Government? May I also point out that similar provision which took place for Eaton Square has been done with great satisfaction and great benefit to the community without destroying the good-looking appearance of that part of London?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I will certainly represent that to my right honourable friend. I was not aware that offers of that nature had been received or considered.

TRADE WITH EASTERN BLOC COUNTRIES
2.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, having regard to the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17th April that to meet the large increase in the import bill and our other commitments we needed a substantial increase in exports but did not get it, they will initiate in COCOM at an early date steps to abolish—except for arms, munitions, military equipment and machinery specially designed for their production—the embargo on exports to China and other Eastern bloc countries which seriously hampers British exporters in those markets.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the Embargo List is kept constantly under review, in consultation with our Allies. As the noble Viscount is well aware, the List is confined to items of strategic significance and does not appreciably inhibit trade with the Sino-Soviet bloc. Such trade has been expanding steadily
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during recent years, and is limited more by the amount of sterling available to the bloc countries than by these controls.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Marquess for his Answer. Arising directly out of it, is he aware that in 1956 the Government decided, in the face of opposition from America, to introduce the exceptions procedure, to the great advantage of British exports with China? And is he further aware that in 1957 the Government decided to part company with America in so far as COCOM was concerned and to reduce the China embargo, with the result that British exports to China increased from approximately £10 million per annum to over £30 million per annum to-day? Would the noble Marquess be kind enough to suggest to his right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade that he should again adopt what has now become a traditional British solution to these problems?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I looked out some figures of our trade, as I thought they would be of interest to the noble Viscount particularly. In 1959, our exports to China were running at £24·4 million, and by 1960 they had increased to £31·4 million. As I said in my original Answer, the COCOM restrictions really are not an inhibition in our trade. The principal inhibition is the lack of sterling. I think the noble Viscount is well aware of that.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess to define in some detail articles of strategic significance?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Baroness knows what that term means. It means, surely, certain items that it would perhaps not be desirable for these countries to hold. I think the noble Baroness knows quite well what I mean. The list is being steadily reduced, though there may Abe additions made to it as new inventions become available.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: What I meant was: to what extent are they raw materials?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: They are not raw materials.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess whether there is a difference of opinion between this country and America as to the Embargo List? My noble friend has provided for the exclusion of what might be called security items; but, surely, there are many other items which ought not to be excluded on grounds of security. We recognise China, and America refuses to recognise China. Are we to be governed by American requirements in this matter of trade?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I quite appreciate the point the noble Lord is making. As the noble Lord knows, the Embargo List is an international list agreed by us all. It has been reduced from 350 items in 1954 to 20 items at the present time.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I wish to ask a question on that point, if I may. We are glad to hear the figures as to the improvement given in reply to the noble Viscount who put the Question. But is it not a fact that, having regard to the two speeches that President Kennedy has recently made called "Pan America" with regard to the possible development of an American Common Market like the Six over here, we need something special to step up our exports? And ought not this matter to be entirely reconsidered, so that we may certainly improve upon the disastrous results last year in our balance of payments?
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Chinese capacity to import more depends entirely on whether they can get some more credits from Russia? The position of their credit, in view of the need to import heavy shipments of wheat, is a very parlous one.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess a further question with reference to what he has said? I repeat the words of Mr. Erroll in the House of Commons yesterday—he is a Minister, so I may quote him. He said that the controls are still necessary, and they are not a significant factor in trade. That, with great respect, is what the noble Marquess said. But, to take the electronics industry, is he aware that the Chinese do not apply for electronics from this country? They
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do not come into this market, because they know what the answer will be; but they are getting them elsewhere. Why should not British manufacturers of electronics be able to supply them as well as other countries?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I do not think that I can usefully add anything to what I have already said, but I should like to say to the noble Viscount how glad I am to see him again in robust health and again attacking me.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: Would the noble Marquess agree that the sum of his replies to the noble Viscount's Question is that it has been answered in the negative?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think that was rather sneaking up on me on the inside. I will certainly take note of what the noble Viscount has said.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: In that case, may I say how happy we are to see the Foreign Secretary in his place, and I hope that he has been taking due note of the pros and cons which have been put to your Lordships.

WEST GERMAN NAVAL ARMAMENTS
2.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: 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 West German Government propose to build 6,000-ton destroyers which would be double the size and tonnage permitted to West Germany under the Treaty of 1954; and whether they have any information as to the proposed armaments of these projected vessels, and whether the matter has yet been considered by the Council of N.A.T.O.]
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, amendment of the provisions of the revised Brussels Treaty of 1954 with regard to the manufacture of certain armaments in the Federal German Republic is a matter for the Council of

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Western European Union, where certain proposals with regard to the manufacture of German destroyers are under consideration. As discussion in the Council is confidential, I cannot reveal details until a decision has been reached.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I say that this is rather disturbing news? I should have thought that already we have lost our place as the principal naval power in the world, but there is no one more experienced than this country in naval matters. I should have thought that this marks an entirely new departure in German naval rearmament. We ourselves have four ships on the First Lord's construction programme: the "London", the "Kent", the "Hampshire" and the "Devonshire". These ships now proposed are certainly going to be no less heavy. Cannot we know to-day whether this means that they are going to be built specially with great speed, of a similar length of 520 feet and a beam of 57 feet, and whether they are going to carry, perhaps, nuclear missiles? Ought we not to know this in the House to-day?
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess whether my noble Leader's question does not indicate that there is to be an alteration of the agreement under the Bonn Conventions? And are we to understand that these Conventions, which were agreed upon some years ago, can be altered without Parliament being informed before the decisions are taken?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, your Lordships know that the Federal German Republic is a full member of the North Atlantic Alliance and of equal status with the United Kingdom, and the rearmament of German forces committed to N.A.T.O. has the full support of Her Majesty's Government because it is necessary for Western defence.
LORD HENDERSON: But may I again press this point? Are we to understand that N.A.T.O. decisions can be taken which abrogate the Bonn Conventions without Parliament having any say in the matter or without being informed before decisions are taken?
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess with regard to what was said about the Bonn Conventions whether the Government have not admitted in reply to me with regard to questions that I have put relating to Herr Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach that Law 27 of the Bonn Convention is still obligatory upon the Federal Government? Is this not a similar case?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, this is a matter which is under discussion in the Council of Western European Union. But, of course, if a decision is reached and if Her Majesty's Government agree with it, that decision will be brought to the attention of Parliament.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say this is a very extraordinary position altogether. I have put certain naval descriptions of these proposed vessels and I have had no answer as to whether my description is correct or not. I think one might deduce from our own naval documents that that is probably what the Germans are asking for. What has been the advice? Is not Parliament entitled to know? What has been the advice of the Admiralty and Chiefs of Staff to our representative at the N.A.T.O. Council? Are not we to know that? Is not Parliament entitled to know?
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, I wonder whether I can ask the noble Marquess—
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I want an answer, please, if I may.
LORD BIRDWOOD: Could I ask—
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: There will be plenty of time, I think. I want to stick to the point.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I quite appreciate the point made by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the Opposition. I am not in a position to give a detailed reply to the question but if the noble Viscount so wishes perhaps he would be good enough to put down a special question and I will do my best to see that the answer is provided.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The First Lord of the Admiralty is in his place. Cannot he answer? He certainly knows. I must say this is very unsatisfactory. However, I shall return to it.
LORD BIRDWOOD: In view of the fact that we face to-day an enormous submarine challenge from a potential enemy, should we not be grateful for any naval improvements placed at the disposal of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance?
VISCOUNT EUBANK: My Lords, is that any reason why Parliament should abdicate its responsibilities in this matter?

LAOS
2.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg to ask the Government a Question of which I have given Private Notice, namely, whether any statement can be made upon the position in Laos.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I have some information which I may add to the statement made in another place yesterday. Your Lordships will already be aware that I have now been able to reach agreement with my Soviet Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference on the next steps in Laos. The texts of the three communications on this subject, which were made to various Governments by the two Co-Chairmen yesterday, were published in this morning's Press. These communications were an appeal for a cease-fire, a request to Mr. Nehru to reconvene the International Control Commission for Laos, and an invitation to certain Governments to attend a Conference beginning in Geneva on May 12.
These texts are the result of a good deal of bargaining, and I am aware that, by themselves, they leave a good many questions unanswered. I have, however, received categoric assurances, given to Her Majesty's Ambassador in Moscow by the Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr. Gromyko, that the Soviet Government themselves are genuinely anxious for an immediate cease-fire in Laos and fully understand that Her Majesty's Govern-
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ment will not be prepared to conduct negotiations at Geneva under the threat of military action. This means, in our view, that effective steps to achieve a cease-fire must begin on the ground in Laos now.
We have already discussed with the Laotian Government in Vientiane how it should set about making a cease-fire work. We understand that the Soviet Government are taking similar steps with the authorities with whom they are in touch on the other side in Laos. We shall then have to get the International Commission to Laos as quickly as possible to verify the arrangements. It is essential that there should be no doubt about the urgency or sincerity of the efforts on both sides for a cease-fire, otherwise the prospects of the Conference will be endangered.
Your Lordships will be glad to know that shortly after receiving the Co-Chairmen's appeal for a cease-fire, the Laotian Government issued a declaration in which they expressed their gratitude to the United Kingdom and their satisfaction about this move to bring about peace and a policy of general reconciliation. They declared themselves ready to establish contact with the opposing forces at any moment in order to reach agreement on a time for the cease-fire. I hope that there will be a similar response from the other side. Now that the first difficult step has been taken, and with the aim of a peaceful, united and neutral Laos clearly before the Conference, we must work towards successful negotiations. But I do not underestimate the difficulties. There is a residue of suspicion on both sides and it may be hard to arrive at arrangements that will put that suspicion finally to rest.
I should like to express on behalf of Her Majesty's Government gratitude to the Swiss Government, who, I have just learnt, have agreed to the Conference taking place at Geneva and to provide the necessary facilities.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, for his statement and I would repeat what I said last week; that we greatly appreciate the efforts that the Foreign Secretary, with the support of Her Majesty's Government, has made in trying to get peace in this very

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difficult situation. It is unhappy for us to consider that if his early efforts, well before Christmas, had been met more spontaneously by other parties (and in this I do not, of course, include Mr. Nehru) we might not have seen the situation now. It seems to me to call for such tentative language regarding certain aspects in the Foreign Secretary's statement. I therefore hope that, now that Russia has declared her great interest in having an immediate ceasefire, she will do what she can to support the efforts which have been so specially made by the Foreign Secretary. The only other thing I should like to ask is whether the Foreign Secretary—who was recently in the United States—feels that in this matter he has the support of the United States in this situation to-day.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Viscount. I think the statement of the Laotian Government, that they will do everything they can to bring about an immediate cease-fire, is of extreme importance in this matter. If there is a response from the Pathet Lao that should ensure a cease-fire in a very few days, and that should become effective very quickly. The answer to his second question is, Yes. The United States Government are now working as hard as we are, I think, for a political settlement.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether he is confident that, in the light of the developments that are in prospect, there will be cessation of the introduction of further arms from both sides into Laos?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am quite sure that one of the essential tasks of the Conference will be to set up international machinery to prevent the importation of arms, and in future to channel all aid and arms through an international body in Laos. Surely that is the task of the Conference. In the meantime, I am confident (I think I can use that word) that both sides will exercise the necessary restraint while the cease-fire takes place and the conference is going on.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, may I ask the Secretary of State whether, during the substantial period which has elapsed since the
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British proposals for a cease-fire were made, arms or other assistance have been sent to Laos by Communist Powers and whether he is satisfied that between now and the cease-fire, the date of which we do not know, the supply of arms will be stopped?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, as I said in your Lordships' House a few days ago, the Communist arms lift to Laos continued until, I think, Saturday last.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: There you are!
THE EARL OF HOME: Not quite "There you are". Since Saturday the air-lift has stopped—at least, so my information goes—and I firmly hope that it will continue to be stopped; otherwise, of course, it will prejudice the results of any Conference that may be held.
LORD MORRISON of LAMBETH: My Lords, does that mean that if the Communist Powers were to delay their reply to the British request, and the delay was substantial, that would leave them free to continue the supply of arms and, therefore, the maintenance of a state of civil war?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, that has been our great anxiety. I agree with the noble Lord that that is the anxiety: that between now and the date when the Conference assembles, the Communist forces on the ground may make considerable and decisive headway. But I am hoping that as the Russians agreed to a quick cease-fire, and as I have reason to believe the Laotian Government also wish that, we may get an actual cease-fire on the ground in a matter of a very few days.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, does the noble Earl expect that with this supervision of the cease-fire there will also be international supervision of the importation of arms? Will the two go together? Because I think that it is very important that we should be clear that arms are not going in when there is a cease-fire arranged?
THE EARL OF HOME: Yes, my Lords; I am sure that if we get the International Control Commission on the spot as quickly as possible to supervise the actual functioning of the cease-fire, they will also keep their eyes on the importation of arms from outside.

CUBA
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, while he is here, whether he is able to make any further statement about the situation in Cuba? Information has been coming in rapidly and the statement made yesterday by Mr. Kennedy seems to me to be very important. I was wondering whether the Foreign Secretary could tell us any more about that.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I had thought that the noble Viscount was not going to ask this Question, and I had not prepared myself with any answer. But so far as I know, the invasion of Cuba is over—the reports coming from Cuba are to that effect—except for a certain number of people who are left in the hills. So far as I know, British subjects are all safe, although we have further investigations to make about two or three of them who are still held. One or two—I think one —have been released. Apart from that, I think that I should like notice of a Question on Cuba before giving a further Answer.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl. The difficulty is that people are talking widely about the situation. No doubt President Kennedy was taking the right line by saying, "I am responsible" "—but responsible for what? That is the question being asked over here. At least, it is worth raising the matter to-day to let Mr. Kennedy know that there is a good deal of anxiety as to what he is taking responsibility for and as to how far the United States, actually and officially, were behind the invasion.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I have no doubt that there is a great deal of anxiety in the United States about the Cuban situation, on every score; but it must be for President Kennedy to answer for American policy, and not for me.

KENYATTA INTERVIEW: PERSONAL STATEMENT
3.4 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to make a personal statement on behalf of my noble friend Lord Perth, in connection with a reply he made on April 13 to my noble friend Lord Albemarle. As my noble friend Lord Perth is now out of the country, and will be away for the next two weeks, I am taking this opportunity to make the statement for him, rather than to await his return. I will now read the statement which the noble Earl would have made himself to your Lordships.
"My Lords, I wish to make a personal statement arising out of my replies to supplementary questions on April 13, about the tape recording of Kenyatta's voice. I was asked whether an official of the Government of Kenya was present when the tape recording, which was subsequently played at Cairo, was made. I said that I understood one was there. I was not, however, certain about this and I asked the Governor whether my understanding was correct. The Governor has now informed me that no official was present at the time. I apologise for having misled your Lordships."
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his statement and, through him, the noble Earl, who with his usual courtesy, has now provided this corrected answer?

HOLY TRINITY BROMPTON BILL
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
SHELL BRAZIL BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
CARRIAGE BY AIR BELL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
HOME SAFETY BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
OATHS ACT, 1888 (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
PRINTER'S IMPRINT BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
PRIVATE STREET WORKS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
RESTRICTION OF OFFENSIVE WEAPONS ACT, 1959 (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

EUROPEAN FREE TRADE ASSOCIATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER, 1961
3.10 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to move that an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the European Free Trade Association (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1961, be made in the form of the Draft laid before your Lordships' House on March 27. The convention establishing the European Free Trade Association is an agreement between its seven initial members—the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal —aimed at an expansion of economic activity and an increase in co-operation between them. It provides for the reduction, and the eventual elimination, of the tariffs on industrial goods between members.
Article 35 of the Convention, which was signed on January 4, 1960, provides that a Protocol should lay down the privileges and immunities to be granted by Member States in connection with the Association. A Protocol was accordingly
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drawn up and signed last July. The scale of immunities was carefully considered, both in relation to the precedents existing in the cases of other international organisations and to the provision of what seemed necessary to secure the effective operation of the European Free Trade Association. The present Order is required to enable Her Majesty's Government to ratify the Protocol of July 28, 1960, according legal capacity, immunities and privileges to the European Free Trade Association. The Protocol came into force as regards Denmark, Norway and Austria on March 22, 1961, when in accordance with Article 21 of the Protocol, the third signatory State had deposited its Instrument of Ratification.
The scale of immunities and privileges conferred under this Order is no different from that already granted to the majority of other international organisations in respect of which Her Majesty's Government have signed a Status Agreement. The Association has a small secretariat of about 50 officers, of whom only the Secretary-General enjoys a full diplomatic scale of privileges and immunities. If, as is now the case, the Secretary-General happens to be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, these full-scale benefits will of course not be accorded. In such circumstances, the status of the Secretary-General varies only from that of the other officers of the Association in that his documents relating to the work of the Association are inviolable.
The Headquarters of this body is in Geneva. There is to be a Ministerial meeting in the United Kingdom in June, but such an event is unlikely to occur more often than once in three years or more. There is no intention to establish an agency in the United Kingdom. I beg to move.
Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the European Free Trade Association (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1961, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on the 27th March last.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of opposing this Motion. I am conscious of the fact that things of this kind were

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done under the Labour Government and, therefore, one must exercise certain restraint. However, I am a little worried about the growing number of organisations of an international character which, by our decision and the decisions of other Governments, are allowed these immunities and privileges. The immunities and privileges are considerable and extend to the reckless driving of a motor car, duties imposed upon intoxicating liquors and other matters. If we go on at this rate, we shall have a substantial proportion of the foreign population of London exempt from British law. I really feel that the Government ought to try to put the brakes on the number of these immunities and privileges Orders which are brought before Parliament. Otherwise we are sacrificing not only revenues, but rights of British citizens against these people. I think we have reached the point where they are becoming a little too numerous and are going too far. I would ask the noble Marquess whether he can give some undertaking—not that the Government will reverse engines; that would be too much to expect him to do—that he will bring the matter to the attention of the Government with a view to reconsidering the situation.
3.15 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should like to support what my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth has said, and to point out that these full immunities are enjoyed by nearly 6,000 persons, including some 1,800 wives. This occasions considerable and growing public concern. With regard to this particular Order, the noble Marquess said that this was only a small addition, and that, in so far as complete immunity was concerned, it would apply only to the Secretary-General. But if one studies the Order, it is not only the representatives and their alternates, but an army of advisers, technical experts, secretaries, and even trade experts employed on a trade mission who will be immune from local process in respect of their words and deeds, and immune also from arrest or detention. Further—and this, I think, is important—for taxation purposes, although living here, they will be treated as though they were living in the stratosphere: in other words, their salaries will be tax free. It applies not only to the Secretary-General but to all the people
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I have mentioned. Therefore it is useless to say that only the "top brass" will enjoy these extraordinary privileges. Paragraph 10 of this Order makes it clear that any officer of the Association, except those recruited locally and paid by hourly rates—and that means everyone except the porters, the lift men and the "Mrs. Mopps"—will be immune from legal process in respect of their words, their writings or anything they do, and exempt from income tax.
It is all very well to say that the office is in Geneva, but since we are parties to this Protocol it is possible that there may be an office here; and even if not, there is no purpose in having the Order unless it is expected that some of these officers will come here. I should like to put some questions to the noble Marquess, and I hope that I shall have rather more luck than my noble Leader had a few minutes ago. First of all, will the noble Marquess say what possible justification there can be for treating the entire clerical staffs of a trade mission as respects the immunities I have mentioned—because that is what it amounts to—at least in part, in the same way as we treat an Ambassador at the Court of St. James? Secondly, has any estimate been made of the number of persons likely to be granted immunity under these Orders? —and in saying that I do not mean only the Secretary-General, but all these people I have mentioned.
Can the noble Marquess say, further (and this, I think, is the matter of main public concern), what steps are being taken to ensure that these extraordinary privileges are neither usurped nor abused? For example, C.D. plates can be bought almost anywhere; they are almost as numerous as G.B. plates, and every other large, sleek, black, chauffeur-driven car around these parts seems to carry one. Do the Government propose to control their issue? Otherwise, we shall have bank robbers with a big black car putting C.D. plates on it and getting immunity from arrest: indeed, I know of one elderly gentleman who is rather nervous in traffic who intends to fit one to his car under the impression that C.D. means "careful driver". It is not fair to the police or to the public for these privileges to be extended without limit and virtually without supervision.

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Finally, will the noble Marquess clarify the position under this Order of our representatives and the members of the staff who are United Kingdom citizens? Is it the case, as paragraphs 9 and 10 appear to indicate, that if the head of the Secretariat Association is a United Kingdom citizen he will enjoy immunity from legal process and exemption from income tax? And does paragraph 10 confer a like immunity and exemption on any established officer who is a United Kingdom citizen? If my reading of those paragraphs is correct—and I can see no other possible reading of them—what is the justification for this, and what is the precedent? This is a matter of serious public concern, and I do not think that it should be allowed to go by default.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, on previous occasions, when similar Orders have been placed before the House, it has been my duty to raise this same question, and I am grateful to my two noble friends for having stepped in and put the position which on other occasions I have done. I do not wish to add or qualify anything that they have said, but I should like to point out to the House what this really means in practice, and to give one or two examples.
It means that these 8,000 people, or whatever the number is, can drive cars dangerously and can inflict damage on citizens of this country, without being answerable for the consequences. No action for damages can successfully be brought against them. They may inflict grave injury, and the persons who suffer from those injuries will have no remedy at all for damages caused by them. Secondly, it has been the case unhappily in the past that some of the people who have had these immunities have been involved in criminal offences, shoplifting and so on, and the short answer has been "Diplomatic immunity", and therefore no action has been taken. This sort of thing illustrates the danger of granting immunity on a large scale, and I would ask the Government to be very careful in granting this immunity, bearing these cases in mind. The last thing we want to do is to inflict injury on our own people. To leave them without a remedy at all where serious injury has been inflicted is, I think, going very far indeed.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, before the noble Marquess replies, I should like to associate myself with everything that has been said with regard to the extension of this right. It is not so many years ago that the late Lord Jowitt and I took this matter up and it was discussed thoroughly, as some of your Lordships may remember. It was already a bad abuse, and it is getting worse all the time; I do not think anybody can have two views on that. We were answered at great length by the late Lord Reading, who was then Under-Secretary, in his usual convincing and persuasive way, but it was not really an answer at all. I personally think that he and the Foreign Office were probably rather glad that we raised it. The answer was that you must look out for reciprocity. That is a foolish answer. It is an answer, it is true—but I will not go into it any further. I have only recently come into the House, but as a member of the Foreign Service for quite a number of years, and having seen this question at first hand with my own staff abroad, where, I may say we were very careful whom we had on the diplomatic list—we went through it with a fine comb—I am delighted that this attitude has been taken by noble Lords.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I well remember the late Lord Jowitt saying, many years ago, that the next time one of these Orders came before the House he would advise the House to reject it. Since then there has been a constant stream of this type of Order, and we have swallowed each of them with reluctance, promising greater resistance next time. But "next time" never seems to come.
The arguments which have been deployed have been various. Once the argument used to be that with an international organisation it was necessary that its people should have this immunity in this country in order that ours should have immunity and a degree of protection in the other countries concerned, having regard particularly to the many countries in the world where law and order and the courts do not function in quite the same way as they do here. In this particular case, however, it seems to me that we are concerned with a small number of highly civilised European countries, whose courts and police are probably the best

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run in the world. I should have thought that, from that point of view, diplomatic immunity was absolutely unnecessary for any of these people.
I have not compared the terms of this Order with those of the ones that have gone before, but there is one phrase in Article 10 which strikes me (I may be wrong) as being unfamiliar. It gives immunity to
"any officer of the Association, with the exception of one who is recruited locally and assigned to hourly rates…"
I should like to know the significance of that. It seems to me that, on the face of it, any British citizen who happens to be paid by the month by this organisation has complete immunity from the courts and from taxation. It is a particular imposition, as Lord Jowitt used to say, on the rest of the citizens. Because suppose that a British citizen cannot afford to insure his motor car for other than third party risk, and is run dawn by one of these gentlemen—it is not his fault, and he wishes to sue him. He has no recourse to an insurance company for damages, and in being unable to sue this man, who pleads diplomatic immunity, he has suffered a wrong which is irredressible. I would ask the noble Marquess whether Her Majesty's Government have any remedy for that state of affairs. I would suggest to him that, if he cannot satisfy us with his answers, he ought to withdraw this Order and have another look at some of the phraseology.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I think your Lordships might like to know of a small incident which occurred a few months ago in London. Two small boys, aged 12 and 13, pleaded guilty in court to shoplifting in the Kensington area. Their own account of the incident was as follows: "We went to the Saturday morning pictures and the picture was rather boring. So Tom said to Bobby 'Let's go out and do some nicking'"—"stealing", in brackets, in case the court could not understand what that meant. "So we rang up the chief, and the chief said to Bobby, 'You take everything blue' and to Tommy, 'You take everything red'". So they went out in the Kensington area, and Tommy stole some blue diaries and Bobby stole some red notebooks. They were detected and, as [say, they were brought before the court. Being rather young and naive,
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they included "the chief's" telephone number, and the court therefore asked the police if they had followed up the telephone number. The answer was, "Yes, but he has diplomatic immunity". I hope that we may have an assurance that this Order is not likely to inflate criminal statistics further.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government, as I have assured your Lordships on previous occasions, are just as jealous of the privileges and immunities as. Is any other Member of your Lordships' House. Of course one understands the anxieties that have been expressed this afternoon—indeed, the warning and anxieties expressed by the noble Baroness. I tried to make it clear to your Lordships, in explaining this Order, that there is nothing in it which does not conform with the normal type of procedure which we have adopted in respect of previous Orders of this kind.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: That is what we are worried about.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The arguments which the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, and others have put up apply with equal force, of course, to other Orders which your Lordships have had to accept—
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It is time we stopped it.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: —for the sole reason of making it a practical proposition for these organisations to work. It has always been our endeavour—and I think we have succeeded—to cut down these privileges and immunities to the minimum..
LORD CHORLEY: Does the noble Marquess seriously contend that if this Order were not granted this organisation could not be made to work? That seems to me nonsense.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: That is my belief; that is why this Order is presented to your Lordships, and for no other reason at all.
There is one point that I should mention, and many of your Lordships are aware of it: there has never been, I am told, a case of a person being unable to sue because of one of these Orders. That has never happened. That is the advice I have received; I will certainly

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check it, but that is the advice I have received from the experts in this matter. I think the points that have been raised, some of them, are complicated and technical, but I would only say to your Lordships that there is nothing here concealed, nothing sinister and nothing that does not conform with the normal practice. So I hope your Lordships will approve this Order.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I put this point to the noble Marquess? He has said that if we do not approve this Order this organisation will not work. Does he realise the logic of his argument? That this organisation must be composed of potential criminals.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, before the noble Marquess answers, may I remind him that he did not answer my question, except in a roundabout way? Will he tell me if Her Majesty's Government have any arrangements by which they can recompense one of our citizens unable to sue one of these people for damages because diplomatic immunity has been proved?
LORD STONHAM: Perhaps I may put this to the noble Marquess. Surely he could answer me and say whether my interpretation of Articles 9 and 10 is correct, and if the Government are going to do something to control "C.D." plates?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, if I may take the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, first, I do not know the answer, but I will endeavour to find out and see that he receives it. As to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that referred to Article 10 in Part III; I think that is correct. As I understand it, this Article covers all the officers of the agency other than those recruited locally. Its intention is to secure for the individuals concerned a proper freedom and independence in the exercise of their official duties, and, of course, exemption from income tax on their salaries. That is the interpretation of that Article. Exemption from taxation, as I think the noble Lord is well aware, is also normal in international organisations, because otherwise the member countries who share the cost of the salaries would in
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fact be contributing large sums in taxes to the Exchequer of the host Government. I hope that that answers the noble Lord's point.
LORD HAWKE: I do not think it does, because paragraph (b) of Article 10 surely applies to British citizens, provided they are paid otherwise than hourly rates; so that a British citizen employed at so much a week or so much a month would be free of income tax and free from any damages. Furthermore, I do not think that we ought to pass an Order when the Government are unable to tell us whether there is any method of indemnifying our citizens for damages done by these people for which they are unable to be sued.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, a great many of us on this side of the House as well are disturbed about this matter. Would it not be possible to delay the passing of this Order to-day, so that we can have a little more information? I have listened most carefully, and I do not think the noble Marquess's answers have been satisfactory.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I quite appreciate the anxiety that has been expressed by your Lordships, and I will certainly arrange that this Order be postponed and will have the matter further looked into. I will endeavour to satisfy your Lordships on a later occasion.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, in the circumstances, may I move that this debate be adjourned. I think that is the correct procedure.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER, 1961
3.36 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I think it is possible that some of the criticisms that have been made by your Lordships about the previous Order might be applied to this

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second Order. I myself have no anxieties about this Order. I should like to present it to your Lordships to-day and I hope you will be able to give it your sympathetic approval. I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1961, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on March 27 last.
This draft Order is necessary to enable Her Majesty's Government to ratify the Convention establishing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development signed at Paris on December 14, 1960. When the Convention comes into force, O.E.C.D. will be set up and will replace the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The O.E.C.D. will in fact be the O.E.E.C. remodelled to meet the tasks of the 1960s.
The United States and Canada will join the eighteen Western European O.E.E.C. countries as full members of the new organisation. The aims of the O.E.C.D. will be to promote policies designed to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment in the member countries, to contribute to sound economic expansion in member and non-member countries in the process of economic development and to contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral non-discriminatory basis. Co-operation and consultation between member Governments will lie at the heart of the work of O.E.C.D., as in its predecessor O.E.E.C.
Supplementary Protocol No. 2 of the O.E.C.D. Convention of 1960 provides for the same privileges and immunities to be accorded in the United Kingdom as were contained in Supplementary Protocol No. 1 of the O.E.E.C. Convention of 1948. Her Majesty's Government are not, therefore, asked to extend more privileges and immunities for O.E.C.D. than were required for O.E.E.C. The O.E.C.D., like O.E.E.C., will have its headquarters in Paris. All its meetings will normally be held there. The present O.E.E.C. has a staff of 931, of whom 178 are British nationals. The numbers are expected to remain about the same when O.E.E.C. becomes O.E.C.D. The O.E.E.C. has only very rarely held any meetings in London. We expect that this will also be the case for
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O.E.C.D. So far as we can foresee, no O.E.C.D. staff will be stationed in this country. No O.E.E.C. staff are resident in the United Kingdom at the present time.
The Secretary-General and the senior officials of the Organisation will have to pay short visits to this country from time to time on official business. I would not expect that more than five or six officials of the Organisation would be here at any one time—normally they will be in Paris. All this means that only a few people at a time will enjoy the privileges and immunities under this Order in the United Kingdom, and that only at infrequent intervals. The draft Order confers privileges and immunities no greater in extent than those required by the Protocol to the O.E.C.D. Convention or those authorised by the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) Act, 1950. It revokes and will replace the existing Order referring to O.E.E.C. The immunities to be enjoyed under it by the Organisation itself do not differ from those enjoyed under existing Orders by most other international organisations to which we belong. Of the international staff only the three higher officials—that is to say, the Secretary-General and his two deputies—will enjoy a diplomatic scale of privileges and immunities.
Although the Protocol did not require it, the 1949 O.E.E.C. Order did confer a diplomatic scale of privileges and immunities on the families of the Deputy Secretaries-General. This will not be the case in the new Order. The remainder of the staff will enjoy immunity from suit and legal process only in respect of their official duties and exemption from income tax on the emoluments they receive from the Organisation—that is to say, they will enjoy no more than the necessary immunity to do their jobs as international officials without interference from national authorities. This is normal in all international organisations. Exemption from taxation is also normal in international organisations, because otherwise the member countries who share the cost of the salaries would be contributing in taxes to the Exchequer of the host Government. The Order specifies that only established members of the Organisation's staff will get the privileges and immunities.

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Expert advisers employed on missions for the Organisation other than regular staff will enjoy the immunity from jurisdiction in respect of official acts and from personal arrest or detention and seizure of their baggage. These are the normal immunities accorded to such people. Such expert advisers have only occasionally been employed by O.E.E.C. and we should expect that visits to this country by persons in this category employed by the new O.E.C.D. would be equally rare. Representatives of member Governments with the principal and subsidiary organs of O.E.C.D.—that is to say, the Council and its various committees—will enjoy a diplomatic scale of privileges and immunities. As O.E.C.D. meetings would normally take place in Paris, this section of the Order will apply only occasionally. On the other hand, the permanent United Kingdom delegation to the O.E.C.D. in Paris will benefit from the relevant provisions of the Protocol. My Lords, as I have tried to explain, this is very similar to what was granted in respect of O.E.E.C. and is applied only to the proposed new Organisation, the O.E.C.D. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1961, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on March 27th last.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
3.44 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I must say that these various initials that we are increasingly throwing about in international affairs become a little confusing, but one does ones best to follow them. This reminds me of a little doggerel that we had in the Labour Movement when we were very young, which I cannot fully remember, but of which I know part. It said
"They tell this tale in the I.L.P.
And the S.D.F. says it's true"—
and the something, and something and something—
"the W.S.P.U."
We really need a modern edition of this doggerel to describe these various international organisations.
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I must say that I was surprised at the action taken by the noble Marquess in regard to this Order. He was good enough—and we greatly appreciate his action—to say at the end of the discussion on the previous Order that he would agree that it should be deferred. In the circumstances, I must say that I should have thought that he would not have moved this second Order, because now we are wasting time. If he defers the first Order, then I should have thought it was logical and courteous to the House that he should not come forward and move the second Order, which is substantially to the same effect. I would urge upon the noble Marquess, whose courtesy I appreciate very much in relation to the first Order, that, having had his say, he might now consent to the deferment also of this Order—of course without prejudice to the views of Her Majesty's Government after consideration of the debate which your Lordships have had. I hope that the noble Marquess will agree that the consideration of this Order might be deferred.
3.46 p.m.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, surely This Order is entirely different from the first, and in regard to the principle on which objection was made. It seems to me—I will try not to use alphabetical terms, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, does not like them—that the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation is ceasing because it has been re-formed or redeveloped with certain changes, and has added to its numbers Canada and the United States. Therefore it has become the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—we have added the "D". It is the same Organisation extended. Therefore, it seems to me that this Order differs entirely from the other one, because here you are simply saying that you wish to carry on what you have already agreed to, but you have taken off one letter and you have put on a "D", and you have brought in America and Canada as full members of the Organisation.
I see the difference in the last Order. There, reference was made to a new Organisation. Certainly, I have been in favour for some time of examining as a whole the various Organisations in regard to which there is diplomatic

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immunity, because it is extremely hard on a new and good organisation if, just because already there are so many existing organisations, it cannot get certain privileges. I would have said a word in favour of E.F.T.A., but I quite see that that is an addition. It seems to me that this Order is entirely different. Here, we are simply renaming and slightly altering an Organisation that already has these privileges. I think all of us who are interested in this Organisation and wish to bring it into existence as soon as we possibly can, want to see this change ratified as soon as possible, because we feel that it is not only for the good of European co-operation but also is extending beyond that. I hope that, because this is a different Order, it will be agreed to.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I endorse what the noble Lady has said, and say that I think this is quite different from the other Order which we hope to have explained later on. This is something that we have passed before for this Organisation, and I really think that we can pass it this time.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, as one who has been associated with O.E.E.C. for a long time, and familiar with the negotiations leading up to its organisation, I entirely agree with the noble Lady in distinguishing between these two Orders.
3.49 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, would the noble Marquess explain a little further one point which he made—namely, that exemption from taxation is necessary, otherwise the Governments represented in one of these Organisations would be paying the taxation due to the Government of the member country in which the Organisation is located? Surely liability for taxation is the liability of the individuals employed; it is not a liability of the Government which appoints them. Therefore, if this exemption is given, is it the case that the salaries of the individuals employed, and who enjoy this immunity from taxation, are fixed in the light of that—in other words, are at a lower rate than they would be if these individuals were liable to taxation, because they are apparently not liable to taxation either in this country or in the country in which they serve?
3.50 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in view of what the noble Baroness, Lady Horsbrugh, has said, I should like to make it perfectly clear that nothing I have said, and I am sure nothing anyone else on these Benches has said, is in any way in opposition to the principle of O.E.E.C. or O.E.C.D. Any objections that have been raised have been merely to the machinery. I hope that that is absolutely clear.
There is just one point on this particular Order that I would put to the noble Marquess. In moving the earlier Order he said, I believe, that some 50 persons would be involved. The present staff of O.E.E.C. numbers 931, of whom 178 are British. Thus nearly 1,000 persons will get full immunity. That is no mean number. I should have thought that for that reason alone—and also because at least the broad principles of the full immunities and partial immunities which have been given under these two Orders are very much alike—as the noble Marquess has graciously agreed to take back the other Order and look at it again, the noble Marquess should look at this Order, too, and after consideration, give the House a somewhat fuller explanation than he has been able to give this afternoon.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, at the risk of being accused of levity, perhaps I may inform the House that while "I never use a big, big D", if I did I should be tempted to use it on this occasion.
3.52 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, with great respect, I find myself in disagreement with the noble Lord and other noble Lords who have supported this as against the other Order, apparently on the ground (and it is common ground with all of us—and I would say that emphatically) that its predecessor has a very good name; that we like it very much, and wish to see it continue and carry on its good work. But that is not really the point at issue.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, I think the names of both organisations are appalling. I do not like the names at all, but I think the organisations are good. If it is the same organisation that is to continue, we hope improved. I suggest that we should no on with the same scheme of immunity.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, the noble Lady has misunderstood me. I never mentioned the merits or demerits. My point was that which the noble Lady has repeated. She wishes to give these immunities to employees of an organisation which we all know and honour, and for whose work we have a great deal of admiration; but that is not really the point. What most of the noble Lords who resisted the last Order were concerned about was the giving of immunities which might have the result that citizens of this country, British subjects, might find themselves in a position where they could receive no compensation for damage inflicted by members of these organisations who were enjoying such immunities.
That, of course, is a common state of affairs under ordinary diplomatic immunity. I have always understood that in those cases, whilst the matter did not Came to count, an ex gratia payment is commonly made by the Government of the person who has caused the damage. To my way of thinking these Orders are rather alarming, for this reason: there is no parent Government who could make an ex gratia payment to anybody suffering damage. I should like very much to know —and perhaps the noble Marquess can tell us—what would happen in a case of this kind. Supposing somebody suffers a serious damage from an officer of one of these agencies who enjoys special immunity, can that person make a claim, or would the parent organisation, or the employing organisation if I may call it that, be prepared to make some contribution towards the damage suffered?
3.55 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Baroness, Lady Horsbrugh, for explaining to your Lordships with greater clarity than I could have commanded the relationship between this Order and that which applied to the previous organisation, O.E.E.C. As I drew to your Lordships' attention, this Order —succeeding the arrangements that were necessary for the O.E.E.C.—has one small difference, in that there is a reduction in the privileges and immunities. Those are now withdrawn from families. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, will not consider that these two Orders which I have
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presented to your Lordships fall into the same category. This later one is simply succeeding that which went before, although I can quite see, as I said initially, that the criticisms and anxieties of your Lordships have a general application to all these Orders; of that I am fully aware. But I hope your Lordships will approve this second Order.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, the noble Marquess has not dealt with the interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I apologise. It is a point into which I am afraid I shall have to go further. I am not now in a position to give a full reply which would satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Then defer it.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: If I may, I would rather give a full and proper reply than give an inadequate answer now. Perhaps the noble Lord will agree that I should go into this matter and reply to him fully.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, the noble Marquess is not in a position to deal with the rather substantial and important point raised by my noble friend Lord Faringdon, with which he says he will deal on some future occasion. But it is relevant to this Order. Is that not an additional reason why the noble Marquess should do with this Order what he did with the previous one—namely defer it? Nothing will be lost, and Her Majesty's Government have time to look further into it; and the noble Marquess can give a considered reply to my noble friend before a decision is taken, later, on the Order.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, with great respect, I quite see that the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, is one of interest, but I do not think it affects what I have already said: that this Order is simply the replacement necessary for the O.E.C.D. I do not feel that the point should make your Lordships consider it necessary to delay the passing of this Order. I hope you will not take that action.
3.57 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, speaking in support of Her Majesty's Government on the present Motion, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, with respect, that this is not an entirely new point. I think that the noble Lord Is very optimistic in assuming that where diplomatic immunity applies it is the practice of the Government whose servant claims diplomatic immunity to make an ex gratia payment. I am not aware of any such custom, and I am certainly aware of many cases where that has not been done.
There is also an example—and this I would mention very particularly, in view of the line taken, somewhat belatedly, by the Opposition in your Lordships' House to-day, although we very much welcome that line. That was not the line they took when they sought, and sought successfully, when they were in power, to obtain diplomatic immunity for the International Postal Union. I hope that I am remembering the name of the organisation correctly. That was a body which had functioned quite happily for very many years without any such immunity. Nevertheless, by an Act of the Labour Government immunity was conferred upon that body. The reason why I believe Her Majesty's Government should be supported on this occasion—and we shall have the opportunity of developing our main arguments on these matters in the postponed debate —is that it will be observed that this particular Order is required to enable Her Majesty's Government to ratify a Convention. I do not believe that there is anybody in this House, in any quarter, who desires that the ratification of the Convention should be unnecessarily delayed; and for that reason, if for no other, I suggest that this Order should now be approved.
4.0 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I do not think that that intervention is really helpful to Her Majesty's Government. The noble Marquess said on the earlier Order that he knew of no case where diplomatic privilege had been used to resist a claim. I did not want to prolong the argument, but I do know of cases. However, I was hoping that, since we deferred the matter, we should be given a fuller explanation of that point. But
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if the answer is what the noble Lord says it is, that in every case an ex-gratia payment is made where there is a claim—
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: He did not say that.
LORD CONESFORD: I said precisely the opposite.
LORD SILKIN: If that is the case, I am bound to say that the British subject who is injured is at a very great disadvantage. After all, an ex-gratia payment is something given, not in order to meet a claim in full, but, having regard to the fact that the maker of the payment is not liable in law to meet the claimant. The British claimant who knows that he has no case in law is obliged to accept something less than he is entitled to. That is the significance of an ex-gratia payment. If that is the position, the subject is at a great disadvantage. There still arises the question which was put by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, and to which we should be glad to have an answer—namely, is there any way by which a British subject who suffers injury at the hands of somebody who has diplomatic privilege can be compensated by the Government itself for injury done to him if he cannot recover from the person who has the immunity? I myself should be quite willing to let this Order go, on the assurance that we shall have all these matters more fully explained to us. But I am bound to say that the answer given by the noble Lord was not at all helpful, and rather made me doubtful whether we ought to pass this Order at all.
4.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think perhaps I ought to do what I can in this situation. Surely there are two or three separate issues here. The first question, which all of us who practise in the Common Law Courts recognise, is that to confer diplomatic immunity on anybody, from the Ambassador downwards, may, at any rate in theory, and therefore sooner or later probably will in practice, give rise to a juridical problem, and perhaps to injustice. That is quite clear. Of course, we all know—we have all had experience of this., whether we have served in Parliament, as the noble Lord who has just spoken has, or whether we have practised as a I solicitor for many years, or practised at

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the Bar for many years—that since the war, particularly (though I think the process had begun before the war), diplomatic immunity of one kind or another has been conferred not only upon the accredited representatives of sovereign States but upon a great number of other people.
I think that Parliament, certainly in my experience (and I am probably speaking also for noble Lords who have sat here for much longer than I have), in one House of Parliament or another, has again and again expressed its anxiety both about the extent of privileges given and about the number of organisations on which privilege should be conferred. The gradual increase of the number of diplomatically privileged persons has, quite rightly, been made the subject of debate.
In the previous case I came in only towards the end of the debate, but I heard more or less what was going on. And I had heard it on other occasions, when the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was in the Government and I was in another place, or what was technically another place. At any rate, we had a new organisation with a new set of privileges. I agree with my noble friend behind me that this is quite a different case from the present Order, which really replaces an old Order and is necessary, as my noble friend Lord Conesford reminded us—absolutely necessary—for the Government before we can give our ratification to an instrument which I am perfectly confident the whole House would desire us to give our ratification to.
I am perfectly well aware—no one more so—that the general question—that is to say, the question of whether diplomatic privilege ought to be as extensive as it is—is one which fully merits the attention of Parliament and Government and, indeed, international discussion. There are important juridical issues. What I would think, though, with respect to noble Lords who have spoken, and what I would ask them to consider, is this. To refuse to allow this particular Order, which is necessary for a particular purpose, is not perhaps the best way of ventilating the general issue. It has come to light and it is bound to receive further discussion, if only when
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the E.F.T.A. Order comes up again. It may deserve a more general discussion, in which case we can have that. But I would ask the House to pass this Order to-day, for the reason given by my noble friend.
Moreover, I would ask the house to remember how, in deciding the extent of diplomatic immunities, Her Majesty's Government are up against a problem which they have to face from time to time and which all British Governments have to face—namely, that these Orders are international in scope and have to be negotiated universally on the basis of a good deal of trading and compromise. Particularly in juridical matters, we represent a system of law which, though it is very common in other continents of the world, in Europe is rather one peculiar to this island; and sometimes our own judicial conceptions do not fit in very well to what European Powers wish. Therefore, I would ask the House to pass this Order, and I certainly give them my own assurance, on behalf of my noble friend, that he will come briefed to deal with the general issues, if need be, when the E.F.T.A. Order comes up again.
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed.

DEPARTMENTAL INQUIRIES AND SUB JUDICE RULE
4.8 p.m
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY rose to call attention to the practice which restricts debate on matters which are sub judice in the courts and to the application of that practice to debate on the proceedings of a Departmental Inquiry; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper I think it would probably be most convenient to your Lordships if I referred, very shortly, to the circumstances which led me to put it down. As some of your Lordships will remember, on December 1 last my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth

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endeavoured to persuade the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack to refer to the Council on Tribunals all the circumstances of a local public inquiry which had been taking place at Banbury into an application to develop ironstone working in North Oxfordshire. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, was concerned not with the merits of these proposals at all, and did not make any attempt to discuss them; they were, indeed, quite irrelevant to the objective which he had in view, which was to get the methods which were being used, or had been used, by the applicants in connection with putting forward their case referred to the Council.
But in the course of the ensuing discussion the noble Lord, Lord Salter, while supporting Lord Lucas of Chilworth in the case that he was making, mentioned a number of reasons why, in his contention, this application should be rejected: that is to say, he did, to some extent, go into the merits of the application which was under review. The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor then rather castigated him for dealing with the merits of a matter, which, he submitted, was sub judice Most of my speech to-day will take the form of a commentary on the speech of the Lord Chancellor on that occasion, and I am quite sure he will not take amiss what I say.
My Lords, so far as I have been able to discover, this is in fact the first time that it has been suggested that the so-called sub judice rule applies to these local inquiries, or, indeed, to any matters which are up for decision by a Minister of the Crown as opposed to some matter which is up for decision by a judge in a court of law. The Lord Chancellor's statement of views on this subject, in my contention, breaks new ground, and breaks it on a matter which seems to be of considerable importance. At any rate, that is the view I take of it, and I am hound to say that it is a view which a number of other Members of your Lordships' House have taken, too. Therefore, I felt that the statement made by the noble and learned Viscount ought not to be allowed to pass undiscussed—I would even say, ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged, because, on consideration, I personally have come to the conclusion that it goes too far, at any rate in the light of the position as
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it has so far been laid down. Indeed, when I discussed it with a number of authorities on constitutional and administrative law, among whom I found that the statement made by the Lord Chancellor had given rise to much interest, I found that they, too, were of the opinion that the sub judice rule does not apply to these local inquiries.
It occurred to me also that the noble and learned Viscount himself might welcome an opportunity of reconsidering his opinion—or, at any rate, of reformulating it, because he spoke on that occasion, as we say, "off the cuff". Although, if I may say so, the noble and learned Viscount is noted for his ability to express very clearly a point of law (or a point of politics, for that matter) impromptu, it is not easy to formulate a view on a matter as important as this without some preliminary consideration; and I must say that, having studied his speech on that occasion carefully, and having read it through more than once, I find that there is perhaps a certain amount of ambiguity in it which I will endeavour to indicate as I go along, although I think the substance of his contention is clear enough.
Your Lordships will doubtless agree that if the sub-judice rule is to be extended to these local public inquiries, the limits of the extension ought to be formulated very carefully indeed, because these matters, as I am sure we all agree, are matters of considerable importance. I have referred to the statement by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. It was an authoritative statement up to a point, but, on the other hand, I do not wish it to be thought that I am conceding that the matter is one which, so to speak, is to be decided from the Woolsack. That is to say, I think the matter is quite clearly a matter rather for your Lordships' House as a House of the Legislature to decide than to be decided by a member of Her Majesty's Government, however authoritative and however well-versed he may be—and, on this occasion, obviously is; both as the leader of the legal profession and as a Parliamentarian of a very long experience.
My Lords, this sub-judice rule is curiously elusive in many ways. Curiously enough, when one begins to try to find

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out something about its history, one discovers that it is very difficult to find any firm ground. I do not want to take up too much time with its historical side, but I am inclined to think that it was originally introduced in order to prevent juries, which played such an outstanding part in the administration of our law for so long, from being influenced by irrelevant considerations. Of course, in criminal cases, where the jury is still in the centre of the picture, that is still its most important application, and is one with which every lawyer is familiar. But I think it is a little unrealistic to suggest at the present time that judges (who now try practically all civil cases, at any rate) are going to allow themselves to be influenced by what is said outside the courts, by matters which are not given in evidence in the court itself, though the rule as to sub judice is still often said to operate on that sort of a basis.
I should myself have thought, at any rate as far as Parliament is involved in this problem of sub judice, that it is more a question of good manners and of the proper comity which should exist between the great organs of State, such as the Legislature and the Judiciary—that each should not trespass on the proper sphere of the other. But, of course, an inspector engaged in a local inquiry is engaged in what is essentially, in my submission, a policy decision: that is to say, a matter which is basically a political matter, and one which should not fall within the sub-judice rule—which, as its very words indicate, is something which is being decided by a judge, something which is decided in a court of law. Nor, I think, is it realistic to say that pressure is being brought to bear on the inspector, as I think the noble and learned Viscount rather suggested, when it is in fact a Minister of the Crown, a member of the Executive, who makes the decision, and often makes it (as the Saffron Walden case, which has been a little in the public news in the last few days, shows) in the teeth of the advice which has been given to him by his own inspector.
Now I have said that the sub-judice rule has not so far been applied, as far as I have been able to discover, to these local inquiries—or, indeed, to anything
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short of a judicial inquiry proper. This, I think, appears clearly enough from Erskine May's great work, and I do not feel it requires a great deal of elaboration, although, perhaps, as it is at the very centre of the discussion, I ought to indicate shortly what Erskine May says about it. Before doing so, however, I should like to say this: although good sense no doubt requires that the sub-judice rule should be observed in this House, I have not been able to find anything which expressly says so. I have not been able to find any express decision to this effect. So far as I have been able to look at them, the authorities in Erskine May all appear to have been given in respect of matters which have been raised in another place.
As a matter of history, my Lords, it seems that for a very long time the High Court of Parliament did take upon itself the duty of supervising the workings of the Judiciary, the workings of the King's Court, certainly if they impinged in any way on what Parliament felt was within its own cognizance and jurisdiction. It will be familiar to many of your Lordships that as late as 1689 Parliament actually brought before it two Judges of the King's Bench and committed them for contempt because it disapproved of the decision which they had come to in the case of Gay v. Topham. In your Lordships' House, of course, this supervision of the Judges was eventually concretised, as you know, in the establishment of the appellate jurisdiction of your Lordships' House.
The working of the sub-judice rule is considered by Erskine May at various stages in Parliamentary procedure, as he deals with them in his book, notably in the Chapter which is entitled "The Process of Debate", where he says:
"A matter which is under adjudication by a court of law should not be brought before the House."
He does not define what he means by "a court of law"; but in a later passage on the same page I think he shows fairly clearly how far he would go in considering what is a court of law, because he says:
"Anything reflecting upon the conduct of a person holding the position of a Judge, such as a Judge in a court of bankruptcy, or in a county court, or a Recorder"—
must not be brought into debate.
So it is clear enough that he has in mind persons who are actually performing a judicial function; and I should have thought it clear enough that an inspector holding an inquiry clearly does not perform that. As I have said, the expression "sub judice" itself is indicative that the rule is concerned with a judge who is actually in the course of deciding some matter which comes before him as a judge in a court. According to Erskine May, the sub judice rule applies to Questions put down to be answered in another place; to Motions for the Adjournment of another place, as well as to problems which are raised in debate.
My Lords, I think it can hardly be contended that these local inquiries, if one looks at them in a realistic way, are courts of law, or judicial hearings, or anything of that nature. I submit that it is clear enough that they are one of the methods by which a Minister prepares himself—informs himself—of the situation and of the facts in order to come to a decision upon some matter of administrative policy. The decision of the Minister in these cases is not a judicial decision, or even a quasi-judicial decision. There may be a few cases where that is not so. I believe that there are cases where the Minister is constituted under an Act of Parliament as a court of appeal in respect of the dismissal of certain types of public servant. There it might well be said that his function was a judicial function, or certainly a quasi-judicial function, and it might be contended that the sub judice rule should apply in a case of that kind; that in principle it would, although so far as I have been able to discover that has not in fact been done previously.
The type of local inquiry which was being held on this particular occasion was not in any sort of way a judicial inquiry; nor was the Minister's decision a judicial decision. That, of course, was finally and authoritatively established by your Lordships' House, sitting in its appellate capacity, in the Stevenage case, in which my noble and learned friend Lord Silkin, who I am sorry is no longer here, was involved as Minister of Town and Country Planning. That was the case of Franklin v. Minister of Town and Country Planning, in 1947, in which the appellant attempted to persuade your Lordships that the Minister had been
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acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, and that his conduct should therefore, be brought before the court. It was held that that was not so; that the decision was a policy decision and not reviewable.
The Minister, in coming to a decision of that kind, is not, therefore, acting as a judge, or even acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, and if that is so I fail to see how it can be said effectively that the inspector, through whom he is gathering the information and material upon which to come to his policy decision, is acting as a judge, or is holding a court of law, or is bringing the proceedings within the sub judice rule. Indeed, my Lords, many of the procedures which are adopted by these courts of inquiry would not be tolerated for one moment in any court of law; yet they are perfectly proper procedures for the purpose for which these local inquiries are held.
One of them which occurs to me is the sending of a letter about the matter, which I am sure many of your Lordships frequently do if you are not in a position to attend the inquiry yourself; and these letters are read at the inquiry—and very properly read. One of the points which the noble and learned Lord was making, I think, was that the noble Lord, Lord Salter, should have gone to the inquiry, and there given evidence and subjected himself to cross-examination. So he could. Or he could have written a letter. Or, in my submission, he could have done what he did, which was to come and discuss the matter in your Lordships' House. Therefore, although the statement which the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor made on December 1 might be taken as implying that there is an existing sub judice rule relating to these local inquiries, in my respectful submission that is not really so. I think that what he was doing was to say that a rule of this kind ought to be established; that there had been, as the result of the Report of the Franks Committee and the passing of the Act, a new situation; that the inquiries were now being held in a different sort of way, that the sub judice rule ought to apply, and that therefore the noble Lord ought not to have discussed the matter here upon the merits.
It is at this stage, my Lords, that I must say I feel that the noble and learned Viscount has not quite made it clear how far he thought this rule

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should go. I do not think he can have intended to say that the whole subject matter under inquiry at one of these inquiries is to be regarded as sub judice until the Minister concerned has published his decision on the matter; I do not think he intended to go so far as that. For one thing, I think it is now generally accepted that the Minister may take into account all sorts of matters which do not come up, and which could not properly come up, at the inquiry— matters of policy which clearly cannot come before the inspector who is investigating into local facts. Also the Minister may, as has been made very clear by the noble and learned Viscount himself in the Saffron Walden case, consult his own civil servants who have not appeared at the inquiry to give evidence there, not only civil servants in his own Department but also in other Departments.
To go back a step in my argument, it is obvious that no judge in a court of law could possibly behave in this way. I suggest that this completely differentiates what is happening here from what happens in a court of law. When he comes to make his decision, the Minister is not in any way limited by the facts which have come out in the inquiry and which have been included in the inspector's report, as, of course, a judge would be in coming to a decision in a court of law. If a judge took into consideration in reaching his judgment anything which had not been given in evidence in court, clearly his decision would be reversible on appeal. And this is another way in which, I suggest, the two types of inquiry are fundamentally different.
However, I do not think that the noble and learned Viscount really intended to go so far. He discussed the dates very carefully in his speech and I took it that he thought that what one might call the sub judice period was a narrower one. He did not indicate exactly where it should begin and where it should end—no doubt, for the purpose of his argument on that occasion, that was not necessary. If there is such a rule, does it begin at the time when the inquiry starts or at the time when the Minister announces that he is going to hold an inquiry? And does it last during the inquiry or, as I think the
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noble and learned Viscount intended to say, does it last until the time the inspector has drawn up his report; or possibly—perhaps more likely—does it last until the time when the inspector has delivered his report into the hands of the Minister?
As your Lordships will see, this is not very clear and it ought to be clear, because, as I say, this is an important matter.
At one point in his speech the noble and learned Viscount referred (col. 1239) to "potential attacks in Parliament before a matter is decided," which may be taken to indicate that it went right on until the Minister had given his decision. On the other hand, in the light of the dates he gave, I think that the other is the correct view of it. But the noble and learned Viscount is listening to what I say, as is also the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, who is to reply, and I should be very grateful if some further light could be thrown on these matters, because obviously, how long this sub judice period should last is a matter of considerable importance. If it goes on too long, the time for relevant public discussion is short, as I shall indicate more closely in a minute. I think that the noble and learned Viscount was contending that until the inspector had actually reported to the Minister, the matter is to be regarded as sub judice. Even if we regard this as desirable—and I think that it is more than doubtful whether this sub judice rule should be applied at all in these cases—then I submit that it should be applied as narrowly as possible.
Obviously, there are considerable practical difficulties in the way of applying it, and I should like to indicate some of these. The first difficulty is that normally one does not know when an inspector has reported. His report is usually published with the Minister's decision; and until the Minister's decision is given, nobody outside the Ministry knows whether the inspector has made his report or not. Sometimes, when Ministers are asked questions in Parliament about whether they had decided or whether they are going to decide on some point, they make some remark to the effect that they are still considering the report, which would be an indication that a report had been made by the inspector. But there is never any open statement that a report has been

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made. So that the time when public discussion can be held is not clearly known; and obviously this is a serious drawback.
Secondly, did the noble and learned Viscount mean that there should be no public discussion of any kind until the inspector had made his report? Of course, if this were a court of law, the rules of contempt would bar any sort of public discussion, in the Press, on the T.V. or elsewhere, and the sub judice rules of Parliament would then prevent discussion here. But I imagine that nobody would contend that this was a case where the contempt rules apply. They certainly do not apply as they stand at present, certainly not without a considerable, radical and unwelcome extension of the rules as they stand.
So that if there is not to be a contempt rule for preventing discussion of these matters in newspapers and in broadcasting and outside, is discussion to be forbidden only to Members of Parliament, who are more concerned with these matters, which are matters of policy and politics, than anybody else? Indeed, is it not significant that in this North Oxfordshire case the argument was going on in the Press contemporaneously with this inquiry? The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, referred to articles in the Economist and the Sunday Times, and there were other articles in newspapers such as the Observer. In practice, whenever an inspector makes an inquiry in a controversial case, he does so in the middle of an absolute hubbub of discussion and public comment. Your Lordships have only to cast your minds back to the Piccadilly case, in which all the newspaper continuously carried comment from beginning to end; to the Oxford roads case, in which comment has accompanied every inquiry that has ever been heard, and to any other important inquiry of this kind. Or are we to go back to the sort of rule, which has been established by the Broadcasting Council, limiting discussion to six months in regard to matters to be debated in Parliament? This is really my third point.
To sum up, it seems to me that the fallacies (if I may so describe them), in the argument of the noble and learned Viscount are these. First, with great respect, that he misapplies the sub judice rule on the lines I have explained;
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secondly, that be assumes that other organs of expression, such as the Press, are silent; and thirdly, that he seems to accept that in drawing up his report an inspector would be influenced by what was said in Parliament but not by comments made elsewhere, which seems to me to be very doubtful indeed.
The matters which come up for decision in this way are matters, I repeat, of public concern. They are matters upon which opinions are strongly held. The independence of judgment of a person who is appointed to report on these matters is not improperly attacked, I think, by expressions of opinion in regard to the policies on which he is called upon to collect material and information for his Minister; and a person who wishes to express his opinions should be left free to decide according to his own judgment whether he can best do so by attending the inquiry or by writing articles in the newspapers or, if he is fortunate enough to be a Member of Parliament, by raising the matter in Parliament. Why should he not do so? And why should an inspector be embarrassed if he does do so?
It appears to me that there is an increasing tendency, which, indeed, I think is exemplified in the argument in this case of the noble and learned Viscount, to judicialise (if I may use that rather awkward word) as much as possible of the administrative process. Some aspects of that tendency are no doubt commendable, but I yam afraid it is being combined with an attempt to restrict discussion and criticism on the ground that the process has become judicial in nature and, therefore, the sub-judice rule applies. This seems to me both specious and dangerous. The inspector is a civil servant, responsible to a Minister, making recommendations, collecting information on questions of policy for which his Minister is responsible to Parliament. This is a political set-up, which is essentially different from a trial in a court of law, and, in my submission, it should be kept so. Criticism should be free and open at every stage. Governments always tend to be rather desirous of escaping criticism, and their attempts to do so are often ingenious and ought to be kept under close scrutiny. It is the duty and, I submit, the privilege of Parliament to see to it that all matters which come within its own purview are brought out

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clearly into the light of day, and to consider, carefully, and, indeed, to hesitate long, before allowing such a rule as that of sub judice, invented and developed for a completely different purpose, to impede it in its essential work.
I should like to say, in conclusion, that I very much appreciate that the noble and learned Viscount spoke under the impulsion of a deep and, indeed, passionate reverence for the Common Law, for which he is held in the highest respect and regard throughout the legal profession; and I hope that I share this reverence with him. But this feeling, I fear, has sometimes impelled lawyers to apply Common Law doctrines to situations of a kind for which they were not devised. That is what I think we are rather in danger of doing here. It is just as important that the law should not push too far into politics as that politics should not interfere with the administration of the law. Parliament no longer summons judges to its Bar when it dislikes their decisions—it has more sense—but tidies up the Statute. Of course there is no complete separation between the powers of the different sides of the State in matters of this sort; there must always, in practice, be a certain amount of interplay. The Franks Committee and the noble and learned Viscount between them have, I entirely agree, effected considerable improvements in the technique of departmental administration by strengthening what one might call the atmosphere of justice in which these inquiries should be held. I hope that the noble and learned Viscount and the Government will not wish to go too far along this road in an attempt, under the banner of the Common Law, to fetter free discussion of what are, in my view, and in the view of many people, essentially political problems: because if they succeed in doing that, the cure will be worse than the disease. I beg to move for Papers.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I put one question to the noble Lord? With what he said about the matter not being in a legal sense sub judice I find myself in general agreement, but I think that what he has not dealt with, and what I should like to know from him, is how he conceives the problem of the Minister if this matter is raised
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in Parliament. On the occasion referred to my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack was replying, and was known to be going to reply, to the debate. While I agree entirely with what the noble Lord said on the constitutional principle of the right of my noble friend Lord Salter to raise the matter, I should like to know from the noble Lord what he thinks my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack should have done, if the question of merits was to be debated in the debate. If he had dealt with the question of merits, I think that objection could have been taken in every quarter to the possible influence that was being brought to bear on the inspector. On the other hand, if he were completely silent, again that might have been open to misinterpretation. I think this is an extremely difficult problem, but I wonder what the noble Lord would like the Minister to do if the matter were raised in this House in that way.
4.46 p.m.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, the noble Lord who opened this discussion said that the origin of his Motion was the comment made by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack on an intervention that I had made in the debate on December 1. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, then raised a certain procedural question about an inquiry that had taken place in north Oxfordshire, and as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, said truly, I did not then limit myself to a discussion of procedure, but discussed the merits of the case that had been before the inquiry. I do not propose now to say a word either about the merits of that or any other case, but to limit myself entirely to procedure.
The reasons which made me think at that time that I was free to discuss the question of merits are, I think, relevant to the discussion we are now having on procedure. They were roughly these. I was not aware then, and, indeed, am still not aware, that up to that date, December 1, there had been any authoritative statement of a rule or recognised practice that a question that had been before a public inquiry should be regarded as sub judice until a verdict had been given. In the second place, I was aware that only a few days before that debate a Member of another place had asked a question of a Minister on a matter that

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went to the heart of the problem discussed by the inquiry, and the Minister had not told him he should not have asked the question, but had, in fact, given a substantial reply.
In the third place, as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has already remarked, I had observed that in a number of responsible organs of the Press there had been a discussion on the merits of the question; and I had never heard anyone suggest that they were acting improperly, still less that they should be had up for contempt of court in so acting. It certainly did not occur to me that, if it was right and proper for organs of the Press to discuss the merits between the holding of the inquiry and the verdict or report of the inspector, it was improper for me as a Member of your Lordships' House to do so. After all, we are not an organ of the Executive, and although we are part of the Legislature, now with considerably restricted functions, our main function, I think it is proper to say, is as an organ for the expression of public opinion. For all those reasons, I thought I was perfectly free on that occasion to discuss the question of merits.
I do not propose to follow the noble Lord. Lord Chorley, into his technical and learned argument, for which, indeed, I am not professionally qualified; I propose only to add a few comments from the practical and administrative point of view. I can perhaps best put the kind of attitude that I should have thought was most reasonable and in the public interest, by referring to a more recent discussion in this House on March 1 on B.B.C. and I.T.V. questions which were, and are, under consideration by the Pilkington Committee. On the occasion of that debate, the Lord Chancellor in effect said that he, as a member of the Government which had appointed the Pilkington Committee, was necessarily to some extent—I am paraphrasing; I do not remember his exact words—inhibited in the expression of his opinion on the merits of the questions being considered by that Committee. But he added that he was sure that the Committee would be helped by the expressions of views taking place in this House on the occasion of that debate. I should like to see the same attitude taken with regard to discussions of problems that have been referred to
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a public inquiry, or on which a public inquiry has been sitting, under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.
I appreciate there are differences. A body like the Pilkington Committee is, of course, composed of public people and is a composite body. In those respects, it is different from a public tribunal presided over by an inspector, normally a civil servant or an ex-civil servant. However, with great respect, it does not appear to me that those differences are of decisive importance or that they alter what seems to me the fact, that there is a much closer analogy between such a Committee and a public inquiry than there is between a court of law and a public inquiry.
Take, for example, the kind of questions that come up before a public inquiry under the Town and Country Planning Act. You have, on the one hand, normally and typically, a definite economic proposal with certain economic advantages, and with all the help of the relevant experts, and not infrequently with the involvement in some degree or another of a particular Department of the Government with its own experts. On the other hand, you have the public interest in the possibly threatened amenities of the countryside. Somehow or other there has to be a weighing of those not very easily commensurable considerations on the one side and the other. That seems to me extremely like the kind of question that is considered by a Royal Commission or by such a Committee as the Pilkington Committee, and very unlike the typical question before a court of law, "Is X guilty of this offence or not".
I think, therefore, that it is logical, and reasonable to assimilate the public inquiry rather to a Royal Commission than to a court of law. I think also that this is very much in the public interest, for this reason. I have said something of the advantage that the applicant for permission to develop a certain area has in having a concentrated interest and in having experts at his disposal. Against that, you have the dispersed public interest which is very hard to mobilise effectively, except at a time when it has been aroused by the announcement of a public inquiry; and at the inquiry itself it is very difficult to have the general public interest expressed in such a way as to be equipollent

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to the presentation of the case of the applicant for the development. Therefore, as I say, I should have thought that if you were to get the best possible working of the public inquiry system it was desirable to allow and, indeed, encourage, a free expression of views, even after the inquiry, by those who are concerned with the general public interest and have some particular knowledge, either of the region concerned, or of the working of the Town and Country Planning Acts, that is relevant.
In those circumstances, I should have liked to ask the Government to make a somewhat different statement as to the proper guiding rule than that which the Lord Chancellor made on December 1. I am not going as far as that now. I would say only this: I think it is clear that some interpretation and supplementation of what he then said will anyhow be necessary. I am not quite sure, for example, whether it would result from what he then said that the closed period was from the time of the inquiry to the report of the inspector or, further than that, to the date at which the Minister gave his verdict. I am not sure whether he implied a distinction between this House, on the one hand, and organs for the expression of public opinion, such as the Press outside, on the other. But in any case, of course he had to speak, as Lord Chorley said, "off the cuff." I had given him no notice that I was raising a question of principle for the simple reason that I had not realised I was doing so, or was going to do so. Therefore he spoke at once without any such notice.
There have also been certain further developments which I think make it clear that there must be some further consideration of procedural matters in regard to these inquiries. I think, for example, that in a Written Answer the Lord Chancellor himself gave a few days ago with regard to the Saffron Walden case, the last sentence indicated that the Council on Tribunals would be considering not only the immediate relevant question to that case of third parties, but also other questions of procedure. All I am going to ask now is that, if that is, as I believe it to be, the case, a sufficient time should be allowed and encouragement given for those individuals or institutions which
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have relevant experience of the working of the Town and Country Planning Acts, and of these public inquiries, to consider the procedural problems involved and express their views, whether in public or in representations to the Government, before any definite and final line is taken which will govern procedure in future.
5.0 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, I was present upon the occasion which has given rise to this debate, and I must say that I was considerably surprised when the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack administered such a sharp rebuke to the noble Lord who has just spoken; because it also had never occurred to me that what he was doing was discussing a matter which was sub judice in the general way in which lawyers understand that expression. I have still a considerable amount of difficulty in thinking that the proceedings before an inspector appointed to hold an inquiry on a town planning matter are quite on a par with judicial proceedings as we understand them. There is no definite point of law to be decided; there is not a claim by A against B, or an allegation that somebody has broken the law—which is the kind of point that judicial bodies have to decide. What has to be decided, in the end, is what is or is not to the public advantage in a particular case, having regard, no doubt, to a certain extent to the expectations of individuals who happen to own land and are hoping to develop it in a certain way.
My experience of such an inquiry has shown me that it is very far from being a judicial proceeding, in the way in which we understand such things, because I have a vivid recollection of being pulled up by an inspector conducting one town planning inquiry. When I was cross-examining a witness I was told that I had not the right to ask any questions at all—which I believe was a statement of fact—and, still more embarrassingly, was asked to justify the questions which I was asking. And nothing can be more ruinous to a cross-examination than to have to reveal to the person being examined the purpose of the questions which you are gradually leading up to.
However, to come back to what happened in this House, although I would not accept the general proposition that

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this was a matter which was sub judice and in regard to which any comment, either here or in the Press, or anywhere else, was virtually contempt of court, I do understand, and I think it is correct, that it is a very difficult thing for such a question to be raised at that stage in either House of Parliament. After all, the Minister, or the person who speaks on behalf of the Minister, is not in a position at that stage to say anything at all; and therefore there cannot be a reply on his behalf to the points which have been raised. He is seized of the matter upon which he has to give a decision as impartially and honestly as he possibly can, and I think that the only way in which he can come to his decision is in the quietude and privacy of his own Department, without being subjected to speeches, pro and con, in this House or in the other.
That seems to me to be a practical reason why speeches dealing with the marks of something which has to be decided by a Minister after a public inquiry ought not to be made in Parliament, because there they cannot be answered on behalf of the Government or on behalf of the Minister, and they can be distinctly embarrassing to the quietude of mind and the impartiality with which he ought to consider his inspector's report and approach a decision. On that account, I think it is correct that these matters ought not to be discussed here when they have reached that stage.
LORD SALTER: Might I ask the noble Lord whether he would not agree that his argument would have been equally applicable to the debate on March 1, when the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said quite frankly that he could not speak as freely on the merits as he would in other circumstances, but also said that the fact that the debate had taken place was likely to be of advantage to the Pilkington Committee? I suggest that while we all recognise the point raised by the noble Lord, it does not, on balance, tip the scales to the point of making it desirable to lay down a rule that, while other people are free to discuss, neither House of Parliament should say a word.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: With all respect to the noble Lord, I do not think those things are on a par at
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all. A Committee of Inquiry or a Royal Commission, or some body of that kind, is appointed in order to collect evidence and to present a conclusion for the benefit of Ministers, for the benefit of Parliament, for the benefit of the country generally; and that is all. There is no question there of the kind which arises in a town planning inquiry where, in the end, a decision has to be given which affects the rights of a particular individual. I have said that it is not in the nature of a litigation between one person and another, but it does affect the rights of an individual who happens to own land and who desires to develop it in a certain way. In that sense it is much more analogous to a judicial proceeding than anything which can take place before a Royal Commission or some other body appointed to conduct in a more or less abstract way a general inquiry on a matter of public policy.
5.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, this has been an interesting discussion and I think it falls to me to answer it, not because, for reasons I shall give, I have any authority to lay down and define rules, in spite of the numerous invitations which have been directed to me to do so, but because this is a matter of the practice of the House and not really a legal question at all. I think it should be looked at in that light.
I should emphasise this point: that in a court of law rules, as they are called, tend to crystallise out into technical doctrines which can be formulated, put into textbooks and made the subject of judicial decision and appeal. And for quite separate sets of reasons the decisions of the Speaker in another place tend to crystallise, too, and to reach an almost legal clarity. This has never been so with the so-called Rules of practice in this House, al though they are capable of enforcement. This House is the guardian of its own Rules of Order; and, except where it has laid down those Rules in the terms of a Standing Order (which even then it is at liberty to interpret reasonably, or even by Resolution to suspend), I think it is and should remain presumptuous of anyone to seek to lay down general rules in advance of cases.
I start from the premise upon which the noble Lord, Lard Chorley, founded a good deal of his argument. His Motion

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began, and I thought rightly began, by referring to the practice which restricts debate on matters that are sub judice in the courts. But in the course of his speech he constantly referred to it as the sub judice rule I think it is my duty to point out that this practice itself is not referred to anywhere in the Standing Orders of this House. In fact, quite unlike the parallel position in another place, which I think should never be referred to as a binding or even a persuasive precedent upon ourselves, it has never been referred to at all. In a sense, therefore, there is no sub judice rule to interpret in this House—in a sense, because it has never been formulated at all, even in relation to the courts.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, the noble Viscount is in effect repeating what I said: that it has never been applied in this House but as a matter of good sense.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am not sure that I was going quite so far as that, but I was going at least as far as this: I have made great efforts to find in Erskine May, for instance, any reference to a rule in the House of Lords known as the "sub-judice rule". The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, quite rightly pointed out that all the instances he had found related to another place. I think that is in fact significant. But, since it has never 'been referred to before, I myself have no doubt that there is in fact a rule of practice recognised by this House, and that this House would in fact enforce a rule of practice if it felt it desirable to do so in the circumstances of a particular case. The absence of reference in the books and in the previous debates is due, I should have said, not to the fact that the practice does not exist, but to the fact that it has been universally observed in relation to the courts of law.
I notice that there is one exception to what I have already said, but I think it confirms it. I notice that my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack referred to the existence of a general sub-judice rule on July 23, 1959, in relation to the case of Podola, and that his reference was endorsed on that occasion by the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition and was not questioned by anybody at the time. That is to say, the
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reference was before the incident which gave rise to the present Motion. I should myself say that it refers to a universally recognised, but never previously referred to, and never previously defined, practice in this House which noble Lords in fact observe, and which the House would enforce if it thought that a sufficiently grave case of breach had arisen.
The convenience of such a Rule in any House of Parliament is obvious, because in order that justice may be done it is important that two things should happen: first, that the courts, whether they are juries or judges, should be left to form their own conclusions free from political or external pressures of any kind; and secondly, that they should found those decisions upon evidence heard or tested at the trial, and not on matters given contemporarily but extraneously to the trial, because if they founded their conclusions upon the latter kind of material the parties would have no opportunity of answering it, and justice would therefore not be done.
The question which the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has raised is whether, and, if so, to what extent, this rather indefinite but almost universally recognised practice applies to a debate on the proceedings of what he refers to in his Motion as a departmental inquiry. This is clearly a wider question and a somewhat different question, and it is one upon which I personally am quite unable to find any precedent at all, apart from the particular incident on December 1 last which gave rise to the Motion. It is, I think, worth while my stating, although, as I have said, it is not a precedent for us, that so far as I can find out the other place, too, has not as yet developed a crystallised ruling on the matter. It is fairly plain, and I think it has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that the hearings of such inquiries have not been protected by contempt of court procedures, which have a certain analogy although they are not the same; and I believe that, in actual practice, comment, at least in the localities where they are held, is fairly uninhibited. In these circumstances, I think I should he wrong to try to attempt anything like a crisp ruling on this matter, even if I were entitled to do so, which I am not.
The Motion refers to departmental inquiries. These may, of course, take many

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forms, from the most private and informal to the most formal and public, and I think it would clearly be wrong to expect a single practice to cover them all. In what I am saying now I am confining myself to public local inquiries set up by a Minister, usually, I think, the Minister of Housing, under Parliamentary sanction. It is about this that the debate has in fact revolved, and it was probably what the noble Lord intended. Certainly, it was such an inquiry which gave rise to the debate last December to which he referred. But even these must have quite different subject matters, from the most general to the most particular; and this, I think, is a fact which, to some extent, explains some of the differences of opinion that have emerged during the course of the few speeches. For instance, one cannot really compare, as I think my noble friend Lord Salter tried to do, the kind of inquiry which could conceivably be the subject of a Royal Commission, like broadcasting and commercial television, with something like the case of a man who wants to convert the front room of his house for the purposes of trade which is to be carried on from his home.
I am told that this has been the subject of a recent public local inquiry instituted by the Minister of Housing and, as the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, quite rightly pointed out, in such a case, and in many of these public local inquiries you have something which in some ways is almost analogous to the situation in the courts. You have a man trying to defend 'his rights against either another man, or sometimes against a public authority. He wants to argue his case; he wants to call witnesses and to deal with evidence. It may be that the evidence is not the formal kind of oral testimony upon which the courts of law will insist at Common Law, but, none the less, he wants to ensure that he is dealing with the matters which will really influence the position of the case—indeed, I do not suppose he would bother to come to an inquiry, or that the inquiry would have any validity for him or for the public, if he thought that he was going to argue one set of arguments but that somewhere else, where he did not get access, where he could not deal with it, somebody else was going to put forward another set of arguments to which he had not opportunity of replying, and these were going
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to carry the day against him. I should think that that should give one cause to reflect.
Moreover, although I would agree that there is a certain analogy with contempt of court, I think one has to be pretty careful about applying that here, too. It may be desirable for public opinion to manifest itself in various ways, but it may happen that at the same time it is out of order to discuss this kind of matter in Parliament. The obvious case where this may be so is in the reprieve cases, where public opinion is often extremely vocal about the desirability or otherwise of the prerogative of mercy; but, certainly in another place, and I suspect also here, it would be considered improper to canvass it before a certain event. Other things are debatable in Parliament which cannot be freely discussed outside. Sometimes subjects cannot be debated on television. There was at one time a 14-day rule of which we have all heard. Therefore, I think one should be careful of taking too many analogies in this matter, and that we should really work out our own salvation according to our traditional methods.
In the particular matter, if viewed from this point of view, looking at it not as a question of law but rather as a question of common sense, there were a good many arguments in favour of the line taken by my noble and learned friend as a guide for practice. To begin with, I am sure that the debates on the Franks Committee in your Lordships' House will be fresh in your memory. In those debates the local public inquiry loomed rather large, as I remember well. Noble Lords on all sides of the House—and I remember particularly the interest shown by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but there were many others—pressed my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack very hard on that occasion to equate inquiries with the judicial rather than the administrative in various ways; partly that he should insist that his own Department rather than the Minister should appoint the inspector. But there were many ways in which the argument was then put.
It was strongly supported in many quarters that the procedure should be treated as a judicial rather than an administrative device, and in any case

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as a judicial rather than a political matter. In the end, the House accepted my noble and learned friend's advice, which was that the Franks Committee had been right to draw a balance between the administrative, political side of this matter and the judicial side; and I would say that the truth is that these public local inquiries are nearly always hybrid procedures, taking some of the elements from both types; and it is rather difficult to generalise because, in fact, it may be in relation to one case rather than another that the judicial may come out on top and be more prominent and the more important side, while in another case the matter may turn on an issue of policy, as to which the judicial is less important.
I should have said that my noble and learned friend has attempted to keep a balance between these elements and there is at any rate one set of factors which I believe tells strongly in his favour. It is, if I mistake not, that set of factors put forward partly by my noble and learned friend, Lord Conesford, and by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch. After all, Parliament has set up the machinery under which these inquiries function, and I am sure that neither House of Parliament would seek by its own action in debate to stultify what it has quite deliberately, by Act of Parliament, set out to achieve; and I am very sure that no Member of either House would wish, by his speeches, to be the means of that happening.
The object of these inquiries is to enable individuals and public authorities and, indeed, whole communities, and in extreme cases the national community, to get a fair hearing and have their case put where their own or public interests are affected—and before the Minister makes up his mind. It follows that the wells of justice should surely not be poisoned by intervention. After all, the inspector is a paid official. He is far more vulnerable in that way than a High Court Judge. A High Court Judge is protected by his professional training. Also, he is protected by the Constitution from removal; and I should have thought that the inspector ought to be to a great extent allowed to operate and continue his inquiry in an atmosphere free from lobbies and pressures.
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I am sure that whatever else is true, my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford was right in suggesting that at least the Minister should be silent on matters until the evidence is complete. I understood that my noble friend Lord Salter, agreed with that. After all, people who feel strongly can come and give evidence, and others who feel strongly in the opposite direction can then argue with them, and the thing can be assembled, marshalled, brought together and finally determined. Surely, that is a better course than for some to seek to influence the decision from a point of vantage from which they cannot be answered, whether that place be the columns of a newspaper or Parliament itself.
If my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack is to be pressed, as he is currently being pressed in relation to the Saffron Walden inquiry, as noble Lords will have seen in the columns of The Times newspaper to-day, to enforce upon his colleagues the view that in many respects they must not go to private and extraneous sources for information and advice (and up to a point he agrees, although in the particular case of the Saffron Walden inquiry he thought that the advice sought was reasonable)—if he is to be pressed on those lines, then surely it must be right, as a matter of practice and personal responsibility, that noble Lords and honourable Members of another place (although I have no right to speak about them) and those who want to discuss the merits should do so before the start of any inquiry and not use Parliament as a forum to ventilate their views.
I am neither authorised nor prepared to lay down a hard-and-fast rule in these cases, and I think precedents would give me small justification for trying to do so; but I should simply think, as a matter of sense, that when these inquiries are pending the House would do well, on the whole, to respect the independence of the inspector and do its best to ensure that the result of that inquiry is not only fair but is seen to be fair.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount to confirm or correct two points. In the first place, if I heard him aright, he is making a distinction between the freedom to discuss in the period

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in question in this House and the freedom of the Press or other organs of public opinion to do so. In the second place, may I ask him whether it is not true that on December 1 last there had been no guiding rule or precedent to limit discussion in this House in the circumstances in question?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, as regards the second question, that is certainly true. There has been no precedent or ruling. As regards the first, I would say as a matter of general observation that I should think this House ought to decide its own conduct without particular reference to the other kinds of public expression of opinion which may or may not be desirable, and which do not depend so much as the practice of this House does upon the sense of responsibility of individual people. They have to be curbed, if they are curbed at all, by legal processes which sometimes are worse than the disease.
5.29 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion, and I am gratified by the general course of the discussion. I do not want to take much more of your Lordships' time. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, that I was glad to find him in agreement with my general argument. I do not think the difficulty he raised is in any sense insuperable. I believe it will be handled by a Minister when it comes up—which will not be very often—in the kind of way in which the noble and learned Viscount handled the broadcasting case. He will say that the arguments have been listened to, and that he will bring them to the attention of his right honourable friend—as so often happens; indeed, as has happened at an earlier stage here this afternoon, once if not twice. The matters that have been brought forward will be before the Minister when he comes to make up his mind, and that is, after all, what this type of political decision requires: that the Minister should have all the relevant material before him; what comes out of the inquiry being just a rather important group of facts forming part of the dossier.
I think that the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House has
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really put the matter in proper perspective when he says that it is a matter for the good sense of the House; that different types of case will require a different attitude from noble Lords. That obviously is so. In the sort of small case in which a man's residence is the whole subject of the inquiry, clearly nobody is going to initiate a debate in this House. But in a case like the North Oxfordshire iron case or the Piccadilly Circus case, or cases of that type, the interests of a very large section of the public are concerned; and the matter is one of real political significance in which it is not only right that Members of Parliament should express their views but, in my submission, their duty to do so. This, I think, is the answer to my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch. Some cases should be treated with a kind of sub judice approach; others not.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for yielding. He has two or three times referred to the Piccadilly Circus case. I took a fairly prominent part in that, but all the interventions in this House were before the inquiry had been set up. There was no discussion in this House after the appointment of the inspector.
LORD CHORLEY: I am not saying that there was. I was saying merely that that is the sort of case in which I should have regarded it as apparently legitimate that there should be, and it differentiates it from the sort of case to which my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch was referring.
I was a little sorry that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, did not discuss in more detail the limits of the period of abstention. He seemed to carry it right down to the time when the Minister gives his decision, which I would have thought takes it too far. However, these matters will no doubt come out in the washing. I am sure that the discussion which we have had this afternoon is of very considerable value in regard to these matters; and I hope, for that reason, that the Motion, which I now beg leave to withdraw, has been a useful one.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

TOXIC CHEMICALS AND WILD LIFE
5.33 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON LORD SHACKLETON rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the catastrophic casualties caused to game and wild life, especially during the last few weeks, which are attributable to the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture, and to ask what immediate steps they propose to take to deal with this urgent problem. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask Her Majesty's Government the Question on the Order Paper. I realise that its words are very strong, and I shall do my best to justify them and prove, as I hope, that they are not too strong. I should like, first of all, to say how glad I am that my noble friend Lord Walston is to make his maiden speech. With his wide knowledge of this subject I am sure that his contribution will be of great value and interest. I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, who has been so active in this field, is not able to be here; but I have his blessing, as your Lordships would expect, in regard to this matter. I am also extremely sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, has apparently been silenced or is, for some reason, unable to take part in this debate.
My Lords, I am very conscious that this is an extremely difficult and complex matter and that there is nothing to be gained by scaremongering or attacking farmers or attacking manufacturers, or even attacking the Government, although I shall have something to say later on about the Government. But the situation is a very dangerous one. I say this in the full knowledge that these chemicals have been of very great value to agriculture, not merely in this country but throughout the world, an4 that it is of profound importance that we should be able to have these aids to greater productivity. I believe that something like 80 per cent. are weed killers and are not dangerous, at least to animal life, in the majority of cases.
I raised this matter in the debate on science last November in which the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, spoke. On that occasion he made no comment at all about the
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dangers of the situation that were arising or my plea for a greater emphasis by the Government in regard to scientific research in the field of ecology. I would stress again what I am sure all your Lordships are aware of: that it is dangerous to interfere with nature without some regard to the consequences of your action. Of course any agriculture or forestry, or any of these activities, involves such interference. Nobody is suggesting that that is undesirable, although it carries its own dangers. Noble Lords are as well aware as anyone of the dangers of the wrong sort of agriculture and of the total destruction of large areas of the world by bad husbandry. I am well aware that much has been done in this matter and that a great deal of responsible action has been shown by many people, whether they be farmers or manufacturers or the Government. This does not, however, conceal the fact that we are faced by a really critical situation.
In the Report of the Nature Conservancy last year they made reference to, and a warning about, the wild life casualties that occurred, particularly in the spring, and to the mysterious deaths of large numbers of birds, allegedly due to the use of toxic sprays. They went into great length on the question of the heavy mortality of foxes, which is a matter I referred to in the debate last November, and which at that time was believed by many people to be due to a virus disease. The Nature Conservancy, on the investigations they then made, said that
"…this investigation, though by no means conclusive, suggests that seed dressing with dieldrin and similar chemicals may well be a cause of the heavy Fox mortality."
They gave descriptions of unusual events, of sick foxes being found wandering in such unlikely localities as the yard of a master of a particular fox hunt. But there was no conclusive evidence, although there was strong circumstantial evidence at the time, of the cause of these fatalities.
The Government took action and an Inter-Departmental Advisory Committee was set up, then later a special Committee was set up to study the need for further research into the effect of the use of toxic chemicals. But the atmosphere hitherto has rather been one of, "This may be a serious problem, but we

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cannot interfere with processes of agriculture and we hope that everything will be all right." Sir William Slater, who was formerly Secretary of the Agricultural Research Council, wrote an article in the New Scientist, which, on the whole, took the point of view that these chemicals were of such value that we must, within reason, be prepared to put up with some disadvantages. He did say, however:
"Any signs of widespread destruction of wild life attributable to the use of a particular chemical would bring an immediate demand from farmers for an alternative, and a fall in sales."
He went on:
"The manufacturer also knows that any evidence of serious risk to the human population would result in the prohibition of the use of the substance responsible. A part from these weighty commercial considerations, the chemical manufacturer is as anxious as anyone, for purely humanitarian reasons, not to cause unnecessary pain or suffering."
My Lords, for the second year in succession heavy casualties have been reported, both of birds and, to a lesser extent, of mammals, and they have been reported from all over England. Significantly, they have coincided with the spring sowing. There is undoubted proof that, in 19 out of 20 samples analysed through the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, death has been caused by seed dressings, and there is good circumstantial evidence for the same causes for most of the others. On one estate in Lincolnshire the number of wood pigeons killed went into thousands. Agriculturists may say that that is a good thing—although it is, of course, forbidden to kill pigeons by poison bait of that kind. But it was not only pigeons: 33 pheasant, 14 partridge, 14 long-eared owl, 5 tawny owl and 5 sparrow hawk were also killed. It is probable that the bird predator population in this area has been virtually destroyed.
There is also new evidence which has been collected by the Game Research Association, and I should like to read out the list of dead birds that were collected, in the space of 11· hours, on one well-known estate in Norfolk. There were 32 pheasants, 15 red-legged partridges, one partridge, 284 wood pigeons, 59 greenfinches, 24 chaffinches, 5 blackbirds, 1 song thrush, 5 skylarks, 5 moorhens, 11 bramblings—whidi, in-
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cidentally, are specially protected; they are in the First Schedule—and many other birds, including the predators. A total, of well over 600 birds was picked up in the course of that 11·-hour search on one relatively small area of about 500 to 1,000 acres.
I have in my hand (I will not go through them all) no fewer than 30 reports of a similar kind from all over the country. In one report, for instance—from Tunby, in Lincolnshire—there were found 39 pheasants and many other birds which again are protected, among them 2 racing pigeons. It has been alleged that disappearance of some racing pigeons has been due to the activities of predatories; but the evidence, I am afraid, is circumstantial. Indeed, the evidence of the actual analyses that have been made of some of the birds, shows that they were killed by toxic chemicals. In these circumstances I think the word "catastrophic", if we were to extend this all over the country, would certainly not be excessive. There are, I admit, existing arrangements for voluntary co-operation to prevent these difficulties, but the fact is that they do not seem to be effective. The agricultural chemists seem to have achieved a record in regard to the countryside that the Borgias would envy.
My Lords, this is a very serious matter, because we are interfering, to a degree that has not been equalled since the inclosures, with the course of nature. Indeed, the chemicalisation of the countryside may have as profound an effect as the inclosures did. The only difference is that we do not yet know, nor have we any idea, what the long-term side-effects of the use of certain of these materials will be. Another striking thing is that if it were not for the action of private individuals, and of organisations like the British Ornithological Trust and the other bodies that I have already mentioned, the public and the Government would not have been provided with the information necessary to assess the seriousness of the situation. It seems that the situation is truly deplorable. There are real implications of wholesale poisoning; and, my Lords, existing arrangements do not seem to be adequate in regard to putting pressure on chemical firms to produce less toxic seed dressings. Under present arrangements, there does not seem to be

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much hope that the situation will improve.
My Lords, those of us (and I am quite sure they include the great majority of the people in this country, and certainly in your Lordships' House) who refuse to tolerate the present situation do not wish to do any damage to agriculture; but the fact that we are now seeing wild life eliminated quite unnecessarily—and I stress the words "quite unnecessarily"—gives us very serious grounds for complaining and urging the Government to take this matter a great deal more seriously than they appear to have done so far. Quite apart from the æstbetic and humanitarian grounds, there is a real economic risk in the extermination of wild life. We do not know what the ultimate effect may be of the use of these chemicals. The destruction of wood pigeons on a particular estate does not necessarily mean that the farmers will suffer any the less from wood pigeons. The long-term effect of preservation measures (and those of your Lordships who are involved in agriculture will know this extremely well) cannot always be foreseen, and merely wiping out a particular species in a particular area at one time does not mean that they may not be bothered by the same species or, indeed, by others.
The schemes which exist are not, in my opinion, adequate for dealing with the situation, and my first concern is with the attitude of the Government themselves. When the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, asked a Question earlier this year, the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, in a long reply, and in the series of replies which followed, made a statement in which he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 229, No. 50, col. 512]:
"…my information is that the manufacturers are doing a great deal of research on this subject and that the Government research organisations are co-operating with them in that research."
I would ask the noble Earl to justify that statement this afternoon, because it is my information that in fact the chemical manufacturers are doing practically nothing in the way of long-term ecological research. If I am wrong, I shall be glad to withdraw that remark, but that is my information and the result of my research. In fact, a very well-known chemical supplier remarked to a
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friend of mine, a well-known ecologist, that they did not regard it as their responsibility to investigate the side-effects of their chemicals, which, he said, could be tested only in practice.
My Lords, when it comes to the Government, the situation is really pathetic. Only in the last two years has any research been set in train at all, and it is at the moment being done by two people in the Nature Conservancy. I think there may be four or five others concerned in the Agricultural Research Council, but this is very different from the reply that the noble Earl gave when he said that there had been
"a great deal of research on this subject and that the Government research organisations are co-operating with them".
I only wish that there were some Government research organisations to provide that co-operation. By "research", I mean real research on the lone-term effects: not merely a committee deciding what might be done. The situation was made a little worse by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who suggested (I do not wish to press him on this point, because he was speaking during one of his more philosophical moments) that this was not the responsibility of the Agricultural Research Council at all. We should like to know what the Government's attitude in this matter is, and whether they will, in fact, face up to their responsibilities.
The question, then, is: What in fact can we do? I have already said that it is no part of my case to make a general attack on the use of chemicals, but there is little doubt that the use of seed dressed with dieldrin, aldrin, heptachlor or similar products is responsible for this massacre in the countryside. When we look at the agricultural chemical scheme we find that it is there laid down that certain highly desirable and worthy objects should be achieved. It is laid down in a particular paper, which is called Notification of Pesticides; Scheme agreed between Government and Industry, that in the voluntary notification of chemicals the manufacturer is required to state whether there is any risk, or extension of risk, to the user of the product, or the consumer of the dressed crop, or to wild life. In the actual details of the notification scheme, wild life is specifically mentioned—birds, mammals and beneficial insects. When

813
we look at the actual list of chemicals, there is no mention at all of risk to wild life, except in regard to bees, and one D.D.T. product in relation to fish.
I should like to know how it is that these items have appeared in the list and have failed to fulfil the requirements of the voluntary scheme. Either the information was not given, or false information was given, or it was ignored. I understand that this is a matter to which the Government have given some attention, and that arrangements have been made that the effects on wild life with new chemicals will be notified. But it is of profound importance that notification should be made at the earliest stage, and that the long-term consequences should be backed up by some real understanding of the questionable effects, from a long-term point of view, of the use of these chemicals.
We have now to consider what is to be done, and whether in fact we can wait for the Report of the Government-appointed Committees. There are a number of courses of action which I should like to urge upon the noble Earl and which I would ask the Government, even if they cannot give an answer today, to consider. First of all, there may be some interim administrative measures they could take, including, above all, publicity, so as not only to avoid the disasters which have occurred in 1960 and 1961 but to prevent an even worse disaster in 1962. They may have to consider additional control by legislation of the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture. Above all, they must provide finance for long-term research instead of the miserable amount which is at present available in regard to this matter.
There may be certain other things which might be done. It might be possible that there could be some voluntary abandonment of the use of certain toxic seed dressings, but I suspect that this is not the right way to approach it. It would be far better if there were some reasonable restriction on their use, particularly the use of the dual-purpose seed dressings, the ones which include not only dieldrin but possibly mercury as well; they should be used only when there is a definite indication of the need for their use. I understand that at the present moment—and my noble friend Lord Walston and the noble Earl
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will be able to confirm whether this is so—many farmers do not know what dressings they are using, and the corn merchants, whose job it is, after all, to push up their sales, are selling some of these products without regard to their needs. We would not tolerate any chemist doing this with regard to drugs for human beings.
It may be argued that there is a difference between the two. But would it not he possible to treat this matter in the same sort of way and allow its use where there is a real need; where, for instance, an official of the National Agricultural Advisory Service recommended it? If there were an undoubted high presence of wireworm or wheat bulb fly infestation, then it would be used, but not used indiscriminately, as it is now a great deal. If some of these chemicals were even then found, after experience, to be exceptionally dangerous to wild life, then either they should be withdrawn voluntarily, as has been done by the chemical manufacturers already in regard to the arsenites, or they should be prohibited by law. Other proposals, with which I will not weary your Lordships, have come from other bodies. The Game Research Association has again set forward definite proposals for dealing with this problem, and it is clear that something is going to be expected from the Government and from the industry.
I do not myself see how we can ask the individual farmer to solve this problem by himself. He is not in a position, in many cases, to do so. It has been argued by some (and I am not in a position to judge) that the good and very efficient farmer does not need to make much use of toxic chemicals. There is no doubt that the good farmer has a proper attitude of trusteeship to his land, and regards it as a trust of which he is going to make the best use. There is a need to help him. There are other methods of control. For example, there was one which was evolved, but which, I believe, came to nothing, by Sir Alexander Todd for producing a synthetic potato juice which would mislead the eel worm into producing at the wrong time of year, when the potatoes were not there, and as a result the land was cleared. This came to nothing, as I say, but it seems to me to be the type of biological control which would be

815
much more preferable. Then there is the specific control, the material evolved by, I think, Doctor Picket, for controlling the codling moth in apple orchards, and this was specific only to the codling moth.
What has happened this year, and in the last two years, is the first of the big outbreaks. I am told by friends of mine who are biologists that it is just pure luck that there have not been others already, but that we shall certainly not succeed in avoiding new ones in the future. If the Minister were to think the use of the word "catastrophic" excessive, then I should like to point out that this is a word used recently by the Nature Conservancy. There is a possibility of outbreaks of many kinds as a result of using chemicals of the long-term effects of which we are unaware.
My Lords, I should like to sum up. The position seems to me to be this. That it is wrong to destroy wild life heedlessly, I think we should all agree. In my youth I used to collect birds eggs. Nowadays nobody collects birds eggs. It will progressively make the country a great deal duller if we destroy everything which is part of the nature of the countryside. Most serious of all, the effects on life are only partly known, indeed, are largely unknown, and it is going to take a long time, I admit, to understand the full consequences of the use of these chemicals. I stress again that these consequences are very long in their effect. There is a report from America—I do not think I have it with me—of an investigation carried out with regard to the destruction of robins in one area. It was found that they had largely been wiped out as the result of eating worms which had themselves eaten insects which had been attacked by chemicals for a perfectly valid agricultural reason. We do not know what these long-term effects will be; and if we are to criticise the destruction of game in Africa, then I think we have to make sure that our own hands are clean in this matter.
In the last century, a great deal of damage was done to this country during the Industrial Revolution—I have mentioned this in the House before. We look back now and wish that it had not been done. We have now moved into the age when we can say that chemicali-
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sation of the countryside is taking place. It is because these chemicals are being used everywhere. We do not know yet what the long-term effects will be, but I am sure that subsequent generations will not forgive us if we do not take some forethought as to what we are doing. I should like to make a plea that, whatever short-term steps the Government take, they will give more support to ecological research. This involves much more support and a complex approach to our problems. If we are introducing these complicated things, then complications are bound to follow, and the effects are of a kind which will soon arouse a good deal of feeling among the public.
I have a letter here, which I will not read to your Lordships, on the horrible effects on birds of some of these chemicals. Many of your Lordships will have seen it in Country Life. And we all remember the public reaction to myxomatosis. I am fully aware of the value of these chemicals, but we are playing with dangerous things. To-day the public are fully conscious of the dangers of radioactivity and the Government have taken every sort of step to limit them, but these chemicals may be equally dangerous. I will not go so far as to say that they are dangerous to human life, but certainly dogs have been killed through eating birds that have been poisoned in this way, and I know people who have already decided never again to eat pheasants and partridges. For my own part, I should be extremely sorry if I were deprived of that pleasure, but unless something is done, we shall be confronted by a real public reaction. We cannot go on, whether in the name of freedom or anything else, irresponsibly destroying what is part not only of our heritage, but of the heritage of posterity.
6.2 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, it is the convention, I am told, on the occasion of one's maiden speech, to ask for your Lordships' indulgence. It is probable that some who speak for the first time in your Lordships' House have had experience elsewhere and ask for that indulgence purely as a matter of form, and for no other reason. They have served their apprenticeship elsewhere. I can assure the House that in my case these are no idle words that I use. My task is made easier by the great friendship and kindness which, in

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the relatively short time I have spent among your Lordships, I have already encountered from all sides. I suppose that my task is also made easier because this subject, on which I am happy to follow my noble friend Lord Shackleton, is one which is of real importance.
Some people may say that it does not matter much if a few birds die here and there: there are plenty in the country, and in any case nobody looks at them. I do not know what are the actual implications of this slaughter that is going on. In a matter of percentages, I do not know whether it is 1, 5 or 10 per cent. But I do know that in certain areas it is large, and I would suggest to the noble Earl, when he eventually comes to answer, that he might tell us what steps, if any, are being taken to secure more statistical information about this, so that we know just where we are: whether we are dealing with a few isolated outbreaks, which have been blown up into large importance by a small number of people, or whether this really is, as I strongly suspect, a national problem.
The point of my noble friend's speech which I should like to follow is not the question of the extinction of bird life in the countryside. I confess that, as a farmer, I should be delighted if I found far fewer birds about, just as I was delighted when I found that there were far fewer rabbits. I might even say that I should be delighted to see fewer hares: and the loss of foxes, too, would not upset me very much. It is not this question that I want to deal with, but the whole question of the balance of nature, which is quite clearly being interfered with at the present time.
My Lords, I am not against interfering with the balance of nature. You cannot be a farmer and not spend your whole life interfering with it—that is what agriculture is. Nature gives us fen country, swamps and marshes; we drain them, and they become fertile. Nature sends us a drought, and we irrigate. And nature certainly never intended the common cow to do anything other than munch a few mouthfuls of grass and suckle one calf every year. It was no part of nature ever to stuff that animal with all sorts of cattle foods and feeding-stuffs, so that she will produce enough food for ten or twenty calves every day. So let us not be put off by talk about "interfering with nature," let us go on
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interfering with nature. But the more we do it, the more careful we must be to see that the results we are achieving are the results we wish to achieve.
My noble friend has already referred to some mistakes which have been made in the past by interference with the balance of nature. The dust bowls of America, the eroded mountains of the Dalmatian Coast and of North Africa—all in their days highly fertile cultivated areas producing food for the world, have gone; and it will require a great deal of effort and a great deal of cost to bring them back. That is something which this country—and indeed, the world—cannot afford to allow to happen. At the present time, with the methods of communication, of mass dissemination, of advertising, public and private, and of Governmental instruction, the results of a mistaken policy are 10 times-100 times—worse than they would have been 50 years ago. That means that our care must be very much greater, to make certain that we do not get off on the wrong foot.
Chemical fertilisers, chemical sprays, hormone sprays—all these things are to-day an essential part of modern agriculture, and without them we could not make even the very poor attempt we are making at the moment to banish hunger from the world. But this is not the sort of thing about which we can sit back and say, as Sir William Slater suggested, that we can leave it to the manufacturers not to produce something that is harmful or that they will not sell it if they do. To a limited extent, that is true. They will not deliberately put on to the market something that they know is going to be harmful; and they certainly will not expect to sell, for instance, to the farmers of East Anglia, any form of compound which is going to reduce the partridge and pheasant population. To that extent, Sir William Slater is correct in what he says. The problem, however, goes much deeper than that. The implications of the use of these modern methods is so much greater that we cannot sit back and leave it to private enterprise to get on with the job.
This fact was recognised by Governments in the past. I expect that we shall be reminded, as many noble Lords themselves will remember, that in the late '40s a Committee was set up, under the

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chairmanship of Sir Solly Zuckerman, to inquire into the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture. That Committee made three reports. The first one was simply on toxic chemicals in agriculture, published in April, 1951. There was a second one, dealing specifically with residues in food, in April, 1953. The last one, published in June, 1955, dealt specifically with the risk to wild life. But even the last one was published nearly six years ago. Its recommendations were designed to make sure that the sort of thing which is happening to-day would not happen.
My Lords, I do not want to find fault with the findings of that Committee. They seem to me very sensible. And, with the little knowledge I have, I do not want to find fault with the work of such inter-departmental committees as may have been set up as the result of the recommendations of that Committee. But it seems to me to be clear that whatever steps were taken to implement the findings of this Committee have so far failed, just as it also seems fairly clear that such work as is being done (and there is some work being done, as your Lordships may know: Professor Blackman at Oxford is and has been for many years carrying on a general ecological study of these problems) is not sufficient for what is happening to-day.
I do ask your Lordships not to sit back and say: "Well, this is a tiresome problem; but, after all, we may enjoy our pheasants over-ripe, or high or low; we may enjoy our foxes; we may not like to see the song birds and thrushes lying dead in the hedges (and, in fact, we do not think many of them do), so let it go through the normal channels. It is only a small problem, and we have more important things to think about." Looked at in that way, there are more important things to think about. But looked at simply as one symptom of the results which can come about through fighting nature; through unbalancing the existing balance that has established itself; through ignoring the ecological implications; through ignoring the vast chain reactions which can be set up through one comparatively simple application of one comparatively simple chemical formula—looked at in that light, this surely is a problem on which the Government must take positive
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action of their own, and must enlist all that body of technical help that exists—the manufacturers themselves; the Agricultural Research Council; the universities and, one might even hope, the Royal Agricultural Society, which should be intimately connected and concerned with this matter. I do ask your Lordships to regard it in this light, and to make sure that the damage which to-day is being seen so clearly in certain of our fields and in certain parts of our countryside is not allowed to spread wide into far greater fields, which can have a far more serious effect on the whole rural life of this country and upon its whole food-producing potentialities.
6.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, first of all, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walston, on his maiden speech, which I think we all realise was a remarkable speech. He is a well-known farmer, and he has brought out his points extremely well. I found his speech intensely interesting in every way, and it was no less remarkable for the fact that he only once, and that I think for a matter of seconds, looked at a note of any description. I can assure the noble Lord that speeches of that description are always welcome in this House, and I hope that we shall hear him on many more occasions, and soon.
There is no doubt that, as has been said by both noble Lords who have spoken, this is an important matter. The bird life of our country has been seriously affected. Many noble Lords will remember the Protection of Birds Act, 1954, which came to be known as the Tweedsmuir Act, because it was taken through the other place by Lady Tweedsmuir and through your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir. We spent a long time on the Bill in this House, and many of your Lordships will remember that it caused a lot of discussion and there were high feelings as to the birds that should or should not be protected. We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that same of the birds found to be destroyed are what in the Army were called "top of the roll" of this list. It is strange to think that we bring in Acts of Parliament to prevent people from destroying birds, and yet by other means far more of them are destroyed than would have been in the normal way.

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I am not an expert on these matters, but it seems to me that, whereas in most discussions there are two sides to the argument, in this case there are not, and no one is fighting anyone else. The farmers want to use aids for their production, and they want to use aids which are economical, but they have no desire to kill off the bird life or animal life of the country. The people who produce these toxic chemicals have no desire to kill off the wild life of the country. The Government are anxious that all parties should do well—the farmers and the people who make the chemicals. Again, the general public want to see the bird life and animal life protected; and they want to see the farmers happy, in order that they may reap the good of the earth for their pleasure and for eating and for the general health of the country. So that really no one is against anyone else.
What we want to ask the Government to do as a matter of urgency is to collect together the experience of all those concerned and really get down to the problem in both the short term and the long term. Both noble Lords who have spoken have said that we do not know what is going to be the result of using all these chemicals; nobody knows. So far, it has not attacked many mammals. The noble Lord mentioned a dog. I have also heard of the case of a dog; and, strangely enough, only last week my own labrador appeared from somewhere with a dead and rather mangled pigeon in his mouth; I do not know where he had got it from. The first thing I did was to wash out his mouth, because I was terrified that this bird might have died through one of these chemicals. We do not know what is going to happen, and that is why, as the noble Lords, Lord Shackleton and Lord Walston, have said, the whole position is serious. I would beg the Government to treat this matter as one of urgency and collect together all the agencies who are going in for research and really get out some plan.
6.19 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should like to add to what the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, has already said about the great pleasure it has been to listen to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Walston. When he started his remarks he made the
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conventional remark about the nerves of maiden speakers. I did not share his apprehension, however, because for many years we have worked together on various agricultural projects, and I had same knowledge of the kind of speech that we were likely to hear from him. As a maiden speech it was a speech that had almost everything, in complete knowledge and grasp of the subject and in its presentation. I am sure that we shall all look forward to hearing him on many occasions in the future.
I should also like to support the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, in his plea for urgency in this matter, so far as the Government are concerned. None of us wants to halt or handicap the farmers in the use of chemicals which will destroy pests or weeds, and thereby make cultivation and production easier and more prolific. But it seems to me that it is indiscriminate destruction. In other words, manufacturers invent a chemical which will do a certain job, without, apparently, finding out what other destruction it will cause. It is not merely a case, of course, of the cruel destruction of birds and mammals; it is the case that many of these sprays do a great deal of damage to crops in adjoining fields. It may be that farmers are careless, and do not judge the wind properly. Also, they may feel, "We are insured, anyway, so it does not matter". But a great deal of destruction can be wrought in a very short time. I had a personal experience of that myself, when a neighbouring farmer was spraying toxic chemicals to destroy weeds. He destroyed about four acres of a willow plantation of mine, at a cost of something like £2,000, in about half an hour. It was covered by insurance, but it is a most unpleasant business to have to prove these things, and it seems so utterly senseless not to find out first the possible damage which may be caused. That seems to be the core of the trouble.
One thing, I think, must be said. I know that my noble friend's Question deals with toxic chemicals. I do not know whether they could be described as toxic, 'but a great many of these chemicals are not harmful at all, except for the specific purpose for which they are intended. For example, every year, round about the end of May, my plantations are visited by billions of very pretty,

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little golden beetles, and if they were left unattended in the space of three or four days they would virtually destroy the crop. We spray with a D.D.T. emulsion which takes the beetles away like magic, and the wilting crops recover. The D.D.T. emulsion, although it does the particular job, is not only not a bit harmful to the plant, but is not in any way harmful to any other form of life, even to the birds who eat the beetles. It seems to me that that should be the way in which the Government should ask that inquiries should be directed—not that there should be any intention of hampering investigation and research into the use of chemicals to assist agriculture. When a new chemical is produced it should satisfy certain requisites.
We have had discussions in your Lordships' House about new drugs, and it has been suggested—in my view very properly—that before their indiscriminate sale and use is allowed there should be a considerable volume of experience: a great many tests carried out before it is thought safe to launch these things on a suffering public, so that, in curing, or attempting to cure, one particular disease, we can avoid setting up many others. I should have thought that the same kind of thing ought to apply when dealing with crops.
There is also the other point, which has been touched upon, or implied, in the speeches of my noble friends Lord Shackleton and Lord Walston. That is that we do not know what the long-term harm may be to human beings from the use of some of these chemicals applied to growing food which we are going to eat. That is another thing which I think needs looking into. I will ask the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, not necessarily to deal with this point to-night, but to consider, through his Department, dealing with the known toxic chemicals like phenoxylene and dozens of others which are poisonous. I cannot accept the manufacturers' claims that they are not going to do any harm to other things, because I believe they are. They are a virulent poison, and it is difficult for me to believe that they are not going to do long-term harm. If it is found that chemicals of that kind do vicious harm to other crops and, as it were, go far beyond what they are intended to do, and are poisonous to birds and mammals,
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then their use should be prohibited. It is no good messing about with the problem, otherwise we are merely using words. If these chemicals are found to be vicious, then they should not be used.
I do not think that that is contrary to my view (and I believe it is the view that everyone holds) that farmers should be permitted the full use of suitable chemicals to help them in food production. It is quite certain that, with a little extra research, it will be possible to and a suitable chemical to do the job without these extra harmful effects. For example, we use hormones on our lawns. That does not harm birds or animals. We use weedkillers on our paths, and they do not do any harm to animals, although admittedly they may kill the grass if they get on the grass from the gravel. It merely needs a short step from the weedkiller which will do its job and not harm animals, but does harm other plants, to the weedkiller which does its job without harming either.
My Lords, the final point I should like to make is to support the plea made by all noble Lords who have spoken so far: that there should be much greater research, a greater sense of urgency and drive on the part of the Government, to find out what are not only the most harmful chemicals but also suitable substitutes to do their job. I hope that the Government will at the same time consider taking suitable powers. The noble Earl will remember that some few weeks ago a Question was put to him upon which there were many supplementary questions. One supplementary question I put was whether if the Committee reported that it was necessary to prohibit the use of certain chemicals the Government had the power to do so. The noble Earl said that there were no such powers. I should think that, if we really mean business, when all the research has been carried out and a decision has to be taken, then the Government should be armed with powers to prohibit the use of those things which are considered improper and harmful. I therefore hope that the Government will consider, at the same time as the research goes on a suitable form of powers which they can take in order to end this evil to which my noble friend has drawn attention.
6.30 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I had not intended to say even a few words, but as one who lives in the country I have been immensely affected by noxious chemicals. I want to say two things. For six years I have been wondering why a directive was not given by the Government—by whichever Department whose duty it is to investigate certain notified diseases of crops—as to what should be done. To put it shortly, it occurs to me that we have fallen, as it were, between two stools—between the Minister for Science, who has surely a great number of ad hoc committees which he is gradually bringing together at his command, and the Minister of Agriculture, who is in charge of the National Agricultural Advisory Service. Doctors notify diseases throughout the country and it is somebody's business to deal with it. The Ministry of Agriculture N.A.A.S. notifies diseases among crops. Why is it not somebody's business to get on to the E.R.U. from the N.A.A.S and say that certain crop diseases need to be attended to? And why does not the Minister for Science (I suspect he has really too much on his shoulders) give a directive of his own free will, as I would if I were in that position, saying, "I want that seen to. That is a directive". He is Minister for Science. How is it—if lie is not too busy—that he has not during the past six years given a directive that he wants this matter attended to?
6.31 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, first I should like to add my congratulations to my noble friend, Lord Walston, on the ease, the clarity and the balance with which he addressed your Lordships, and I am sure we shall look forward to hearing him again on other occasions.
I want to add just a few words in support of the views which have been put forward on all sides of the House that this matter is of extreme importance and urgency. What has brought it into special prominence at the moment is the large destruction of birds and animals as a result of the dressings applied to seeds in the spring. That is perhaps a more spectacular example than many others of the evils which may follow from the use of chemicals in agriculture, but we must remember that chemicals
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are being used more and more extensively. In the United States it was estimated recently that the amount of pesticides used in agriculture amounted to some 5 or 6 lb. per head of population. I asked some time ago whether some figures could be given of the total amount of chemicals used in agriculture in this country, but I was told that there was no information available. But this is information which we should have.
It is perfectly true that the most obvious results are upon wild life and upon the larger forms of it, but there are many other recondite results which have to be considered. I call to mind one illustration. It was found at the University of Michigan some years ago that the thrushes were disappearing, and when careful investigation was made it was found that the reason was this: the elm trees had been sprayed with D.D.T. in order to combat an elm disease. The leaves fell off, of course, in the autumn; they were eaten by earth worms; the thrushes ate the earth worms and they were destroyed. That is only one out of many illustrations of the effects which can occur and which are not at all obvious at first sight.
Another one which I recollect, also in the United States, where perhaps they have had a wider experience so far of these things than we have, is where the water in a certain lake was sprayed with a chemical in order to kill a gnat which affected those who went to it in order to bathe and fish. The insecticide was carefully chosen for the purpose so that it would not affect the fish, and that appeared to be the case. But after a time it was discovered that certain fish-eating birds which used to frequent this lake were disappearing, and although the fish were not visibly affected it was found that they were storing up this chemical in their fat in very large quantities, and this was killing the birds. Incidentally, it presented an added peril for the people who resorted there to fish. That is one more illustration of the unexpected ways in which these things may act.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would my noble friend allow me to correct him? The birds that were destroyed at the University of Michigan were robins, not thrushes.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: The Americans call them robins; we call them thrushes. That is the explanation.
I do not want to detain the House too long, but do not let us forget that part of the environment which has to be considered and which must be protected is human beings. There is, I think, little doubt that the constant use of chemicals in agriculture tends to build up a residue of chemicals which may appear in quite unexpected ways, and the longterm effects, as I have said, are something which simply cannot be predicted. This is the reason why the utmost caution must be adopted before new chemicals are admitted into agricultural use. It has been estimated that to test fully the effects of a chemical which it is intended to use in the manufacture of foodstuffs it may cost perhaps £50,000, in order to conduct the whole of the experiments which are considered necessary. There you are perhaps upon a narrower field where the effects are likely, at any rate, to be more direct. But when you come to the use of chemicals in agriculture you are in a field in which the ramifications are extremely wide. There is the destruction of insects, such as bees and others which are pollinators; there is the destruction of weeds—and do not let us jump to the conclusion that all weeds are necessarily objectionable. I think there is good evidence that in pastures certain weeds are necessary for the health of the cattle which eat the herbage.
I feel most alarmed about this situation, because it is perfectly certain that the Government are not spending sufficient money in order to ascertain what the facts are, and the manufacturers are inventing fresh chemicals with great rapidity. For certain purposes in which I am interested, I happen to see the records of new patent specifications which are filed. Week after week I find that there are being patented new chemicals which are intended for some kind of use in agriculture or in the food industry but which may affect the lives of human beings. I do not for a single moment suggest that the manufacturers are wantonly throwing these things into public use, knowing that they are going to have disastrous effects—naturally, they are not doing that; but they themselves are probably not conducting the
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long-term researches which are necessary in order to discover whether, after many years, the results may be injurious to human beings or to the environment upon which human beings depend. This matter is therefore extremely serious.
6.42 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for having raised this matter to-day and for giving me an opportunity to answer this extremely important Question. I am grateful to him for the moderate way in which he developed his argument and for the constructive approach that he has made to the whole subject. He was only immoderate, I think—he is quite entitled to be—when he was attacking the Government rather than attacking agriculture or the agricultural chemical industry. I take no exception to that.
A number of noble Lords have contributed to this debate and have kept it on a high level. I should very much like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for his maiden speech. If other noble Lords had not intervened I should have been in order in speaking for rather longer on that point (I thought I was on the list of speakers as the maiden after the maiden), but I have been deprived of that pleasure. The noble Lord gave us a good contribution and we hope that we shall hear him frequently in the future. He knows the subject of agriculture and science, and he is knowledgeable about other subjects as well.
My Lords, first of all, the Government are not complacent. We are aware, in the terms of the Question, of the damage that is being done to wild life, though I am afraid that I must join issue straight away with Lord Shackleton on the use of the word "catastrophic". I will not argue with him strongly about that, but "catastrophe" is a serious word, and we must not over-exaggerate a serious problem.
LORD SHACKLETON: Would the noble Earl allow me to interrupt? What would he call a catastrophe? If there is evidence that wild life, running into probably hundreds of thousands on the basis of these samples, has been destroyed, what would he call that—a minor incident?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: No, my Lords; but we must be careful about the use of words. It is late and we must not be too long. If my nose was suddenly to bleed I should think it a catastrophe; but if a bomb were to fall on this Chamber that might be regarded much more reasonably as a catastrophe. "Catastrophe" is a strong word that we use, but we must not use it lightly. But on complacency I am on very sure ground. Only last week, in another place, my right honourable friend used these words to one honourable Member who asked a Question on this subject:
"I assure my honourable friend that my Department and I myself take this matter extremely seriously."
As to the nature of this problem of toxic chemicals in agriculture, I may say that an enormous range of chemicals is used in agriculture, and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, narrowed the field to a certain extent to the particular problem which is facing us at this moment. I think that on all sides this is agreed to be chiefly connected with a comparatively new form of insecticidal seed dressings which has lately been much more widely used than ever before. If we were to range fully over the whole subject we should have to take much more time. That is not in any way to deny the point made, for instance, by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, or the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, that other chemicals can do damage or have deleterious side effects. But let us continue to confine ourselves to this question of the new insecticidal seed dressings which are probably causing the great problem.
The chemical seed dressing of cereals, sugar beet and vegetable seeds has for a long time been widely practised in the United Kingdom, and all over the world, as a defence against fungus diseases, and the value of the organo-mercury dusts which were discovered in the early 'thirties is widely known. It is only, I believe, since 1945—and timing comes into this problem—that there have been two major developments. One was the introduction of dual-purpose seed dressings. First of all, they added to the organo-mercury compound the chemical benzine hexachloride, and then, about 1956, they added the chlorinated hydrocarbons, of which the best known are
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dieldrin, aldrin and heptachlor. There has been a second development, which is to use these things in liquid rather than in dust form.
These dual-purpose (insecticidal as well as fungicidal) seed dressings, have of course proved most valuable to agriculture; that is admitted on all sides. It is because the more well-known forms of organo-mercury compounds were not fully effective against insect pests—of which two are especially damaging to cereals, namely, wireworm and the wheat bulb-fly—that these other substances came to be used. Rarely do we get an unmixed blessing. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for one, seems to have found an unmixed blessing in the treatment that he gives to his willow which appears to do no harm to anything else. But it is rare that that should be so; and some scientists may even wonder whether or not there were side effects to the beetles attacking the willows—but I do not know. We certainly have not an unmixed blessing in these dual-purpose seed dressings, and I do not for a moment wish to imply that we have. It has been found that dieldrin, aldrin and heptachlor, in particular, carry serious risks to birds which eat the dressed seeds. The deaths from this cause first began to be noticed in 1956, but it was not until the 1959–60 sowing season that the deaths were reported on a wider and a heavier scale than in previous years; and that was, I think, the first time that deaths were reported of animals suspected to have eaten poisoned birds.
My Lords, I want to emphasise, when we are accused of not having completely solved this problem with which we are dealing, that it is very largely a question of timing; and the problem is a comparatively new one. A great deal more evidence has recently been received—and much of it has been given to-day—about deaths from these causes, particularly seed dressings. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, quoted, I believe, from the report (of which I have a copy in front of me) of investigations carried out by the Game Research Association. I should like to return a little later to the point made by the noble Lord in that connection.
What are we doing about this problem? As a result of deaths reported to us in 1959–60 my Department put in hand two main efforts: first, experimental

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feeding trials. That was done in cooperation with the Government Chemist's Laboratory which is now part of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research under my noble and learned friend, the Lord President of the Council. The trials were started to find out more about the lethal doses of dieldrin and about the quantities of poison occurring in the bodies of birds which might be detectable by chemical analysis. The basic work has been done. Secondly, from October, 1960—and this is very important—the Ministry's pest officers throughout the whole country have been instructed to investigate and report on unusual deaths of birds and mammals, with particular reference to poisoning by seed dressings.
With this programme in hand, the Ministry arranged for a meeting of all interests concerned (referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton) to discuss the problem and, if possible, to agree on the right course of action to deal with it. That meeting was held on December 20 last. It had a very broad attendance, being attended by representatives of manufacturers, merchants, land owners, farmers and the bodies concerned with nature preservation—that is to say, the Nature Conservancy, the Council for Nature, the British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, I believe, led the delegation from the Council for Nature.
I should like to read to your Lordships what that meeting agreed, because I believe it is very important. I quote from the Press notice which had a very wide publicity throughout the country. They agreed that seed dressings play a valuable part in agricultural production—they used the words "very valuable". They then said that not all seed dressings present a hazard to wild life, but
"There is evidence that seed dressings containing dieldrin, aldrin and heptachlor, which in other respects are particularly valuable in present circumstances, can kill birds that eat dressed seed; and there is strong circumstantial evidence that deaths occur from this cause, particularly when sowing conditions are difficult."
It was agreed that further experimental work should be done and that there should be collaborative experimental work by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government Chemist's Labora-
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tory, including examination of birds and foxes whose bodies would be sent in through this survey; and we were to investigate the local circumstances.
All that has been agreed. And yet we have been asked this afternoon on many occasions what we have been doing. This is what we are doing. Collaborative research is continuing between the manufacturing companies and the Ministry of Agriculture, and publicity has been arranged by the Ministry and all parties concerned so as to warn farmers about the risks to wild life. I think that this is very important, and it is not generally known how much we have done in this sphere. We have also given warnings against illegal spreading of poisoned grain, which is contrary to the Protection of Birds Act. Our publicity has drawn attention to the care needed in disposing of any surplus seed and warns against mixing it with undressed seed or feeding it to livestock. Finally, the Department undertook to review the whole position after the spring of 1961, when further information would be available. We are just coming to the end of spring, 1961. The further information is available, and I hope that this meeting will be convened in the very early summer. So all this programme has been put into effect.
There was one other point that I should have stressed, and it came out in that Press release which received wide coverage. We recommended—and that meeting agreed—that advice issued by manufacturers with the dressings should be modified so as to ensure that wheat bulb fly dressing is employed only when there is real need to use it to control that pest. Seed merchants and manufacturers of dressings would continue to warn users of the risk from dieldrin, aldrin and heptachlor dressings and draw attention to the extra risk from higher doses of insecticide; and would thereby enable landowners and others to use their judgment more critically than hitherto when deciding on the choice of dressing. I cannot emphasise too much that we are wholly against these particularly dangerous kinds of dressing being used wholesale, whether required or not.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will the noble Earl allow me to interrupt him? He said a few sentences ago that spreading poisoned seed is an offence, but I

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take it that seed dressed with the three substances he has mentioned several times (I will not attempt to repeat their names), is not regarded as poisoned seed.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, yes, that is poisoned seed; but it is illegal, and a contravention of the Protection of Birds Act, to use such seed deliberately as a bait. A large number of incidents have been brought to light by this survey, which have been investigated and reported upon; and analyses are being done on the bodies of more than 200 dead birds which have been received. Those analyses have been commenced, but to detect the quite small traces of these particular chemicals the analytical procedure needed is very complex and lengthy, and we shall not get the results immediately. The largest number of birds reported to have been killed is of pigeons.
Noble Lords will have seen reports in the Press showing the progress of the survey being made by the Joint Committee of the British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Here, again, a large number of incidents have been reported and my Department's scientific advisers are keeping in close touch with the officials of that Joint Committee; and, of course, we now also have the advantage of the Game Research Association report. I am not suggesting for a moment, and I hope nothing I have said will lead anyone to believe, that we are complacent about this problem and do not regard it as a serious one. But we really must not exaggerate it; and, further, we must not jump to unjustifiable conclusions.
I have already said that I doubt whether the word "catastrophic" would be a proper one to use, but leaving that aside for the moment I feel we must be careful to distinguish between those chemicals which appear to have this serious side-effect on wild life and those which, over a large number of years, have been used and have not, so far at any rate, given evidence of producing those or any other such serious effects. It would be a serious disservice to agriculture to condemn all chemicals out of hand—and nobody has suggested that this afternoon—because evidence is accumulating that certain chemicals are much more dangerous than others.
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That brings me to the question of the Game Research Association's report. If it were widely circulated in the form in which I have it in my hand parts of it could conceivably be misleading. I say no more than that. In the case which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, quoted of Tunby, Lincolnshire, where this holocaust seems to have taken place, this very large number of dead birds was found, the seed dressings alleged to have been used in the neighbourhood, and therefore by inference to have been responsible for this, are all in fact (my scientific advisers have translated their names for me) the old-fashioned organo-mercury dressings, which would be, I am advised, extremely unlikely to have had that effect, Therefore, there is something missing in this evidence, I think, on that particular case. There was something, perhaps, that had not been discovered which caused these bird deaths. But we must beware of drawing a false conclusion, that B always follows A; and I think that is only fair to the manufacturers of the chemicals which have been used for a long time and have not been proved to do much harm.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think that the noble Earl is the one who is drawing the conclusion. This is an objective report which is only at a very early stage and the value of which has yet to be assessed; the Association merely state certain information. There is no doubt about the large number of birds which have been killed, or which have died, and they mention quite honestly the information they have with regard to the chemicals. If they happen not to be the particularly toxic ones, they still honestly put them in. The report is not complete in this sense, and I do not think anyone, except the noble Earl himself, is attempting to misunderstand the Game Research Association and Dr. Ashe, who does all this work.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I very much hope that I shall not be misunderstood on this. I did not for a moment suggest any form of deliberate misleading or dishonesty, because I am sure none is there. I say simply that if this report in this form gets into the hands of people who may not take a great deal of care to read all the footnotes, they will see this heading "Poisons" and then four

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trade names, not of the dieldrin type, and a long list of birds that have been picked up. I think someone might make the inference that one follows the other. We could empty out the baby with the bath water, and so condemn perfectly innocuous chemicals, if this were misunderstood. I am only drawing attention to that, because I am sure that there was no possible intention to mislead, and I think it is a very valuable report.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, is the noble Earl saying that the organo-mercury compounds are nonpoisonous?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: No, indeed. I am not saying that they are nonpoisonous. But I am saying that they have been used for a number of years, and the evidence accumulating to measure damage being done to seed-eating birds does not point to those compounds but to the newer ones, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, implied in his Question. We agree with that.
Many noble Lords have said that we should tackle this problem in various ways. Perhaps the first should be by publicity and education, so that we use the right chemical at the right time and not at the wrong time. I should like again to quote what we have issued in the Press, as a warning to farmers. We issued a Press notice which had a very wide coverage in the Press; I have it here. It is headed "A Warning to Farmers" and I think we covered in it a great many points which noble Lords have raised this afternoon. It says that seed dressings are of great value. The notice continues:
"Seed dressings containing dieldrin, aldrin or hep achlor can kill birds that eat the dressed seed, and may prove fatal to animals that eat the bodies of such birds. Farmers using seed treated with these dressings should take the greatest care, both in storing and when sowing the seed, to ensure that none of it is left where birds or animals, whether wild or domestic, can get at it.
"The higher dosages of these three insecticides designed to guard against wheat bulb-fly are particularly dangerous to wild life. This strength of dressing should be used only where there is a real need for it, and not as a routine measure of protection. In practice this means that it should be used only on winter wheat, and then only in areas where there is a real danger of attack from wheat bulb-fly."
That, I think, goes a long way to meet the point made by, I believe, Lord
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Stonham, that these chemicals should not be used regardless, unless they are really necessary.
It continues:
"It is dangerous to feed any creatures with food containing seed dressed with insecticides and such seed should not therefore be mixed with untreated seed. The spreading of poisoned grain as a bait is an offence under the Protection of Birds Act.
"If there is any doubt about the need to use dressed seed in particular circumstances, farmers should seek the views of their district advisory officer."
The chemical manufacturers, the merchants and the farmers have been active in their co-operation. The National Association of Corn and Agricultural Merchants, for instance, has recommended to its members that a warning to farmers should be on the label of any sack of seed treated with these dressings. One large firm of manufacturers had its labels over-printed with a special warning after they had been printed. Another firm has had special meetings with merchants who sell its dressings, to explain the policy and warnings to them. The National Farmers' Union has publicised these warnings in its periodical the British Fanner.
When your Lordships' House discussed this matter on March 9 (when I answered a Question of the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank), the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, I think it was, suggested that all these warnings ought to be embodied in the next issue of the list of chemicals approved under the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme. Not only will this be done, but we have meanwhile issued an Amendment to the current list so that it can be interleaved in the approved list now. Next year the Amendment will be part of the list.
So far, I have talked of the short-term and immediate steps to deal with the problem. What of the longer-term research which I think is clearly needed, for instance, on the general ecological effects of these casualties, or on the long-term effects or side effects of agricultural chemicals? Many noble Lords have spoken about that question, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Walston, and Lord Douglas of Barloch. These long-range aspects fall to be dealt with in the report of the Research Study Group, under Professor Sanders, which was set up by Ministers to examine the need for further research into the effects

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of toxic chemicals used in agriculture. Their report is expected this summer, and we cannot anticipate what this report will say. But the group have taken extensive evidence, and I can assure noble Lords that we shall take this report very seriously and that we have no intention of shelving or delaying this subject.
The Research Study Group, of course, will cover all these wider aspects of the problem which have been raised by so many noble Lords. But in addition to this Research Study Group, which is working on the problem at the moment, we have the Nature Conservancy themselves, who have established a unit to attempt to elucidate the more urgent ecological problems—and, of course, as the Lord President pointed out to your Lordships on March 9, this is a proper field of study for the Nature Conservancy.
I would remind your Lordships of the very far-reaching existing scheme that we have—the voluntary notification scheme. Before all new chemicals, or new uses for existing chemicals, come on to the market, they have to be screened against risks, not only to operators and to consumers of the treated crops, but to livestock and, in these latter years, to wild life as well. Under the voluntary notification scheme the chemical manufacturers submit details of all new toxic products to the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances used in Agriculture and Food Storage. This is a Standing Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Charles Dodds, who is Courtauld Professor of Biochemistry at the University of London: it is an effective Committee and an effective scheme. It is under this voluntary scheme, for instance, that the manufacturers recently agreed to withdraw the alkali arsenites both from manufacture and from use. That was a very big step forward. So, my Lords, this scheme does work. It was after the Report which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, referred to (the Third Report, I think it was, of Sir Solly Zuckerman's Committee) that risks to wild life were brought into the scheme. Moreover, a joint panel of the Committee, the Nature Conservancy, the Ministry and the industry has reported on the guidance to be given to manufacturers about the sort of information that is required, and how it should be experimentally obtained, in
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relation to the wild life risks, so that this scheme can be fully operated.
Now, my Lords, I acknowledge, and it is widely acknowledged, that certain of these insecticidal seed dressings can, and do, kill wild life. But it is acknowledged that these seed dressings are very valuable to agriculture. This risk to wild life we must cut to the very minimum; and I am sure that one of the best ways of ensuring this—it is an absolute sine qua non, whatever else we do—is that everyone concerned should know about the dangers, and do his best to avoid them. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that we may have to go further than that and, by means of new legislation, or by existing legislation if it does exist (but I doubt whether it is comprehensive enough), have prohibitions.
My Lords, I cannot give any indication of what may have to be done in the future. We are at a comparatively early stage in this matter. This Research Study Group, to which we attach the greatest importance, will probably be reporting in the next months; we have these various schemes going; this matter is of urgent importance and has been widely canvassed in both Houses of Parliament and among the public; and I do not think that it is right now to anticipate what will or will not be necessary to bring about the end which we all desire. The one suggestion in the opening of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, which I absolutely rebut, is that we are doing nothing about it and are complacent. That I cannot accept. We may have to do more; but we are certainly not complacent, and we are certainly doing a great deal about it. Her Majesty's Government will continue to do their utmost to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits—and they are very real benefits—of these agricultural chemicals with only the minimum of the serious toll to wild life which so seriously mars the picture at the present time.

ALLHALLOWS STAINING CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.] RIO TINTO RHODESIAN MINING LIMITED BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.