Lords Sitting of 28 February 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 Carlisle

ADVICE ON HEALTH SERVICE FACILITIES
2.35 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that, so far as possible, no person in Great Britain suffering from sickness, ill-health or physical or mental disability fails by reason of old age or ignorance to obtain the appropriate available treatment under the National Health Service.]
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government believe that the services available under the National Health Service are well known and readily accessible. If the noble Lord has any specific suggestions, I will gladly convey them to my right honourable friends.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, may I remind the noble Lord that the Question of my noble friend that he has just
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answered arises out of the debate on the Health Service charges that we had in this House on February 13 last; that in the debate I devoted one-and-one-third columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT to explaining why I should not vote against Her Majesty's Government and that this statement was welcomed with enthusiasm by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House as saying everything really that he needed to say? But I went on for three and three-quarter columns, just three times as long—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD BEVERIDGE: May I remind the noble Lord that I went on for three-and three-quarter columns, just three times as long, setting out positive, detailed proposals for carrying out the duty of the State to restore to health, if possible, any sick person who could be restored, irrespective of any question of making them pay anything; and—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD BEVERIDGE: May I remind the House—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no.
LORD BEVERIDGE: —that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, in a speech of four minutes, said nothing worth saying at all in answer to the three-quarters of my speech; nothing practical in fact? May I ask—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD BEVERIDGE: —Her Majesty's Government, with all the earnestness that

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I can command, to make good this omission now: to give us, and to give to the sick people, who are waiting eagerly for good news throughout this country—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I hope the noble Lord—and I am always glad to hear what he has to say—will find a slightly better interrogative form than: "May I remind the House?"
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, the usual method of obtaining medical treatment of all kinds under the National Health Service is through the family doctor. I should think that that is fairly well known. There are also the home visitors who work under the local health authorities, and they find that people on whom they call have not sought their doctors' advice or assistance, then they will suggest that that should be done or get in touch with the doctors themselves.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, has the noble Lord forgotten every single word that I said of practical proposals on that occasion? I think he has. I am sorry; I must not say that.
LORD NEWTON: No, my Lords, I have not forgotten at all what the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge said. I had the honour of following him in the debate and referring precisely (if he will be good enough to look up my speech) to his points. But what I have been trying to do this afternoon is to answer the Question put down by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, may I ask, as a supplementary question, whether the noble Lord is aware that there are a large number of elderly people lying sick in their own homes for whom it is impossible to get a bed in a hospital, and who can die uncomfortably in their own homes?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I think it is true, so far as I can discover, that there are sometimes cases of old people living alone who do not seek the treatment which they would be wise to seek. But I am assured that the local authorities and the voluntary bodies which are concerned with old people do
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their best to prevent situations such as that from arising.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there are many sick, aged and friendless people who do not have home helps? Would he tell the House how he proposes that they should be enabled to get a refund of this extra health charge that they are expected to pay?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, if the noble Baroness would care to put down a Question in those terms, I will do my best to answer it
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask the Minister, with regard to this question of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, whether a start has not already been made for providing homes, sometimes with a regular warden, for looking after the old people who could not otherwise look after themselves? Can we take it that this policy will be very widely extended?
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord if experience does not show that the particular matter which has been referred to was very much better looked after, with fewer sad cases, when it was organised in parishes; and will Her Majesty's Government consider whether the area is not too large in many cases?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I will certainly see that the points which have been made by the noble Viscount and by my noble friend are brought to the attention of my right honourable friend.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that when things were organised by parishes there used to be one doctor for 65,000 people?

NYASALAND FRANCHISE REGULATIONS
2.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: 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, before promulgating the Nyasaland Franchise Regulations, the Executive Council was consulted;

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whether the Governor was instructed by the Secretary of State that he need not consult the Executive Council; and by what legal authority are persons who are neither British protected persons nor British subjects included on electoral rolls.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, the Executive Council was not consulted in this matter. The regulations were based on the recommendations of the Working Party specifically established by the Constitutional Conference held last year to draw up detailed recommendations for such matters as the definition of the franchise qualifications, the registration of voters, the qualifications and nomination of candidates, the delimitation of constituencies and other matters preparatory to the holding of elections. Its work was essentially an extension of the Lancaster House Conference which laid down that those represented at the Conference should be kept in touch with the progress of the work of this Working Party. Many of the delegates to that Conference are not members of Executive Council: on the ocher hand, virtually all members of the Executive Council were consulted by the Governor and my right honourable friend in their capacity of delegates to the Conference. The question of instruction to the Governor that he need not consult the Executive Council did not arise.
As regards the last part of the Question, legal authority stems from the Nyasaland Legislative Council (Registration of Voters and Delimitation of Constituencies) Regulations, 1961, made under the Nyasaland (Electoral Provisions) Orders in Council, 1960, which were laid before Parliament on December 6 and 30, 1960, respectively.
With your Lordships' permission, may I take this opportunity to correct a misstatement which I made regarding the position of ex-Portuguese Africans in answering a supplementary question on this general subject in your Lordships' House three weeks ago? I have not done this before, because it was only to-day that my attention was drawn to my mistake. What I specifically refer to is that I said that the Federal Government ran into precisely the same difficulty of definition in regard to ex-
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Portuguese Africans when they were drawing up their electoral laws. This is not so. They ran into the same difficulty in drawing up not, as I thought, their electoral legislation, but some of their Federal immigration legislation, under which ex-Portuguese Africans were excluded from the definition of "aliens". I am extremely sorry that I misled the House, and that I have only to-day been able to put matters right.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his answers to the two parts of the Question, may I say that I have not quite understood the last definition? May I ask whether he thinks fiat putting unauthorised Portuguese on the lower roll will place European Portuguese similarly qualified by residence, at a disadvantage unless admitted to the higher roll? That is to say, assuming that in any case amending legislation is considered necessary—which is the point I cannot quite understand from the noble Earl's answer—will amending legislation need to be brought in to bring these unauthorised foreigners on our rolls?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, if I understand the further question of the noble Earl, I think it is similar to that which was raised three weeks ago. I explained at that time, and I repeat, that there is no question of discrimination between the Portuguese African and the Portuguese European. In one case we can distinguish which is which, and in the other we cannot. It is for administrative reasons that the Portuguese East African is included, or may be included, whereas the other is excluded. As I said in my first Answer, that is being arranged under the Order in Council which was laid at the end of last year. There is no question, I think, of a need to amend legislation.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl, but I still do not understand why there is not an imbalance between the higher and the lower roll. In one roll certain people will be admitted; the other roll will be deficient of those people, who are in good standing in the community, pay their taxes and have resided there several years. Therefore, there seems to be an inequality about dealing with the two cases on the two rolls

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Could the noble Earl give me a little further information?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I will try again. The difference is just this: in one case we can say, "That is a Portuguese European and he does not therefore come within the regulations". In the other case we are not able to discriminate or judge whether he is a Portuguese African or, if I may put it this way, a Nyasaland African. He may have crossed the frontier and lived in Nyasaland many years, and it is not possible to judge between one and the other of the Africans.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl how he judges who is a Portuguese East African and who is a European? They are very intermarried in some cases. Some have spent a long time in Africa and some have spent a long time in Portugal. Can he say how the differentiation is made?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I think we must leave that to the registration officer on the spot.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I raise one point on the general issue which is raised by this Question. Does the noble Earl really think it is wise that the Executive Council should not be consulted at all on a matter so vitally affecting the future of Nyasaland?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I have tried in my earlier Answer to explain that this whole question was, if I may put it that way, an extension of the work of the Constitutional Conference, and that it was laid down that the Working Party should keep in touch with or should inform the members of the Conference of the work they were doing and the conclusions they were coming to. In those circumstances all the members of the Conference were consulted, and that did, in fact, include a large number—the greater part—of the Executive Council who were members of the Conference.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, is it not correct to say that it is part of the instructions given to every Governor that in a matter of public importance his Executive Council have the right to have it laid before them? Is not the fact that
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some of them may in another capacity have had the matter referred to them irrelevant to the fact that this was a neglect of rights of members of the Executive Council and neglect of instructions given to every Governor?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I do not think so, for the reasons I tried to give in my original Answer to the Question. I suggest that the noble Lord should study that Answer and see whether I have not outlined good grounds.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, as a final effort on this matter, may I ask when consultation was had with representatives of the United Federal Party? I am informed that these people were not taken into account until after the Secretary of State had come to his decision, and in the final case the proposals were handed over only after the New Year, when time was far too short for them to be discussed before the Gazette, No. 2 of 1961, came out.
THE EARL OF PERTH: The consultation took place, as I remember it, at the time of the Federal Conference. As to whether the United Federal Party were adequately consulted, I may say that it is always a question of what consultation or adequate consultation may be. But the fact remains that various of the suggestions which were made as a result of the Working Party were changed after consultation with the United Federal Party.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, will the noble Earl bring the point raised by my noble friend, Lord Milverton, to the attention of his right honourable friend the Colonial Secretary? It seems to me an important one. If it is true that there is a general instruction to all Governors that matters of real importance to the community must be brought before the Executive Council (I do not know the exact wording) does it not seem—I am sure it does to many of us—that there was an exception in the present case?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, certainly I shall be only too glad to draw the attention of my right honourable friend to this

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matter. It may have been wrong judgment. I do not think so in the light of the whole background I have tried to outline. This was not a matter for the Executive Council. Rather was it a matter for the members of the Conference, the work of the Working Party being specifically an extension of the work of the Conference.

SIZE OF ROAD VEHICLES
LORD MORRIS LORD MORRIS had given Notice of his intention to ask the following Question:
To ask Her Majesty's Government if they will consider introducing legislation restricting the height, length and width of vehicles which may be used for the transport of goods et cetera by road, thereby making the roads immeasurably safer for all classes of the community whilst indirectly and simultaneously diverting to British Railways and canals welcome and much-needed freight to help offset their monumental losses.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government if, the next time they have it in mind publicly to castigate and blackguard me, as they did last week from the Front Bench through the mouth of the Lord President to the Council—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD MORRIS: —they will have the courtesy lo give me notice, so that I may at least pay your Lordships the compliment of my attendance?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I had no notice that anything of this kind was going to be said or that anything other than the noble Lord's Question was going to be put clown. If he feels I was guilty of any discourtesy to him, I will, of course, willingly apologise. I was not aware I had castigated him. I certainly did not intend to do so. I was simply quoting a precedent, something which had happened, in order to illustrate a general point of procedure, and I think I did so accurately. Certainly if the noble Lord feels I acted remissly in any way towards him per-
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sonally. I can only apologise most humbly; but I did not feel at the time I was casting aspersions on him at all.
LORD MORRIS: My Lords, I have been a Member of your Lordships' House now for over a quarter of a century. The words used of me were "offensive", "objectionable" and "improper"; those were the words used by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House. I think I might have been warned of this.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD MORRIS: During my twenty-five years I have always been treated with the greatest courtesy by everyone in the House, the noble Viscount on the Woolsack, the noble Marquess on my left and by his father. I challenge the noble Viscount to repeat what he said outside the House. If he does so, I shall be happy to take him back to the Law Courts.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, if the Leader of the Opposition may speak on this matter, may I say that I know nothing of the particular case and the words used; but I do hope that the noble Lord, Lord Morris, will feel, when he has had such an answer as the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House has just given, that he might well let the matter drop and let the House get on with its business.
LORD MORRIS: My Lords, I accept the apology, if that is what it is intended to be, and I now beg to ask the Question standing on the Paper in my name.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, [MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, the length, width and gross laden weight of normal commercial vehicles are already restricted by the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, 1955. The use of larger vehicles for the carriage of certain indivisible loads is authorised only under restricted conditions. Proposals for tightening these conditions are now under consideration. Really, exceptional loads for which no other suitable means of transport can be found may be carried by road under the authority of individual special Orders made by my right honourable friend, the Minister of Transport. In such cases, which are

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relatively few, strict conditions are imposed as to the route and timing of the journey. Within the limits laid down for normal commercial traffic, however, it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to leave industry free to choose the most suitable and economic method of transport for each particular purpose.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am exceedingly interested in Lord Morris's Question. May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that, in the last 20 years, the size, height and length of goods vehicles on the roads have expanded enormously? One cannot drive on the road every day without observing it. In Germany, famous for its autobahns and the like, they have recently altered their road transport regulations because, in spite of whatever may be said on behalf of road transport, they want to see the big traffic put back on to their railways. I do not see anything particularly out of place in Lord Morris's Question, and I hope that further attention will be paid to it.
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords; it is for that reason that I said that proposals for tightening the conditions were under consideration at the present time. We are therefore quite aware of that, which is the natural reason for the proposals. But I think I should point out to the noble Viscount that our existing restrictions, under the regulations I mentioned, bring about the fact that our vehicles are already smaller than those in any other country in Europe, except, I think I am right in saying, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, with reference to the noble Lord's mention of indivisible loads, is he aware that one of the greatest troubles on the roads arises from large goods vehicles with equally large trailers? And can he say whether the regulations which his right honourable friend is reviewing will take that fact into account? Because it is not right that industry should have the freedom of choice when it interferes so drastically with the freedom of other road users.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether much of the trouble does not also arise from the problem of double handling?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, in the case of the indivisible loads it is particularly the large loads which my right honourable friend has in mind when reconsidering the regulations. Of course, these days things are getting so large. Pressure vessels for reactors and that sort of thing have to be moved about, and they simply will not go by any other way. They will not go under the bridges and will not go through the stations on the railways; nor could they go by canal. They are not manufactured or destined to go anywhere near a port.
LORD STONHAM: I was not concerned with those loads: I meant a load which is obviously divisible because it is partly in the main vehicle and partly in the subsidiary vehicle. But vehicles carrying these loads do occupy an enormous amount of room. Are vehicles of that kind to be investigated in the review of these regulations?
LORD CHESHAM: My right honourable friend has that very point much in mind.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, in view of the noble Lord's answer to the last but one supplementary question, may I ask whether his right honourable friend would also add the words "coastal shipping" to the question of canals?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am not sure that I understand my noble friend correctly. I am not quite sure what he wants me to do.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I will explain what I have in mind. I was held up for a long time on the road following an enormous vehicle carrying a vast piece of apparatus which could not have gone by canal; nor could it have gone by rail. But it was going from Port Glasgow to Chatham, and it could have gone by coastal shipping.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that possibly it could or possibly it could not—I have not the circumstances at my finger-tips. But one thing I can say is that when there is a special order movement (which is what my noble friend's obstruction appears to have been) the special order is not granted until it has been ascertained that the load could not go by rail or coastal shipping.

MURDER CHARGE ACQUITTAL
3.4 p.m.
LORD ELTON: 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, as a result of a recent case in which the defendant was acquitted of a charge of murder on the ground that he was asleep, they are considering bringing about a change in the law to make possible a verdict of "guilty but asleep."]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (EARL BATHURST): My Lords, from the inquiries which I have been able to make, it would appear that the circumstances of the case to which the noble Lord refers are without precedent. I have no reason to think that this case has demonstrated a need for any change in the law.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that not very lengthy Answer, may I ask, in the first place, whether he would not agree that a verdict of "Guilty but asleep" would he much nearer to the facts than a verdict of innocence and would also have the advantage that, like a verdict of "Guilty but insane" it would make it possible to detain the convicted person? Then may I ask, as regards to the suggestion that it is not likely that this will be repeated, whether he would not agree that, when a bizarre case of this sort has been widely reported, it is more than likely that it will be either imitated subconsciously and half-wittingly by persons of neurotic temperament, or deliberately simulated by persons desiring a plausible line of defence?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, with regard to the first part of my friend's supplementary question, it is quite true that there may be a possibility that in future a verdict of "Guilty but asleep" might be considered to be part of a mental disorder, and my right honourable friend is looking into that question carefully. Meanwhile, I can only say to the second part of my noble Lord's supplementary question that, as this is such an extraordinary result of a case—such an
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extraordinary decision has been made—for the time being my right honourable friend sees no reason to alter the law.
LORD AMWELL: My Lords, if a man is asleep, how can he be guilty? It is a question of terminology, that is all.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, before my noble friend answers that point, may I say that surely the man is not guilty. He was found not guilty in this particular case.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, what my noble friend Lord Derwent has said is quite right. The point the noble Lord opposite has brought up is the conundrum with which we are faced.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask whether it is proper for a Minister of the Crown, particularly one from the Home Office, to describe a verdict or decision in a case as being an extraordinary one?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am sure that all my noble friend meant to say was what he said in his original Answer: that it was without precedent. That is all he said I think in his original Answer. I do not think that in that sense it is improper.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, in the sense that the words were used by the Minister they were improper.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am perfectly sure that my noble friend did not wish to challenge the verdict of the court in any way.
LORD CHORLEY: Would your Lordships not agree that this was an extraordinary case?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, that is exactly what I was endeavouring to point out. I am sorry if I used the wrong term.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, it would surely not have been possible for the noble Earl to use a more appropriate term; it was a case out of the ordinary.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he does not agree that Precedent plays a most important part in the law? How is it, then, that his noble friend can dismiss precedent in this way?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am not sure that I understand this supplementary question; and if I did, I think that I should ask the Lord Chancellor to answer it for me. But the verdict of a jury is not a precedent in the legal sense. What is a precedent in the legal sense is a reasoned decision of a judge. I think that may be the confusion in the noble Lady's mind.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, would the noble Earl give an assurance that, when they are tried at the bar of public opinion for their many lapses, the Government will not put in the plea of "Guilty but asleep"?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I can only say that my right honourable friend is not contemplating a change.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, will be making a statement at some suitable moment after 3.30 on the Icelandic fishing dispute.

AFFILIATION PROCEEDINGS (BLOOD TESTS) BILL [H.L.]
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to empower magistrates' courts and courts hearing appeals therefrom to require the applicant for an affiliation order, her child, and the alleged father to undergo blood tests: and for purposes connected therewith. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved that the Bill be now read 1a.— (Lord Amulree.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing. Order No. 41 be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of taking the Consolidated Fund Bill this day through its remaining stages.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I beg to move that the two Orders on the Order Paper be approved.
Moved, That the order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Guisborough, be approved;
That the order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Prestatyn, be approved.—(Earl Bathurst.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BETTING LEVY BILL
3.11 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Establishment of Horserace Betting Levy Board]:
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved to add to subsection (1):
"The Levy Board may in assessing the levies paid by bookmakers have regard to the amount of money staked with bookmakers relative to the amount of money staked with the Totalisator with a view to securing that the monies staked with bookmakers will as far as possible make a similar proportionate contribution to monies staked with the Totalisator."
The noble Lord said: I rise to move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Astor, who very much regrets that he is unable to be present this afternoon as he is abroad. This Amendment seeks to put into the Bill the general principle on which my noble friend spoke on Second Reading. That principle, which seemed to commend itself to the House on that occasion, is that there should be parity of treatment between bookmakers and the totalisator, so far as this Bill is concerned, and

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between investors on the books and on the Tote; because there is a possibility, as was recognised by the Peppiatt Committee in paragraph 24 of their Report, that this levy may well be passed on to the "punters".
The general principle is that the levy should be fair to both. No one will wish to discriminate between the bookmakers, on the one hand, and the totalisator, on the other, and if all parties bear a fair burden, the burden on the individual will be a light one. But when the principle has been laid down, there are various practical difficulties in achieving an exact mathematical parity; so that it is essential to give the Levy Board the utmost freedom in putting the principle into practice. For instance, bookmakers' accounts and the books they keep differ very much from those kept by the Totalisator Board. Bookmakers quote odds before the time, and even before the day, of the race, whereas the totalisator calculates its odds on an arithmetical sum after the start of the race. Then, bookmakers have various ingenious things such as "accumulators" which the Tote cannot emulate. Again, the small bookmaker who may not have a very large turnover, is in a rather different position from his bigger brethren, and also from the totalisator, because out of the comparatively small amount out of which he has to find his living expenses.
So we may agree that we cannot have an exact mathematical parity, pound for pound. I do not think it will be found that we have asked for that in this Amendment, however, because we use the words, "as far as possible". It is agreed that the Board must have great freedom, tolerance and flexibility in operating this scheme, but I do not think that, because of that, we should fail to give the Board guidance in the principles which should influence them in working with tolerance and flexibility. In his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack said [OFFICIAL REPORT. Vol. 228 (No. 35), col. 387]:
"It is obvious that the amount of the levy depends on three factors: first, the needs of horse racing and breeding, and of veterinary science and education, and the other potential objects of the benefaction; secondly, the capacity of bookmakers to pay and, thirdly. the need to balance in an equitable manner the
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amounts taken from the bookmakers and the Totalisator Board."
The first two of those three factors are incorporated in the Bill, and my noble friend, Lord Astor and I are asking your Lordships to incorporate the third, in principle—but only in principle—in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 18, at end insert the said words —(Lord Denham.)
LORD STONHAM: The Amendment which has been so persuasively moved by my noble friend Lord Denham bases its plea on the desirability of parity of treatment between the Tote and the bookmakers; and, of course, any appeal for parity of treatment is a most compelling one. The noble Lord went on to say, quite rightly in my view, that we must give the Levy Board the utmost freedom in determining how they should assess the ability of bookmakers to pay. But in fact, in my view, the very terms of this Amendment would impose quite rigid restrictions on the freedom of the Board, and it is for that reason undesirable.
As I understand it, the Tote charges 15 per cent. on losing bets and an average of rather more than 11 per cent. on all bets, winning and losing. That 11 per cent. is on the amount staked, and in view of that fact, and many others, I feel that this is a most unfair proposal. It is unfair to the bookmakers and quite unworkable. It is true that the qualifying words "as far as possible", are used. But even so it means (to quote a practical example) that if £40 million were staked on the Tote there would be a deduction of £4,400,000–11 per cent. of that sum. But if £160 million were staked with bookmakers the deduction would be £17,600,000, which, of course, is a quite fantastic sum.
The two methods of betting are not comparable, either with regard to risks or expenses. The Tote is never at risk. It lays against all the runners and takes approximately 11 per cent. of all that is staked, whichever horse wins. The Tote is always sure of its expenses plus profits, and the profits are directly related to the turnover—the bigger the turnover, the bigger the profit. None of these things applies to the bookmaker. He is almost always at risk because he is rarely able to lay against the whole field, and hardly

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ever able to make his book so that, like the Tote, he is certain of a profit, whichever horse wins. His profits are frequently in inverse ratio to his turnover, because his turnover is always bigger when his customers are enjoying a winning run and are therefore reinvesting. In a year of bigger turnover a bookmaker often makes less profit than in a year of small turnover.
These reasons, alone, I submit, are sufficient for rejecting the Amendment; but, in addition, it seems to me that what it proposes would be unworkable, because the Tote does not make bad debts while the bookmaker often does. Is he then to pay 11 per cent. on all debts made with him by defaulting backers? The Tote deals to a major extent with the original punter. Its turnover is not inflated by the system of laying-off. Nor is it true that the Tote does not accumulate this, because there is the daily Tote "double". All starting price bookmakers, except perhaps the largest firms, continually find it necessary, in order to safeguard themselves against very heavy loss, to pass on to larger firms a proportion of the bets they have taken on one or more horses in a particular race. If a man takes £100 on a horse and lays off £80 of that £100, that £80 becomes part of the turnover of the second bookmaker and the total is then £180; and some of it can even go on to a third man. But let us just take two. If the original £100 becomes £180, in total turnover the 11 per cent. would become 19⅘ per cent.—a quite impracticable impost; and it would be impossible to separate the two forms of betting and say that one was original and one was secondary or tertiary.
Bookmakers already have expenses amounting to anything from 60 per cent. because quite a lot, particularly the medium and the smaller ones, employ agents to whom they pay commission of from 5 to 7½ per cent. If, in, addition, they had to pay what amounts to an 11 per cent. turnover tax they would either have to evade it or go out of business. In practice there would be wholesale evasion, just as there was in 1926 when the tax was only 1¼ per cent., 3d. in the £. The amounts collected then were derisory in relation to the volume of betting and the thing failed dismally. There has to be justice in this thing. I personally think that the Levy Board is going to
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do a first-class job, but it will not be able to do a first-class job if it is tied down in the manner that this Amendment suggests. In fact I think that is the strongest argument against it, because it would wreck the Bill.
During Second Reading I made it abundantly clear that I was wholly in favour of the Bill and confident that bookmakers could afford to pay considerably more in their first year than the Peppiatt Committee suggested. I am certain that that is the case. But I am equally certain that they would not be able to do what this Amendment asks them to. There are only two possible criteria: the size of the business, judged by a good many different means, or the size of their profits. With these the Levy Board can form a reliable estimate of what a bookmaker can be reasonably asked to pay. If they had to rely on turnover it would wreck the Bill, and I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD JESSEL: I should like to support the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. As he said, the Tote cannot lose; the bookmaker can lose. One argument used by my noble friend Lord Denham really surprised me. He said he thought the levy would be passed on by the bookmakers to their clients. That argument was disclaimed by my noble friend Lord Astor on Second Reading.
LORD DENHAM: I am sorry to butt in here, but I was quoting the Report of the Peppiatt Committee, paragraph 24, which says:
"In spite of a firm opinion to the contrary which is held by one of our number, we are not all convinced that in the end means would not be found to pass on at least part of it, directly or indirectly, but in view of our conclusions as to the amount of the levy this question is not of critical importance."
LORD JESSEL: My noble friend Lord Astor, in whose name this Amendment stands, said on Second Reading that he did not believe in that argument, because if the bookmakers persistently gave worse odds than the Tote, then people would bet with the Tote. I think that is a bad argument for someone supporting the Amendment of Lord Astor. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will not accept it.
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: I have every sympathy, I must confess, with this Amendment which stands in the names of my noble friends Lord Astor and Lord Denham. But (and I wrote to my noble friend Lord Astor, and I also took the liberty of communicating my views on this subject to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack) surely this Amendment, with which some of us may sympathise, is a matter for the Betting Levy Board to go into; and I am sure that they will do so when they are constituted and considering the various methods of the possibility and desirability of obtaining the levy from the bookmakers. In my humble opinion, it would be very unwise to write into this Bill any formula which would in any way impair the excellent flexibility of the Bill that is before the Committee to-day.
I should, however, like to correct, if I may, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. He says that the Tote can never lose. But there is a corollary to that, which is that the bookmakers very often never pay out. I have seen this frequently at races. Very often races are won by horses the names of which are never even written in their books; and when that happens they "trouser" the lot. So they are at a great advantage compared with the Totalisator, which, I think I am right in saying, ever since it has started has hardly ever not had to pay out. I speak subject to correction. I believe that the stakes are refunded on those occasions when there is not a single winning ticket.
LORD STONHAM: If the bookmakers have so many "skinners", as I think they are called, would that not be an argument for placing a levy on profit rather than turnover?
EARL BATHURST: My noble friend Lord Denham has put his Amendment and his views and the views of his noble friend Lord Astor to your Lordships, asking for sympathetic treatment, and I admit that he has put them with great clarity and with great sincerity. But I must agree with the noble Lord opposite in what he says. We are dealing here with two completely different types of business. They are businesses which are carried on not only, obviously, by completely different people, but under completely different terms of business. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and my
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noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke have said that the Tote cannot lose; and, of course, that is quite true. The Tote have a monopoly of all pool betting on the racecourses. They deduct from every single bet which the punter puts on an average of something like 11·15 per cent., as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has told us. That deduction is taken from the punter whether he likes it or not.
If I may correct my noble friend Lord Denham, I would point out that the Tote itself does not fix the odds which it pays out; that is decided by the punter. The more punters there are on a particular pool—that is, on a particular horse; probably the favourite—naturally, the smaller the odds or the winnings that will be returned to the punter. If there is a lesser number of punters on a particular pool, the winnings to each individual winner are greater. That must mean that, whatever happens, win or lose, the Tote cannot lose. It has already drawn its 11 per cent.
By the figures of 1959, the Tote had some £28½ million turnover, and, from that, some 2 per cent. was retained as profits. After taxation was paid, and after its own management expenses (which are very considerable) were paid, the Tote then had £690,000 to distribute to the industry. They decided to withhold £90,000 for future contingencies—possibly the sort of contingencies which my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke might envisage, when the Tote pool might run short. It is doubtful that such a contingency would arise, but it could. However, £600,000 was paid back into the racing industry by deducting this 11 per cent. from the punters' money.
Now my noble friend Lord Denham has said that the bookmakers have a similar type of profit, and it is the intention of his Amendment to try to treat their profit in the same manner as the Tote treats its profit. I do not believe that that can possibly be so. It is a completely different type of profit. Indeed, it can even be a loss, and is very often a loss, whether on individual races or whether over the whole season. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, also mentioned another variable which we must take into consideration, and that is the fact that the bookmaker himself has to earn his livelihood.

23
Now how can one classify a bookmaker's livelihood? Is he in a small house of, say, a council house type? Is he a magnate living on the top floor of a very large office? Or has he a large country home, children at public schools and so forth? I think that a bookmaker's livelihood would be very difficult to assess in the course of working out what the profit or loss of a firm or of an individual bookmaker would be. All through the racing season, whether it is good weather or bad, whether or not favourites have a winning streak of luck, the going, of individual racehorses, accidents, withdrawals of horses and injuries to jockeys—every one of those factors come in to make racing the sport of kings, as it is called, and produce a hazard to the profits and to the turnover of the bookmaker. None of those hazards affects the Tote at all The turnover may be smaller, it is true, but the percentage they deduct is still deducted from the punters' money. That is the difference between the two businesses.
My noble friend Lord Jessel has said that he did not think that there would be a danger that the levy would be passed on to the clients by the bookmaker. I completely agree with what he has said, because, obviously, if a bookmaker decides to pass on this levy to his clients, then his odds must be lower, and if that is so then the client will bet with the Tote. We believe that we have written into the Bill a guidance to the Levy Board. Indeed, that guidance is agreed by my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke and by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, opposite. There are the three independent members appointed by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. They are completely independent of racing, and are to be appointed under Clause 1 (2) (a).
Now they must consider—and this, again, is written into the Bill in Clause 3, subsection (6), paragraphs (a), (b), and (c)—the three things which my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor referred to in his speech on Second Reading. They must consider, first, the capacity for the time being—I repeat, "for the time being"—of bookmakers to take contributions; then they must weigh up the capacity at the time being of the Tote to make its contributions; and all
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that must be considered with the extent of the need of the racing industry for contributions at that time. We believe that this will make a flexible and workable scheme and one that will be simple to vary from time to time. Always that scheme will be watched over (for which reason they are appointed) by the three independent members. If this Amendment were accepted, I think it would tie the Levy Board to making a scheme—and even there my noble friend Lord Denham is not too certain, because his Amendment has to include the words "as far as possible". So we tie the scheme, "as far as possible", to, really, an irrelevant and probably unfair assessment of the ability of the bookmaker to pay, as compared with the known, proved and assessable ability of the Totalisator board to pay. For these reasons, I cannot accept the Amendment, and I ask my noble friend to withdraw it.
LORD DENHAM: I cannot say that I am entirely convinced by the arguments of my noble friend Lord Bathurst or of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, or by those of my noble friends Lord Willoughby de Broke and Lord Jessel. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that this Amendment would impose rigid restrictions, and the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, said that it would tie the hand of the Levy Board. I may be wrong, but I should have thought that the phrasing of this Amendment, that
"The Levy Board may"—
I emphasise "may"—
"in assessing the levies … have regard to the amount of money staked with bookmakers relative to the amount of money staked with the Totalisator with a view to securing that the monies staked with bookmakers will as far as possible"—
I repeat, "as far as possible"—
"make a similar Proportionate contribution …"
was not very rigid. But in view of the obvious feeling of the House on this matter, I ask your Lordships for leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Bookmakers' levy schemes]:
3.38 p.m.
LORD JESSEL LORD JESSEL moved in subsection (6), to omit "have effect accordingly for that period" and to substitute:
"be submitted to The Secretary of State and if approved by him shall be laid before Parliament as a statutory instrument but shall not have effect unless approved by resolution of each House of Parliament."
The noble Lord said: I have put down this Amendment because I was not convinced by the arguments advanced by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor when replying to my speech on the Second Reading of this I still think that it is only fair to the bookmakers that the amount Which is to be levied, and the manner of collection, should have the approval of the Home Secretary. As your Lordships know, the Levy Board is composed of a Chairman, two independent members, two representatives of the Jockey Club, one representative of the National Hunt Committee, the Chairman of the Tote and one bookmakers' representative. Now let us suppose that, after a prolonged discussion, the Levy Board fails to agree, and it is then left to the Chairman and the two independent members to make up a levy scheme. They will have heard the arguments of their colleagues, which I suggest will have been mostly against the lone voice of the bookmakers' representative, and this must, subconsciously, at any rate, affect their final decision.
In regard to the levy scheme, the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, in his opening speech on Second Reading, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 228 (No. 35), col. 355]:
"Since the scheme is to be domestic to the industry, this is not a function which ought properly to be undertaken by a Minister of the Crown".
I agree that it is domestic to the industry, but the same argument applies equally to the distribution of the money which has been raised; and if your Lordships will look at Clause 2 (2) (d) of the Bill you will see that the scheme for distribution requires the approval of the Home Secretary with or without modifications. It has also been argued by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 228 (No. 35), col. 389] that:
"the scheme for levying bookmakers would have to be drawn up on the basis of detailed knowledge of racing and of the manner in
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which bookmakers worked. That information will be available to the chairman and the independent members, if they are required to adjudicate, but my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, of course, would not have this advantage. He would have no independent sources of information on which to call."
Surely, however, the same argument can be advanced against the provision which the Government have inserted in this Bill, that the scheme of distribution shall require the approval of the Home Secretary. Why should he have detailed information about this matter? In the debate in another place the Government spokesman made a great point of the fact that it should be possible for the Home Secretary to be questioned in Parliament about any scheme of distribution which he had approved. Surely exactly the same argument applies to the amount and method of the levy.
My second point is that, as this levy is a tax on a certain section of the public, it should have the approval of Parliament. Your Lordships may recollect that in his winding-up speech on the Second Reading of this Bill the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor talked to us about the distinction between a hypothecated tax and a levy; and he quoted precedents for a levy, such as that on cinema takings, the sugar surcharge mechanism, the levy on the cotton industry, and the levy payments made under agricultural marketing schemes. But surely all those schemes require Parliamentary approval before they can be put into operation.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Would the noble Lord tell me, because my research has completely failed to discover it, of any other levy scheme at present in existence which is subject to annual approval by Parliament? I do not know of one, and if the noble Lord can refer me to one, I will have a look at it.
LORD JESSEL: I do not know that they have to be subject to annual approval by Parliament, but I do know, having sat on the Special Orders Committee for several years, that we have frequently had to approve Orders under these particular schemes to which reference has been made. It may be over a period of three years, I cannot remember; but these schemes do need positive approval—I do not say annual approval, but positive approval—first of all by the Special

27
Orders Committee, and then by the whole House, before they can be put into operation.
Another argument advanced was that, if the levy scheme had to be approved annually by Parliament, there might be delay in bringing it into operation. I do not think that this will be the case. If the levy scheme appears to be fair, the statutory instrument giving it effect would be approved without delay. Only if the scheme appeared to be obviously unfair—and this is the safeguard for which I am asking—would it be debated. The purpose of requiring the scheme to be approved by Parliament is not to have a debate, but to indicate to those participating in the scheme that that possibility exists. Both Houses of Parliament are constantly approving statutory instruments of which most Members have no knowledge, but this does not mean that a particular scheme is not a good one. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give this matter further serious consideration, and I beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 21, leave out from ("shall") to end of line and insert ("be submitted to the Secretary of State and if approved by him shall be laid before Parliament as a statutory instrument but shall not have effect unless approved by resolution of each House of Parliament").—(Lord Jessel.)
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: I am very surprised that my noble friend Lord Jessel has brought forward this Amendment before your Lordships today, in view of the way that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor shot down from a very great height this particular train of thought, in his admirable summing-up on the Second Reading of this Bill on February 7 in your Lordships' House. I think I can safely leave it in the hands of the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, to fire the left barrel and to kill this proposal once and for all. I very much hope that your Lordships will resist this Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should also like to say that I cannot support the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Jessel. Surely Parliament has so much business to do to-day that if it were to be asked to give approval every year to schemes of such bodies as the Cotton Board and the Levy Board it would become quite impossible
28
for it to carry out its work. After all, any one of your Lordships is able to put down a Question about any scheme, or even have a debate and put down a Motion. I do not think that there is any call for this sort of Amendment, and I hope that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will stick to his guns.
LORD STONHAM: Only lest silence be interpreted as consent do I rise to say that we also hope that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will reject this Amendment, which in some ways (although I know the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, does not put it forward as such) could be a wrecking Amendment, in that it could involve very considerable delays, and might on some occasions mean the rejection by comparatively uninformed people of the conclusions of experts. Therefore, I hope that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will, in the noble Lord's words, stick to his guns.
3.48 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: I do not know whether my left barrel is going to convince my noble friend Lord Jessel—evidently my noble and learned friend's right barrel did not. I feel that my noble and learned friend has convinced your Lordships on both sides of the House. I know that in principle possibly the noble Lord's Amendment has attractions, but we cannot believe, if the real consideration and inspection of all that is needed with regard to racing and bookmaking is to be effectively carried out, that it can be carried out by Parliament. Time alone affords one good reason why Parliament could not deal with such a problem.
My noble friend Lord Jessel mentioned the expert information that is necessary. I cannot believe that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary would be in the position to attend every single meeting of this Levy Board to hear the whys and wherefores of any particular scheme, or any scheme that may be proposed in the future. I cannot believe that my right honourable friend would be expected to hob-nob (if I may use the expression) with all the many and varied interests that are concerned in racing. The fact that he just has not the time to do such hob-nobbing, pleasant though that may well be, seems to me sufficient ground for

29
saying that he should not be an arbiter in any dispute that may take place between the Levy Board on the one side, the bookmakers on the other side, and even the Totalisator Board on yet another side. We believe that the three arbitrators, the chairman and two independent members of the Board, are the proper people to arbitrate on any dispute.
My noble friend Lord Jessel mentioned in Clause 2 (2) (d), which deals with payments from funds collected by Statute. I think that my right honourable friend is really being called upon in this paragraph to see fair play, to see that the money collected by the Levy Board is paid out to the proper people, who in fact will be the same people to whom the Racecourse Betting Control Board used to pay out moneys. This is quite different from asking my right honourable friend to adjudicate upon, or promote, schemes for raising money. We believe that a scheme is domestic to the industry and that any money raised by the Levy Board should be paid out according to a scheme made by the bookmakers themselves and the Board. We cannot see how Parliament can either invent a scheme or adjudicate upon a scheme unless it has full information and I cannot see how Members of your Lordships' House and of another place could be able to obtain the full information that would be necessary.
Clause 8 (2) of the Bill requires my right honourable friend to lay before Parliament each year the report of the Levy Board. Then questions may be asked and the matters debated with the full facts available, and both my right honourable friend and the Levy Board would be bound to take note of the criticism and suggestions made. I am sorry that I cannot accept the Amendment of my noble friend. But we believe that the method we have already written into the Bill will be the simplest and most convenient, both for adjudicating upon and for promoting schemes for collecting the levy. I would therefore ask my noble friend to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD JESSEL: Obviously the Committee are very much against me, but I must confess that I am not convinced at all by the "hob-nobbing" argument. The Home Secretary would have to go racing a great deal more than is good for
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him in order to adjudicate properly on the distribution of this money.
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: I really must interrupt the noble Lord. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary already does it in the case of money collected by the totalisator.
LORD JESSEL: But he does not hob-nob.
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: I should be the last person to accuse my right honourable friend the Home Secretary of "hob-nobbing" with anybody.
LORD JESSEL: Take the case of an inspector who is called upon to make an inquiry by the Ministry of Housing: he simply reports to the Minister. The Minister is not present at the inquiry. He does not go into every detail. He must take responsibility for his subordinates. I am not really convinced by this argument, but in view of the feeling of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: It may be convenient for your Lordships if the House resume now, in order to hear a statement by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.

ICELANDIC FISHING DISPUTE
3.55 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will repeat a statement which has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal, about the proposed settlement of the fishery dispute with Iceland. I will make the statement in my right honourable friend's own words:
"As the House will have learnt from the announcement made last night, Her Majesty's Government and

31
the Government of Iceland have reached agreement on proposals for a settlement of the dispute on fishery limits.
"The proposed settlement has been placed before the Icelandic Parliament. If it is approved we shall proceed as soon as possible to an Exchenge of Notes between the two Governments which will conclude the settlement.
"The main provisions of the proposed settlement are that there should be a transitional period of three years during which British vessels would be able to continue to fish in certain areas and at certain seasons of the year in the zone between six and twelve miles off Iceland. In addition, provision is made for certain modifications in favour of Iceland of the base-lines from which the twelve mile fishery zone is measured. These modifications are explicitly stated to relate solely to the delimitation of that zone. After the three-year transitional period Her Majesty's Government will no longer object to the twelve mile fishery zone around Iceland. In order to secure stability in the future, the Icelandic Government will undertake to give six months' notice of any proposals to extend their fishery jurisdiction further. They will also agree that any dispute arising from such a proposal shall, at the request of either party, be referred to the International Court of Justice.
"The Exchange of Notes will be registered with the United Nations and the settlement will be without prejudice to the rights of Her Majesty's Government under international law towards third parties.
"My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I recognise that a settlement on the basis proposed would entail the exclusion of the distant water section of the British fishing industry from fishing grounds which are of great importance to them. Nevertheless, the representatives of all sections of the fishing industry have informed my right honourable friend that they are prepared to support a settlement of the dispute on this basis."
3.58 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, we are much obliged to the noble Marquess for the statement which he has repeated to us here. I must say that I am very sorry about the agreement, from this point of view only: that the terms of it are not very favourable to us in this country. The last reference of the noble Marquess to acceptance by representatives of the fishing industry seemed to be on the basis of, as one representative of the industry says in the Yorkshire Post report, "At least now we know the worst." But we must all have a sense of relief from the fact that our fishermen will no longer find themselves in continuous danger, such as they have been going through for the last few years, even under the protection of the Royal Navy.
Perhaps the House will pardon me if I make one or two points to the noble Marquess on this statement. There seems to me to have been a steady inroad into the principles of international understanding (I do not know if it is a law) about territorial waters—a very appreciable inroad. I believe that we have an understanding with Norway which is different from the old recognised one, and I have been told to-day about the views of Canada, who have had some discussions with the United States of America.
Where exactly is this going to end? When will a British Government (whatever Government it may be at the time) finally have to make up their minds on the quid pro quo they get for yielding in this matter? Are we to continue to have foreign fishermen fishing on our inshore fishing beds? I do not suppose that our own inshore fishermen are always within the three-mile limit; there must be a good deal of inshore fishing that goes on outside the limit. But we have Norwegian, Russian and all kinds of fishermen on our coasts. If we give way on these matters, what do we get in return? This is a question of foreign policy as well as trade policy, and that is why I put it to the noble Marquess. If it is to be a question of giving up what are in some cases distant fishing grounds first developed by British industry, and in some cases first discovered by British industry, what do we get in return? Are you going to allow all

33
foreign fishermen still to fish anywhere outside the three-mile limit of this country?
May I ask—because I am quite ignorant upon the connection between the two matters of this particular fishery territorial limit and the more general questions—exactly what is in mind about the Exchange of Notes? The statement says:
"The Exchange of Notes when registered will be without prejudice to the rights of Her Majesty's Government under international law towards third parties".
Who are the third parties? Is this something entirely confined to fishing? Is it something to do with the general interpretation of territorial waters law? Could either the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack or the noble Viscount the Leader of the House give me some legal advice on this matter? What is involved? What are the relationships? In any case, if it is only for fishing, how does the third party matter arise? I am sure that the Foreign Office representative, the Foreign Office having made the agreement, will be able to tell us all about it in general but let us have the legal position as well, so that we may know where we are. I may ask one or two more questions, but that is enough to go on with.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, before the noble Marquess answers I should like to put one point, so that he may include it in his answer. Is it not a fact that we are substantially, and probably actually, the only country which still maintains the validity of the three-mile limit? If that is so, then does not that mean that the three-mile limit has really gone by the board in international law and would not be upheld in the International Court? If that be so, or if it has any near relation to the truth, then is it -not about time, as the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has suggested, that we reconsidered our whole position, accepted the fact and decided whether it was not in our own interests to say: "All right; the three-mile limit was accepted tacitly for many years in international law, but that has now gone by the board". If we are not to be allowed to enjoy the benefits outside the three-mile limit or within a twelve-mile limit in other countries, then ought we not to exclude other countries, except by some
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mutual arrangements to our mutual advantage, from coming within the twelve-mile limit of our shores?
4.6 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, before the noble Marquess answers, may I offer him a crumb of comfort from these Benches? This has been a protracted dispute with Iceland for a long time; it has engendered, I am afraid, great bitterness, and I think we all very much welcome this agreement which seems to be coming about. The situation has at times given the impression of a large country seeming to bully a small one, or of a small country taking unfair advantage of being a small country. Anyhow, that is all wiped out now, and it seems that, by a generous gesture on our part, this dispute has been settled. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, that perhaps the noble Marquess should consult with his noble friend the Foreign Secretary to see whether we could not, through the United Nations or some other channel, try to get some form of "drill" for the future, in case such awkward positions should arise again, particularly in regard to the limits of fishing.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I put one more supplementary question? As I understood the original statement, it contemplated the Government of Iceland making claims in the future beyond the twelve-mile limit. Could Her Majesty's Government say what would be the legal basis of such a claim?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition for the extreme moderation with which he has approached this problem. I think it is perfectly clear to your Lordships that this is not yet an agreement but a proposed agreement. It is at the moment being debated in the Althing and it will have to receive the approval of the Icelandic Parliament. For our part, we are glad that this long and difficult negotiation has at last come in sight of solution. As your Lordships will remember, we have been negotiating this since June of two years ago, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has said, we are now nearing a solution. I do not think it is necessary to remind your Lordships of our relationship with the Icelanders,

35
who are, after all, our N.A.T.O. Allies. We are also aware of how very dependent the whole economy of Iceland is on the fishing industry, and naturally that is something that Her Majesty's Government have to take into account when reaching the settlement that we hope to make.
As regards the questions noble Lords have put to me, some of them, by their nature, would be extremely difficult for anybody not highly trained in legal matters to answer; but so far as I am able, I will answer the less technically legal ones. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, asked me about territorial waters. This agreement, as I think is expressed in the statement, has no effect whatsoever on ordinary territorial waters under International Law: it is applied specifically to this case, and to this case alone. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, raised the question of the validity of the three-mile limit. This is, indeed, a potentially legal pitfall into which I am not going to risk slipping. I will take note of what the noble Earl has said, and I will pass his observations on to my right honourable friend; but I do not propose to comment on them at this Dispatch Box now. I am afraid that I must use the same sort of reserve in regard to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford.
I think the important thing out of all this is that we can hope to resume the old friendly relations that we had with the Icelandic people before; and I think we should pay a tribute to the fishing industry as a whole, which has behaved throughout this with great restraint and reasonableness. Only last night my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture had a long discussion with all the representatives of the fishing industry and, as noble Lords are well aware, although they expressed disappointment that the transitional period should be so short, they did, in fact, agree to support Her Majesty's Government on a solution on the basis that we have worked out.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I should like just to put this point to my noble friend. I was not trying to involve him in any legal pitfall: I was asking him a quite simple question on foreign policy. We should all, I think, accept that the best that can be done has been
36
done by making this agreement; and certainly we should all echo our appreciation of the very reasonable attitude of our fishing industry and the help they have given to the Government in this matter. But what I put to my noble friend (and I do not say that he can answer it now) is not so much a legal question as a matter of fact. As it is quite impossible to insist in any court, national or international, against any country that there should be only a three-mile limit, has not the time come when we should reconsider whether we should not adopt a twelve-mile limit for our own country?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I did not for one moment suspect that my noble friend was in any way setting a trap for me, and I am sorry if I gave that impression, but I must adhere to what I said. This question is a legal question, and a very complicated one at that, so I must insist that my noble friend accept my original answer.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I raised this question as well as the noble Earl, and I am not at all satisfied with the answer so far. I do not want to prolong this discussion, but in the circumstances may I ask whether this agreement becomes ipso facto operational from the moment the Icelandic Parliament passes it? I suppose it does. When Parliament here approves it, are we to get a White Paper or merely a copy of the Treaty laid as a document? We should perhaps go further into the legal aspects raised by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. We have not much information, and I have had no answer to my other question: what sort of quid pro quo have we got out of this Treaty? We are losing fishing grounds. The fishing industry have suffered heavy losses in the last few years during the dispute and, apparently, we are now getting an increased landing of Icelandic fish brought into Fleetwood. What is the quid pro quo for the agreement?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the position is this. If this proposal receives the approval of the Icelandic Parliament, there will then be an Exchange of Notes between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Iceland. Then, as I said in

37
my statement, these Notes will be registered with the United Nations. I should be pleased for your Lordships' convenience, and if your Lordships wish it, to have copies of those two Draft Notes from both Governments put in the Library. As regards the quid pro quo, the noble Viscount can probably answer that question as well as I can.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Marquess. It may be necessary to have a debate on this subject when the Paper is laid, and I think we need not discuss it further today. Perhaps in the meantime the Foreign Secretary, in consultation with the Minister of Agriculture and the Board of Trade, will look at the question of the quid pro quo and let us have a proper explanation.

BETTING LEVY BILL
4.14 p.m.
House again in Committee.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved, after Clause 3 to insert the following new clause:
Bookmakers' Accounts
".—(1) The Levy Board may require bookmakers to keep such accounts and records as it may direct.
(2) Such records shall be open to inspectors appointed by the Levy Board.
(3) The Levy Board may require that the accounts and records of bookmakers shall be audited by qualified auditors as defined in subsection (5) of section eight of this Act.
(4) The Levy Board and its agents will be under a similar obligation to preserve the secrecy of the accounts of individual bookmakers as are the Commissioners of Inland Revenue regarding the accounts of individual taxpayers."
The noble Lord said: Like the Amendment I moved previously, this is a permissive clause. We hope that when this Bill goes through everything will be arranged in an atmosphere of reason and agreement, reached without recourse to anything such as is visualised by this Amendment. This Amendment would give a useful reserve power of requiring bookmakers to keep proper accounts and records. This was recommended by the Peppiatt Committee Report, paragraphs 41 and 42.
There is no reflection intended by this Amendment on the honesty of bookmakers, nor is it setting them apart
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from any other kind of business. In fact, the Amendment would safeguard the honest bookmaker because, as I see it, when the Levy Board have fixed the price which bookmakers in general are to pay, if one bookmaker pays less than his share it means that the others will have to pay correspondingly more than their share. This permissive clause would help the Levy Board to assess the distribution of the burden of the levy between the bookmakers and the Totalisator. It would also be a valuable safeguard in a dispute, and it is difficult to see how the Levy Board could reach the right conclusions without having the power to require records to be kept and shown.
At the moment, I think there is a certain anomaly in the Bill; because whereas, under the Bill as it now stands, neither the Bookmakers' Committee nor the Levy Board can demand to see accounts and books of any individual bookmaker while they are assessing the category into which that bookmaker shall come, the appeal tribunal, under Clause 4 (6) (a), can—or rather it goes further and says "shall"—refuse to reduce the category into which that bookmaker has been placed unless proper facilities are given to them, which presumably includes showing books and accounts. In cases where there is any doubt as to what is the right category for any particular bookmaker to be in, I am afraid that this will lead to the bookmaker's being assessed into a higher category; because whereas you cannot check the accounts of the bookmaker before you assess his category, you can put him into a higher one and leave it to him to appeal to come down into What would in fact be the right one. I think that is wasting a great deal of time, and if the accounts of a bookmaker are available to the Bookmakers' Committee or the Levy Board, or whatever it is—the Levy Board in this case—they can assess immediately in which category he should be.
This clause leaves it open to the Levy Board to stipulate the sort of accounts they require, and I think we should leave that to them. The Irish Racing Board have produced a standard system of bookmakers' records in an approved form, which I am told works completely efficiently. If they can do that in Ireland, presumably we can do it here.

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This Amendment would not mean that large numbers of inspectors would be needed, because if bookmakers' accounts are audited by qualified auditors it is unlikely that the Board would often want an independent check of the figures. Also, I do not think the Amendment would involve any hardship to bookmakers, because they are now legally licensed and have to pay taxes; and presumably in order to pay taxes they have to prepare and submit accounts to the Inland Revenue for assessment. Therefore much the same accounts could be submitted to the Board.
My noble friend and I sympathise strongly with the desire of many bookmakers not to have their accounts and profits known to business competitors. Therefore, we have added subsection (4), which I think gives this safeguard. To sum up, this is a useful reserve power. It will help justice to be done between the different elements in the betting world, and it wild help the Bill to work more smoothly. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 3, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Denham.)
4.20 p.m.
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: I must confess that I have far more sympathy with this Amendment, which has been brought forward by my noble friend Lord Denham on behalf of himself and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, than with the previous one which was moved in their joint names. So far as I can see, the only provision in the Bill as it now stands for compelling bookmakers to produce proper accounts is contained in Clause 4 (6) (a). Is this enough? I rather doubt it. May I quote one case, by way of an amusing and interesting example? I know of a certain bookmaker who has an office in London and another in the country and who bets at most race meetings in quite a big way on the rails. He told a friend of mine that not for one single year since the end of the last war have his accounts ever shown a profit. How on earth are you going, in all fairness, to put a bookmaker of that kind into his proper category—which, in my opinion, knowing him, ought undoubtedly to be the highest category—unless you can get a proper scrutiny of his accounts? I am not
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accusing anybody of dishonesty, but we all know that there are ways and means for a clever accountant to conceal profits and produce accounts that do not bring the full wrath of Her Majesty's inspector of taxes upon one's head. So I should like to support this Amendment, unless, of course, we can be assured that the Bill as it stands gives the Betting Levy Board adequate powers.
LORD STONHAM: I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, that this Amendment has much more to be said for it than the previous one moved by the noble Lord, Lord Denham. Certainly Lord Denham said everything that could be said for the Amendment—and, if I may say so with respect, said it very well. But I think the Amendment, when you look at it closely, carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The noble Lord made the point that subsection (4) of the new clause had been specially inserted so that bookmakers would be able to preserve the secrecy of their accounts. But the Levy Board itself includes a bookmaker, and if a bookmaker's accounts are available to the Levy Board it means that this clause expressly lays it down that there is no secrecy, because the bookmaker will be able to look at the books of his colleagues.
The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, cited the man who bet on the rails and was a very big man and never made a profit, and asked what category he should be in. I should class him as a magician, not a bookmaker. Nevertheless, that is an argument against acceptance of this clause, because the Bookmakers' Committee are going to say into which categories they think their colleagues should be put. Obviously, in the case of the man cited by the noble Lord, his friends will know all about him and will see that he goes into the top category. Then, if he objects, he has the right to appear before the tribunal and must then produce his accounts. In effect, what is going to happen is that bookmakers, who know their colleagues pretty well and have a fair idea of their relative standing in the hierarchy, are going to say whether they are A, B, C, D, E, or F. I believe it will be only in a comparatively few cases—and obviously most of them will be genuine cases; I

41
hope they will be genuine cases, though it may be in the case cited by the noble Lord an extremely clever individual who is better at "cooking the books" than most—that they will go before the tribunal and produce accounts.
I should have thought this was another instruction, statutory instruction, to the Levy Board which was really quite unnecessary, unduly restrictive and to some extent hampering. I think this Bill is going forward on the basis of knowledge and good will and co-operation, and it ought to go forward on that basis. Although I understand and fully sympathise with the objects of this Amendment, which were put so well by the noble Lord, I submit that it would not be reasonable to expect bookmakers to publish their accounts in a form not required by any other kind of business. In saying that, I am quoting words used by Mr. Vosper in Committee in another place. In fact, the demands in this Amendment would impose on bookmakers requirements which are not imposed on any other class of trader. That would be unreasonable, and I hope, therefore, the Government will reject the Amendment.
EARL BATHURST: I agree that at first sight my noble friend's Amendment has much to recommend it, but the noble Lord opposite has helped me out a third time this afternoon. The very idea that is behind this Amendment, the idea of inspecting these books and keeping a specific but yet unmentioned type of account, is going to sow the seeds of its own destruction; I think those were the words the noble Lord opposite used. There are 10,000 bookmakers, very approximately, throughout the country, as we have already heard. Some of them are very big men and, indeed, large companies or concerns. Others are small men living on possibly very doubtful margins. Obviously, every single one of these bookmaking concerns has a different type and a different set of accounts because of the difference of each business concern; and where does horse racing, dog racing or football pools begin or end in the course of these business accounts? My noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke has told us how many different solutions can be arrived at from one set of accounts alone. Multiply this by 10,000.
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I cannot but agree with Lord Stonham that the noble Lord's friend upon the rails has really made my case to your Lordships this afternoon. We believe that in any case the effect of my noble friend's Amendment would be a great encumbrance upon bookmakers, and that alone would serve to get ill-will from the bookmakers who are going to be relied upon for the success of the scheme that the Levy Board may bring forward. We believe that it will really divulge little information that is really worth while for the purposes of the scheme, but a great deal of information may be divulged which would be most harmful to the individual interests of a bookmaker or a bookmaker's concern. Therefore, we do not see eye to eye with my noble friend in wishing to compel bookmakers to keep their accounts in the way that he envisages.
I must admit that this departs from the recommendation of the Peppiatt Committee to which my noble friend has referred. But we believe that it would be a cumbersome and onerous scheme to the bookmakers. The Bill obliges the bookmaker to declare to the Levy Board the category into which he himself thinks that he comes, depending upon his previous year's profits. The Levy Board which, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has told us, has a bookmaker sitting thereon, will send those declarations to the Bookmakers' Committee for scrutiny, and the regional committees up and down the country will have a good idea, as again the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has told us, of what categories the bookmakers in their own localities should come under. Our problem is to devise a procedure to assess the bookmakers' profits and yet, at the same time, provide a fair and just system for the bookmaker to appeal against an assessment without that appeal system being too cumbersome or costly or onerous upon him.
As the noble Lord opposite has also told us, this Bill does not envisage that it is fair for the Bookmakers' Committee to have access to an individual bookmaker's accounts, and we stand by that assertion. If the bookmaker is dissatisfied with his reassessment—it may be a reassessment from the Bookmakers' Committee, or it may be the opinion even of the Levy Board—he has the right of appeal to the appeal tribunal.

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This appeal tribunal can, if they require it, call for an independent audit of that bookmaker's accounts. They may require all sorts of other information as well, in order to justify seeking the sort of information about which the friend of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke has told him. If that bookmaker does not co-operate, then the appeal tribunal may call for his accounts. If he does not produce those accounts, then the tribunal has no right to make the reduction in the assessment which the bookmaker himself may be seeking. We believe that that is the strength of the appeal system written into the Bill.
Under Clause 4 (6) which the noble Lord, Lord Denham mentioned, we believe that all safeguards appear for the bookmaker who shows his accounts, who shows that he is, may I say, "on the level." He can then, if the appeal tribunal decide that there is a right and just case, have his assessment reduced. The authority that is responsible for reviewing the bookmaker's permit must consider (this is written into the Bill, in Clause 5 (2)) whether or not the bookmaker has in fact paid his assessment to the Levy Board. Therefore, it is greatly in the interest of the bookmaker to make quite certain that he has, in fact, paid his assessment.
Another safeguard upon which I hope to assure my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke is this. If the bookmaker takes an unfair advantage, or endeavours to take an advantage, in regard to his assessment position he will have a good chance of not being granted his licence to carry on his business as a bookmaker. I think that the ordinary average bookmaker will pay close attention to that. It is only the bad man with whom we shall be concerned. He should he looked after. His case will be looked after by the application of Clause 4 (6), where he is obliged to show his accounts if he wishes for a lower assessment. That man should also remember that he is liable to a higher assessment should his accounts show that that would be a suitable decision.
The Bill makes it possible for the bookmakers to raise a sum. We are not concerned with how that sum is raised, or who pays that sum; we are concerned with the fairness of raising the
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sum. We believe—this is another facet laid down by the Peppiatt Committee—that the working of this levy scheme should be domestic to the industry, and we therefore believe that the bookmakers themselves, through their Bookmakers' Committee and the branches of their association, should raise the money that is necessary. Only if there is a dispute would these accounts be necessary. We cannot see that we should lay the burden on all bookmakers to produce their accounts, when in fact, so far as the scheme is concerned, it will be quite unnecessary. I hope that I have made clear to my noble friend my right honourable friend's reasons why his Amendment cannot be accepted.
LORD DENHAM: Before the noble Earl sits down, would he just comment on this point. In a case where the Board has to assess the category into which any bookmaker comes, which may happen either because the bookmaker concerned has not submitted a declaration, or because he has submitted a declaration and that declaration is not quite believed, does the noble Earl think it is satisfactory for the books only then to be made available for scrutiny by the appeal tribunal? The Board or the Bookmakers' Committee may well put him in a higher category. Whereas the category can be reduced after reference to the books, the books cannot be referred to before the bookmaker is placed in a particular category. Do I make myself clear?
EARL BATHURST: I see what the noble Lord means. He is worried lest the Bookmakers' Committee should assess a bookmaker, one of their members, too highly and therefore compel him to produce his accounts in order to get a reassessment. We do not believe that there is a danger of this happening. If the bookmakers fairly carry out their obligations under this Bill—in other words, if they submit what they themselves fairly believe is the classification in regard to which they should be considered—then this sum of money will be raised, and there will be no need for the Bookmakers' Committee to instigate any further proceedings. On the other hand, if the bookmaker deliberately puts himself in too low a category, it is true that it will be up to the Bookmakers' Committee to ask for a reclassification, and then the bookmaker's books will be

45
inspected by a tribunal. But I do not think that there will be any great unfairness upon that particular bookmaker. After all, his accounts will not be published in any way to his rivals, and provided he is in the right he should have no great difficulty in persuading the appeal tribunal that in fact his category is the correct one—the one that he says that he should be in. If, however, he is wrong, then the tribunal may well put him to a great deal of trouble; so I do not think the noble Lord need be unduly worried over that position. However, I will look at the point and consider what the noble Lord has said.
LORD DENHAM: I thank the noble Earl for his reply, but I am afraid that I am not convinced by it, because the keeping and showing of accounts will be required only if there is any dispute; and to say that there will seldom be any dispute about this matter is no real argument against our. Amendment, because the Amendment is a safeguard, and is intended only to be used as such. On the point which I have just put to the noble Earl, I am not thinking entirely of the bookmaker. If the bookmaker has been unfairly put in a higher category he has redress; but I am thinking of the fact that, when there is some doubt, it would seem to be necessary for there to be that much more work for the people concerned, as the Board will probably put the bookmaker into a higher category and leave it to him to appeal. As my noble friend has said that he will look at the matter again, I will ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw this Amendment at this stage, but I reserve the right to reintroduce it at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Reconstitution of Totalisator Board]:
EARL BATHURST EARL BATHURST moved, in subsection (6) to omit the proposed new paragraph (d) and to insert instead:
"() to make such loans or investments as they judge desirable for the proper conduct of their affairs, being loans or investments either—

(i) such as, under the enactments for the time being in force, a trustee would be authorised to make out of trust funds; or

(ii) approved, or of a description approved, by the Secretary of State."

The noble Earl said: This is a technical Amendment. It is necessary because the Tote has power to lend money to set up totalisators for pool betting on horse racing only. They have no power to invest money for the purposes of their business—that is, pool betting—in any other way. The Betting and Gaming Act, 1960, which comes into force on May 1 next, by Section 11 (3) (d), empowers the Totalisator Board to make loans or investments as they judge desirable for the proper conduct of their affairs. That envisages that the Tote may (I do not say will) wish in the future, when there is the new Totalisator Board, to invest or make loans to other people to set up betting offices or businesses to run a betting office or possibly to make loans, or to invest in a firm who will carry on this particular business of pool betting on race horses on behalf of the Tote, using their copyrighted odds.
The Tote which is, as it were, a semi-nationalised body, is to be restricted to trustee investments. I do not know whether pool betting would be a suitable trustee investment under the new trustee laws. On the other hand, from what I have already said, it may be a much more profitable investment than certain other trustee investments. Nevertheless, this clause was amended in another place, making it possible for the Tote to make investments in other than trustee investments; in other words, possibly for betting offices and businesses of that type. The words of the Amendment which was passed in another place were:
"wholly or mainly engaged in operations which they themselves"—
that is, the Tote.
"are engaged in".
This wording has caused some doubts to the Totalisator Board and they have asked my right honourable friend to consider new wording. This Amendment is the result of that consideration. The effect of the new words to which I ask your Lordships to agree is that the Tote may make trustee investments. If their loans or investments are not of that category, then they need the approval of my right honourable friend to ensure that the proposed investments are proper investments under the Betting and Gaming Act. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, leave out lines 7 to 16 and insert the said new paragraph.—(Earl Bathurst.)
LORD STONHAM: Although the noble Earl described this as a technical Amendment, we regard it as a very important and necessary one, which we fully support. I can only say that if Her Majesty's Government had not moved this Amendment, we should have moved it, or a similar one.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause and Schedules agreed to.
House resumed.

CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Dundee, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —[Earl Jellicoe.]
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No, 41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

SKIMMED MILK WITH NON-MILK FAT REGULATIONS, 1960
4.50 p.m.
LORD WISE LORD WISE rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Skimmed Milk with Non-Milk Fat Regulations, 1960 (S.I. 1960 No. 2331), dated 12th December 1960, laid before the House on 19th December 1960, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. As two Prayers have been tabled and there is some similarity between the two, I believe it would be for the convenience of your Lordships' House if the two were discussed together. Statutory Instrument No. 2331, which is the subject of the first Prayer, refers to England and Wales only; and No. 2437, the subject of the second Prayer, refers to Scotland. I hope in discussing these two Prayers together that Scottish Peers
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who are in the House will be willing to do so and any who are interested will put their points of view during our discussion. I wish to mention to the House that the Minister of State for Scotland, the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, is unable to be present this afternoon. He wrote to me to that effect and to apologise, and he informed me that the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, will act and deal with any matters affecting Scotland which may be raised during our discussions.
Prayers for the annulment of proposed regulations are not often tabled in your Lordships' House. They are not unique, but exceptional. I remember only one occasion during my ten years' membership of your Lordships' House on which a Prayer was moved. However, the Prayers remain part of our procedure and can be moved as occasions arise. On this occasion I make no personal apology for adopting this course, as the matters we have to deal with this afternoon are of considerable importance and interest, particularly to producers and consumers.
The term "filled milk" has become a household term in the last few weeks, and reports of protests and deputations to the Ministry could be found in practically every agricultural paper read by the farming community. These papers seek to serve a large reading public of all political opinions, so there is no political point whatever in the Prayers I have tabled this afternoon. The papers go into most agricultural homes and country homes and naturally tend to formulate country opinion and agricultural knowledge. In my own case, the interests of producers and consumers are uppermost in my mind. In respect of the particular matter we are discussing I expect that at my time of life I am more of an agriculturist than a politician. I hope to be fair in my comments, but no less strong in my opposition.
There is much that can be said about these Regulations. I shall leave most of that unsaid, and, as several noble Lords wish to speak, I will, with reasonable brevity, outline the case for annulment, leaving other speakers to fill in the gaps. That seems essentially to be my position and my function in opening the discussion. The Regulations, unless they are annulled or taken back as a whole—I repeat, as a whole—by the Government for further consideration or amendment, are due to come into operation on

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September 19 next. I presume (perhaps the Minister will correct me later if I am wrong) that it would be practicable for new Regulations, if desired and if action is taken at once, to be tabled during the intervening months and, if approved, to operate as from the original date. The addition of one new clause to these Regulations would probably make them acceptable.
Considerable opposition has already been expressed by farming, dairying and local government representative organisations and also by individual Members of all Parties in another place, by members of the general public and by some Members of your Lordships' House. I think that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should personally take note of these objections, and I hope that the noble Earl who is to reply on behalf of the Government will be able to satisfy us that the views of responsible bodies and individuals will not go unheeded, even at this the eleventh hour, for annulling the Regulations. I believe that your Lordships will be able to add to the weight of opinion against the Regulations in the form in which they are now presented for our consideration. It has been said that tree Minister has made it clear that he is not prepared to extend the Regulations in the way the National Farmers' Union and others would wish. If this should be the case, it would seem that the Minister has made an irrevocable but untimely decision before the matter has been considered by Parliament. That, surely, is a regrettable position for a Minister to take, and may create an undesirable precedent. I will not comment upon this further, except to say that my conception is that the Minister is responsible to Parliament as its servant, and not as its master. He should not be openly antagonistic to the will of Parliament.
Personally, I feel somewhat sorry for the noble Earl who is to reply. He lives in a dairy county and obviously has around him many dairy farmers, small and large, and all, perhaps, struggling to get adequate livings from milk production. No doubt their lives and activities are wrapped up in milk, and they must be viewing with some apprehension the introduction of Government Regulations which seem to be aimed at extending the consumption of skimmed milk,
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filled milk and milk substitutes to the detriment of the sale and consumption of fresh, unadulterated milk. That is how I see the position. Many excellent dairy products come from the grasslands of Somerset, but the best of all is fresh, pure milk. From what I have seen of the noble Earl and his chief, neither appear to me to have been brought up on anything but the best of fresh milk. That is what kept me alive, and I want all who need it to have it.
At this very moment when these restrictive Regulations have been introduced, the Minister is reported to have said at Newcastle a few days ago that there was no reason why the nation should not be induced to drink more milk. I wish he would fit his actions to his words. We are told that we are in a time of affluence; but this does not ring true if we are now supposed to bring up our growing children when past their baby stage on skimmed milk dilutions or substitute products, and to tell our old folk they can have the same if they cannot afford fresh milk. Skimmed or separated milk was the beverage of country families in the days of the agricultural depression —low wages and large families. How often is it represented that times are better now than in those good old days? Why should we push the consumption of substitute, made-up and inferior commodities when the genuine articles should be within the means and reach of all? If there is at present a surplus of fresh milk, why not try to build up an export trade, or send it to the starving millions overseas?
The Regulations are full of definitions, applications and non-applications, alternative meanings of words and intricate labelling and container devices and instructions; but, sifting the real matter from all this superfluous wording, it comes down to a dismal base. These Regulations follow draft Regulations prepared, first, in October, 1958, and an amended version which appeared in March, 1959. Neither of these, apparently, reached fruition. At the commencement of these present Regulations, it is stated:
"The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Minister of Health, acting jointly, … consulted with such organisations as appear to them to be representative of interests substantially affected by these regulations …."
I want all noble Lords to mark the words, "substantially affected", as I

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wish to make an inquiry as to the measure of such consultation. It would appear that some bodies which were consulted differed from the Ministers' proposals.
Let me refer to two subsections in the Regulations. Regulation 7 (2) states:
"Each food and drugs authority shall enforce and execute such provisions in their area".
The provisions referred to are, of course, the provisions already contained in the preceding articles of the Regulations. The next paragraph, paragraph (3), gives the councils a free hand in instituting proceedings as to which a person who has committed an offence may be liable to a heavy fine or imprisonment or both. That Regulation, as I say, gives the councils a free hand without any reference for approval to the Minister.
The county councils are the food and drugs authorities to which these references apply. They are responsible bodies, and, I should have thought, come within the category of being "substantially affected". As your Lordships know, county councils have an important and recognised association to represent their interests in negotiations with Government Departments and others. I understand that this association was not consulted in any way in the framing of these Regulations, which their members will be called upon to enforce. Here I come to a point of disapproval. The association was consulted in regard to both the 1958 and the 1959 draft regulations, particularly in repect of one provision in the drafts to which I shall refer in a moment, and which has been omitted in the present Regulations. I think we are entitled to hear from the noble Earl as to the reason for this omission in consultation. Was it deliberate, or was it an oversight? If it was deliberate, then who was responsible? Let me say here that, if consultation had taken place with this particular association, it is possible there would have been no necessity for these Prayers this afternoon.
In the draft regulations of 1958, the provisions I have just referred to are these—and, with the permission of the House, I will read them; they are not very long. They fall into two parts. The first part reads:
"Any person who uses any skimmed milk with added fat, condensed skimmed milk with added fat or dried skimmed milk with added
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fat in any beverage intended for sale for human consumption Which by common usage is expected to contain milk, condensed milk or dried milk will be required to disclose the use of any such food to the intending purchaser on or before sale."
The second part of the provision reads as follows:
"(2) Any person who supplied any skimmed milk with added fat or condensed skimmed milk with added fat with, and for use in, any beverage intended for sale for human consumption, with, or for use in, which by common usage milk or condensed milk is expected to be supplied, will be required to disclose the description of any such food to the intending purchaser on or before sale."
Now an amended version of this provision was subsequently circulated to interested organisations in March, 1959, and contained a specific requirement that a notice clearly written and legible to intending purchasers should be displayed in any public refreshment room, restaurant, shop or other public premises where such beverages were supplied. Those provisions have been omitted from the particular Regulations which we are discussing. Again, I think we are entitled to hear from the Minister the reason and responsibility for their omission. If it was necessary for the protection of the public to provide safeguards against dilution or inferior products in 1958 and 1959, surely it is equally important in 1961—perhaps even more so, when many people now seem to aim only at getting rich quickly, and trade on the lack of knowledge of the public. What we are asked to do now seems contrary to the good sense of the Weights and Measures Bill which recently occupied so much of our time. That Bill sought protection for the public: these Regulations do not.
In another place on January 26, questions were asked of the Minister (Hansard, columns 315 to 317) as to the use by caterers in restaurants, cafés and canteens of milk substitutes for milk in beverages. Suggestions were made as to the information which should be displayed in such places and given to customers. The point of the questions was that the customer should know what he is drinking. If a caterer is serving skimmed milk preparations, instead of milk, a notice should be displayed to that effect. The Minister seemed to miss the point. He suggested that if the customer wanted milk, or a drink with milk in it, he should ask for it. I

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wonder how many noble Lords, or Ministers, on going into a restaurant or café for coffee, or for a cup or pot of tea, would make a specific request for milk to be served with it. You might ask for a black or a white coffee, but certainly not for a milk coffee or, in our own language, a coffee with milk. The same applies to tea; one expects to have milk with it; it is a matter of custom. But if, according to the Minister, you do not ask for milk, you can be put off with skimmed milk or some substitute. The same applies to public restaurants. The waiter or the waitress, when serving you with coffee, asks whether you will have black or white, and I wonder which noble Lord would say that he required pure fresh milk?
Again, it is significant that, in order to protect the public, specified foods—and noble Lords will find the definition of "specified foods" in the Regulations—sold in containers must show on their labels and outside wrappings, if such outside wrappings are used, particulars of the contents of the containers. In the same way, advertisements for milk products must state the description of those products. If these safeguards are necessary in these instances, why are they not applicable to the same products if used or sold in smaller quantities in refreshment houses? Those who frame these Regulations might at least be logical and consistent.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but I have been listening to him developing this argument and I hope he will explain what you do at a banquet. Are you handed a little label by the waiter saying what is in your cup of coffee?
LORD WISE: My Lords, that is just the point I am making. It is the custom to have milk, if you want it; not milk substitute. We who object to these Regulations in their present form are anxious that the consuming public should obtain not only what it has been customary to have but what they in fact pay for and expect to receive. That, in my view, is a sensible, fair and just position to adopt. The Regulations will be open to abuse. They lack the necessary safeguard. They could be made more effective. I ask that
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they be taken back for further consideration, and I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Skimmed Milk with Non-Milk Fat Regulations, 1960 (S.I. 1960 No. 2331), dated December 12, 1960, laid before the House on December 19, 1960, be annulled.—(Lord Wise.)
5.14 p.m.
LORD SPENS: My Lords, as it fell to my lot last January to lead a deputation consisting of all interested in the production and distribution of milk, not only in England but in Scotland, to the Minister, I had to study this subject deeply; and I welcome an opportunity of saying a few words about it. The deputation, as I say, consisted of representatives of all the producers, including the National Farmers' Union, of the Milk Marketing Board and of all distributing agencies, large and small, both in England and in Scotland. The reason why the Minister was asked to receive this deputation, and to listen to what we had to say, was that we were very apprehensive as to what the future of the milk industry, both for producers and distributors, would be if this sale of filled milk increased at the rate it has been increasing in the country during the last three years. It is true that the immediate reason we asked to see the Minister was because the new Regulations had been published for England and for Scotland in the form in which they appeared before your Lordships, and it was considered that they contained a very serious omission.
The history of the Regulations, as the noble Lord, Lord Wise, has said, goes back to somewhere around 1958, when the introduction and use of this filled milk was beginning to take effect in the country. In a large number of other countries, particularly the big milk-producing countries of the world, so frightened were the Governments of those countries as to what the effect was going to be that they banned the use of these concoctions—this filled milk—altogether, for the protection of their dairy industries. The countries included Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Australia, and 42 out of the 50 States (as it is now) of the United States of America.

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From the beginning of the negotiations, as I understand the position (I have no doubt that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong), there was no wholehearted demand for the banning of these substances in this country. The truth is that, from the nutritional and medical point of view, filled milk is as good for the public as whole milk, and the negotiations have always proceeded on the basis that, however unpleasant they were to drink, one could not say that it was bad for the public to use these ersatz concoctions instead of good milk. But what everyone was frightened of was what the effect would be if and when they were used in overwhelming quantities in this country. In fact, they are being sold everywhere at substantially less than half the price of pure fresh milk.
My Lords, there were three points dealt with in the negotiations. First of all, there was the question as to the kind of container and the description on the container. Secondly, there was the question of advertising, and the form of advertising with regard to sales of these concoctions in fairly large quantities. Thirdly, there was the question of what notice was to be given to members of the public when they bought beverages in which they would usually expect to find fresh milk, and not an ersatz concoction. The Regulations as they appear before your Lordships to-day deal, in my view effectively, both with the notices to be put on containers and the form of advertisements, and it is because the Regulations do give those immediate safeguards that I would much rather see them pass, so that they may take effect as early as possible, than be delayed, and delayed indefinitely—because it will be indefinitely—to deal with this much more difficult question about what notice ought to be given to the public who expect to find milk.
If your Lordships would allow me, I should like to give a few figures about what has happened. It seems that seaside resorts and industrial areas are invaded by salesmen for these ersatz products. In one seaside town, not long ago, the result was that a medium-sized hospital immediately dropped 140 gallons a week; an outside caterer dropped 1,500 gallons a week; an industrial caterer
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dropped 1,200 gallons a week. These are the results of the most effective salesmanship of which I have been informed. In another town, the school authorities decided to substitute these products in their kitchens and canteens (except, I imagine, for the schoolchildren), and dropped 690 gallons a week. Last week, a letter was received from a small dairy in Lincolnshire which, after saying that they were glad to hear that opposition was being put up against the spread of these ersatz drinks, contains this last sentence:
"I have two cafés here alone that normally took 70 to 80 gallons a day between them in the season. All they have had these past three years is three pints a day to their own use."
That is the sort of rate at which these products are being substituted for fresh milk throughout the country, and many people are extremely anxious about what the effect is going to be if this change continues over a number of years. Obviously, the persons who are going to be struck, and struck at once, are the distributors who have a normal demand for hundreds of gallons of milk a week and who find this suddenly dropping altogether. They are going to have their businesses seriously disturbed, and in the end this must result in their costs going up, with the danger of higher prices for fresh milk. Producers also will be affected, though perhaps not quite so directly. Other noble Lords may be able to add a note on this. After all, we cannot get skimmed milk for all these concoctions without having fresh milk first. But it does mean that if these manufacturers of products from skimmed milk increase their production largely, the uses to which skimmed milk are being put at present are going to find a competitor.
In my young days, the road used to be from the milking shed to the creamery separator, and the skimmed milk went back to the farm for the pigs and young animals. In those days, there were not firms trying to buy up skimmed milk in large quantities for manufacturing purposes. In the long run, it looks as if the production of milk is bound to become less profitable, because the price at which these scientific people can produce these concoctions enable them to sell them well under half the ordinary price of fresh milk. So the attraction to big caterers and industrial canteens, and even, as I have quoted, to hospitals

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and schools, to substitute these products for fresh milk is very great. It would seem as though, in the end, the prospect to producers must be that the demand for fresh milk will gradually become less lucrative and satisfactory to them.
So far as I can see, the difference between the industry and the Ministry is not that the Ministry do not share the considerable anxiety about the substitute products. But what obligation can be put on caterers to inform the public of what they are getting? Many of us believe frankly that if there were an obligation on restaurants and hotels to put up notices in conspicuous places saying that these skimmed milk products were being supplied instead of fresh milk, that would stop a great many of the best restaurants and hotels from supplying anything other than fresh milk. We have not been able to convince the Ministry of that. The present situation is that there is a real danger for the future, but it is up to everyone who is interested to try to get the proper facts and figures and supply them to the Ministry, so that the Ministry may see what in fact is happening in the two countries at the present moment.
If we can get together satisfactory figures which will convince the Ministry, there is no difficulty, so far as I know, in making a further Order at any time. It does not seem to me to be necessary to oppose these Orders in order to make way for a further Order. A further Order can be made as easily as this one. I should have thought that the right thing to do is for all of us to try to get the true facts of what is going on; find out what are the real effects, month after month, on the production and distribution of milk, and then join together in persuading the Minister, if we ourselves are convinced (and I am already more than four-fifths convinced), that some further steps are required, and that he should make a supplemental Order in the very near future.
5.30 p.m.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: My Lords, I was surprised when the noble Lord, Lord Wise, put down this Prayer and asked us to reject these Orders. Listening to his speech, one felt that there was a tremendous feeling against, these Orders among farmers and in the National Farmers' Union, but I
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understand that the National Farmers' Union are in favour of the Orders, so far as they go, and that any sins that the Minister has committed are sins of omission rather than commission. The article in the British Farmer of January 21 would lead one to think that they are very anxious that these Regulations should be passed. They say:
"Our man job has been to ensure that the legitimate interests of milk producers were adequately protected."
But they do not want a ban on this product. They go on to say:
"In the event, the proposed regulations do give a wide measure of protection."
Then they mention the point about the milk in tea and coffee; and they end up by saying:
"The union do not want to lose the substance for the shadow",
and that they are very anxious that these Regulations should go through. So I feel that we should be wrong if we did not reject this Prayer.
Really, the point that divides us is the question of whether notices or some other form of warning should be put up in restaurants to let the customer know that on the premises filled milk is being sold. We must remember that the main object of these Regulations is not the protection of the producer but the protection of the consumer. We have been informed that this product is in no way a harmful one. We have heard that it is already being used in some hospitals, and I understand that for some things it has been prescribed by doctors. So I feel that we should keep a sense of proportion. This is not a case of some harmful product being foisted on the public.
There is also the danger that if a notice were put up in a restaurant that this milk was being used it would entitled the restaurant to use it not only in tea and coffee, but in things like milk shakes, and other products which use a great deal of milk, which under these Regulations would be forbidden. There would be two possible dangers: first, that if it was said to be used on the premises it would mean that somebody who used a small quantity at times might be encouraged to use it all the time, because he had already given warning; and secondly, that it might cover the case when it was used in concoctions which

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had milk in the main, such as, as I say, milk shakes. So there is a danger that the notice might weaken rather than strengthen the Regulations. If we are going to legislate specifically against this product, which has already been described as harmless, surely that opens up a wide field as to what one expects in the foods that one asks for. If you ask for a sandwich, do you expect butter, which is, after all, a milk product, or do you expect margarine? Would it be right to legislate specifically against vegetable fat in one form, as against margarine, which is vegetable fat in another?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord a question on that point, because I should like to know what his opinion is. Margarine is sold in different forms already, but it all has to be labelled "margarine". However, some margarine can contain up to 10 per cent. of butter, according to the price charged. What would the noble Lord like that to be described as—filled butter? What is the difference between that principle and that in regard to milk?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to intervene. I hope the noble Viscount has read the Regulations and realises that the one phrase you will not be allowed to use in future is "filled milk".
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Yes, I have.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: The noble Viscount's question seems to point to the difficulty in legislating in this case. If the product were labelled as butter it would have to be butter; but when you ask for a sandwich, you are not in fact specifying whether it is butter or margarine. When you go and buy margarine, I agree it is written on the package; and when you go and buy this product, it is written on the package. The difference comes when the customer is actually given the product in a beverage. If he asked for tea and milk, then if he was given this product the restaurant would be breaking the law or would have to point out to the customer that he was not getting milk. If he asked for a white coffee, he could be given this product; but if he asked for a coffee and milk, then he would have to be given pure milk.
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So it seems to me that the situation could possibly be dealt with in two ways. If this problem becomes serious and affects producers to a large extent, then perhaps it should be looked at from the point of view either of some regulation to help the producer or from the point of view of advertising to make clear to the public that when they are asking for tea, if they want milk in it they should specify milk. After all, there are these slogans such as: "Don't be vague, ask for Haig"—I know it is difficult to find a suitable word to rhyme with milk. It is a question, to a large extent, of trying to encourage the public to ask for milk, because I think that if the two products have to compete, and people know that they are competing, they will demand milk. Therefore, I feel that to-day we should not agree to the Prayer, and if the situation gets serious we should—and I am sure the Minister will—look at it again. It would be the case of an addition to these Regulations and not necessarily in substitution for them.
5.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that it is great pity that Government and private Business, both in this House and in the other House, has meant that the debate upon this Prayer has been delayed until the last day of the usual Parliamentary period, otherwise perhaps we might have had a little more detailed attention paid to it. Certainly in another place the Regulations will not be debated at all upon a Prayer, because they have not been able to find Parliamentary time for it.
It is suggested that the Farmers' Union, for example, and the Milk Marketing Board are in favour of the Regulations as tabled, but I think it is very difficult to get real evidence of that. The noble Lord, Lord Amherst of Hackney, who always states his case very fairly, in trying to prove that, naturally quoted from the British Farmer. I assume he was referring to the four to six-page foolscap leaflet which is circulated every week.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: Yes.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I thought that was what the noble Lord was referring to. It is certainly not one which is read very

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widely by the agricultural community in general, although certainly by the most loyal Farmers' Union members sometimes in the county districts. But the opinion that I formed was that the campaign raised on behalf of the Milk Marketing Board and, in the first instance, of the Farmers' Union, as well as on behalf of the milk and creamery trades was started not only by them but, according to another type of agricultural paper, the Farming Express, by large numbers of Parliamentarians of all Parties. On February 16 the Farming Express printed the names in detail of 150 Members of Parliament.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount, as he was quoting me? I think the British Farmer I was quoting is the larger one, because it begins:
"It is clear from recent inquiries that there is a great deal of misunderstanding on this in the branches."
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: Just about as much misunderstanding, apparently, as will be created by the Regulations in the minds of the consumers.
The whole business of providing Regulations of this kind creates, I admit to the Minister, a good deal of difficulty. It is not an easy matter to regulate for. What I am waiting to hear from the Minister especially is the answer to the question put by my noble friend Lord Wise: what induced the Government to have the proper protective words in the original draft Regulations on two occasions and to drop them in the final set? Why is that? Who persuaded them? Who were the important vast organisations compared to the people, first of all, who have to produce the milk; secondly, who have to process and distribute the milk and, thirdly, who form the public corporation—that is what it really is—the Milk Marketing Board, who are most strongly in favour of the consumer being properly protected? That is what I am waiting to hear, because so far I have had no evidence at all.
The idea that the whole nation is anxious to turn over to this much cheaper —and much less valuable, in food content—liquid instead of milk, is, to me, so far unexplained. In the Regulations themselves we see a number of formulae which have to be used on labels on some of these
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"doctored" or, as the noble Lord, Lord Spens, said ersatz products. They will be labelled as "Unfit for babies", because they are not regarded as being of anything like the same food value, although they apparently can be produced, as the noble Lord, Lord Spens, said, at somewhere about half the price of milk.
I am just wondering how it is that the Ministry of Agriculture, whose job it is to promote the highest interests of the agricultural industry, could be induced to leave out this protection which will not only be useful for the protection of the consumer, but certainly some aid to the campaign they themselves financed in the other direction, by Government money, with the Milk Marketing Board and with the great milk trades of the country to induce a wider consumption of liquid milk. You are spending Government money on that. You are spending large sums of money, through the Milk Marketing Board and through the producers' organisations. You are spending through the distributive organisations, both wholesale and retail, to induce people to "Drinka Pinta Milka Day". What do you do next? At the request of somebody whose name is not revealed you leave out the protective clause which you yourselves, as a Government, circulated to each of these trade representatives in the beginning as a part of the draft Regulations. I hope that we shall have an answer upon that point to-night. For, believe me, I think my noble friend Lord Wise was very kind to the noble Earl the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry.
I was glad to hear the noble Lord refer to Somerset. It is my county as much as it is the noble Earl's, except that he lives there more than I do. It is a great milk county—I think pretty well the greatest of them all. When I think of the producers down there, and when I think of the plight of the milk producer (except the very large fellows, who have had the capital to develop, with the aid of Government grants, entirely new processes in milk production) I cannot understand the Ministry of Agriculture seeking to put any handicap on the further development and expansion of the sale of full milk.
I have said before to the noble Earl that, so far as the farmer is concerned, the price of milk to the producer to-day,

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in relation to the increase in costs, is a public scandal. It was 4s. a gallon in December, nine years ago. Last month is was 3s. 3⅞d. But since then farm wages have nearly doubled; all the other farming costs are up, and the farmers are in a continual state of anxiety as to how they are going to keep going. If we leave out the top 200 or 300 farmers—those farming on a very large scale, with wide areas to control, great machinery, and all these new developments, who have had the capital to put up to get the Government grant—that is the state of the rest of the dairy industry. Instead of helping the dairy farmers out of their difficulty, you are going to take this stupid decision, at the request of some body who we do not know; and in the meantime these gallant warriors in another place—150 in one week, and 37 in another week, names and addresses and constituencies all listed—have been gradually talked over; apparently as much talked over, from a purely agricultural point of view, as the noble Lord who spoke last has been.
The noble Lord, Lord Amherst of Hackney, quoted the official circular in the British Farmer, which is the organ of the National Farmers' Union, in support of his case: that is how it seemed to me, but perhaps he will tell me about it when we have a chat about the matter, because I am always willing to learn from the noble Lord—
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: I did not want to imply that they have dropped the tea or coffee issue at all.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: No. I want to say this to the Parliamentary Secretary: that here we have a set of Regulations which, under the Statute, are not subject to Affirmative Resolution. They are subject to negative decision to be taken on a Prayer; that is, we can move only to negative the Regulations. That is a course that I do not want to follow. I do not say that there are not certain parts of these Regulations which I should wish to see continued; certainly proper descriptions when these commodities are sold under other names. But in regard to descriptions which are required for the protection of the consumer who thinks he is being supplied with milk, the Regulations
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do not give him a proper protection, and they do not make it an offence for suppliers to give him anything else. In this respect I think the Government have made a grave mistake in departing from their original ideas in the first and second drafts of the Regulations which were circulated to the trade.
In the world in which we live to-day the consumer wants a square deal. He is in a sort of miasma to know at all times how he is getting it. I get all sorts of reports on consumer experience to-day. We are being filled up with supermarkets now which are run on cut prices. I hear of people coming back afterwards and saying, "I have been completely deceived. Oh, yes; I got a Cheaper price on this commodity, but when I added up my bill I paid more for my week's supplies than in a full-price shop before." All kinds of things are going on against which the consumer is protesting. And not the least is the fact that when he or she goes to purchase an important article of food, important to every member of the household whether infant or grown up, whether healthy or invalid, he ought to be able to get full protection from the description laid down in the Regulations. I shall especially look forward to hearing what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say about why the Government gave way.
May I just say one last word to the noble Lord, Lord Amherst of Hackney? I am intensely interested in his argument that the sale of milk may be injured in all these places where they make milkshakes and things of that kind. I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary could give the sales of milk in those particular directions. I wonder how it will compare with the sort of figures with which the Milk Marketing Board have to deal. In 1959–60 the sale of liquid milk has risen to about 1,380 million gallons. There is a vast margin beyond that to go into manufacture. I would not for a moment deny the argument that you might have a little more in the made-up drinks. But what sort of comparison is that to the fact that very little advantage will be gained in the quantity of liquid milk sold, as compared to the growing potential (as was put by the noble Lord, Lord Spens) of the competition of a liquid which the Government are actually going to help promote by these Regulations, and which will be sold at

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half price? What are the Government doing to help the farmer, I should like to know. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us.
5.55 p.m.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I apologise for intervening in this interesting discussion. As the noble Lord, Lord Wise, said, this is a Scottish matter as well as an English one. As I understand it, there are two alternatives. Either we accept these Regulations or we throw them out. If that is the case, I humbly submit that we should accept them, because they are definitely a step forward. I think the noble Lord, Lord Wise, said that in future when you wanted milk you would have to ask for "pure fresh milk". As I understand it, you have merely, to say the word "milk" and you will be given full cream milk. As a Scotsman, that appeals to me; you are getting something more than you asked for. That is progress. I suggest that these Regulations should be accepted.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Wise, moved to annul these Regulations, because I hope I shall be able to seize this opportunity to try to dispel some of the serious misconceptions that have arisen since these Regulations were tabled. Nothing at all that has been said in this debate makes me feel that these Regulations should be annulled. Many things that have been said only make me feel how necessary and right it was that these Regulations were brought in. I shall be as brief as possible, but to dispel some of these misconceptions I must go back to what we are trying to do and what we are not trying to do and why such Regulations are brought in at all. I must refer to the Food and Drugs Act, 1955, under which the Regulations are laid, and to the section of the Act under which they are laid, and to the section under which they are not laid (if that is not Irish), to bring home my point.
Before I do that, however, why do we want to make any Regulations at all? There is general legislation—for instance, the Sale of Goods Act, 1893—against misdescription of goods, and I think, if I may say so without disrespect to the noble Viscount on the Woolsack,
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even the courts can, without specific legislation, distinguish between chalk and cheese. If you make a contract to buy cheese and you are given chalk you do not need a specific definition or specific legislation; you will have your protection in the courts. The whole point of the Food and Drugs Act, 1955, was to reinforce, as I take it, the general body of the law where difficulties arise. Section 4 of the Act would be the section to use to make a regulation to ban some product. It would be only proper for Ministers to introduce a regulation to ban some product if it was injurious to public health or (I read the words of the Act)
"… expedient in the interests of the public health, or otherwise for the protection of the public, make regulations"
to ban or to control or regulate.
Nobody suggests that the particular product we are discussing to-day is injurious to the public health or is a danger to the public and ought to be banned. The only basis on which we could ban it is the not very noble basis of the type of restrictive protectionism which I am sorry to hear the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition seeming to favour: that we should ban anything that competes with an existing industry. This would ban the railways against the stage coach; it would ban the motor car against the railway; it would ban the aeroplane against the motor car; and it would also ban nylon against wool. We must not do this.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I admire that eloquent declaration upon this particular point, but it is not what I said. I did not ask you to ban anything. I asked you to give back to us what you put in your draft regulations for the protection of the consumer.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am coming to that point of the noble Viscount's suspicions as to why we took out something from a draft. But the whole tenor of his speech, and the further regulation which he asked for, was in order to protect the milk producer. My eloquence may have run away with me, but the noble Viscount was suggesting this to protect a sectional interest, whereas these Regulations are made to protect the general public. It is for the Minister of Food to protect the consumer

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from misleading descriptions. So much for banning.
Section 6 of the main Act, the 1955 Act—for Scotland it is the 1956 Act—prohibits false labelling. I will quote from the section:
"calculated to mislead as to its nature, substance or quality."
We have introduced these Regulations under Section 7 to prevent confusion in the public mind by the similarity of two products. We have the power to prohibit false or misleading labelling or advertising of goods. We cannot say that this is a bad product which will be injurious to public health, but what we must do is to make it quite clear to the public that this is a product very like another product to which they are accustomed, and therefore the labelling of this new product must be clear, so that it shall not be confused with a natural product of which the public are well aware.
If you ask for milk you must get real milk, whole milk. That will be the law if these Regulations are passed. If, when you ask for milk, you are served with skimmed milk from which something has been taken and to which something has been added, or dried milk or condensed milk from which something has been taken and another thing added, then, when these Regulations have been passed, the law is being infringed. So we are protecting the legitimate interests of the fresh, real, whole milk trade. We are protecting the legitimate interests of the consumers of milk in these Regulations and are not doing what the noble Lord, Lord Wise, seemed to suggest that we were trying to do. I quote what he said: the Regulations
"seem to aim at increasing the sale of substitutes in place of whole milk".
He said he was sorry for me because I had to approve all this and, as a Somerset man and interested in dairy farming all my life, I should not want to do such a thing as to aim at increasing sales of substitute products. But that is exactly the opposite to what these Regulations set out to do.
These perfectly wholesome products exist on the market, and it is our duty as the Government to protect the public from being sold one thing when they ask for another. There is no difference
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in what we are doing in these Regulations from what we have done with margarine and with cream. It is arguable that if you are a country which has a dairy industry you should ban margarine. I believe it has been done in certain countries. But that is not the way we carry on in this country, and it would not be right. What we have to do is to see that if the customer asks for butter the customer is given butter. If the substance which is sticking the ham to the two pieces of bread is not butter, the person who has sold something which is asked for as butter and Which is not butter commits an offence.
These are labelling and advertising regulations. Labelling and advertising can be dealt with only in regard to products which you can label and advertise. I regret to say I interrupted the noble Lord, Lord Wise, towards the end of his speech because I thought he was going to say that when a banqueter asks for a cup of coffee at a banquet, he should in some way be told what the beverage he was going to be given consisted of. How would the noble Lord suggest that that could be done? Would a placard have to be displayed on every table at every banquet saying, "Sometimes filled milk is sold here if we have run out of whole milk in the kitchen"; or should there be on every table a placard saying "Filled milk is always sold here"?—which, obviously, would not be true. The fact is that you cannot analyse a cup of tea. If we started analysing a cup of tea we should get into great difficulties. Are we to say how much tea there is, and how much water there is?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, all I have to say is that when the noble Earl talks about a banquet he should remember that the organisers of big banquets are in any case in a much stronger position to protect the consumer, because they have a contract. They contract either with a hotel staff or directors or with a big firm of refreshment contractors. I could give the names of many such people in the City. There you have a contract, and you have only to insert your conditions in the contract. So I am not a bit bothered about that question. What I am bothered about is to see that individual members of the public get a square deal when they expect

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to get milk and the other things with which they are usually supplied but cannot always be expected to ask for specifically. They do not always, as my noble friend said, ask for fresh milk.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, that is exactly what we are concerned with: that the ordinary member of the public and not any particular section of the trade should be protected.
I should like to come now to the point made over and over again by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition —namely, why did we depart from the drafts? He has a suspicious mind. He asked, what great Tory pressure group came round to Whitehall Place and made the Minister change his mind; what pressure did he give way to? He kept on using the phrase, "at the request of somebody who is not revealed". Perhaps the name of that body is not resealed because it does not exist. What happened was, as the noble Lord, Lord Spens, so carefully stated in his speech, that in the original drafts we tried particularly to take these Regulations further, and we thought it would be a good idea to have placards displayed in any catering establishments and restaurants saying that filled milk (as it was then called, but as it will not be called after these Regulations take effect) might be on sale—might be in customers' cups of tea or coffee.
Why we withdrew the idea of having such placards, and why they are not in the Regulations as laid before your Lordships, is because they are quite impracticable. When we got down to seeing how we could enforce these Regulations, how we could police them, what sort of placards would be required and indeed what the placards would say, we saw that our first idea was not a very bright one. It was no pressure group that told us that; it was our consciences and, if I may say so, our brains when we came to examine what we had been, rather foolishly, trying to do. The noble Lord, Lord Wise, asked why the County Councils Association were not consulted. Indeed, they were consulted. They were consulted on both drafts. But surely at some point the Minister must make up his mind. When we had had consultations with these various bodies and had actually to draft this placard, to say where it should be displayed, what size
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it should be, what it should say and how we were to analyse the contents of a cup of tea or coffee; and when we considered whether we should not be drawn then into deciding how much tea leaf there should be in tea, and how much coffee there should be in the coffee drink; then it became quite ridiculous, and we felt that we could not go on with that proposal for a placard.
Only minor points have been raised in this debate, but there is a feeling behind some of the speeches made from the other side of the House, I think, that it would be rather a good thing if we could ban these products altogether. I took it that that was behind the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wise, when he suggested that by having these products we were trying to push something which was a substitute. We really cannot and must not ban from the public a perfectly wholesome substitute that is properly labelled and accurately described for what it is. We must protect the public from getting, when they ask for one thing, something else.
The noble Lord, Lord Spens, spoke of the description on containers, of advertisers and labelling and, the third point, of beverages. He was quite happy on the first two points that had been negotiated, and believed it was quite right to bring in Regulations to ensure that this new product which is being made should be properly described and labelled so that the housewife in a self-service store, who has not the benefit of having behind the counter a salesman of whom she can ask questions, when she goes to a shelf and takes a tin of milk can know that the packet is properly labelled and states accurately what it contains, whether it is whole milk, substitute milk or condensed milk. The Schedule to the Regulations describes what will in future have to be written on such tins. That will be found in the first part of the Schedule on page 5 and I believe the Scottish Regulations are exactly the same:
"Each label shall bear whichever of the following declarations is appropriate—
Skimmed milk with non-milk fat, unfit for babies (or not to be used for babies); Condensed skimmed milk with non-milk fat, unfit for babies (or not to be used for babies); and dried skimmed milk with non-milk fat, unfit for babies (or not to be used for babies)."
Those will be the only legal labels. "Filled milk", which might conceivably

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be misleading, suggesting that something has been added to the milk making it better than it was before, is no longer a permitted description.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, what description is to be put on a product to advise invalids and others not to take the product if it is not fit for them? The labels specified in the Schedule apply only to babies.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, let us be quite clear on this. Some products would be very suitable for invalids. Some specially reconstituted products are even dearer than whole milk. Here, we are using the phrase, "Not to be used for babies" (and here we mean by "babies" small children who normally have milk as the greater part of their diet), not as any kind of medical prescription but merely to indicate that the product is not whole milk. There is nothing to say that the product would not be very good for grown-up people, just as margarine is possibly as good for one as butter. But we want to be clear in ensuring that a mother buying a tin off the shelf knows that the product is not whole milk and, in that sense, is not a proper baby food. Therefore the labelling will in future be clear. If we do not bring in the Regulation there will be no such label on the tin. Surely that is a great advance.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Spens, for having gone so clearly through the negotiations which led up to the tabling of these final Regulations. I was somewhat sorry that he was able to quote so many countries in which restrictive trade practices still exist, where a perfectly good and nourishing food can be kept from the public merely on the basis that it may be to the detriment of some sectional interest. That seems to me wrong, and although I am a farmer I am glad that we are not bringing in such a Regulation here.
I believe, though, that the noble Lord, Lord Spens, is right when he says that we must pass this Order now, so that there is this great protection for the consumer—and, incidentally, protection thereby for the legitimate dairy interests, in that people will know exactly what they are buying, instead of being, perhaps, under a misapprehension as to that. We should pass this Order now, and if
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the sales of this product develop in such a way as seems to call for other regulations at a later date (though there is no evidence now that that may be so), the Minister of whatever Government there may then be will not be precluded from examining the matter afresh in the future. I hope that I have been able to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Wise, who moved to annul these Regulations, that it would be wrong to do so merely on the basis that, with the best will in the world, they do not go as far as he would like. I would appeal to the noble Lord, suggesting that, in this case, very much more than half a loaf is better than no bread.
6.17 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, may I start my reply by referring to the last words of the noble Earl, the Minister? He said that half a loaf is better than no bread. May I reply that full milk is better than skimmed milk? We have had an interesting discussion, and though I am sorry that more noble Lords did not join in it, I believe that what we have heard has proved the case I tried to put to your Lordships. I was particularly startled (if I may use the expression), by the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Spens, on the curtailment of sales of pure milk in various localities. I thought that they proved our point right up to the hilt, and wiped out the arguments of Her Majesty's Government—
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but is he asking for this product to be banned?
LORD WISE: No; I am not. I am asking that we may encourage the consumption of pure milk in this country in lieu of these substitutes which are now before us. I must say that I was surprised to hear two noble Lords on the other side, both of whom, I believe, are farmers, advocating the consumption of these substitute products. As my noble Leader said, the milk-producing industry is at the moment in a pretty parlous condition, and it is not up to us in this House, or those in another place, to bring into operation Regulations which are likely to worsen depreciation in the industry.
The noble Earl who replied on behalf of Her Majesty's Government referred to the Regulations of 1958 and 1959. For three years the Government have been "sitting on" these Regulations

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without bringing anything before the House or the public; and in three years they have wiped out the one Regulation which would have protected the consumer, not only in relation to labels but also in relation to the indication of what the consumer was buying and was likely to consume in small quantities. The products in canisters or other wrapping are being labelled, but the consumer is given no knowledge whatever, when he goes into a café or restaurant, of what he is being given in his tea or coffee. That is obvious. The Minister proved my point for me in regard to that. He made what I thought was a rather funny sort of statement about a banquet. But even at a banquet, unless you ask for milk you are likely to get one of these byproducts.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I said no such thing. I never said that you were likely to get any other thing. I suggested that the noble Lord, in developing this argument as to why we had missed something important out of these Regulations, should tell me specifically what we should put in. What are we to put in to make it quite clear that when he goes to a banquet he will get milk in his coffee? How does he do that by regulation?
LORD WISE: My Lords, one cannot perhaps do it at a banquet. But unless you ask for milk you are likely to get something else.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: Why? You think that you are likely to get something else unless you ask for it?
LORD WISE: Yes; according to your own Minister you are likely to get something else in your tea or coffee. That is the whole point: the protection of the consumer. There is nothing more that I wish to say on the matter. I hope that the Regulations pan out as the Minister has endeavoured to persuade us they will. But I am disturbed, seriously disturbed, at the effect which these Regulations may have on the production of milk in this country.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, is the noble Lord withdrawing his Prayer, or does he wish me to put it to the House?
LORD WISE: My Lords, I think it might be put.
On Question, Motion disagreed to.

SKIMMED MILK WITH NON-MILK FAT (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS, 1960
LORD WISE: My Lords, beg to move the second Resolution.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Skimmed Milk with Now-Milk Fat (Scotland) Regulations 1960 (S.1. 1960 No. 2437), dated 19th December 1960, laid before the House on 5th January 1961, be annulled.—(Lord Wise.)
On Question, Motion disagreed to.

POOLE CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: the order made on the 14th instant discharged, and Bill committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
RIO TINTO RHODESIAN MINING LIMITED BILL [H.L.]
  GREAT NORTHERN LONDON CEMETERY COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
  Committed to Unopposed Bill Committees.

ALLHALLOWS STAINING CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past six o'clock.