Lords Sitting of 6 July 1961

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

FARM BUILDINGS RESEARCH
LORD FORBES: 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 they will set up a farm buildings research unit, or units, in view of (1) the need for a progressive agriculture and (2) the large sums of public money being spent on farm buildings.]
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, we do not think that a case has been made out for the establishment by the Government of a farm buildings research centre. This in no way implies that we are not very conscious of the importance to the agricultural industry of suitable buildings; but for the time being, at least, we think that other forms of investigation and research are likely to be more rewarding. It is important to have reliable information about the farm buildings that exist already, and to note what research has been done that may be relevant to buildings used by British farmers. The Agricultural Research Council are therefore undertaking a survey of farm buildings in Great 3ritain and are issuing a bibliography of farm buildings research publications.
In addition to this, the Council in cooperation with the farmers concerned, are organising experiments with buildings on farms and contributing toward their capital cost. Your Lordships will remember that I announced the Council's experimental scheme early last year, and I then emphasised that we thought that development work and trials of experimental buildings could best be carried out on farms which could be chosen to provide the necessary range of conditions, rather than at a research
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centre. I should perhaps add that much research supported by the Council in agricultural research institutes and elsewhere has important bearings on farm building design.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I thank my noble Leader for his very comprehensive reply.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, while private research is very often extremely useful, and taking into account the fact that the Government are contributing quite a few million pounds towards the renovation and rebuilding of farm buildings throughout the country, particularly of smaller farms, might I ask the noble Viscount whether he does not think that this is the right moment for such a research unit to be set up?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think we must be clear about two separate conceptions. The farm improvement grants, which are given by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, attract a grant, and I think it is those to which the noble Lord opposite referred in the main. Those, of course, are not for experimental buildings. In order to attract a farm improvement grant you have to pass the "prudent landlord" test and this excludes buildings of a scientifically experimental character in many cases—I think not in all, but in many cases.
What we did last year, under the auspices of my Office, was to start an experimental scheme by which landowners who were interested in scientific experiment could receive a larger grant, a 50 per cent. grant, for buildings which were genuinely experimental in character. They would not necessarily satisfy the "prudent landlord" test, and it was in fact for that very reason that we had a separate scheme. In order to receive that grant, the owners had to work in co-operation with the Agricultural Research Council and virtually (although I am stating this rather unadvisedly) to do what is scientifically desirable in the view of the Agricultural Research Council.
The reasons why we chose that method, rather than a centre, is that it is necessary, if you are going to experiment into agricultural buildings, to carry on your experiments with buildings in a variety of different circumstances, ranges, climates and farming policies. This means

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that you get very much better value for money by your grant scheme, a scheme covering the whole country and its different places with different types of farming, than you would by a scheme based on a Centre. The scheme has had very promising results indeed in the last twelve months. It is a little early to give a comprehensive survey, but so pleased are the Agricultural Research Council with the results of the scheme that they are going, to hold a Press Conference, I think in the next few days, with a view to stating what their experience has been.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, whilst disclosing a personal interest in this matter, since I have received grants, might I ask my noble friend whether he would not agree with me that the system of agricultural grants has been most beneficial to the industry, and that they are most carefully considered before they are granted?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I also ought to disclose an interest in this. I find them very carefully considered—rather too carefully for my liking.
LORD McCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, I wonder if I may ask whether full use is being made of the latest work study techniques, both in the buildings themselves and in the layout of the buildings. A great deal of work has been done in this matter by work study, by agricultural workers, and so far as I know their work is forgotten at times.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am grateful for what my noble friend has said. I think it is true, both of the farm improvement scheme and of the experimental scheme, which is more particularly the subject of the Question.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, could the noble Viscount say how many of these experimental farm buildings have in fact been authorised?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not think I can give that information without notice. But I can give the noble Lord this information. During the year July 1, 1960, to June 30, 1961 —which, of course, is the last year—a total of 177 applications was received. Of this total, 27 have been accepted
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as suitable for grants, and 52 applications are under consideration, 44 of the farms concerned having been visited by members of the Agricultural Research Council's Farms Buildings Unit. Eight applications have been withdrawn, and 90 applications have been rejected.

LONDON-SINGAPORE AIR SERVICES
3.11 p.m.
LORD CASEY: 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 if it is correct that any applications by independent air operators for the right to conduct scheduled air services on any part or all of the air route from London to Singapore now operated by B.O.A.C., Qantas and Air India International may not now finally be decided by the Civil Aviation Licensing Board, 'but that, if necessary, there is appeal to the Minister of Aviation who would appoint an Appeal Commissioner to advise him.]
LORD DENHAM: Yes, my Lords, the applicant for any licence and any other party to the case before the Air Transport Licensing Board has a right of appeal to the Minister of Aviation from the Board's decision. The Minister is required to appoint a Commissioner to hear the appeal and before he decides the appeal he must consider the Commissioner's Report and recommendations which will be published. If he does not accept the Commissioner's recommendations in whole or in part, he must give his reasons publicly. A Commissioner will normally hear an appeal in public.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Might I ask, by way of supplementary, whether I am right in believing that, in the event of a successful application by an independent company to the Civil Aviation Licensing Board, Qantas would not be a party to the hearing; nor would they have the right to lodge an appeal? Further, am I right in believing that B.O.A.C. could invite a representative of Qantas and of Air India International to be a

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witness at the hearing, and could also ask either or both of their two partners to put in documents stating their views?
LORD DENHAM: Yes, my Lords; Qantas would not be a party to the case. Any party to the case who so desires may call on Qantas to give evidence at the Board's hearing. In addition, a party to an appeal may produce further evidence which a witness may be present to attest. It is also open to any person at any time to make representations to the Board relating to an application before them, even if the person making the representations is not one of those who have a right to be heard during the Board's hearing. Qantas may, if they wish, make representations to the Board direct, but they cannot become a party to the case before the Board.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, could I ask whether, in view of that reply, it is now clear that other Commonwealth air line operators who operate in conjunction with B.O.A.C., and whose schedules have been arranged in conjunction with B.O.A.C. under the bilateral agreements, can give evidence on a case that B.O.A.C. takes before the tribunal?
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, B.O.A.C. can call them to give evidence in a case in which B.O.A.C. is involved as a party having a direct interest. But they cannot give evidence on their own interests.
LORD LATHAM: In short, my Lords, I suppose Quantas cannot inter-plead?
LORD DENHAM: That is right.

FUTURE BUSINESS
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to raise a question about Business. It is communicated to us through the usual channels that next Thursday, after dealing with the Covent Garden Market Bill, it is proposed to sit, if necessary, as late as 11 o'clock at night in Committee on the Licensing Bill. That would be highly inconvenient, and I hope that the suggestion which has been made through the usual channels is not going to be pursued. I understand that
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two other days for the Committee stage on the Licensing Bill are to be available in the following week, and those of us who have a keen interest in the Bill and cannot stay late on Thursday really object most strongly to this.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am glad the noble Viscount has drawn my attention to this matter. Of course we have a great deal of Business to get through, but if the noble Viscount is prepared to discuss this point further through the usual channels I am sure we shall do what we can to meet his objection.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Viscount. He knows that there is some criticism of this Bill and that it is not going to have an easy passage. I am not hiding the fact. But those of us who have spent days and days putting through two major Government Bills which are now pushed out altogether do not want to be sweating like an ox in order to get a Bill we do not want.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, the picture of the noble Viscount as a patient ox is a totally novel one to me.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, when he is arranging for the usual channels to be used, to ensure that those channels be adequately dredged so that communications may flow more freely in all directions?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I shall certainly note what the noble Lord said. We do not want, in the discussion, to miss him.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to make it clear to the noble Lord that we have not asked for any privilege in this matter. The discussions took place through the usual channels. I am sorry to hear that he has not been consulted. I hope that he will be.

TANGANYIKA
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that my noble friend Lord Perth will be making a statement on Tanganyika at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m.
MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
CROFTERS (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE BILL
3.18 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I beg to move that the Army and Air Force Bill be read a second time. This is a Bill of 39 clauses and 3 Schedules, running to 34 pages, but I do not think that in substance it is anything like so formidable as it sounds and looks. It arises, as Your Lordships will remember, from a decision resulting from a Select Committee which was appointed to review the Army and Air Force Acts. This Committee, after an inquiry which lasted two and a half years, produced draft legislation which led to the passing of the 1955 Acts. One of the main changes made in those Acts was the abolition of the old procedure of an annual Army and Air Force Bill. They provided for annual renewal by Order in Council, subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure, for a maximum period of five years from the date that the Acts came into operation. As in fact the Acts came into force in January, 1957, they expire at the end of this year, and the Bill now before your Lordships is the fresh legislation required. I think on the whole that your Lordships will agree that this was a sensible change and that it has worked well in practice, at the same time giving Parliament the right to preserve its annual, control over the discipline of the Army and Air Force.
Apart from continuing the existing legislation, this Bill seeks to amend some of the provisions of the 1955 Acts. This is the first opportunity for doing so and the amendments are in fact mostly of a rather minor character. I should perhaps mention at this stage that the Bill has been considered by a Select Com-
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mittee in accordance with the undertaking given by the Government in 1955. My Lords, with your permission, I do not intend to go through the Bill clause by clause because, as I have said, most of the amendments are comparatively minor, but I should like to say a few words about the more important changes.
At the present time, anyone who wants to join the Air Force as a career can sign on for 22 years only after he has completed four years of his first engagement. It is proposed in Clause 8 that this limitation should be removed and that enlistment for 22 years—that is to say, a pensionable engagement—can take place as soon as the man joins up. The change is designed as a help to recruiting, because there is some evidence from schools and parents that boys would be more willing to join the Services as a career if they knew that they could sign on for a pensionable engagement without the possibility of being forced to leave the Service after twelve years with only a gratuity and no pension. There is at the same time a provision which gives them the right to take their discharge after a period which will not be more than twelve years after reaching the age of eighteen.
This amendment also provides an opportunity to correct a minor anomaly which also applies in the Army. If a man enlists between the age of 17½ and 18, he does not qualify for a pension until he has served 22 years from the time he is eighteen, and, as a result, some men have to extend their service for a few months after their 22 years' service to qualify for their pension. This is not only inconvenient, but it leaves some people with a sense of grievance because 22 years is generally regarded as the pensionable engagement. The change means that anybody who joins up from now onwards at the age of 17½ will in future be able to do so on a fully pensionable engagement.
Both in the Army enlistment clauses, which are Clauses 2 to 7, and in the Air Force enlistment clauses, Clauses 8 to 15, provision is made for those who enlist under the age of eighteen to do so for a term of service up to the age of eighteen and thereafterwards for 22 years.
Although the changes in the term of Army enlistment are few, the Bill contains a comprehensive new code which

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will apply to all those who enlist after the end of 1961.
My Lords, I come now to the question of punishment. Far some time past it has been widely held that there has been a gap in the present scales of punishment. For officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers, the gap is between the forfeiture of seniority and the punishment of severe reprimand; and far soldiers and airmen, between detention and restriction of privileges. In some cases the higher punishment is too harsh, possibly affecting the whole career of the officer concerned, and the lower punishment altogether too lenient. Forfeiture of some pay in Clause 19 has been introduced to bridge the gap.
It is not really a new departure. Forfeiture of pay can already be ordered for other ranks on active service; and forfeiture of seniority of officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers of course, very often involves them in financial loss, so the principle is already there. Clause 19 provides a financial penalty that is more precise and at the same time less severe than forfeiture of seniority. In the case of other ranks, it will be possible to dock the man's pay without depriving us of his service—and that can be important. Punishment may be awarded summarily or by court-martial and will apply to all ranks whether on active service or not. Punishment will be awarded by commanding officers and appropriate superior authorities, subject to the accused's right to elect trial by court-martial, and the maximum forfeiture allowed will be fourteen days' pay.
Lastly, I should like to say a few words about Clause 17, which deals with the conditions governing the statutory right of a recruit to buy his way out of the Army or Air Force within the first three months after he enlists. This right has existed since 1881, the only change in the conditions since then being an increase in the cost of purchase from a sum not exceeding £10 to the present sum, not exceeding £20. It has been generally agreed that it is right that recruits to the Army and Air Force, most of them young men in their teens or early twenties should, if they find they are not suited to life in the Services, have this opportunity to escape from a commitment which otherwise
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would bind them for a number of years. But recently there has been a disturbingly large increase in the number of Army recruits making use of this escape route.
As a result of this heavy wastage, the Army Council ordered a study by the Army Operational Research Group to find out why soldiers purchase their discharge or fail to re-enlist after their initial engagement. They also decided to take a number of other measures, which have been announced in another place, to make the Army more attractive to the recruit; for example, by eliminating unnecessary fatigues, altering training schedules to make them more interesting and to make sure the recruit gets a reasonable amount of time off. They considered whether the opportunity of this Bill should be taken to make it more difficult for recruits to purchase their discharge by raising the cost, but decided that it would be wrong to do so and against the interests of recruiting. The Army wants willing recruits not reluctant heroes.
The Select Committee also considered this problem and endorsed the Army Council's view that the cost should not be increased. However, they also concluded, on advice from the War Office, that many of the men who now buy their discharge would stay on and become good and contented soldiers if they persevered long enough to get over the first unsettled weeks and to give the Army a fair trial. In order, therefore, to ensure so far as possible that recruits do not leave the Army on impulse during the first few weeks, the Select Committee inserted Clause 17 in the Bill and it has been accepted by Her Majesty's Government.
That clause gives the Army and Air Councils power to ban purchase of discharge for a period up to two month., from the date the recruit enlists. The three-months period during which he can make up his mind whether to stay on or to leave remains unchanged. But the right to leave is limited to the last of the three months or any longer period up to the limit of three months which the Army and Air Councils may decide upon. It is hoped by this means to provide an effective and equitable way of making sure that recruits give the Army a fair trial and do not make a hasty decision to leave. The clause is drafted in permissive terms so as to give the

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necessary degree of flexibility to the power to make regulations imposing a ban. For example, the Air Force does not have the same problem of increased wastage that the Army has, and the Air Council may therefore decide not to impose a ban, or not to impose it for as long a period as the Army Council may think necessary. In both cases it will almost certainly be necessary to have different rules for men, women and boys, all of whom are covered by the word recruit "where it appears in the Acts.
Lastly, no one can tell with certainty how the ban will work in practice and it is therefore desirable to have power to alter the period of a ban in the light of experience without having to wait for five years for the next opportunity to do so by legislation. These are the main provisions of the Bill, and I do not think it is necessary for me to go into any greater detail this afternoon. I shall, however, be happy to try to answer any questions which your Lordships may have on the Bill although I think possibly that some of the rather more detailed ones might appropriately be left to the Committee stage. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Carrington.)
3.27 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords I believe everyone will agree that the system introduced in 1955 is a good one; and will be glad that the old formality of passing the Army Act every year by a certain date has been superseded by the present system. Perhaps it shows that the British public as a whole are slowly losing their suspicions of standing Armies and are content to leave it to the resources of Parliament to authorise the maintenance of the Army for the ensuing twelve months. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has given us a brief outline of some of the more important amendments to the Army Act embodied in the present Bill, and I think we should be grateful for those. I should like to follow one or two of them.
It is a good thing that the anomaly that the first six months of a young man's service before the age of eighteen should not count for pension has been removed, but I wonder if the noble Lord
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could say whether there remains any remnant of a similar regulation in the terms of service of officers. I seem to remember that when I came to retire I was told I could not count any service below the age of 21 for pension. There was certainly something of that kind involved in the calculation of officers' retired pay, and I wonder whether the noble Lord can tell us if anything of that kind remains.
The introduction of the new punishment, which is rather quaintly termed "forfeiture of a sum from pay" instead of, as one would think, forfeiture of pay, is something we can welcome. The Army Council apparently think it fills a gap and it seems to be more in line with present-day practice. Fines play a large part in the penal system for civilians, and this seems to be a step in the right direction. The new Clause 17. giving power to limit to the third month of his service the soldier's right to buy his discharge, instead of that limit applying to the first, second or third months, also seems to be something with which there can be no quarrel and I believe it was wise not to raise the sum required for purchase of discharge.
I should like to ask one question on Clause 23. This seems to permit a higher authority to refer a charge back for dismissal notwithstanding the fact that the accused soldier has elected to be tried by court-martial. I did not understand, from the explanation given in another place, what was the reason for this. I, like, I 'believe, everybody else, have always assumed that 'the right to elect trial by court-martial was a protection to the soldier, and this provision appears to remove that protection. I wonder if the noble Lord could say anything in explanation of that.
I should also like to ask him something on the two clauses dealing with colonial forces, Clauses 35 and 36. The former clause provides for the application of the Army Act to a colonial soldier wherever he may he serving outside his own Colony, instead of, as before, only when he was serving in the United Kingdom. Why has that only now arisen, because it is surely many years since colonial forces have served in parts of the world other than the United Kingdom, and it seems curious that that has only now come to light. On the second of those

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two clauses there is the question of the appointment of a British-protected person to a warrant or non-commissioned or commissioned rank. It is a difficult point, and I think the noble Lord might perhaps elucidate it. If the Act of Settlement restricts people other than British subjects from holding any place or office of trust under the Crown, is that limited to officers? Does it not apply to enlistment in the forces? Does it apply only to warrant or non-commissioned or commissioned rank?
Then Clause 37 creates a new rank of lance-corporal in substitution for the former system by which the lance rank was an appointment and not a rank. It was said in another place that this will give added status to the young N.C.O. on the first rung of the ladder, and so will assist him in making good as a noncommissioned officer. How is that so? I read that commanding officers will still have the power to reduce a man from the rank of lance-corporal to the ranks, just as formerly they had the power to remove the man from the appointment. I see no advantage to the soldier in that and I think we should hear some more reasons why this is found necessary. That raises also the question of the appointment of lance-sergeant. There is no mention of that. Is that similarly to be made a new rank? Do the same reasons apply to the first step into sergeant's rank?
While on that subject, I think the Government might well turn their attention to some measures that would remove what I think has been an abuse in the Army, and possibly also the other Services, for a long time; and that is the use and abuse of unpaid acting rank. It is a means of getting N.C.O.s on the cheap, and it means that the ambitious young N.C.O., or the one who is not so ambitious but is persuaded to take stripes, is forced, unpaid, to take greater responsibilities, sometimes much greater responsibilities and sometimes for a long time. T think there is a field where there could be much greater reform, much more advantage; as a career there would be more attraction for the soldier to take the responsibility and to go for higher rank if there were not this period of unpaid additional responsibility.
Finally, I feel that we must at this time give some thought to the troops now in
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the Persian Gulf. I think we can all be glad that the operation seems to have been carried out smoothly and successfully. We can all hope that the duration of the operation will be a very short one, and that the circumstances that caused it will disappear. We must, however, bear in mind the living conditions of the troops at the moment. Not so many years ago (some of your Lordships will remember it), troops sent to climates like that had as equipment a helmet and a spinepad without which they were never allowed to move out-of-doors. They had nothing of modern comforts. Now, with ships lying off Kuwait, there is the possibility of air-conditioning and ice, and many of the comforts that will mitigate the appalling climate there. I would ask the noble Lord if he can assure us that the force there is thoroughly well equipped and has all the clothing and comforts and other amenities suitable for that climate.
3.37 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I do not propose to say a great deal on this Bill, because I think that its proposals are sound and there is no great criticism, or indeed any criticism, that I have to make. However, there are one or two points to which I should like to call attention upon it. The first is this proposal, under Clause 17, for a period after attestation during which the recruit may not exercise his right to purchase his discharge. I made some inquiries in Wales as to the experience there with recruits, and I find that so far as we are concerned there have been very few difficulties—though this is not the case elsewhere, in some other parts of the United Kingdom. But so far as Wales is concerned, there have been very few difficulties indeed in this respect.
I am told by those who are concerned with this matter that where recruits have gone during the first three months, generally speaking they were recruits who were better gone; that they were unlikely to make good soldiers anyway. I do think, however, that there is a case for the Government's proposal. There is a certain type of man—because, after all, these men are very young—who possibly goes into the Service and gets homesick, though if he could have a couple of months in which to settle down he would make a good soldier and remain on.

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I know that in my own case, when I was a small boy and first went away to school, if I could have bought my discharge in the first week I would have paid a considerable sum of money to do so—money which I had not at that time, or now. But after a bit one gets used to it, and I am sure that the conditions under which recruits in the Army serve are nothing like so hard as those in which I served when I first went away to school. As most of us know, the conditions in schools in those days were fairly tough. However, I have some sympathy with the young recruit, and I feel that this proposal may help him a good deal.
The second point I should like to make concerns Clause 36 (1). I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, that this is a puzzling clause. It talks about the Act of Settlement. I turned to the Explanatory Memorandum and received no enlightenment at all; all the Explanatory Memorandum does is to turn the clause round the other way and put down what is already there. 1, for one, do not know what the Act of Settlement has to do with some British-protected person who wants to serve in the forces of a mandated territory, or a Colony or whatever it may be. I notice that the United Kingdom forces are not mentioned in this particular clause. Perhaps the noble Lord the First Lord will tell us, when he comes to reply, to what extent the Act of Settlement does not apply to this country, and why it is that this country should be left out.
I think it would be highly improper for us to-day, when the Army and the Air Farce are deployed in Kuwait, not to say anything about them, and I am glad that the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, did so. Of course, it is quite in order on this Bill, because the Bill continues the Army Act and the Air Force Act, and this is really the only occasion upon which the Government bring the Army forward, as it were, for our consideration. The other time when we consider the Army is on a Motion by a noble Lord on the Opposition Benches. This is the first time the Government have done so.
I think we ought just to say a word about the conditions for the troops in Kuwait. First of all, I should like to congratulate the Government on the success of the deployment. It is a fine example, in my opinion, of joint
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planning and inter-Service co-operation, and it shows the value which noble Lords on these Benches—-and for that matter opposite—have often pointed out, of highly mobile forces, both airborne and carrier-borne, and what can be achieved even in landing in such a place as Kuwait. It also, of course, points to the value of conventional forces—another issue which we on the Opposition side of the House have often commented strongly about. We have pressed the Government for years past not to neglect the conventional forces. In the famous, or perhaps I should say infamous, Defence White Paper of 1957, it looked as if the conventional forces were going to be dropped altogether and we were to rely on the atomic weapon. We can see what the situation would be like in Kuwait to-day had that happened, and how important it is to have highly mobile forces. How glad we are that we have still got them!
The conditions in Kuwait are highly uncomfortable. Several times I have been, not to Kuwait but to neighbouring territories, and I can well imagine what the circumstances must be like at this moment. Indeed, in quite pungent terms, the Commander, Brigadier Hors-ford has described them, as your Lordships will see in The Times to-day. He said:
"It's cruel—burning, hot stinging sand. They"—
that is the troops—
"are living, working, and digging in the red hot wind. In a temperature of 115 degrees it drains all one's energies. The morale is terrific—the British soldier can take almost anything; but there is a limit. Chaps are passing out quite a lot from heat exhaustion. We get them back to an air-conditioned place and they are able to return the same day."
The Times then says:
"Much thought, said the Brigadier, was being given to this. There would have to he rest camps where men could bathe and have a glass of beer. Now that the men had established themselves, the emphasis would have to be switched to looking after their health."
Of course one cannot expect everything. They have been there only a few days, and I quite appreciate that, naturally, the first object of those responsible was to get the troops ashore with their fighting equipment. But now, as the Brigadier says, the time has come to think of their health. In 115 degrees, with that terrific, scorching wind, it must

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be quite a task for them, and our thoughts go out to them.
Last night on the television I saw, as no doubt many other noble Lords did, in the News, pictures of our troops dug-in in a kind of foxholes in the desert, and wearing berets; and in face of the wind to which the Brigadier refers they had handkerchiefs over their faces. I rather disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, in this respect, in that when I first went out to the East as an amateur soldier we wore the high tunic, buttoned to the neck, and topee.. Though I do not regret the passing of the high tunic, there is a good deal to be said for the topee. If you are in that sort of climate with the sun burning down, I must say that the beret seems to me a singularly inadequate headgear. As I for years wore a topee myself—they used to call them helmets; they are made of cork and are light enough—I am not at all sure that it is a good exchange in those conditions to have a beret.
I also saw on the Television News, I think on the previous night, the men saying that they were buying ice cream from an Arab vendor. What an Arab vendor is doing in the front line, it is difficult to imagine. I know it is difficult to keep Arab vendors out from anywhere, but it seems to me that we should make rather better and more complete arrangements for our troops in the front line than to have them supplied by Arab vendors, selling ice cream at what I gather was a rather high price. How much was ice cream and how much was water by the time it got to the troops, I do not know.
However, I do not want to labour this point because I fully realise the difficulties. I would only suggest that perhaps we might hear from the First Lord, when he comes to reply, what they are proposing to do there in regard to such amenities as can be provided, such as cool drinks, and also, of course, some protection for their eyes, nose and mouth. The hot wind from the desert can sting the nostrils and burn the lips, and I wonder whether it might be possible to have some sort of protective face covering rather than one's own handkerchief which, in any case, one presumably wants to use for other purposes.
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This movement of the Army to Kuwait has of course denuded our forces at home and in Kenya, and the Kenya garrison has had to be in-de up from forces from this country. Every day we see pictures in the papers of various centres—Colchester and the like—from which men are being flown out. This shows what a very slender margin we are operating on so far as the Army is concerned. I hope—I say this with the utmost conviction—that the Government have not it in mind to reduce the Army any further. I think it has got down to the irreducible minimum, and we as a country must take the necessary steps, whatever they may be; and from time to time here both the Labour and the Liberal Opposition have suggested what those steps should be. But as I say, we are down to the irreducible minimum. We as a country cannot expect the Army to fulfil the tasks imposed upon it if there are not enough men to do so. In the last year or so, seventeen infantry battalions have either been liquidated or combined with others, and in my view not a single infantry battalion should be further reduced or amalgamated. We should retain what we have. The same applies to the artillery. We cannot carry on with less: we must make up our minds on that score. I am quite sure that efficiency and morale will be reduced, and heavily reduced, if there is any further reduction in the Armed Forces.
My Lords, the other point I wanted to make was as to the Army's bases. It is rather curious that there should be a statement on Tanganyika at this particular moment, because, as the First Lord knows, I intended to say a word on this subject. If you have got an Army you must have somewhere for them to go, for them to be based. I will just read to your Lordships an account of an interview with Mr. Nyerere, the Prime Minister of Tanganyika and the main force behind the new East African States. He is a man for whom we all have the highest respect, I may say, and in whom we have a great deal of confidence. This statement that he made is therefore all the more powerful and thought-worthy. This is what he said in an interview given to a Mr. Tom Stacey, who I think is a journalist employed by the Sunday Times. A report of this interview appeared in the

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Sunday Times on June 4 of this year. It says:
"Mr. Julius Nyerere, Prime Minister of Tanganyika and driving force behind a federation of East Africa States, told me in a private interview that if ever he were to head such a federation, he could on no account allow a British military base on its soil."
Then, a little later, it goes on:
"He indicated that the emotional background of African politics would make it impossible for the head of such a federation to tolerate British troops stationed in the territory. A federal leader would be subject to internal outcry against it (however many jobs it might provide): and it would gravely weaken his authority among fellow ex-colonial States There was no possibility, Mr. Nyerere said, of these factors changing during this political generation."
That is, for all of us, a very serious statement. Mr. Mboya and others have already said this, but for Mr. Nyerere to say it makes it, I think, a statement of the utmost significance.
If we are not able to operate with a secure base at Kahawa in Kenya after independence, which may well come in the next year or two, then we must think pretty fast as to what the alternative should be. I mention this now because I was very much perturbed when I read this. I thought that perhaps Mr. Nyerere may 'have been able, as it were, to advise his colleagues in Kenya on this point, and draw their attention to the great importance of this base and the contribution it makes to Commonwealth defence and to the defence of the Free World. But if this is not so—and, very probably his views of the African political scene are founded on a great deal of fact; he ought to know what the facts are if anybody does—then, indeed, that does pose a very sharp and urgent problem for us all, because we have not much time in which to move.
That is all I want to say, my Lords. I welcome the Bill. I am quite sure that all of us here would like to extend our very warm greetings and best wishes to our forces in Kuwait. Our thoughts are with them, and our sympathies, as always, are on their side.

TANGANYIKA
3.53 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OP PERTH): My Lords, perhaps I may now make the promised statement, on Tanganyika. It is as follows.
As the House is aware, the date of Tanganyika's independence has been announced as December 28, 1961. The Prime Minister of Tanganyika has represented to my right honourable friend that this date could prove inconvenient, particularly for representatives and guests from abroad, and I am glad to inform the House that, by agreement between Her Majesty's Government and the Tanganyika Government, it has proved possible to advance the date to December 9. Accordingly. Her Majesty's Government will propose to the General Assembly of the United Nations in the autumn that the Trusteeship Agreement be terminated at the earlier date.
I am also very glad to be able to inform the House that Her Majesty The Queen has been graciously pleased to appoint His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh to be her representative at the independence celebrations in Tanganyika. His Royal Highness will go to Tanganyika immediately after the Queen's visit to the Gambia.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, I am sure we are very interested to hear the announcement made by the noble Earl. I am wondering who suggested December 28 originally. It does not seem to have been a very good suggestion, and I am glad that it has been altered. I aim sure we are all extremely gratifed that Her Majesty the Queen has appointed His Royal Highness to represent her, and I am sure they are very glad in Tanganyika, too.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like to support the expressions just uttered by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, with regard to both the date and our gratification that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh is to be present on this occasion in Tanganyika. I should like Ito ask the noble Earl one question, and perhaps, in collaboration with the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, he may be able to answer me. The noble Earl will

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remember that although we were in Sierra Leone recently, at the independence celebrations there, we were there in another capacity, and there was in fact no Member of this House present, though there were two Members of another place. Since this House is a House of Parliament, and has always taken a great interest in colonial and Commonwealth affairs, would it not be right that this House also should be officially represented by one of its Members at the Tanganyika independence celebrations?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am not surprised, if I may say so, at the welcome which the announcement has received. As to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, about the representation of this House at the celebrations, I will certainly take note of it.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE BILL
Debate resumed.
3.57 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, perhaps I might say a few words from the Back Benches on this side of the House on the Army and Air Force Bill. My main impression of this Bill is that it shows that the arrangements which were begun in 1955, whereby the Army Act was to be renewed every five years instead of being renewed annually, have worked well; and, furthermore, that the work done by the Select Committee in another place prior to that Act, and before that by Committees such as the Lewis Committee on Courts Martial, has also been worth while. Because, if you come to examine the detailed provisions of this Bill—and I confess that I have not examined them nearly so closely as the noble Earl, Lord Lucan; nor do I intend to on Second Reading—one can see that nearly all the Amendments which are proposed in the Bill make no fundamental change. They disclose that nothing has really gone wrong in the administration of the Army and the Air Force.
On the other hand—and this is equally important—they do show a willingness on the part of the Service Departments to promote legislation to put those matters right which have been shown to
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work not so well as they might and therefore to impede the administration of the Army and the Air Force. So, my Lords, I think that on the Second Reading of this Bill one can say quite shortly that those clauses which I have referred to represent a state of affairs that one could describe as. "so far, so good".
There are perhaps one or two points that one might mention, and I should first of all like to take up again a remark that was made by my noble friend Lord Carrington: that the provisions for an extension of service for soldiers and airmen point the way to a career. I am delighted that they have done so, because I feel perfectly certain that in these days, if you want to recruit the right sort of young men to the Army and Air Force, and if you want them to stay the course, then you must offer a career. When we had the debate on the Army White Paper, I suggested that it might be possible to give every recruit who signed On for 22 years a guaranteed career in Her Majesty's Service up to the same retiring age you have in the Civil Service. That proposal was not greeted with the enthusiasm I had hoped; but, none the less, here in this Bill we see that official thinking is going on those lines; and the more nowadays we can provide a career for the intending recruit, the better the quantity and the quality I think our recruiting will be.
The counterpart of that is Clause 17 and the provisions restricting the purchase of discharge. It is not quite the same matter, because both the Army and the Air Force—I think to a greater extent the Army—are affected by the conditions of full employment in which we are now living. That has the effect of making the intending recruit a bit saucy (if I may put it that way) about what job he takes. That is the way he behaves not only when recruiting for the Services, but also when thinking of taking a job in civil life. There is also another aspect of it. There are a certain number of young men—and if one has anything to do with magistrates' courts and quarter sessions, one sees them there—who at a certain point in their own particular variety of "Rake's Progress" decide to enlist, if possible to escape something worse which they think may befall them; and so, with

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the best will in the world, there always will he a floating population of that sort, particularly in the Army.
There is no reason why one should arrange the affairs of the Army particularly for the convenience of those people; why, in other words, one should stand for waste of money and waste of effort by allowing young men to be able to buy themselves out before they can fairly be said to have had the chance of making up their minds. We were not told by my noble friend in front of me whether either the War Office or the Air Ministry were, in fact, going to take advantage of the latitude which they will get if this Bill is passed. It was hinted to us that the Air Ministry were not quite so keen as the War Office, but perhaps it is too early to say. So I will say merely that I shall be extremely disappointed if the War Office, at least, do not take advantage of the opportunity which I think, in a short time, Parliament will have given them.
Another feature about this clause, which I think is a good one, is that it shows the willingness of the Government, and indeed of the Parliamentary draftsman, to draw legislation in such a way that the Department does not have to wait five years if it wants to put a matter right. Five years, I think, is far too long to wait to put a matter of this sort right, and therefore I would entirely agree with those who said that a regulation which can be implemented or not, or may be varied by the Service Department, is very much better in a case of this sort than a provision written blindly into the Act.
Another main point made by my noble friend Lord Carrington was on the matter of fines. This again, I think, is all to the good, because all the time life in the Army—indeed, in the Services generally—is getting more and more like civil life, except at the moments when the forces are on active service. Quite how one would administer justice in, say, a magistrates' court without being able to impose lines at the correct moment, I, for one, do not know. I feel absolutely certain that the power to impose fines, or whatever one should call them, in a Bill like this—namely, deductions from pay—will prove a very useful and realistic power in the hands of a commanding officer or court-martial, as the case may
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be, and will help to do what one should always want to do, which is to make the punishment fit the crime. There are many things which go wrong in the Army, just as they do in civil life, which cannot be properly dealt with by confinement of the offender to barracks, still less by loss of seniority. So I welcome that provision, and I am sure, like noble Lords opposite, that we shall all be very interested to see what use the forces make of it.
How far matters like amendment to the rules for discharge by purchase work or do not work in the Services depends, I think, on one other thing which one ought to mention on these occasions; that is, the handling of the various situations by non-commissioned officers. I do not think one always realises, unless one has been a Regular in the Army or the Air Force, that, whatever the regulations say, a great deal of what actually happens depends on the approach to the matter by non-commissioned officers. Therefore, good as these regulations are, they will work for the better or worse according to the approach to them not only of the officers but of warrant and non-commissioned officers who have to deal with such matters within the unit.
That, my Lords, is all I think I need say about the Bill itself, except once again to welcome it and to say that I hope it will soon pass into law. I confess that it had not occurred to me that this was the moment when one should say anything about matters like Kuwait. When we had our debate on the Army White Paper, Kuwait had not happened, of course, and as noble Lords have referred to the matter, perhaps I might be allowed just one or two words.
The situation in Kuwait is obviously changing from hour to hour. I should be the last person to wish to make any comments which were embarrassing or out of place, but my first impression is that certain lessons, which obviously were there to be learnt after Suez, have been learnt. I should not like to use this debate to go into them deeply, but if one is to believe what one reads in the papers, then it looks as if the operation was not only properly planned beforehand, but was executed as planned. If that is so, then the planners and those who were concerned with the

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dispatch of the forces had quite clearly learnt a certain number of the Suez lessons to their good. In talking of Suez lessons, I am referring to the military lessons and not to the wider scene, which I would rather not touch on here.
I happen to be one of your Lordships who has not only been in Kuwait, but has actually driven over the route which, presumably, the Iraqis would use if, unfortunately, they were to attack the place. So I can agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, how important it is that the health of the troops should be attended to. I am quite certain that all the things that are necessary—air-conditioned places to rest, dark glasses, and all the rest of it—are being provided. But if in this House we wish to give a balanced picture, let me also say that I hope—indeed, I am certain—that with all the welfare amenities which are necessary, they have also gone out with their full war outfit of weapons and those other things which will help them to perform their task, if that task arises, much though we hope that the action so promptly taken by Her Majesty's Government will have had the effect which we always wish British military movements should have—namely, the forestalling of actual operations of war.
4.10 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I should like to associate myself most fully with what has been said by my noble friend Lord Bridgeman in tribute to the troops in Kuwait and also to the success of the planning and the way the plans were carried out. I want to put only one point to my noble friend, knowing a little of the difficulties of this country. I hope that the commanders on the spot will be allowed very wide discretion in providing and buying whatever they think is desirable for the troops. Those who know the tropical situation know how often the standard rules that are laid down are quite unsuitable (I found it all over West Africa) and great economy, as well as much greater efficiency, can be obtained by the wise use of local resources.
The First Lord will remember that we were able to help the Royal Navy there a great deal by cancelling almost every Admiralty instruction that had been
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issued, and the same applied to War Office instructions. Fortunately, I had been given power to act as Minister of Defence and was able to do that. But I suggest that it might well be possible for the commanders on the spot to do an enormous amount for amenities, if only in providing soft drinks or ices at the proper places, so long as they are given discretion and are not tied down to that £5 to a commanding officer and £10 to a brigadier or whatever is the rule. I am a great friend of economy, but I believe that in a case like this, economy is best served by giving a wise commander—and we seem to have most admirable commanders on the spot—a wide discretion.
4.12 p.m.
LORD SPENS: My Lords, perhaps I may be excused for intervening, as I was the person who presided over the Select Committee for 2½ years in another place and produced the Army Act. It is an enormous satisfaction to me, and I am quite sure to all my colleagues in another place and, if I may say so, to the people who helped us in the various Departments, that this five-year plan that we suggested has appeared to work extremely well.
However, I am disappointed in one thing. I have re-read our Report and paragraphs 111 and 112 indicate that when the 5 years were up, the existing Army and Air Force Acts would be completely repealed and that a new Army and Air Force Act, up to date and including any amendments which occurred in other Acts of Parliament during the five-year period and any further amendments, would be produced. The reasons why we had that in mind were these. The Army Act is quite different from other Acts of Parliament. It is the document on which the Forces are administered all over the world wherever they are stationed. All of us who were staff officers in the old days at the beginning of the First World War will remember the ghastly book that was put into our hands, with all sorts of bits of tissue paper attached here and scratchings out there. And when one was, as it was my fate to be, adjutant and staff officer in Iraq and India, we were of course never up-to-date there with what had been done at home.

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Therefore, the members of the Committee had very much in their minds that every five years an absolutely complete document should be provided for the Forces. My only disappointment is the form that this Bill takes—namely, to prolong the existing Army Act and amend it in 101 different ways. That means that the unfortunate A.G. officers out in Kuwait at the present time—no: mercifully it does not come into force straight away, but it will apply in Kenya and other stations overseas when the year comes—will have to bring the document up-to-date or the War Office will have to publish a complete volume of the up-to-date Army Act. I think it is quite impossible for Service personnel to do it.
Some months ago I noticed, when we passed through your Lordships' House the Scottish Mental Health Act, that two sections of the Army Act were amended by that Act. What officer overseas is ever going to learn that he will find something affecting, the Army Act in the Scottish Mental Health Act? He would be an extremely far-seeing person if he did. I am bound to admit that we did not say in so many words at the end of our Report that there should he a completely new Act submitted to the Select Committee, but the War Office and Air Ministry have decided to do it the other way. I think that for the good administration of the Army it is essential to get every five years a completely new Army Adt, with all the amendments written in, so that everybody can use it. The whole object of the five-year period, and of not allowing annual amendments, was to try to keep the document, on which administration and discipline in all the Services depend, up-to-date, available and simple in the eyes of the Service. With that one regret, I am delighted to welcome the Bill and extremely satisfied that apparently the scheme we invented has worked tolerably well.
4.17 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful for the way in which your Lordships have received this Bill and, in particular, for the contribution which we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Spens. I feel that perhaps it would have been more to the point if he had introduced this Bill, rather than myself, because he knows much more about it than I do. On the point that he has raised he has mode a very strong case.
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I must confess that I do not know the answer, but I will find out what the position is and write to him and let him know. I was also very interested in the speech made by my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, which seemed to be a very thoughtful contribution, and I will draw the attention of the Secretary of State for War to what he said. I can reassure him on one point. The War Office do intend to use the provisions of Clause 17, but the Air Ministry at the present time are waiting to see how things turn out.
I have been asked a number of questions, which I will try to answer. The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, is quite right in thinking that the reckonable service for pension for an officer begins at the age of 21, although service before that age does count for a gratuity. This has been the position for a long time. The position of reckonable age for other ranks is left unaltered by the provisions of this Bill and still remains at eighteen. The noble Earl also asked about corporals and lance-corporals. He gave the correct reason, although he rather discounted it. The idea is that these young men, who have just come into the Army and are one the first rung of the ladder of Army promotion, should be given the benefit of substantive rank and not just an appointment. It is hoped that this will make the rank more important and give them a greater sense of responsibility.
Then the noble Earl asked about lance-sergeants. If I may say so, he is going back to his own experience, because in point of fact there is no such rank as lance-sergeant in the Army, except for the practice in his old regiment, and my old regiment. It occurs in no other. In the Brigade of Guards there is the local rank of sergeant. It has been the custom to call such men lance-sergeants because the Guards have so many public duties in London that there had to be enough sergeants to go round.
Both he and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, asked me about the question of the Act of Settlement in Clause 36. This is a technical amendment. Queen's Commissions in the United Kingdom land forces have been given to British-protected persons and they have been seconded for service in colonial forces because the Act of Settlement does not Hermit places or offices of trust under the Crown to be occupied by persons who are not British subjects. This action is

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permissible, as Section 21 of the Army Act allows a limited number of aliens to be employed in the United Kingdom land forces. In present-day circumstances, it is undesirable to perpetuate this practice. Protectorates and colonial territories are rapidly advancing towards independence, and it seems sensible that officers in the forces of these territories should be commissioned in these forces and not in the forces of the United Kingdom. That is the sole object of this Amendment.
The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, asked me about a soldier's right to a trial by court-martial. I think he was under the impression that Clause 23 affected that right. But it does not. What it does is to make it unnecessary to hold a court-martial when higher authority in the Army decides that the charge should be dismissed. In other words, the clause operates only when a man is not brought to trial because it is judged that he should be acquitted.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, what if the soldier still wishes to be tried by court-martial?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, this is when he is acquitted. I hardly think if somebody is acquitted he would elect to be tried by court-martial. That seems almost impossible.
Many of your Lordships have spoken about Kuwait and the build-up of British forces there at the request of the Ruler; and I am glad that your Lordships have spoken as you did. I think everybody is agreed that the three Services, each in its own way, have carried out this operation efficiently and effectively. Both the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and my noble friend Lord Swinton talked about welfare and amenities; and, of course, it must be very disagreeable at this moment in Kuwait, with the heat, sand, wind and flies. This is very much in the mind of the Minister of Defence and my two other Service colleagues, and I can give your Lordships an undertaking that we shall look carefully into the conditions under which our troops remain in Kuwait. I have no doubt that local commanders on the spot will be allowed the widest discretion, and I cannot but think that the rules will be interpreted with the greatest possible generosity.
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It is sometimes said by those who are not well-disposed towards the Armed Services, and also by those who are perhaps not quite so far-seeing as they might be, that in the nuclear age a career in the Forces is not worth while; that what are wanted are white-coated scientists and men who press buttons in underground shelters. But surely this Kuwait operation has shown that this is not so, and that in the national interest it is vital that we should have Armed Forces flexible, mobile and capable of intervention at the shortest possible notice. I cannot help feeling that every one of those men who are now in Kuwait, or in the ships lying off Kuwait, however disagreeable the conditions there may be, will still feel that he personally has done a worthwhile job for his country and that the career he has chosen in the Armed Forces is a worthwhile one.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, also asked me about bases overseas and what we shall do when they are not available. This is, of course, a hypothetical question and the noble Lord will not expect an answer from me to-day. However, I should hope that, by agreement with the Governments after independence, we ourselves should find it possible to retain facilities there. In any case, this is a question for the future, and in the intervening time a good many things may have changed. But I assure the noble Lord and the rest of your Lordships who are interested that this question of overseas bases is a matter very much in the mind of the Government at the present time. I think I have answered all the questions which have been asked of me.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

RATING AND VALUATION BILL
4.24 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. As there are Amendments to be considered on Third Reading, I

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hope it will suit your Lordships' convenience if we now follow what is, I gather, the normal procedure in circumstances like this—namely, that the Motion for Third Reading should be taken formally, and after the Amendments are disposed of we can then proceed to a general discussion of the Bill on the Motion that this Bill do now pass.
Before we come to the Amendments, may I without further ado apologise to your Lordships for being the perpetrator of so full an Order Paper at this late stage of the proceedings on this Bill? In mitigation, I should like to make it clear that five of the seven Amendments on the Marshalled List, namely, Nos. 2 to 6, are made to resolve difficulties raised by the noble Lord, Lord Latham, at an earlier stage of the Bill; and these Amendments also have the merit of plunging your Lordships on this rather hot day into the cool, albeit rather murky, element of the rating of non-potable water. Moreover, the other two Amendments need not detain your Lordships long, I feel, since they are designed merely to put right drafting difficulties that the eagle eye of the Parliamentary draftsman has detected in a final perusal of this Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.— (Earl Jellicoe.)
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I should like to express to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, to his Minister and to the Department appreciation for the co-operative way in which they have met the difficulty as regards the ascertainment of the quantum to be reckoned in deciding the output for non-potable water. The view taken by the British Waterworks Association was that, as drafted, the Bill was unclear, and there were certain doubts. I understand that as a result of consultation between the representatives of the Water Association and the Ministry those doubts have been overcome and the drafting is now clear. In those circumstances, I have nothing to say in opposition to any of the Amendments appearing on the Marshalled List.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
Clause 16 [Withholding of rates pending settlement of proposals]:
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, this is a purely drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 4, leave out from ("person") to ("and") in line 5 and insert ("who in pursuance of section eleven of the Act of 1925 is rated or has undertaken to pay or collect the rates in respect of the hereditament)").— (Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 21 [Ascertainment of average water supplies]:
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, with the permission of the House I would propose that Amendments Nos. 2 to 6, the non-potable, undrinkable Amendments, should be taken together. Your Lordships have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Latham, what the purpose of these Amendments is, and I do not think I need detain your Lordships long on them. I would merely make it clear that the British Waterworks Association have been consulted about this series of Amendments and I am glad to say they are quite content with them. By removing the scope of possible dispute about the potability of bulk supplies the Amendments should contribute to the simplicity of the process of determining rateable values, and this is one of the main purposes of the Water provisions of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 20, line 29, leave out from ("undertakers") to ("show") in line 32 and insert ("supply non-potable water otherwise than in hulk, they shall, in certifying under subsection (3) of this section the amount of water supplied by them")
Page 20, line 33, leave out from ("water") to end of line 44 and insert ("supplied by them otherwise than in bulk, and the amount of water certified as supplied by them shall be treated as reduced by one half of the said amount of non-potable water")
Page 21, leave out lines 4 and 5.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Second Schedule [Transitional Provisions as to Valuation of Statutory Water Undertakings]:
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 30, line 30, leave out sub-paragraph (7) and insert—
("(7) If during the whole or any part of any such period as aforesaid the undertakers were giving a supply of non-potable water, otherwise than in bulk, the amount of water supplied over the period shall be treated as reduced by one half of the amount of non-potable water so supplied by them.")
Page 31, line 12, leave out from ("aforesaid") to end of line 14 and insert—
("(c) to show separately (to the nearest hundred thousand gallons), in any such provisional estimate or certificate as aforesaid, any amount of non-potable water supplied by the undertakers otherwise than in bulk.") —(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Fourth Schedule [Minor and Consequential Amendments]:
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, this Amendment is purely drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 27. at end insert—
("(4) Section sixty-six of the Act of 1948 (which places the owner of certain hereditaments in the same position as the occupier for the purposes of Part III of that Act) shall apply for the purposes of this paragraph as it applies for the purposes of that Part of that Act.")—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.30 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. During your thorough consideration of this Bill, your Lordships have had a fairly good canter over the whole field of rating and valuation. This is right and natural. Whilst the Bill itself is directed at the relatively narrow purpose of easing in the 1963 general revaluation, nearly every one of its provisions has long roots in time and complex ramifications running through our whole system of local taxation. Fortunately its four essential provisions are, at least in principle, simpler. Industrial derating and re-rating are subjects which are relatively simple to grasp, although it has not been easy to convince industry that, when it occurs at a general revaluation like that of 1963, the abolition of 50 per cent. derating does not mean an automatic doubling of rate liability. Part of the reason is that there will be a 22 years' movement of house assessments from 1939 rental values to those of 1961–62,
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whilst industrial assessments will move forward only by seven years.
But, of course, it is this saving feature for industry which creates the major problem for householders. Householders, almost alone of ratepayers, pay their rates out of taxed income, and they do not therefore have a sort of consequential cushion in tax relief when their rate bills go up. Having concluded that the increase in their liability in 1963 might well be more than it was reasonable to expect them to bear at one blow, and having no means of determining the size of the increase, the Government have sought power, in Clause 2 of the Bill, to derate houses for the period of the 1963 valuation lists.
Another main purpose of the Bill is to introduce a formula method of assessment for statutory water undertakings. This is the only subject the whole law on which—or at least on that part concerned with determining the full rateable value of the undertaking—appears in this Bill. I trust these water provisions have given as much pleasure to your Lordships as they have to me.
The fourth, and historically, perhaps, the most complex of the main subjects of the Bill, is the rating of charities and similar bodies. That we have been able to see our way through its maze, and perhaps leave the law a little less complicated and obscure than when we started, is due in large part first to the admirable spade-work undertaken by the Pritchard Committee, and, secondly, to the Government's determination, despite some pulling and prodding in this House as well as in another place, to keep it simple and have neither deserving non-charities singled out for mandatory relief, nor "undeserving" charities singled out for denial of that relief.
Although these are the main provisions of the Bill, there are others which are certainly not less contentious. Your Lordships have been responsible for adding two of these to the Bill. Over the first—Clause 6, which overrules the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the Peachey case—some hard things have been said about the Government's alleged slowness to move and their alleged attempt to slip the provision in unnoticed by your Lordships or another place. I find it hard to believe that the critics really think so poorly of your

1497
Lordships' eyesight or, indeed, of the alertness of honourable Members of another place. Certainly Her Majesty's Government have no illusions on either score.
The second contentious provision added in this House is Clause 9, dealing with the rating of advertising stations, and here a main plank of the attack has been borrowed fom the Peachey critics, if I may so term them—that something has been done at a late stage in the Bill without sufficient time for its adequate consideration. As your Lordships will remember, the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, first raised this subject in his speech in the debate on Second Reading on May 31: he could not, I think, have given earlier notice. He followed this with an Amendment on the Order Paper on June 14, which your Lordships debated on June 19. In that discussion, no dissenting voice was heard, and I undertook that the remarks made would be considered and that a technically more acceptable Amendment might be put down by the Government at a later stage. The Amendment was in fact put down at the earliest opportunity after the Bill had been reprinted at the conclusion of the Committee stage. My Lords, if we were to accept the strictures of the advertising industry—against whom the Government certainly have no animus—it would mean that your Lordships would have to forswear all rights to make any material amendment in a Commons Bill. That doctrine is clearly absurd.
In case it should be thought that the House has made only contentious changes, I should perhaps recall one or two that your Lordships have made which have been more welcomed. For example, there is the Government Amendment to ensure that old people's flatlets provided by housing authorities and housing associations are treated for rating purposes like all other private dwellings, and not as commercial undertakings. It gave me particular pleasure to move that Amendment. Then there was to-day's modification in the water provisions, made at the instance of the noble Lord, Lord Latham, to deal with the cloudy issue of not-potable water. There have also, of course, been the various drafting Amendments designed to improve and clarify the Bill without
1498
changing its substance—including one moved by my noble friend Lord Cawley.
I do not hesitate to claim that the Bill leaves your Lordships' House the better for its five weeks' stay here. If the Government have felt unable to recommend the acceptance of some of the Amendments discussed, neither they not your Lordships regret that they should have been debated. It is never a had thing—least of all when the subject has so many historical overtones that there may be natural resistance to change—to examine frankly the merits and demerits of particular courses of action.
I should like, in conclusion, to thank noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Latham, and my noble friend, the Leader of the House, for the help which they have given in piloting this Bill, and, indeed, its pilot, through its various stages in your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
4.37 p.m.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, we have now reached the final stage in the passage of this measure, and I feel bound to say that we regret the Bill is a "might-have-been". This Bill really might have been a comprehensive review of local government finance, the finance of local government itself, the financial relations between local government and central Government, and the basis of a new approach to the valuation of property subject to rates. Instead, we have a Bill which is the eighth since 1951, which continues, if I may use the phrase, the process of tinkering which has been followed ever since 1951 with regard to the finances of local government, without any satisfaction either to local government or, one judges, to central Government. Here was a signal opportunity when, for the first time since 1929, for the most past, except as regards agriculture, all industry and all heritable property, is brought within the scope of a national standard of valuation.
As I have said, it seems to me that that was the opportunity to look at the whole of the structure of local government finance and adjust it and amend it, so that it conformed to the altered conditions of modern life and electronic and—shall I say?—atomic activity. However, here we have this Bill, which

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was essential as regards offering some mitigation from the burden which would otherwise fall upon the householder, and as regards that provision one is in some small measure grateful. I am also grateful for the way in which the Minister met certain points made in regard to the assessment of water undertakings, but I regret very much that the Minister should have maintained what I consider to be, and those concerned and interested consider to be, almost inequitable provisions against water undertakings, in that they are assessed on a basis very different from the basis of assessment of gas and electricity. The one has the advantage of 20 per cent.: the water undertakings will, until 1969, have to carry the burden of 100 per cent.
There we are; this is, as I say, the eighth Bill to be put in the locker, I suppose. Nevertheless, I should like, without appearing as it were to be a member of a mutual admiration society, whose members are scratching one another's backs, to congratulate most sincerely the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, on the way in which he has conducted this important measure through your Lordships' House. I said so after his very admirable performance on Second Reading and since then, of course, he has received most well-deserved promotion. In dealing with the Amendments he has been co-operative, agreeable and pleasant. Moreover, he has, if I may say so, as one who has been associated with local government for well over 30 years, displayed a knowledge of the subject which does him admirable credit. In those circumstances we hope the Bill in administration will be less unsatisfactory than we think it is likely to be.
4.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I should like to take the opportunity at this stage of the Bill of repeating something I said on Second Reading and also on Committee stage. It is not because I think that if you say a thing three times it becomes true, but because I believe it is true and can, therefore, bear repetition. Noble Lords referred to the fact that at this stage the level of rating for all classes of ratepayers has become the same and I think that that in itself is a wise provision. I had occasion earlier to suggest that, that being so, there should be some alterations in the
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methods of assessment of various types of industrial properties, particularly having in mind those concerned with shipbuilding, steel-making and other basic industries, such as cement and bricks; the point there being that this was an inequitable system and based on no real logic.
For example, the fact that a building could be filled either with plant that is rateable or plant that is non-rateable, according to the type of industry and the type of plant, seems to me to make no sense at all. A Minister in another place 'has said that he would welcome suggestions from industry of various categories as to some amendment of this system so that it could be equalised. I should hardly think that possible, since all that could be done is to request reduction of the assessment on some type of plant and there would be nobody very willing or able to suggest what other type of plant should be assessed instead.
I go on from that to say that, while one welcomes this Bill as bringing the rating system more or less up to date, I should agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken that a new system is what is required. I can hardly think that a system which was evolved some hundreds of years ago for householders to pay the small local rates of the district is adequate for the large sums of money which are collected now from such different forms of occupiers and for such different purposes. One would think, certainly for industrial hereditaments, that rating should perhaps be based on ability to pay something on the obligations of the community which exists because of the presence of the industry, and possibly in the case of other things somehow related to the benefits received. I do not think that people engaged in industry would have any objection—certainly they should not have any objection—to paying the equivalent rates after earning of profits, in the same way that tax is paid.
An objection that I think could well be made against rating of industrial plant, particularly at this stage, is that it is the first cost of manufacture before anything is made or sold, and therefore must put up the cost of our industry in home production and, more important, in exports. It seems odd, too, although one cannot make too much of it, that at this stage

1501
when margins of profit in industry are greatly narrowing, the rates are to beat any rate this is what people believe—increased, whereas some years ago when many concerns were earning a good deal more money they were derided. That is perhaps only an accident of history.
I should myself think that instead of this Bill, we should have had, as the noble Lord, Lord Latham has said, a new Bill revising the system of rating, and in that connection one would have liked to see, replacing a rating system, something in the form of income tax or profits tax based on profits earned, probably having some relation to the numbers employed and perhaps also having some relation to the amount of the profits retained in the business for further development and to the amount of profits distributed.
One can, of course, see very great difficulties in assessment under such a system, but I believe that if it were to be brought in and if it could he worked out, it would, on the one hand, be much more equitable and, on the other hand, it would raise a larger sum from industry and commerce and in such a way that it would not be so harmful as the present system can be. Whether it is possible to have a locally assessed income tax for this purpose I very much doubt indeed. Would it be possible to work out a system whereby one assessment for tax, which would be a new, system of the 'whole of the taxation of industry, could be made, bearing all these factors in mind, and that either a proportion of this tax should be allocated by the central Government for the use of local authorities or they should draw from a fund, their drawing power, as it were, being based on rateable value, population, mileage of roads, number of children of school age and so on? Or would it be possible to have such a system whereby such payments could be put forward a year or so ahead and an appropriate rate of tax settled?
What I think is a very important improvement is that local authorities should have direct control over some part of their income—and, of course, it is rates over which they now have control. Until the recent central grant system was introduced they had been in the habit of receiving grants on a percentage basis from the Central Government and that is one of the things one wishes to avoid. One would hope, therefore, that some system of this sort could
1502
be thought out which would be of assistance in, giving local authorities freedom of action in making their own policies and in drawing their revenues; and that also in bringing out such a system the incidence of rates, both in industry and commerce, and, I think, on the individual, too, as a householder, might well be more properly and fairly distributed. I know that that goes far beyond what is covered 'by this Bill, but I hope that thought will be given to these problems in the next few years, because unless that is done there will be the feeling that the rating system is not working as it should. All the same, so far as it goes, one would welcome this Bill. I regret that the Government were unwilling to accept any of the Amendments I suggested. On the whole, however, I have no doubt that the Bill will make for some improvement.
4.51 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I take up a little time in referring once more to the inequitable working of the system introduced by the 1958 Act in regard to the rating of electrical generating stations. I referred to this during the Second Reading debate and moved an Amendment at the Committee stage with a view to alleviating the position of those local authorities who are hit by this iniquity, particularly a number of urban district councils.
The noble Earl, in his reply, in which he indicated that Her Majesty's Government could not accept the Amendment, advanced a number of contentions which I thought I should like to study a little more carefully before attempting to reply to them; and I indicated that I hoped to take the matter up again at the Report stage. When I looked at what the noble Earl had said I felt even more dissatisfied than I had been when I was listening to him; but there seemed no particular chance of persuading him to give way, and I did not put down the Amendment again, intending however to take up some of the arguments which he had put forward. But I was then advised by those who know much more about procedural arrangements that it was not satisfactory at a Report stage to discuss matters of that kind except on the basis of an Amendment, and that I had better reserve my comments until the Third Reading—which

1503
explains why I want to put before your Lordships some rather technical argument at a stage when perhaps it is not altogether satisfactory that I should do so.
In the first place, for the purposes of the Record, I should like just to correct a mistake in the OFFICIAL REPORT (due, no doubt, to my own inadvertence at the time) which occurs in Vol. 232 (No. 97), column 749, where I referred to 25 per cent. instead of 50 per cent. The area boards in aggregate are, of course, allocated 50 per cent. of the cumulo instead of 25 per cent., as I appear to have stated; and a few lines later (at the top of the next column) the mistake is the other way round and the reference there to 50 per cent. should be 25 per cent. That is merely for the sake of the Record.
I agree that it is not unfair on the part of the noble Earl to make the point that the thinning out process affecting the unit of rateable value per installed kilowatt is built into the formula under the 1958 Act. But equally, I do not think anybody contemplated at the time that it would work out so drastically as it has done and would lead to such an unfair result, from the point of view of the local authorities in question. At 5 per cent. per annum if we have to wait until after the new lists come out before starting consideration of what changes can be made, it means—and I am sure the noble Earl will agree—that at the earliest we cannot get a revision until the financial year 1965–66. If the noble Earl can help me by indicating that it can be done before then, I am sure those for whom I am speaking will be exceedingly grateful to him.
If I am right about that, it means that the present formula will have to be running for a full six years. At a depreciation in the unit value of 5 per cent. each year it means that an electricity generating station which has remained static and in full production will have lost no less than 30 per cent. of its rateable value, and lost that, furthermore, at a time when those people without electricity generating stations will have been gathering, at present rates, an increment of over 3 per cent. per annum out of the moneys shared out for main distribution and for the Area Boards. Those with the physical
1504
hereditaments are getting less rateable value quite rapidly and those with the very small amount of physical apparatus—distribution lines, sub-stations, administrative offices and that type of thing—are gradually getting more.
The noble Earl referred to the review of the global sum for the electricity supply industry which will take place between now and the time the new list comes to pass; but if he will think of it he will agree that that is rather sidestepping the argument and it is not really relevant to the particular point I was putting forward to him. He also mentioned that that particular matter was not mentioned by the Working Party, and it certainly was not, because in 1958, when the result of the discussions of the Working Party were being put into the Act, everybody expected that that result would be reasonably fair and equitable. It is only during the period since the coming into force of the 1958 formula that it has been becoming evident that it has not been working out in the way it ought to have done.
The noble Earl's main point was that this could be put right only by taking something away from the large number of local authorities who share in the amount which is made available from the rating of the distribution side, and I agree there is a point there. But they would get more back, so to speak, than the areas without generating stations are losing. That is to say, what they are losing on the swings would be to some extent made up to them by what they would gain on the roundabouts; and I believe the general position undoubtedly would be that less inequity would be done by the adoption of this proposed Amendment than is in fact being done under the arrangements as they are working out at the present time.
One should remember that in a sense the local authorities which are gaining from the rating of the distribution side of electricity are not providing very much in return for what they are getting, as compared with the local authorities in which these big generating stations are situated, who have to provide a considerable amount of local services for the purpose of assisting the generating stations to get on effectively with their work. In these circumstances I should have thought the inequity of the situation demanded that their claims should

1505
receive rather more sympathetic consideration from Her Majesty's Government than the noble Earl was able to give me.
It seems to me altogether wrong—and I can assure the noble Earl that it seems still more wrong to those important urban district councils who are losing all this money, and are to lose more and more—that this matter should be left in this unsatisfactory state. If the noble Earl can give me, in some way, some kind of assurance that something can be done to alleviate the situation in the interim, I shall be very grateful to him.
4.59 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the three noble Lords who have just spoken have not referred with total kindness to this Bill. I do not consider their statements really to be altogether fair. However, I do not wish, and I suspect your Lordships would not wish me, at this very late stage of this Bill, to make a second Second Reading speech, or indeed a second Third Reading one; or to run over once again the arguments which we have gone over pretty thoroughly in connection with this Bill at the Committee and other stages. But perhaps I could—in answer to the three noble Lords who have spoken—with brevity, but I hope, not therefore with discourtesy, say just a few words.
The noble Lord, Lord Latham, regretted that the opportunity had not been taken in this Bill to review the Whole structure of local government finance. That was what I understood him to say. But I would remind the noble Lord that a comprehensive review of local government finance was, in fact, undertaken by the Government in 1956 and 1957, and effect was given to their conclusions by the Local Government Act, 1958, the changes taking effect from April 1, 1959—that is to say, only two years ago. I think the Government would think it too early to mount a further comprehensive review within two years of effect being given to the provisions of the Local Government Act.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I am sure the noble Earl will not mind me reminding him, if he does not know, that what he calls a review of local government finance was nothing of the kind.
1506
It was merely a proposal to put certain services, including education, on the block grant.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not wish again, at this thirteenth hour, to get into an argument on that matter, and I hope the noble Lord will excuse me if I do not accept his invitation to do so. As regards Lord Ridley's remarks, I would assure him that what he has said will be very carefully considered by my right honourable friend. But, as he himself hinted, I had the impression that his remarks went a little wide of the present Bill, and I therefore hope that he is not expecting a detailed answer from me at this moment.
Finally, as regards what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Chorley, has just said about the electricity provisions, here again I feel that at this moment it would be wrong for me to make Committee stage points. However, I would just say this—it is almost a repetition of what I said at the Committee stage. The Government are open to persuasion that the solution proposed by the noble Lord may be the right one, but they consider that it would be quite wrong to impose it at the wish of those who would gain by it without hearing and fully considering the views of those who would lose by it, and also the views of the industry itself.
I would remind noble Lords that the formula the noble Lord is seeking to amend was an agreed one, settled after long negotiation, and ought not to be altered in this one respect only without full and proper consultation. It came into force only two years ago, on April 1, 1959. My honourable friend, however, has said, and I am only repeating again what I said at the Committee stage, that there will be a full review after the 1963 valuation lists have come into force, of the formula for the nationalised electricity, gas and transport industries. The Government feel, and they continue to feel even after what the noble Lord has just said, that this issue should he reserved for consideration then, together with the various other problems which are likely to need settlement and adjustment in these fields.
As regards the date for that review, I am not quite certain about this, and I should like, if I may, to write to the

1507
noble Lord about it, rather than possibly give him incorrect information about the date when this particular thing could be looked at. I think it only remains for me in conclusion to thank noble Lords, if not for their kindness towards the Bill, at least, and very sincerely, for their kindness towards me.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

LAND DRAINAGE BILL
5.5 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 14 [Assessment of drainage charge on owners]:
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, when we discussed in Committee what is now Clause 39 of the Bill, the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition moved Amendments that were designed to clarify that clause, and I said I would look into the points he raised. I have done so, and, as your Lordships will see, I am moving an Amendment to Clause 39, for I agree it must be made clear in connection with that clause that when an owner collects drainage rates from occupiers he will in fact receive the 10 per cent. allowance if the payment is made within the specified period.
I said at the time when we were discussing that clause that if there was substance in the point which the noble Viscount raised—and I thought that there was—I would take the matter away and reconsider it, and that a similar point would arise on Clause 14 of the Bill, which contains similar arrangements for the collection of drainage charges. I therefore move this Amendment to Clause 14, which will make it clear that an owner who is required to be responsible in the first instance for occupiers' drainage charges, will be able to recover from occupiers the full amount of the charges including the 10 per cent. allowance. Thus, it will be clear that the owner will get the benefit of any allowance for which he qualifies under this clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 16, leave out from ("by") to end of line and insert ("or allowed to him under this section").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Williams of Barnburgh, who cannot be here this afternoon, and I think has informed the noble Earl of that, I should like to thank him very sincerely for the Amendments which he has put down—this one and the Amendment to Clause 39—which substantially meet the case we put forward. I wish to convey those thanks to him on behalf of the noble Lord.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 18 [Performance by river board of functions of internal drainage board]:
5.9 p.m.
LORD BURDEN LORD BURDEN moved to add to the Clause:
"(6) (a) The Minister shall by regulations provide for the payment by a river board, subject to such exceptions or conditions as may be specified in the regulations, of compensation to any officer or servant of that board who suffers loss of employment or loss or diminution of emoluments which is attributable to an order made under subsection (2) of this section or anything done in pursuance of any such order.
(b) Different regulations may be made under this subsection in relation to different classes of persons.
(c) Regulations made under this subsection may include provision as to the manner in which and the persons to whom any claim for compensation by virtue of this subsection is to be made, and for the determination of all questions arising under the regulations.
(d) Regulations made under this subsection shall be made by statutory instrument and shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it will be within your Lordships' recollection that on the Committee stage I moved an Amendment, and on the kind assurance of the Minister that he would look into the matter again I withdrew the Amendment. I have taken advantage of the time to write to the noble Earl setting forth the reasons why I think this Amendment should receive his sympathetic consideration, and at this hour I do not want to recapitulate those arguments. I want to say only two things: first, that the Amendment I propose follows well-established precedents, and secondly, that the officers concerned, who are already apprehensive, will be

1509
most hopeful if the Minister in charge of the Bill can see his way to accept the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 21, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Burden.)
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, when the House examined this Amendment in Committee I undertook to look again at the points that the noble Lord, Lord Burden had made, and to come back on Report stage with fully considered views. Since then the noble Lord has been good enough to write to me in considerable technical detail. As he has not raised all these +technical points I do not think that your Lordships will wish to be wearied with that matter, and I think we can carry on the discussion by correspondence. I will only say that I should not like the noble Lord to think that I agree with every single point which he raised in that very long letter. We can keep that a:s a private matter.
In the earlier replies that my noble friend Lord Hastings and I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Burden, I made it clear that the Government regarded this as almost a theoretical point and that there was little fear, if any, of hardships arising under this clause. However, it is obvious from the few words that the noble Lord has spoken this afternoon, and from the letter he has written to me, that there is apprehension in the minds of some of the officers of the Association for which he speaks. I still think that these fears are unfounded. But it cannot be denied that this clause provides; a new method in which the powers and duties of a river board in one of its capacities can be transferred to another authority, and, therefore, it is arguable theoretically that it should provide for compensation to be payable to affected officers, if any.
If any of your Lordships were impressed by the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Burden, and if it is your Lordships' wish—I am in your Lordships' hands—I am advised that this Amendment as drafted is perfectly good. I do not have to say, as one so often does, that the drafting is wrong; the noble Lord must be a good draftsman. However, if it is your Lordships'
1510
wish that this Amendment should be accepted, I do not object.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, before we pass on, may I express my gratitude on behalf of the officers concerned, to Her Majesty's Government and to the noble Earl in particular for accepting this Amendment. I blush in regard to his kind words in relation to my Amendment.
Clause 39 [Collection of drainage rates by owners]:
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, this Amendment has the same purpose as the one I have already moved in regard to Clause 14 in connection with drainage charges. This makes it clear that when an owner is required to collect occupiers' drainage rates, he will be able to recover from the occupiers not only the sum he has paid to the drainage board, but also the amount of the allowance made to him by the board. It makes clear, therefore, that the owner will get the benefit of the allowance. When the noble Viscount opposite raised this matter in Committee, there was another matter which he thought also might be ambiguous in subsection (2) of this clause. We have looked again at that other matter and we do not think there is any ambiguity there, so I am not moving an Amendment to cover that; but I am 'moving this Amendment to cover the ambiguity which may be thought to have existed in subsection (3) of this clause as it was previously drafted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 36, leave out from ("by") to ("which") in line 37 and insert ("or allowed to him under this section").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Williams of Barnburgh, again asks me to express to the Minister his grateful thanks for this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 42 [Payment by river board of expenses of official visits, etc.]:
5.15 p.m.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, this is a minor, almost a drafting, Amendment. The main purpose of Clause 42 is

1511
to authorise the payment of expenses to members and officers of river boards for official and courtesy visits they make in the course of their duties. The proviso in the clause specifies that payments must not exceed what has been payable under Section 113 of the Local Government Act, 1948, which lays down the conditions of the payment of expenses to members of local authorities. Section 113 does not relate to officers of local authorities. Therefore, there is no purpose in referring to them in this proviso. This Amendment, therefore, deletes the reference to "officers." In case there should be any alarm and despondency about this, the River Boards Association have told us that expenses paid to officers of river boards are already subject to national agreement. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 37, leave out ("or officer").— (Earl Waldegrave.)
On Question. Amendment agreed to.
First Schedule [Minor Amendments]:
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will speak to Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 together. They are all drafting Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 39, line 23, leave out ("Minister") and insert ("Ministers").
Page 39, line 25, leave out ("Minister") and insert ("Ministers")
Page 39, line 26, leave out ("him") and insert ("them").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that there will be a formal Sitting of the House to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock in order to receive Bills from another place.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY COUNCIL BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
SUTTON COLDFIELD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
COVENT GARDEN MARKET BILL
Examiners' certificate of noncompliance with Standing Orders, referred to the Standing Orders Committee.