Lords Sitting of 13 March 1961

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

LEGAL EDUCATION FOR AFRICANS
2.35 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can now make a statement as to any further consideration which has been given to the Report of the Committee on Legal Education for Students from Africa.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor informed this House on January 31 that he had commended the recommendations in Chapter I of the Report to certain legal bodies in this country for their consideration, and that my right honourable friends, the Colonial Secretary and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, were consulting with the Governments of the African territories concerned on Chapters II and III of the Report.
The legal bodies in question have the recommendations of the Committee under consideration, and consultations are now taking place in the territories concerned between the Judiciaries, the law officers and the leading members of the local legal profession. I am not yet in a position to make a detailed statement on the extent to which it may be possible to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee. However, with regard to the proposed Law Faculty in East Africa, it has been decided that this should be established in Tanganyika, initially under the ægis of Makerere College, the intention being to transfer it to the new University College in Tanganyika after that is established. The Makerere College Authorities are at
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present in consultation with London University with a view to securing the extension of special relationship with London for the law courses for the initial period.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask whether the Government will do something to urge the legal professions in this country to take notice of this Report and to make good a deficiency which has long been apparent in their arrangements for students from overseas? Secondly, can the noble Earl give us a date when it is expected that the Law Faculty in Tanganyika will be set up?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I really do not believe it is necessary to urge the authorities here. After all, the Report, which was prepared with great expedition, was made only at the end of January. The matter is extremely important and also extremely complicated, the task being to get the various recommendations right. It needs a great deal of organisation. I do not think that at this moment there is any question of urging the authorities in this country to get on with a job which they are getting on with. I am afraid that I cannot give a date in regard to the setting up of the Faculty. But I think it is clear that we are not just waiting. The very fact that, as I have indicated, we decided to go ahead, without waiting for the new university, under the ægis of Makerere College shows that we are extremely anxious to get on. It takes time to organise a new Law Faculty; but I can tell the noble Lord that already lectureships for this Faculty have been advertised by the Inter-University Council. That is one illustration of the fact that they are trying to get on with its organisation.
2.42 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, arising out of the Report of the Committee on Legal Education for Students from Africa, they can state how many students will be chosen from each territory and, in particular, how many places are contemplated for students from Basutoland.]
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, information is now being obtained from the Governments of the African territories concerned as to the number of students who might be expected to take the post-call course of practical training, which the Committee recommended should be introduced by the Council of Legal Education and the Law Society. The noble Lord will understand that it is not a question of the various territories, including Basutoland, choosing students to practise law. The most they can do to encourage students to take up law as a career is by offering them bursaries and scholarships. It is for the individual to decide whether he would wish to practise law, and it is on the numbers likely to come from the various territories that the information has been asked. When it is received it is hoped that it will prove possible to make arrangements so that the proposed post-call course of practical training will be able to cater for the numbers expected.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend, may I ask him whether he is aware that in Basutoland, from whence I have just returned, a number of leading men feel that it would be of great advantage to the territory to have as many young students over here learning law and, incidentally, learning the British way of life as may be arranged? Can the noble Earl say, if the territory will send the students, whether there will be places for them?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, as I have tried to explain, the individual has, as it were, to volunteer and the territory concerned can give encouragement in the way of bursaries. But in the last analysis, it is not the territory which sends people: it is the individual who volunteers. It is first a question of how many want to take law, and then the territory can help by giving scholarships or bursaries. That, I feel sure, is the course which, by and large, will be followed in Basutoland. If the volunteers say, "We want to go", then the territory will do what it can to 'help them in providing the money. On the question of whether there will be sufficient places for them once they come over here, of course that all depends on the numbers involved from all the territories. But, as I said in the first part of my Answer,
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we are asking for this information so that we can make arrangements to cater for as many people as are likely to come.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether students from Basutoland will be eligible for admission to the Law Faculty in Tanganyika?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am afraid I do not know the answer to that question at the moment, but I will make inquiries, and perhaps I may let the noble Lord know.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Hailsham, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That leave be given to advance the Motion standing in the name of the Earl of Bessborough from Tuesday, the 28th instant to Wednesday, the 22nd instant.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I shall certainly not object to this Motion, but may I take this opportunity of raising the question of Business to-day? This is an extraordinary situation into which, apparently, Members of the House have got themselves. I believe there are 30 speakers down for to-day on what are apparently both important issues. I do not see how we are going to get through and give everybody a chance to speak unless part of the Business is adjourned to another day.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords. I think the noble Viscount is certainly right in saying that it is an unexpected position. I certainly did not expect it when I came to my office today. We must just see how we get on. I realise that the noble Viscount has raised an important and valuable point, and I know that my noble friend will he available for consultation a little later.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: We shall see.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

RIGHT OF PRIVACY BILL [H.L.]
2.45 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Right of Privacy Bill. The last occasion on which I had the opportunity of troubling your Lordships with a Private Member's Bill was the Marriage Enabling Bill. All of your Lordships complained that you were unable to understand, on reading my Bill, what it was I sought to do. The Bill took eleven years to reach the Statute Book and by the time it achieved that end it had been so amended that all that was left of my original draft was my name—"Man-croft"—on the back of the Bill and the words "Price 4d.". I hope that this Bill has, among what I hope to persuade your Lordships are its many merits, at least this merit: that it is clear what I seek to do.
Those of your Lordships who have not recently glanced throught the Bill may like to be reminded of my object. I seek
"to give every individual such further protection against invasion of his privacy as may he desirable for the maintenance of human dignity, while protecting the right of the public to be kept informed in all matters in which the public may be concerned."
This Bill, therefore, is merely an extension of our age-old protection against eavesdropping, "Peeping Toms" and "Paul Prys". It is, I suggest, a logical development in a crowded and sophisticated community. Your Lordships may well ask: "Why do we need any further protection? Surely we already have protection in the law of nuisance, the law of trespass and the law of defamation." I hope to prove that that protection is nowadays not enough. I suggest that privacy and human dignity are all too frequently invaded, and that this causes great hardship and suffering—more hardship and suffering than most of us who are in public life are ready to admit; and I believe that to be wrong.
May I remind your Lordships at once of some of the things which have been troubling me, and I believe have been troubling other people as well? There was, first, the Munich air crash, a year or two ago, and the most unhappy situation in the German hospital which
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attended upon the sick beds of Mr. Matt Busby and his colleagues of the Manchester football team. There was the harrying of Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret and Mr. Armstrong-Jones upon their recent holiday in Ireland, in circumstances which caused the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, from the Liberal Benches, only a short while ago, to describe is as "tantamount to persecution." There was the case of the parents of a convicted murderer who were emigrating: their name was given in full in the newspapers, together with the dates of their departure and of their arrival at their destination.
There was the harrying of Sir John Huggins, former Governor of Jamaica, on the occasion of his contemplated remarriage. There was the shocking case of the late Mr. Aneurin Bevan, where photographers and newspapermen sought to invade the privacy of the hospital and obtain interviews and photographs of him lying on a bed of sickness. There was the case of Colonel Christopher Hunter, whose daughter committed suicide after an unhappy love affair. At a quarter past one on the morning after the tragedy their front doorbell was rung and a voice said, "It is the police". Colonel and Mrs. Hunter went down, unhappy and confused, in their dressing-gowns, only to be photographed immediately on their front doorstep by a flashlight photographer who at once got into his car and drove away without offering any apology or explanation.
Worst of all was the case of Miss Kriek, a Dutch girl who was murdered in Essex three or four years ago. The whole of this case was put before the country in a letter to The Times newspaper, written by a Mr. Fearon, a friend of the family. Perhaps I might read one or two extracts from his letter, because this is a point with which I am specifically dealing:
"Within five minutes of the murdered girl's family in Holland being told of her death, reporters from well-known British papers had swarmed into their flat, even penetrating into the dead girl's bedroom before being thrown out. One reporter even threatened to make up some news if Mr. Fearon did not give him any; and this the reporter actually did two days later. On arrival at Harwich cameramen tried to photograph the parents viewing their daughter's body, crowded round them, photographing them at all times, flashing bulbs in their faces, despite the attempts of police and immigration authorities to protect them."

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Mr. Fearon went on to say, my Lords, that he had spoken to many people in all walks of life, and every single one had condemned this ghastly behaviour. So, my Lords, do I. Hence my Bill. And I think that many of your Lordships could add to those few cases which I have put before you.
I do not stand before the House to-day as a pioneer. I am not the first person who has tried to tackle this problem. As long ago as 1892 two very distinguished American jurists, Warren and Brandeis, wrote as follows:
"Gossip is no longer the resort of the idle and the vicious, but has become a trade which is pursued with industry as well as effrontery."
Of course we do not gossip. Other people gossip; we do not. We merely pass on the information to those who do. I have often thought that Adam and Eve must have had a very dull time, because they had no one else to talk about. Warren and Brandeis go on:
"The Press is overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and decency."
Here I differ from Warren and Brandeis. I do not say that the Press is overstepping in every direction. I substitute the words "in some directions"; and I do that because I want to make it perfectly clear that I am levelling no general charge. I wish to acknowledge at once the fact that many newspapermen and many cameramen carry out their difficult task with tact, with skill, and very often with great kindness. My Bill is not concerned with them at all.
I return to America. In 1942 the Missouri Supreme Court said this:
"The basis of the right of privacy is the right to be left alone.
"If the Court decides that the matter is outside the scope of proper public interest and that there is no substantial evidence to show an unreasonable, unwarranted and offensive interest in another's private affairs, then the case is one to be submitted to a jury."
My Lords, in the cases envisaged under my Bill a jury would, I imagine, be almost inevitably asked for. As long as 60 years ago in America it was believed that legislation such as this would result in a flood of litigation. It was estimated that if a Right of Privacy Bill such as mine were to be passed into law it would have to be repealed for creating too much litigation. That particular Act has survived for nearly 60 years. Twenty States in America now have that measure, or
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something roughly like it, and others are following. I noticed with interest that on the very day I put down my Bill arrangements were made in Washington for a change of plan in the White House, to obviate the difficulty of the President and his family being spied upon by members of the White House staff.
So much for America. Other countries have recognised the need for some such Bill like this. Western Germany passed in 1959 an Act which makes actionable disclosure of information about a person's private affairs without consent. Such disclosure is permissible only if it is justified in the public interest. There is similar legislation in France. And, my Lords, as long as 30 years ago Professor Winfield, a name much respected in English law, was advocating a Bill such as this. My Lords, we lag behind. Hence my Bill.
I know I shall be told that my Bill is an attack upon the freedom of the Press. I would suggest that it is nothing of the sort. I readily admit that it may be an attack on the freedom of some Pressmen—I repeat, some Pressmen—who bully the private citizen. I would remind those who tell me that I am attacking the freedom of the Press of the famous words of John Milton:
"Licence they mean, when they cry liberty".
That, my Lords, is the root of my argument. I would also remind those who tell me that I am attacking the freedom of the Press of the words of the distinguished editor of the Manchester Guardian, Mr. W. P. Crozier, who said
"It is the job of the Press to provide news, but not to poke and pry into things a person can rightfully and decently wish to keep to himself."
My Bill is designed only to give the individual the right to protect himself from unwarranted prying into his personal affairs.
My Lords, was the freedom of the Press imperilled because photographs of Mr. Aneurin Bevan did not find their way into the Press? Would the freedom of the Press have been imperilled if the photograph of Colonel Hunter in his dressing gown had not been taken on his doorstep? And, really, my Lords, I wonder whether the freedom of the Press would have been seriously endangered if we had not been shown photographs of Miss Elizabeth Taylor, now happily on

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her way to recovery, lying unconscious on a stretcher and being carried into an ambulance. I am told that the public get only the news they want. Sometimes I doubt that. Did they really want photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Kriek viewing their daughter's murdered body? I very much doubt it, and so did Mr. Fearon in the letter he wrote to The Times. Did the people really want to see Colonel and Mrs. Hunter in their dressing gowns on their doorstep? I very much doubt it.
Some short while ago, in the "silly season", some newspapers started a popular opinion poll to discover what people thought was the most important thing in life. Some people said health. some said wealth, and some said happiness. But a remarkable number of people told the members of the public opinion poll who asked them this question that they thought the most important thing in life was minding their own business. I hope the effect of that was borne in upon the proprietors and editors of the papers that had asked that question—proprietors and editors who are often extraordinarily touchy about their own personal privacy; and quite right, too! As I say, I am making no sweeping charges. Many responsible newspapers fully appreciate the situation. They feel actively that privacy should be respected and, by so feeling, I am sure they do not feel that the freedom of their Press is imperilled.
May I, therefore, commend to your Lordships Mr. Francis Williams's hearty condemnation of prying and harrying in an article which he published in the New Statesman in 1957? May I also commend to your Lordships the Observer's protest at the harrying of Sir John Huggins, in which they stated:
"…our real charge is that the conspicuous, hut powerless, who err privately are pilloried for fun."
Pilloried for fun, my Lords! A few weeks ago Mr. A. J. P. Taylor published a more than usually flocculent and illogical article in which he said:
"Are you wrong to enjoy your newspaper?"
Mr. Taylor was, I think, getting at me. He did not say so. I am now getting at him; and I say so readily. Of course, we are not wrong to enjoy our newspapers. Of course we want a little fun in our newspapers. But there is all the difference in the world between merri-
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ment and mud. Most of us know that difference. My Bill is concerned with those who know it and are not prepared to acknowledge it.
My Lords, where do we draw the line? That, obviously, is the next difficult hurdle I have to surmount. I acknowledge readily that this is a difficult point. But the line between public and private interests can, and I think should, be drawn. I believe that nine times out of ten anybody with a small amount of sense and decency and ordinary respect for the decencies of private life could draw a line very clearly indeed. This is not a new point that I am making at all.
I go back again, if I may, to America, and I read this from the American Law Reports of 1905:
"The fact that recognition of a right of privacy would involve many cases near the borderline between the right of the individual on the one hand and the right of the public on the other, and that numerous cases would present perplexing questions, is not a good ground for denying the existence of any right of privacy, or refusing to give a remedy where it is clearly shown that a legal wrong has been done."
This difficulty, the difficulty of drawing the line, is readily accepted, by and large, by the responsible newspapers. They seem to have found no difficulty in finding out where that line should be drawn. Of course, if you enter public affairs you must be prepared to take a few hard knocks; you must not be too squeamish. I think it was Lord Birkenhead who said that the trouble with Lord Rosebery was that he was always prepared to accept the laurels of the political battle, but he would not go down into the arena and fight for them amid the dust.
One must readily admit that there are some people who over-seek, and deserve, publicity. And, as I have said, those who enter public life must not quarrel if they get it—for instance, actors, broadcasters, sportsmen, writers, politicians, and even London County Councillors. By their "position or conduct" (I am now quoting the words of my Bill) they are entitled to a little less protection than was Colonel Hunter or Mr. and Mrs. Kriek. But, even so, the most public of public figures is entitled to some privacy. There was no more controversial or more public a figure than Mr. Aneurin Bevan, but he was

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surely entitled to the privacy of his sickbed. I admit that there are people who can perfectly well look after themselves, and can take care of themselves better than others. What worries me, and what I am principally concerned with in my Bill, is the fact that simple people are often made to look silly and unhappy. There is the growing habit of the television camera viewing people who do not realise they are being photographed, and then putting them on the screen to make fun of them. Whether they ask for permission or not, I do not know. I noticed this particularly only the other day, when I saw a film on television of a crowd queuing up to buy the first copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover. In mitigation, I can only say that I derived some comfort when I noticed in the crowd a former commanding officer of mine whom I particularly disliked.
I agree, therefore, that the distinction between public and private persons may be a narrow one Such distinctions are always narrow, but surely the basic question we have to ask ourselves—and this is the question I am asking your Lordships to decide this afternoon—is this: Is this mud that the public ought to know about, or is it mud for mud's sake alone? That is the question I am going to put to your Lordships this afternoon. I call in aid once again the American Law Reports:
"So thoroughly satisfied are we that the law recognises, within proper limits, as a legal right, the right of privacy that we venture to predict that the day will come when the American Bar will marvel that a contrary view was ever entertained by judges of eminence and ability, just as in the present day we stand amazed at Lord Hall who, with perfect composure of manner and complete satisfaction of soul, imposed the death penalty for witchcraft on ignorant and hapless women".
I see the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, in his place. I hasten to assure him that this reference is not to him. I have checked this carefully, and it is a misprint for Sir Matthew Hale, who lived some many hundreds of years ago, and who differed from the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, in many other respects as well.
VISCOUNT HALL: May I inform the noble Lord that I have never had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman, so I cannot give any description of him.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I felt at the time I read that misprint that it
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was the very familiar case of the House of Lords always getting the worst of the doubts.
One comment on my Bill has been put forward by an Irish commentator, who suggests that I ought to insert an Amendment to exclude your Lordships' House from the Bill, on the ground that the House of Lords is always "fair game". I am afraid that this is well known, because, whenever we appear in the newspapers, we invariably find our names are followed by a flattering but extremely exaggerated estimate of our income, and usually, for some reason that I have never been able to understand, with the motto from the bottom of our coat of arms. If we have been in trouble with the Police for careless or dangerous driving, our motto always turns out to be something embarrassingly inappropriate, like "Steady and Sure" and if we are in matrimonial trouble it is a guinea to a gooseberry that our motto will turn out to be, "Faithful unto death". I noticed the other day, when my noble friend the Foreign Secretary was having some little local difficulty with a rhinoceros in India, that he was fortunate enough not to have his motto put in the newspapers. He would have been less fortunate to have it included if he had shared the motto of the noble Lord, Lord Biddulph, "Let us aim at loftier things".
The next difficulty I have to deal with is the difficulty of definition. I readily admit that difficult points of definition may arise, but I am going to suggest to the House that the fact that they may arise is poor ground for criticism. For instance, the Larceny Act was not thrown out simply because it was found difficult to define the expression "intention to deprive permanently". I have been asked what is meant in my Bill by the expression "consent" being given to a reporter. My Lords, this is a difficult point, but the criminal law already accepts the necessity for defining "consent"; and if a reporter discloses his identity and then asks a question he is entitled to assume that consent is given to publication. My Bill is designed to deal with reporters who do not reveal their identity, or who publish when permission has clearly been refused. That is once again the Kriek case, when a reporter said that if he was not given some information he would make it up; and did.

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Your Lordships know how difficult it is, if it is subsequently denied, to have the denial received with as much publicity as the original statement. Similarly, as one knows only too well, when one reads something in some papers about which one is oneself informed, far too frequently it is wrong. Therefore it has been suggested to me that definitions such as, "reasonable public interest", or "reasonably necessary", may give trouble. My Lords, of course, they often do. But it is very rarely, I suggest, that a judge sums up in a case such as this without having to ask a jury to define such flatters, and I myself am perfectly content to leave this matter to a jury.
I turn now briefly to the actual clauses of my Bill. My Bill is designed to strike a balance between the essential freedom of the Press and the equally essential rights of the individual. Clause 1 prevents publication without a person's consent of his private affairs in a newspaper, in the cinema, on television or on the radio. I pause for a moment to remind your Lordships that, for the sake of convenience, I have been using the word "Press" to cover all organs of communication: I do not mean any particular emphasis to be given to the word "Press". Clause 1 must be read in conjunction with the second clause, which accepts the freedom of the Press in full measure, and recognises the vital right of the Press to inform the public about matters which the public ought to know. I acknowledge that the field of legitimate news is a wide one. I admit that the public have the right to know about many different persons and many different facets of their lives.
Broadly speaking, my Bill considers three types. There is the obvious public figure—the Cabinet Minister, the Churchman, the Forces' leader and so on. There is then the person who avowedly seeks publicity. Here I am thinking particularly of Mr. George Formby, or someone like Dr. Barbara Moore. Then, thirdly, there is the private individual who, by reason of some event, has publicity thrust upon him—the victim of a rail smash, or a person standing his or her trial, both of whom, whether they like it or not, are properly in the public eye at the moment.
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But the mere fact that a man is a public figure does not, in my submission, mean that everything he does must of necessity be a matter of public interest. The nature of the facts that can be disclosed must be measured against his fame or notoriety. Therefore, I would particularly ask your Lordships to note paragraphs (c) and (d) of Clause 2. Paragraph 2 (c) says that it shall be a defence
"that at the time of the publication the plaintiff was the subject of reasonable public interest by reason of some office or position then held by him or by reason of some conduct of the plaintiff, and that the words published related solely to matters which, having regard to such office, position or conduct of the plaintiff, were the subject of reasonable public interest or were fair comment thereon;"
My Lords, they are pretty sweeping words. The second defence is,
"that at the time of the publication the plaintiff was the subject of reasonable public interest by reason of some contemporary event directly involving the plaintiff personally, and

(i) that it was reasonably necessary to disclose the identity of the plaintiff, and

(ii) that the words published related solely to matters which having regard to the event and the position of the plaintiff were the subject of reasonable public interest, or were fair comment thereon."

Clause 2 therefore gives the Press and other organs of communication enormous protection, and rightly so. Everything which is of reasonable public interest must be measured against the individual's conduct or position at the time of publication. The third clause deals with the badgering reporter or the importunate cameraman. That is again the case of Miss Kriek or Colonel Hunter. It is intended to protect the individual against the unhappier practices, fortunately not very common, of the man in search of news at all costs.
Now to sum up my points. I submit to your Lordships that the law lags behind enlightened public opinion and that there is a definite demand for this Bill, though I readily realise not an uncontested demand. I suggest that the present law does not prevent conduct which is generally regarded in a civilised community as indecent or offensive. The Press Council does its best, but on one or two occasions I am afraid it has looked liked trying to clean the Augean stables with a feather duster. I am not attacking the freedom of the Press; I am attacking the freedom of some Pressmen to play with mud for mud's sake.

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Of course, there are difficulties of definition and distinction; but those difficulties are already met, and met satisfactorily, by a large number of responsible newspapers in this country. They have no difficulty in overcoming these distinctions; they act in accordance with the terms of my Bill. These difficulties have been overcome in other countries, countries with much the same social outlook as ours. May I remind your Lordships of the words of Mr. Justice Ashworth, when summing up in the Ortez-Patino case? This is what he said:
"Those who had in their hands the enormous weapon of publicity and propaganda contained in a newspaper, had also a measure of responsibility to those about whom they chose to write."
I contend that my Bill is needed, because some organs of communication fail to accept that responsibility. I suggest that there is a gap in our law because the existing laws of libel, trespass and nuisance are inadequate to put right what I am submitting to the House is a serious social wrong. That is the gap I am seeking to fill and I ask your Lordships to help in filling it. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mancroft.)
3.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRANhad given Notice of his intention to move, as an Amendment to the Motion, to delete all words after "Bill" and insert "be read this day six months." The noble Earl said: My Lords, I put down an Amendment to this Bill simply in order to give notice that I intend to divide the House at the end of the debate. This purpose having been served, I do not propose to move my Amendment. In speaking today—and I shall find it very difficult indeed to do so after the truly brilliant speech of the noble Lord—I must, first of all, declare my interests—we are all very conscious of our interests these days. I am an employee of Associated News papers and a director of the Daily Sketch and the Daily Graphic Limited. But of course, in your Lordships' House I represent no one but myself.
I am sure we all have great sympathy for the high principles of this Bill. We love our privacy; it is one of our dearest possessions, and we deeply resent any intrusion on it. And let us not imagine
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that such intrusion does not take place; it does. I can speak only with some minor authority about the Press, but I have noticed that this intrusion has been recently brought in on television, too, particularly in a programme called "Candid Camera", which the noble Lord, I think, had in mind. I therefore would personally welcome any legislation which would give us an effective defence against attacks upon our private lives. But is this Bill the right instrument against such attacks? Would it not muzzle free speech? Would it not stop journalism as we know it to-day? Let us look closely at what it proposes to do.
The Bill lays down that a person shall have a right of action—presumably legal, not physical action—against any other person who publishes, without his consent, any words or pictures relating to his personal affairs or conduct. There are four qualifying clauses to that. The first two are unexceptionable, but the third and fourth, in my submission, would lead to immediate and enduring difficulty. Put in simple terms, they say that if you are of reasonable public interest, because you are an important man or woman, or because you have done something good or bad, or because you are "in the news", then it is permissible to photograph you or to write about you—hut only about what concerns your job or position, or about the good thing or bad thing you have done, or about your reason for being in the news; nothing else. "Of reasonable public importance", my Lords. What does that mean? Am I of reasonable public importance? And if I am, what about a doctor, or a tram-driver, or a prostitute? Are we going to have a list of reasonably interesting persons? If so, I should like to know who will be on it. I should like, still more, to know who will not be on it.
Then, what does "public interest" mean in this context? I imagine not what is usually meant by the phrase "public interest". I presume it means "of interest to the public". My Lords, who are the public? Is it the whole population? Is it the majority of the population? Is it 10 per cent.? What constitutes a quorum? And is not the public divided up into many sections, each with its own particular interest?

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Some like football; some like cricket; some like all-in wrestling; some prefer knitting. Some are interested in ladies' fashions, others, including myself, are not. Therefore, would it be permissible to photograph the frocks and hats of ladies at Ascot Race Meetings? Would that be a matter of public interest?
I can see no satisfactory answers to these questions. What I can see—whatever the noble Lord may say—is the prospect of endless litigation. I can see learned counsel arguing for hours and hours, and days and days, about who are the public, or about the relative importance or unimportance of their clients. Mr. "X", for the plaintiff, w ill say, "My client is a humble fellow of no account". "Not at all", Mr. "Y" for the defence will retort, "he is a man of the highest importance". The arguments will be endless; the situation will be farcical. It will be a lawyers' banquet. Then, again, so far as I can see, it would be permissible, under the terms of the Bill, to mention only the person or persons immediately concerned, not the relations or friends. Now you may say that that is a very good thing; but, as I see it, it would mean that if, for instance, a man were awarded the George Cross, you could not say that he had a wife and 15 children. You could not say that he had a brother who owned a pub.
I doubt whether we could even report that the Prime Minister's grandfather had been a crofter, let alone photograph the croft. Worse still, I doubt whether we could quote from the noble Lord's brilliant after-dinner speeches unless we could prove that it was reasonably necessary to disclose his identity. Think what we should lose! More seriously, I doubt whether it would even be possible to print a photograph of a country wedding in a local newspaper unless the consent of the bridegroom, the bride, the bridesmaids and the pages had been obtained in advance. We should be hindered in printing many simple things which many people want to see and hear.
Last of all, I come to this question of consent, which I will deal with very briefly. Under the Bill, you may not do this, that, or the other without the consent of the person concerned. What sort of consent is it to be—written or oral?
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If written, then I can only say that newspapers work at enormous speed, and if you have to wait for signed agreements in every case, then you will have Monday's news on Thursday. If it is a question of oral permission, what is to prevent some unscrupulous person from saying, "Yes", first of all, and then subsequently suing on the ground that he had said "No"? My Lords, I defy anyone to draft a Bill which will bring about the excellent purposes of the noble Lord without infringing the freedom of the Press. And this is not just a catchword, but is with us, I believe, a dearly loved word.
Are things really as bad as the noble Lord has made out? Perhaps I may quote from a report of the Press Council on the subject of intrusion. It says:
"The small number of complaints to the Press Council compared with the number of journalists in the country and the number of what are called human interest stories in the Press has a marked significance."
That was in 1958. Since then, I am glad to say, there has been a steady diminution in the numbers of complaints to the Council about intrusion into privacy. Of the last 70 complaints, only two concerned intrusion. Further, I think that, if your Lordships are fair, you will agree that there has recently been a marked improvement in the general tone of the Press, at any rate as regards evil and hurtful things, which we all mind so much, and to which I called your Lordships' attention in our previous debate on the Press. I would not go so far as to flatter your Lordships by saying that this improvement dates and derives from the day of our debate, but I like to think that perhaps we have helped.
In particular, this improvement applies to the gossip columns, where the greatest damage was formerly caused. To-day they are almost all harmless—dull, if you like, but harmless. And that is all to the good. If your Lordships do not believe me, may I quote from a letter of Mr. John Osborne who, I believe, is known as an "Angry Young Man" and who wrote an angry young letter to the New Statesman last week. He said, among other less friendly things, in his rather picturesque English:
"For some time the sick prattle of many a column, with its network of hired confidence men, its tin-off pimps and tittle-tattling call-girls and boys, has been severely cleaned up, even going back to the dull desperation of toadying aristocrats"—

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that is you, my Lords—
"and millionaires."
A lot of adjectives, a lot of words, but what, I think, Mr. Osborne means is that things are better. I agree with him.
I think myself that things are going to be better still. I think that what Mr. Arthur Christiansen, a former editor of the Daily Express, said is true:
"The foot in the door technique is no longer tolerated in Fleet Street."
I think that the reading public—and never forget that it is the readers who in tile last resort dictate the tone of the Press—have been sickened by some of the former extravagances of the popular Press. They have had enough, and they are forcing the newspapers to think again. But it is no use trying to hasten this process by legislation. You simply cannot do it, and if you try it you will only bring about worse evils than those which already exist.
I like the intentions of the noble Lord's Bill and heartily applaud them, but l will leave your Lordships with this final thought. If I were a dictator—and, of course, the noble Lord must not think that I am thinking of him in this context—seeking to control the Press of my country but with a Parliament to which I still had to pay lip-service, this is exactly the kind of Bill I would introduce, as a first step.
3.25 p.m.
LORD GODDARD: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading and that it may be considered in Committee. I dare say that no Bill has ever been introduced into your Lordships' House which is not capable of improvement and it may be that, with the assistance of your Lordships, this Bill can be improved.
It has always seemed to me to be a blot on our jurisprudence that there is no remedy for a person whose privacy is invaded in the way that gossip writers and unscrupulous reporters too often do. My noble friend Lord Mancroft, in moving the Second Reading, gave your Lordships instances of their shocking character, and it is idle to pretend, as the noble Earl who has just addressed your Lordships says, that there is not a real danger that this sort of thing will go on. He took up a good deal of time in saying, and I have heard it in
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other quarters, that this Bill will be unworkable. I do not see why it should be unworkable.
In libel actions at the present time judges have to rule over and over again what is a matter of public interest, because where the defence in an action for libel is fair comment, it must be fair comment upon a matter of public interest and the judge has to rule whether the comment is or is not on a matter of public interest. One thing that the draftsmen of this Bill have been at pains to do is to introduce, where it can be introduced, the word "reasonable", and the reason why hat has been put in is that once it has to be shown that it is of reasonable public interest or that the comment is reasonable in the circumstances, it is left to the jury, if there is one, to decide what is reasonable.
I may also point out that a certain amount of common sense may be expected to be introduced into this matter. Most people have common sense, even judges—though often it is said that they have not. If a judge is trying a case without a jury, he will have to decide. But it seems to be forgotten that in many branches of the law—for example, in actions arising both out of contract and in tort the commonest question a jury or a judge may have to decide is what is reasonable. Of course we know the jokes that have been made about this. It is said that there is no such thing as a reasonable man, still less a reasonable woman! But the courts have never found any difficulty in deciding what is reasonable, though sometimes one court may have decided one thing to be reasonable and a higher court may have taken a different view: or vice versa.
But this Bill is intended, as I think your Lordships will see, to prevent offensive invasion of privacy. It does not create any offence. There is no penalty provided. It only gives a person, who considers that his privacy has been offensively invaded, the right of action. He can decide for himself, or she can decide for herself, whether or not to bring an action. It does not oblige anybody to bring an action. It does not enable anybody to prosecute a news paper. It only gives a person a right of action if he considers that his privacy has been improperly invaded.
Again, I think that we can assume that a certain amount of common sense

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will be brought into the matter. I saw it said in The Times that this Bill would prevent one from saying that the Chancellor of the Exchequer prepared his own breakfast or that the Prime Minister had gone to shoot grouse in Scotland. Who would ever think that anybody holding these offices—or anybody else—would consider that that would be offensive and take any action? Then the noble Earl, Lord Arran, suggested that it would prevent the newspapers from commenting on a lady's costume at Ascot. I think that it would be much more likely that a lady would want to bring an action because her costume had not been commented upon. I think that she certainly would not bring any action because it had been.
I cannot see at present how it can be said that this Bill cannot work. It should be left to the common sense of a jury to decide whether or not there has been unreasonable comment upon a person's affairs. It is true that the Bill starts oil by saying that a person has a right of action, if his privacy had been invaded, but the defences that are then set out, which will enable a newspaper to escape, will be whether or not the comment in all circumstances was reasonable. I think that the person who is the subject of comment has done something which has brought him into the public eye and therefore it is a matter of public interest. If it is a matter of public interest, it is right that a comment should be made upon it, but only in respect of that which is of public interest.
Suppose that some person in a considerable position of life had got into some trouble at school, or at university, which might have been a serious matter at the time, and twenty or thirty years had gone by and his life ever since had been all that that of a man in public life should he. Would it be right to drag up this unfortunate incident which may have happened years ago? It is for that reason that the Bill provides in Clause 2 (d) (ii):
"that the words published related solely to matters which having regard to the event and the position of the plaintiff were the subject of reasonable public interest, or were fair comment thereon".
It would not be fair comment or reasonable to drag up things about people after many years.
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As I have said, I am not going to weary your Lordships by repeating many of the instances which we all know and have seen in the newspapers in recent years, which really outrage decency and decent conduct. My noble friend Lord Mancroft has given your Lordships quite enough instances. No one wants to stop the Press from commenting on matters which are of reasonable public interest, and the best place to decide what is reasonable is in a court of law. If this Bill should become law, I have no doubt that the Rule Committee will consider whether an action under the Bill may not be added to those in which either party has the right to demand a jury. At present there is a right to demand a jury in an action for libel or an action for slander; but it may be considered whether, if an action of this sort could be brought, it would be right to give a person the right to demand a jury. But anybody can always apply for a jury, and I confidently feel that if an action of this sort were brought, and either the plaintiff or the defendant wanted a jury, then one would be granted.
I am not so sure that the newspapers would always want to have a jury, because juries are apt, as instances have shown lately, to come down very heavily in the way of damages, and probably much more heavily than a judge would. I remember a case which I tried not long ago, when I was still in office, in which I did my best to keep the damages to what I thought would be a reasonable amount; but the jury came back and awarded very heavy damages in favour of two Members of Parliament and another person who, as I thought, had been scandalously defamed in the newspapers. This sort of case would not be one in which one would expect heavy damages, but it would be a brake upon unwarranted and offensive invasion of privacy.
As I say, if your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading it can be carefully considered in Committee. But this claim for definitions about what is reasonable and so forth presents some difficulty. It is impossible to give a definition of what is reasonable; it must be left to the common sense of the tribunal which has to try the case. I submit that this is a Bill to which your Lordships ought to give a Second Reading.
3.34 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, it would not be possible for me to feel anything but sympathy with the object of my noble friend Lord Mancroft in introducing this Bill, which he did, if he will allow an old friend to say so, in a most moving and brilliant speech. We have all seen examples in the Press where reports have been published of the private affairs of unfortunate people which have appeared to us to be in the worst possible taste, and if it were feasible to ensure by legislation that the Press never erred in matters of taste I should be the first to promote that legislation. But, my Lords, I do not believe that this can be done. With the greatest regret and diffidence I disagree with my noble and learned friend Lord Goddard as to the workability of the Bill. So, while appreciating the force of the arguments advanced in favour of the Bill, I am hound to advise your Lordships against giving it a Second Reading.
It is not so many years ago that we had the Report of what is known as the Porter Committee on the Law of Defamation. That was a very powerful Committee, and on it were represented all shades of experience and opinion: riot only were there Judges, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Porter, my noble and learned friend Lord Birkett and Mr. Justice Slade, but barristers, solicitors and representatives of the Press and other interests. That Committee dealt with this very issue that is raised by this Bill. I was very impressed by what they said on this point, and I should like your Lordships to have the benefit of it. Paragraph 24 of their Report says:
"The complaint which is summarised in the expression 'Invasion of Privacy' consists in the alleged practice upon the part of representatives of certain organs of the Press, of which evidence was tendered to us, of intruding upon those who have suffered bereavement, or cross questioning those who are related to or otherwise incidentally connected with persons who have committed crimes Or attained notoriety, and of publishing in sensational form details the private lives and affairs of such persons."
They went on to say:
"In so far as the complaint relates to the publication of details of the private lives and affairs of persons who have no desire for such publicity, the matter so published, however offensive it may be to good taste, is not nor-
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mally defamatory. If it is, and it is also untrue, it is actionable under the existing law."
I have quoted that only to show—and I think my noble friend would be the first to agree—that they had fully in mind the same problem as he is now putting before the House. Their conclusion is this:
"We think that there are great difficulties in formulating an extended definition of criminal or civil libel which, while effective to restrain improper invasion of privacy, would not interfere with the due reporting of matters which are of public interest. It appears to us, however, that the difficulties which confront this Committee should not form an obstacle to action by the Press itself or prevent it from dealing with the problem as one of external discipline.…"
That was the consideration given to this question, as I say, by a strong Committee a few years ago, and they said, as we should all agree, that the offence is primarily one against good taste.
I believe that there is some difficulty in creating a new legal right which would restrain the improper invasion of privacy without at the same time interfering with proper reporting of matters which ought to be reported. I am sure my noble friend Lord Mancroft will not mind if I say that I do not think he has overcome these difficulties in the Bill. I hope he will forgive me if I point out to the House where I think the Bill falls down. I hope I am not over-simplifying too much when I say that the principle of the Bill is to make all newspaper comment on anyone's personal affairs or conduct actionable unless the newspaper can show that the publication was on a privileged occasion or was related to a matter of reasonable public interest.
That is the essence of the Bill, and is the effect of Clause 1 and paragraphs (b) and (c) of Clause 2. The first difficulty is that one really cannot define what are, "personal affairs or conduct." All conduct is personal to some extent. I am acting personally when I address your Lordships, but at the same time my action is of a public character. That seems to be a real difficulty which would confront the courts at the outset of any action based on the Bill: what are personal affairs or conduct? Secondly, I see great difficulty in defining what is a matter of "reasonable public interest."
I am well aware, of course, as Lord Goddard has just reminded us, that in actions for defamation, whenever the defence of fair comment is raised, the courts

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have to consider whether a comment is on a matter of public interest. But it is notoriously difficult to say whether any particular topic is a matter of public interest, and I note that the learned editor of Halsbury's Laws of England starts his passage on this subject in this way. I selected this particular book not only because it has the imprimatur of my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds, but because one of the consulting panel was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, himself. What they say is quite clear:
"It is not possible to give a precise definition of a matter of public interest."
They take as an example—I quote it only to show that it is a point of real difficulty:
"The contents of a newspaper are a subject of public interest but not its circulation."
That shows the difficulty that the courts have had. The books give us many examples of cases which have fallen on one side or other of the line. I, for one, should feel no real confidence in saying, for example, that the matrimonial affairs of a film star, or the financial misfortunes of a clergyman are or are not matters of public interest. I should find it even more difficult to say whether any such interest is reasonable. After all, opinion differs enormously between different sections of the community, and from individual to individual, as to what is an interesting subject. I think it is putting too great a burden on our courts and going beyond our objective of certainty in the law to legislate in this way.
That is one aspect. If your Lordships desire to put restraint on the Press then surely it must be an effective restraint. Yet the defence provided in paragraph (d) of Clause 2 would give a defence—and this is unarguable—where the Press has been guilty of the very type of conduct which is usually the, subject of criticism: intrusion into the private grief of somebody connected with some contemporary public event. The fact is that, rightly or wrongly, many members of the public are interested in the private sorrows of those involved in all sorts of public events, whether tragic, sordid or merely exciting. How is the court to say, and what test would your Lordships apply in deciding, whether that interest is or is not reasonable?
I draw attention to the point which my noble friend Lord Mancroft had in mind,
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which has been reinforced by my noble and learned friend Lord Goddard. It is sometimes said to-day that our present laws of libel give unique scope to an undesirable type of action. I am bound to say that, just as we heard from Lord Goddard, it has sometimes appeared to me that the awards of damages in the last five or ten years have seemed somewhat disproportionate to the harm that has been suffered. But I am bound to point out that, if this Bill becomes law, it seems to me that the opportunities for actions of this type will become much more numerous. I think it is clear—and I understand my noble and learned friend Lord Goddard to agree: he says "usually", I would say "always"—that there would be a demand for trial by jury, and the effect of that would inevitably be to make it difficult to achieve what my noble and learned friend wanted: that the damages should be reasonable, and could be controlled in the way in which he would wish.
In references to this matter in the newspapers (and if my memory is right the noble Lord, Lord Rea, once referred to it, I think in supporting a Question of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham) I have seen allusions to the Universal Declaration of the United Nations and the European Convention on Human Rights. In view of that reference, I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I say just one word about it. It is true that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights said:
"No one shall be subjected"—
I ask your Lordships to note the words—
"to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attack upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interferences or attacks."
Then the European Convention on Human Rights, which I myself had the honour to pilot through the Council of Europe, said:
"(1) Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
"(2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety, for the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedom of others."

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I think the noble Lord will realise that the framers of the Universal Declaration were aiming mainly at physical interference, such as the activities of secret police and other officers of a public authority. That is clearly brought out by the version in the European Convention which is expressly directed at "interference by a public authority with the exercise of" the right of privacy. That Convention, of course, was dealing with another aspect which is very much in our minds after the totalitarian periods of power before and during the war, and not really dealing with the point we are on to-day.
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, was anxious to point out, in fairness, that he was dealing with broadcasting and television as well as with the Press. I believe that the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Television Authority would sympathise with attempts to eradicate breaches of good taste. I should like to make it clear that already the duties laid down in Section 3 (1) (a) of the Television Act are to ensure that
"nothing is included in the programmes which offends against good taste…or contains any offensive representation of or reference to a living person."
Thai is what the Act lays down for the I.T.A. Most of your Lordships would agree—I certainly readily do—that the British Broadcasting Corporation has always shown itself anxious to co-operate in maintaining standards of good taste, apart from the sanction of Article 17 of its Charter. I made inquiries on this point and I am told that the Bill would have a very limiting effect on programmes presented by both of the Authorities. I need not go into the examples, which are present in your Lordships' minds.
I hope your Lordships will at any rate show me this sympathy. There is no more difficult task for anyone than to have to say that a Bill which every one of your Lordships would favour, in so far as its objects are concerned, is, in my view, one which would be unworkable, and one which moreover, would be loose legislation of a kind that fails to give guidance to the courts and leaves them with issues which are of the utmost difficulty to solve. I am aware that what I have said must cause disappointment, but I do say to your Lordships that it is better to put up with actions in thoroughly bad taste rather than to
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create legal remedies which either would be ineffective or would be contrary to the real interests of a legislative assembly. They are matters of taste and opinion. They are so much matters of taste that they are not really—and I think my noble friend Lord Mancroft would agree—matters that one could put to a committee on law reform. This is a question of whether the actual machinery and proposals made are appropriate and in accordance with our view. I have no doubt that there is a real problem here. It may be that we shall have to begin to approach it on a less ambitious level. But, although I recognise the problem, I deeply regret to have to say that I do not think that my noble friend has solved it, and I think it would be disastrous if a Bill in the form which I have attempted to describe went out from your Lordships' House as being the considered opinion of that body.
3.55 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I rise first of all to explain that in pressing a view of this Bill I am speaking entirely on my own behalf and not necessarily on behalf of any of my colleagues. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, on having introduced this Bill, which is a matter of great public interest, and on having introduced it in the charming, delightful and capable manner in which he has done so. He has rendered a public service in drawing our attention to an evil which undoubtedly exists and which, whether we support the Second Reading or not, everyone agrees is an evil.
We have had four speeches with con-dieting views, and it is going to be exceedingly difficult for Members of your Lordships' House, in view of the eminence of the opinions expressed—that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, and the contrary view expressed by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor—to form a judgment. I personally agree with almost every word of the criticism of the Bill offered by the noble and learned Viscount. Indeed, he has forestalled, not for the first time, practically everything I was going to say by way of criticism.
I say "practically everything" because there are one or two other things I would have said: one, for instance, as

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to the lead which is given in the Bill by way of damages. A person who brought an action under this Bill would have little hope, in my view, of getting damages because, there is a clear lead given in Clause 4, that "In awaiting" (and the noble and learned Viscount will recognise that as a printer's error):
"In awarding damages in an action…regard shall be had to the conduct of the parties and to any mental distress or humiliation caused to the plaintiff by reason of the publication of the words."
Many persons would not necessarily suffer mental distress or humiliation, but they might well have a strong objection to their private lives being disclosed without any particular reason and without any particular interest. It seems to me that Clause 4 of this Bill is a pretty clear indication that in those circumstances the damages would be nominal, if anything at all. So, apart from the criticisms which the noble and learned Viscount has offered to this Bill, I would say there are several others to which he has not referred.
Having said that, however, I ask myself, has the noble and learned Viscount really destroyed this Bill? Are his reasons conclusive for not giving the Bill a Second Reading? I would say at once that if this were the Bill which we were asked to approve on Third Reading before it went to another place I would unhesitatingly vote against it, for the reasons given by the noble and learned Viscount. But I have by no means given up hope of being able to find Amendments, reasonable Amendments—and the word "reasonable" is used so often that the noble Lord will not mind my using it once more—which might make the Bill work; I do not know.
The noble and learned Viscount says it is impossible—by implication, at any rate. At the moment I am inclined to think that there are certain respects in which it could be made workable. For instance, Clause 1 is certainly vague at the moment, so vague that I imagine that nobody would want to chance his luck in taking proceedings in the light of its vagueness. He might just as well put his money on a number in a casino as bring an action. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, does not give much encouragement when he tells us that some judges take one view of
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what is reasonable and some take another, and the decisions of those who take one view are liable to be reversed by the Court of Appeal. So I certainly think that, as the Bill stands, it does not constitute much of a remedy for any person who feels himself aggrieved. But I think that Clause 1 is capable of closer definition; and so are the remaining Clauses. For those reasons, I would myself advise the House to give the Bill its Second Reading.
This is an evil. I believe there is a maxim in English law that there is no evil without a remedy, or at any rate there ought not to be. I do not think it would be satisfactory to this House to accept the position which everyone who has spoken so far does accept, that here is an evil which we have either to put up with or try to remedy, and that there is no way of remedying this evil by law. I would further say that if, when we are asked to approve the Third Reading, we find that the Bill is no better than it is to-day, then certainly I should myself vote against the Third Reading and recommend every other Member who is interested to do the same.
Having said that, I wonder to what extent this evil is really as great as has been made out. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, went back some years in order to find half a dozen examples of it. He not only looked round this country; he actually went abroad to find one. I do not know whether he could have produced many more. But all the examples that he has given us are well known; everyone who would try to argue in favour of doing something would know about these particular cases. But are there many more? Do we not perhaps run the risk of exaggerating the evil of interference with privacy? There are many people who have no particular objection to this publicity. I agree that those people would have no remedy under this Bill, but in dealing with the question whether it is a great evil or a very small one, I think we should take into account that there are many people who have no objection at all to the details of their private lives being reported in the Press, even though they are not particularly important. A good many people would rather be adversely reported upon than be totally ignored. That may even apply to noble Lords in this House, who in many cases hate being

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ignored and would rather have unfavourable comment on their speeches than no comment at all.
The gossip column in the Press has become an institution. I observe that practically every newspaper in the country has a gossip column in one form or another, although it is not always called a gossip column. Even highly reputable papers, highly self-righteous papers, like the Observer, have a gossip column, and people are very glad to get into it. I would agree with the noble Earl, Lord Arran: I do not find many of the gossip columns particularly interesting. Perhaps I do not find them particularly interesting because, like most other people, I enjoy a bit of gossip, and if in fact there were more details about the private lives of people one would find it more interesting. It is not so interesting as it might be because they do not give sufficient details about the private lives of sufficiently interesting people. Most of the people they talk about are people that I, at any rate, have never heard of.
I say all this to indicate that perhaps the evil is not as great as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, would lead us to believe; and that there is something in the point that, where they do occur, these are matters of taste which could, and ought to, be dealt with by the Press themselves. Is not one of the troubles that they are not dealt with sufficiently by the Press Council? Of course, the trouble is that the Press Council is itself constituted of Pressmen, and you are asking the Press in certain instances to be judged by the particular people who themselves ought to be in the dock. If there were outside people on the Press Council who could take an objective view, and if one could be assured that these breaches of good taste (because that is all they are) would be taken up seriously and dealt with, then there would be far less case for this Bill. Let us remember that if papers go beyond bad taste, if they make imputations against peoples' characters, or even, in my view—I speak subject to correction —if they go so far as to humiliate a person, he will have a cause of action for libel. There is a case for libel where a person is, held um to hatred, ridicule or contempt, and it may well be that in some of the cases that the noble Lord has in mind in Clause 4 of the Bill an
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action for libel would be the appropriate remedy.
I think I have said enough to indicate that I have grave doubts as to the workability of the Bill, but I should like to give it a fair chance. I would recommend, therefore, that it be allowed a Committee stage. I hope the noble Earl, Lord Arran, will agree to this. Then if, at the end of the day, it is found that the Bill cannot be made sufficiently workable, we all have our remedy on Third Reading, and I should be the first to say that we ought to vote against the Third Reading.
4.8 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, a very old friend of mine, an old Scots lawyer, now long gone to his rest, leading a case before the Court of Session, laid out his client's wrongs in a particularly clear way, and, when the Court asked him what ought to be done, said in the very words of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin:
"My Lords, I have shown you that my client has suffered a wrong. It is for your Lordships to find me the remedy."
Their Lordships put their heads together and did a bit of thinking, and they found a remedy for his client. I hope that your Lordships will take that view on this Bill.
My noble friend Lord Arran pointed out to your Lordships that of recent years the Press has improved greatly. I hope and believe that that is true. It reminds me of the boy who, when the master appeared with the cane behind his back, pointed out that he was going to be good in the future. I hope that the noble Earl's clients will behave better in the future. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has said that he thinks the wrong is not perhaps as great as we think.
I do not think that everybody writes to the Press Council. I will forbear to mention any cases that have affected my own family. I will go right back in time far my particular reference. I am glad to see the noble Earl, Lord Longford, is in his place, because this is a case that may be known to him. I think it is perfectly fair to bring forward a case of this kind; it is almost historic now. The late Lady Jersey died in 1944 at the age of 96. She was giving a dinner party at her house in Montagu Square when she was called urgently to the telephone.

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The person on the telephone told her that her grandson had had an accident in Royston with his motor car and been killed, and asked what was her reaction. Being a woman of great character and courage, she made no answer but returned to her dinner party and finished the evening. It was known to her that her grandson had been at Cambridge, and that he was motoring back that night and always came through Royston. But until the end of the dinner party she did not know whether or not he had got back safely.
Now I take it that that was a freelance journalist and I imagine it is freelance journalists at whom this Bill principally strikes. But that case shocked me so much that I went to a friend of mine in this House who was connected with the Press and pointed out what a horrible thing it was to have done. His reply to me was curious. He brought two arguments. He told me of the short time there was between the winning of the Derby and the time at which papers containing that news were on sale at Charing Cross. He also said, "You have no idea how interested members of the public are in the emotions of a person in that position on the death of her grandson." I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Arran whether that is the kind of public interest that ought to be served. I half thought the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said it ought. At least it almost seemed to me that he said so.
I have mentioned that case and have said that I think it is mainly freelances who are concerned, because I want to take the opportunity of saying that I am deeply grateful, and shall always be deeply grateful, to the Press for the tact. consideration and good taste they showed at the time of the Broughty Ferry lifeboat disaster. The behaviour of the Press on that occasion was quite exceptional and I shall always hold them in respect in connection with it. This morning there was a leading article in The Times newspaper on this subject. and the first part of that article appeared to me to favour the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft; but it then went on to say that your Lordships ought to reject it principally on the following
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grounds—and I am going to quote them because I think they are of interest:
"…the amount of distress caused by this kind of ' human interest ' reporting is easily exaggerated. Certainly there is some, and it can be acute."
Those lines remind me of a man who has run over another man in his motor car trying to persuade the victim that he is not as badly hurt as he thinks he is. The article goes on:
"But there is often mixed with it a pleasurable glow of self-importance. The itch for personal publicity, even of a not very flattering kind, is a common failing."
The argument there is that there is a large number of people in this world who are thoroughly vulgar-minded, and that people who are not, and who have delicacy of mind and character, are to be sacrificed to give pleasure to those who are thoroughly vulgar-minded. If the passage means anything else, I have failed properly to understand it. There are plenty of delicate-minded people in the world and in all walks of life. The widows of our lifeboat men at Broughty Ferry are an example. I cannot imagine anything that would have given them more pain than "human-interest" reporting on the occasion of that disaster. Another relative of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has put it better than anyone else. Writing to his brother Hercules, from the Peninsula, on the occasion when the College of Arms gentlemen wanted him to have honorific supporters in his arms, he said:
"Under our happy rules of government and society a gentleman is expected to conduct himself with the exertion belonging to principle, whatever his calling may be; and perhaps one of a man's first personal attentions should be, by proper restraint, neither to show himself off nor allow other people from folly or sinister motives to do so."
I do not think that that gentleman always wrote very good grammar, but nobody could put that better than he has done. And one of my points to-day is that those people exist in all walks of life and all grades of society, and I do not think they should be sacrificed to the itch of other people for news.
One of the greatest difficulties about the whole matter is that, so far as I can see, there is no remedy unless, perhaps, that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft, in his Bill. I will give your Lordships an example. There is a newspaper that I believe would call itself a leading newspaper of the country; and a great

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many people would agree with that. Certainly it is a very important daily and one that is justly respected. A noble Lord drew my attention one day to an article in this paper about a group of people whom I have known well during the whole of my life, the women who follow the herring round the coast and prepare them for canning or curing. These are girls or older women, arid the girls are nearly always accompanied by aunts or mothers. They go round the coast into very rough places and they are persons of the highest rectitude. They are extremely well conducted and, what is more, they know how to defend themselves—a fact which, I believe, once rather shocked my noble and learned friend. Lord Simonds, when he was Lord Chancellor.
This newspaper article made them out to be drabs of the worst, most horrible kind. It was written without any great knowledge of these women. Many of the details were wrong, as would have been clear to anybody who knew about them. But the article labelled these people in a most horrible way. I wrote a letter to the newspaper. I had that very carefully "vetted" by a friend to ensure that I had said nothing improper, and in due course I got a letter from the editor to say that the article was certainly "near the knuckle" but that it did not exceed the licene given to an old and valued contributor of twenty-five years, and so my letter would not be published. If that comes from a newspaper which I believe everyone would acknowledge is one of the leading papers in Britain, it shows that very often there is great difficulty in getting matters of that kind remedied. If this Bill has a Second Reading and can be amended to suit the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and find a place on the Statute Book, it may do something to remedy an evil which I believe is far greater than most people actually realise.
4.19 p.m.
LORD DENNING: My Lords, if the law of England gives no remedy for an infringement of privacy then it becomes a duty at once to implement some Bill to put it right. Furthermore, if this Bill itself is not workable for the purpose then let us, in Committee, make it workable; because this problem has been with the courts for well over 100 years and our lawyers, 100 years ago and more, indicated a remedy, particularly in
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regard to the intrusion on the privacy of Royalty.
When King George III was ill it was said by Lord Eldon that if his physician had made notes in a diary of the King's illness, and what he had seen and heard, and had kept those notes and threatened afterwards to publish them, then the courts would have stopped him. Then later, there was the case when Prince Albert and Queen Victoria made a number of etchings, 63 in number, of their private lives, concerning their friends, their family, and children and dogs. A publisher managed to get hold of them and made a catalogue describing all these etchings, and threatened to publish them and to put a facsimile of Prince Albert's and Queen Victoria's signatures upon them. Thereupon Prince Albert brought an action to restrain the publisher. In that action it was held by the judges that the publisher ought to be restrained, and the Vice-Chancellor laid down a principle to protect privacy in these words. He said it was:
"an unbecoming and unseemly intrusion, offensive to that inbred sense of propriety natural to every man; a sordid spying into the privacy of domestic life, into the home of a family entitled to the most marked respect in this country."
The decision was confirmed by the Lord Chancellor, who said that privacy was the right invaded. So, in 1848, the courts of this country were ready to give a remedy for the infringement of privacy.
In 1890, two lawyers in America (the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has mentioned them) wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review built on this very case of Prince Albert's, in which they said that this was just a single instance of the general right of privacy; and on that basis the courts of the United States, applying also Common Law, have founded a complete doctrine of the right of privacy. Just a little while ago a photographer surreptitiously took a photograph of a husband and wife in a loving embrace as the husband was leaving, and a periodical published it without consent. The Court of the United States gave a remedy in damages, and enunciated the principles of the right of privacy in a way which would surely do justice to anybody at Common Law. They said:
"the unwarranted…Publicising of one's private affairs with which the public has no legitimate concern, or the wrongful intrusion

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into one's private activities, in such a manner as to outrage or cause mental suffering, shame or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities …".
That is the law as evolved in the United States from our Common Law. Why cannot we have something similar? I am not in despair. The Judges may well do it. There is nothing in any decision of this House, judicially, which prevents it, in that whenever any grievous cases come up we find that the lawyers produce a remedy.
Your Lordships may remember the case of Mr. Tolley, the amateur golfer. Fry's, the chocolate makers, used an advertisement showing Mr. Tolley putting off on a drive, with a caddy with a packet of Fry's chocolate sticking out of his pocket. Mr. Tolley brought an action for defamation. He got £1,000 damages because it was said that, by putting in the advertisement in that way, without his consent, it gave the impression that he was lending his name for money, which was defamatory and might injure his amateur status. A remedy was given by this House, which reversed the Court of Appeal's decision and said that Mr. Tolley had a remedy in damages. I ask myself this question: supposing it had not been an amateur golfer but a professional golfer whose name and photograph was taken in that way, would he not have been given a remedy? Would not our courts, even to-day, give him a remedy? It is doubtful. There was defamation in the case I have referred to.
Then I would take a case which came before the court only last year. It was a case in which a bridegroom and his bride married and a photograph was taken of the wedding group and—mark you!— the photograph was ordered by the bridegroom but was paid for by the bride's father. Two years later the bride's father was murdered. Newspapers got hold of the photographer, got him to supply them with the photograph, and put it into the newspapers with a full description of all the parties to it—the bride and bridegroom and so forth. The bride was having a baby at the time. As it happened, the bridegroom sued the photographer for infringement of copyright and was awarded £1,000 damages. If the copyright had not been the bridegroom's but that of the father, who paid for the photograph, there would not be any remedy in copyright. But would not our
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courts give a remedy in infringement of a right of privacy? If they would not, then they ought to. If the law is that there is a limitation to defamation, or if we have to have a case within defamation or within copyright infringement, then the sooner it is remedied the better.
This right of privacy, my Lords, is only one aspect of fundamental human rights which we have enunciated and put our name to, not only in the European Convention of Human Rights but in our very Constitution which we have framed, and also in that which we have helped frame for Nigeria and that which we are now helping to frame for Sierra Leone. We have the words:
"Every person has a right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence."
Have we not any such right in England when it is being enunciated for us in countries overseas? Let us consider the question (it does not come into this Bill) of telephone-tapping, opening correspondence and so forth. Have we not a right to prevent infringement of privacy in that connection? All I would say is that if the law does not give the right of privacy, the sooner this Bill gives it the better.
I would not suggest that this Bill is unworkable or that, if it is, it cannot be remedied. It may be that the word "offensive" ought to be in, because it is the offensive intrusion into privacy which is the real wrong. It may have to be extended beyond the scope of newspapers which are for news. It may have to be extended—and should be—to weekly periodicals, and, if need be, to Punch, though I would not suggest that that periodical ever offends. That is not a newspaper within this sense. But these are small Committee matters. If the Bill is not workable, let it be made workable. But the real point worthy of consideration is this: if the law of England does not give a remedy for infringement of privacy, the sooner this kind of Bill does it the better.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord a question? I have come here with a completely open mind, but is there not a great ambiguity in the use of the word "privacy" or the words "private life"? By "private life" one may mean life lived within one's home; and to invade that would offend most of us. But if

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one goes to a race meeting or into a restaurant, is one still living a "private life"? It seems to me that the words can be used in two senses which may easily be confused.
LORD DENNING: My Lords, the Bill refers to the word "personal" and not "private". It is true that it is difficult to have the words "personal" and "private life". But I do not despair of that being worked out by the courts as a matter of interpretation. To get the point by way of definition is certainly difficult.
4.28 p.m.
LORD FREYBERG: My Lords, I rise to support the Bill proposed by my noble friend Lord Mancroft. As your Lordships are aware, this Bill is designed to give protection to private individuals from any unjustifiable publicity, and the aim of many of those of us who support the Second Reading is to give every individual such further protection against the invasion of his privacy as may be desirable for the maintenance of human dignity. At the same time, it is essential that the public should be informed in all matters in which they may be reasonably concerned.
While the Bill in its present form is designed to deal with publication in newspapers, periodicals, cinematograph or television exhibitions or sound broadcasts which can be said to invade personal privacy in an unjustifiable manner and to the detriment of personal dignity, I should like to move that the Bill should also include similar publications in pamphlet or book form. I myself am in a peculiar position. At the moment, as I understand, a book called Frevberg—General has been written and is being prepared for issue to the public, without anybody having consulted me or any of my friends. As soon as I knew, about a fortnight ago, I instructed my lawyer to write to the alleged printers, and we got back a most extraordinary letter. They did not deny that they had produced a book, but they said that I had the whole thing wrong because it was not the sort of book I thought it was. The letter said that in fact the writer was a man who has the greatest affection and esteem for me. But the fact remains that I have not been approached on the subject of the
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book in any way, either as to the writing or as to the publication.
Some people might regard it as flattering that their activities should be considered interesting enough to give a book of this character an appeal sufficient to make publication worth while. I hope, however, that there is still another body of opinion in this country which will regard such an unsought invasion of personal privacy as a breach of elementary courtesy and good manners. I understand that, under the laws relating to publication as they now stand, there is no protection for the subject of such a book unless the matter published can be proved to be either inaccurate or libellous. I therefore hope your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading; and, if you do, I propose to move an Amendment on Committee stage that will make it illegal to continue the invasion of personal privacy in pamphlet or book form.
4.33 p.m.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes, for I have only two points to make. I want to say first of all that I welcome the Bill which has been presented by the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft. I do not believe that if this Bill, perhaps in some amended form, becomes law, it is at all likely to lead to a great flood of litigation. I say that for two reasons. We have been told this afternoon that the Press is getting better. I think that if this Bill were on the Statute Book, the Press would be a great deal better, and there would be much less reason for people to complain or to take action. In the second place, I do not believe that anyone would bring an action, courting the additional publicity that that action would involve, unless he had been very seriously hurt and damaged by a really offensive publication.
The noble Lord has given us a number of striking examples of what I might call bad behaviour on the part of the Press, but (and here I must declare an interest) though he has included in his Bill cinematograph exhibition, he has not given us any indication of a cinematograph exhibition ever having been an offender in this respect. The industry has been in existence some 60 years. I have been associated with it for nearly 50 years of that time, and I do not

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believe that a cinematograph exhibition has ever been an offender in the sense of the offences that have been spoken of this afternoon. If the noble Lord could show me any examples, then I should be quite willing that he should continue to include these words in the Bill. But, strangely enough, although cinematograph exhibition is included, other fields of entertainment which might be included are not—for example, music halls and night clubs. I am told by those who frequent them that what might be called the "patter artistes" in these establishments are often guilty of the most malicious personal comment on people in public or semi-public life. If the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft is unaware of that situation, perhaps I might invite him to do a little research—and I hope he would not find such research entirely repugnant.
The final point that I want to make is that I wish there were some way in which we could extend the protection against an invasion of personal privacy to the protection of the privacy of organisations. I have here a cutting from The Times of March 3, the first line of which refers to its being a report of a private meeting. When does a private meeting cease to be a private meeting? When there has been some leakage and the Press report it—a most dangerous tendency in modern life, because almost always the leakage comes from one side or the other of the contestants at the meeting, with the result that the report is partisan. I hope that, if the noble Lord finds it possible, he will consider the inclusion of the right of privacy of organisations as well as of individuals.
4.37 p.m.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend Lord Mancroft in his Bill. I am not so much concerned with the writings of gossip columnists, although these can sometimes lead to embarrassment and unhappiness to the people concerned. Newspaper speculation as to whether "A" is going to marry "B" while they are still in fact, and not in "quotes", good friends, might well be the deciding factor against such a union ever taking place. Nobody who is worried by publicity given to a small matter in his private life would want to expose himself to the greater publicity of a law-suit under this Bill.
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I should like to say here that on one point I am in disagreement with both my noble friend Lord Mancroft and my noble friend Lord Arran, and that is over a television programme called "Candid Camera", which has been mentioned in this debate. I must confess that I find this programme extremely amusing. We are told—and I see no reason to disbelieve the producers—that everybody who appears on it has his permission asked first, and also that many of the people concerned laugh the loudest on seeing themselves on it. I should have thought that a programme of this kind is not something of which we should disapprove, but that it rather demonstrates what we like to think is our habit—of being able to laugh at ourselves.
My greater concern is over the invasion of privacy on occasions of serious illness, accident or death. It may be a legitimate matter of public concern when a well-known man or woman is dangerously ill, but I do not think it can possibly be necessary to publish a photograph of the patient being carried into hospital on a stretcher. It may be in the public interest to publish a picture of a very bad road accident, because such a picture may make people drive more carefully, if only for one day. On the other hand, there can be no justification for publishing a picture of a bad crash on a race track which results in the death of the driver. Some pictures, I remember, have even shown the driver being thrown from the vehicle to his death. When the public are saddened by the sudden death of one of their idols, they may well want to read an obituary, and even details of his or her last illness. But there can be no justification for reporters pestering the widow with telephone calls or interviews a few hours after the death, so that her views can be published in the next morning's paper. There is surely a point that must be possible to define, when the private sorrow of individuals should come before the need to inform the public; also a distinction can surely be drawn between news that is published to attract the legitimate sympathy of the public and that which caters for the morbid curiosity of a few sensation-seeking readers.
There are two points I should like to ask my noble friend and your Lordships to consider. Does the Bill, as it now

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stands, give the right of action to the next-of-kin when the individual concerned is dead? Photographs of people who are lying on a bed of sickness have been mentioned. If the person concerned in fact dies and his next-of-kin does not have a right of action under this Bill, I am afraid that this Bill will not do anything against taking photographs of this kind. Let us take a hypothetical case of a journalist who goes into a hospital or private room and takes a photograph of a man lying on his deathbed, or thought to be lying on his deathbed. If the next-of-kin have in fact no right of action under this Bill, you are going to get the situation where, if the man dies, the newspaper will be able to publish the picture with impunity, whereas if he gets better, they will not be able to publish the picture. That seems to me to be the wrong way round.
The other point I should like to put is on Clause 3. Would it be possible to amend this clause so as to cover cases where the individual concerned is on premises owned or occupied by him and the photographer is not? It seems to me just as bad for a photographer to take a photograph of somebody who is desperately ill by artificial means, such as using a ladder to look over a wall, or looking through a window, or by using a telephoto lens, which enables one to take pictures from a very long distance, as to trespass on private property. This Bill may need some amendment, but surely we are all agreed that the principle is right. What is or is not of reasonable public interest may well, as some of your Lordships have found, be very difficult to define. It may be difficult for a jury to decide, even after listening to the careful summing-up of a learned judge; but should this admittedly difficult decision then be left to a sub-editor to decide?
If this Bill is passed into law, I am afraid it may not be a totally effective deterrent. It is said that some newspapers look upon fines for libel which they sometimes incur as occupational risks well justified by the publicity obtained. The same, unfortunately, may be true with fines under this Bill. But that does not alter the fact that those who suffer from persecution by the Press, where persecution does take place, should have protection, if possible, and, if not,
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a right of action. I beg to support the noble Lord's Bill.
4.45 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, a good democracy is a very difficult thing to work, and our democracy depends on two factors, among others: it depends on the rights and freedoms of the individual, and on the rights and freedoms of the Press. This Bill comes at the point where these two may conflict, and therefore it is right that it should be subjected to close scrutiny. I felt great sympathy for my noble friend Lord Silkin when he was speaking of the Bill and giving his views about it. The job of the Press is a very difficult one. It has to hold up a mirror to life, to the doings not just of great people and good people, but also of wicked people and bad people. It has to show the small folk as well as the big. It has to show their joys, their laughter, their sorrows and their tears, if it is to do its job properly. None of that is easy, and it may sometimes inevitably cause distress to some people.
The offensive situations arise, I think, in two sets of circumstances. The first is the need for all of us, whether we lead public lives or not, to have our off-duty times. We must be allowed to have our quiet off-duty periods, when we have not got to put on a show, if we are to live at all and to do our public service. Secondly, we must be free from intrusion at time of private grief, and I think that applies to everybody. They are fundamental rights for ordinary human beings to enjoy. The newspapers, in the telling of their human stories, have to tread warily, but they can do it without causing distress and misery. I think it was about two years ago that Mr. Cecil King, the Chairman of the Daily Mirror, gave instructions to his reporting staff that they were not to obtrude into personal grief, and that they were not to offend in the kind of way against which this Bill provides action. Since then, I believe one journalist on the staff of the Daily Mirror has transgressed in that way and was instantly dismissed without any question of appeal. The Daily Mirror nevertheless produces an exceedingly lively human journal, and if that can be done under provisions which are identical, or as near as makes no difference identical, with those achieved by

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this Bill, surely we should not worry about its interfering seriously with the freedom of the Press to picture ordinary life.
The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, thought the offenders were the free-lance journalists. I do not think that is so. We know who the offenders are. There is one newspaper group which has a strange habit. Instead of sending one reporter or two reporters to investigate a matter, it sends six or eight, so that these people are competing one with another for the story, for what is called the "by-line"; that is to say, the attribution of authorship of the article which appears. It is this intense competition among people working for the same person which is responsible for almost all these offensive cases of intrusion. It is well known in Fleet Street—I do not think there is any secret about it—and certainly it should be dealt with quite satisfactorily if this Bill is passed.
There is one risk which the Bill carries with it, and that is the creation of a new kind of "ambulance chaser". I think the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack had that in mind. Your Lordships are familiar with "ambulance chasers", as are all of us who have worked in hospital casualty departments. They are the thugs of unscrupulous lawyers who collect details of casualties as they are brought into the hospital in order to persuade the person concerned to bring an action for damages as a result of the accident. The kind of "ambulance chasing" which might arise under this Bill, unless we are very careful, is that these unscrupulous people would look through every newspaper each day to see whether there was a possible intrusion into privacy, and then would go to that person and say: "Look here, there is a chance that you might be able to get quite a lot of money by bringing an action against the newspaper for intrusion of privacy". That is the risk. I think that is the only risk, but I am sure we must look at the Bill very carefully to see whether we can cope with it. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, can comment on this when he comes to reply.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, is not that champerty or something like it?
LORD TAYLOR: I really do not know. But it may happen. It will probably be immoral or illegal, but I think it is a risk. Reference has been made to Professor Winfield and his desire that a new tort should be created—namely, invasion of privacy—and perhaps that is what we are starting to do to-day. I very much hope that your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading, knowing that, by so doing, your Lordships will be remedying some unpleasant evils and making the unpleasant part of the Press a little less unpleasant.
4.51 p.m.
LORD SOM̃ERS: My Lords, several noble Lords have considered that this Bill is a serious intrusion into the liberty of the Press. I can only say that any member of the Press who considers that his publications would be liable to action under this Bill is tacitly admitting that he publishes exactly the kind of thing that we are trying to prevent. In these days, when individual liberty is gradually being eroded away, liberty over one's property, one's actions, even one's very person, I think that this Bill is very necessary.
However, before I go any further, being conscious of the fact that not only the eyes but also the ears of the Press are upon me, I should like to say that the task of the reporter is not an easy one. If he wants to earn his living, he has to find news of some sort—of the sort that is going to please his sub-editor, so that often it is more the sub-editor than the reporter who is to blame. What is more, when the reporter has handed in a version of the news that he has obtained it may be altered by the sub-editor and may appear in a totally different form, sometimes in even a damaging form. As things are at the moment, a person has no protection whatsoever.
The noble Earl, Lord Arran, said that complaints to the Press Council have been very much reduced. I do not doubt that he is right, because he is speaking from authority. But I wonder whether that is not largely because people realise that it is of little use if they do complain. It is very hard to prevent the Press publishing what they wish to, and if one makes complaint and the newspaper is of a less scrupulous

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nature, which is the only department of the Press affected by this Bill, perhaps they will publish something even worse about one. I am all in favour of a free Press, as naturally we all are; but, as my noble friend Lord Mancroft said, there is all the difference between liberty and licence. There is no such thing as complete freedom: all there is is freedom under the law. I am thankful that that is the case, because if we had such a thing as complete freedom, I should be afraid of some heavy article being dropped on my head from the gallery and I should have no legal redress.
A good deal has been said about the question of reasonable public interest. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, has said that the Press caters for many different sections of the public; and of course he is right. What is interesting to one section is not interesting to another. But it is the papers who cater for what one might call interest in "mud" that we want to control by this Bill. Papers who publish perfectly innocent social interest or personal information will not suffer prosecution; and if they do, they will be perfectly able to defend themselves. But it is highly unlikely that they will ever get so far as that. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, said, what lady would object to being photographed at Ascot? And there are many other similar examples of which one can think.
I think that it might be necessary to define a little more clearly the word "consent" in Clause 1. On occasion I have been rung up by the Press and asked various questions. Does the fact that I answer those questions constitute my consent? Because sometimes when an article has appeared in the paper it appears in a very different form, not exactly insulting, but in rather bad taste. I think that that is the kind of thing against which one has to be protected; but it will be difficult, because one cannot ask for a proof of what is going to be published before one gives consent. I must leave that difficulty to be overcome by those more experienced in this than I am.
Coming to the question of what is reasonable public interest, I am perfectly willing to accept the higher authority of my noble and learned friend Lord Goddard about that and leave the question to the judge. Surely "reasonable"
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must mean "reasonable within the bounds of good taste;" and no judge would call anything outside those bounds reasonable. Many remarkable cases have been quoted of reporters who have either forced their way physically into houses or telephoned and obtained information which was unwillingly given. I think that these are the cases that we should be able to restrain. For instance, would it be reasonable public interest for all the sordid details of the divorce of a young couple, of whom nobody has ever heard, who are not public figures, a young couple who live in some obscure part of London to be published, together with pictures and quotations from their remarks? Is that reasonable public interest? I sincerely hope that if that were raised in court the judge would say that it was not. Therefore, although possibly the Bill may need some amendment in Committee, I sincerely support the Second Reading.
5.0 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, having been abroad for the past fortnight I am rather nervous about addressing your Lordships on this subject, because I have had limited access to what has been happening in your Lordships' House only through the popular newspapers as opposed to my usual perusal of Hansard, and I do not quite know how I stand about declaring an interest. I gather than one or two words have been said on this subject in your Lordships' House, and before I go further I hasten to declare that I am connected with a group of provincial newspapers—no national or London newspapers—and anything that I say will be probably slightly coloured by that fact. I am at one with everyone who says that where reporters do intrude on the privacy of people in grief or sorrow this should not be allowed. I am also at one with those who think that much of what is published to-day ought not to be published. But I am afraid I disagree with virtually every other speaker as to the practicability of this Bill, and I personally cannot see how it could be made to work.
I should like first to draw your Lordships' attention to the wording of Clause 1, which refers to the publishing of
"any words relating to his personal affairs or conduct."

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Let us suppose that during my schooldays I had gone to Ascot, and that a reporter had taken a photograph of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, for the sake of his carnation, and that Lord Mancroft had given his permission for the photograph to be published in the newspapers the next day. If I happened to be the next person queueing up to have a word with my bookmaker and appeared in the background of the photograph, and if my housemaster had seen this photograph, with the result that I suffered severely as a result of going to Ascot, then under the Bill, so far as I can make out, I should have a perfect right to sue the newspaper and get what I trust would be substantial damages, because Clause 4 refers to "mental distress or humiliation". I feel that there would have been a great deal of this—and possibly of physical, too! But I do not think we can hold the newspapers responsible for something like that.
I feel also that in some cases it may make intrusion into privacy more difficult to stop. It gives the intruders a defence if the victim is in the public eye, and it is framed so loosely that it will rouse not only the opposition of people against whom it is aimed, but also the opposition of the great bulk of the Press (as I think it has done already), of radio and, presumably, television interests, who have no wish to encroach upon anyone's privacy but will see their quite legitimate business menaced. The Bill makes it possible for anybody not in the public eye to bring an action for the publication of any personal statement, whether there is damage or not—and I think that is important—whether the statement is harmless or not, and whether it is useful and interesting or not. This is flinging the door wide open for completely frivolous and vexatious actions. I do not say that the people concerned would get large damages—probably they would not—but they could still bring, and win, a case under the Bill.
I should like to give one or two other examples of why I think the Bill would not work. Local newspapers consist largely of reporting local events, and that is what sells them. Some of the main local events reported are weddings. In the photographs of the weddings you have a very nice group, and in the background you probably have other people standing around. Not only those in the wedding
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group are named in local newspapers, but they also say that so-and-so and so-and-so were there. It would be physically impossible for the local newspaper reporter to get the consent of all the people named.
To give another example, on a rather higher plane, there are certain magazines devoted entirely to reporting who was at a certain dance, and particularly charity dances; they give a column of names, with extreme dullness and great boredom; and after the name, quite often, they give, inaccurately, what the people do. I cannot see that that does any great harm to anyone, but for that to be legal under this Bill the reporter would have to go round and get the consent of all the people whom he proposed to mention. I do not think that would be practical.
LORD SOM̃ERS: May I interrupt the noble Duke? Does he not agree that in that case the only action that could be taken would be by those whose names were not reported, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, suggested?
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I think that might well be true. Nevertheless, the people whose names were reported would have power under the Bill to take action, and I think there is a definite danger that they might. For instance, if same noble and learned Lord told his wife that he was going to a conference, and then it was reported that he was seen walking on the beach at Brighton, or something like that—
LORD GODDARD: Not on the beach!
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: Perhaps not on the beach—but if it was reported that he was seen at Brighton, his wife might put a false construction on the report and the noble and learned Lord might easily suffer for it and get some damages from the newspaper. I do not think in that case you could really blame the newspaper for reporting that fact.
Newspapers, on the whole—in fact, almost entirely, with the exception of local newspapers—report the activities of people in the public eye, and therefore they have the defence under Clause 2. But local newspapers suffer more severely, in that the people about whom they report are not so much in the public eye and, therefore, they might not be covered by Clause 2. I suppose that the winner of the whist drive, or even the winner

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of the booby prize at Little Twissleton is in the public eye, so far as Little Twissleton is concerned, and therefore perhaps there would be a defence if it were reported that the booby prize was won by "Mrs. Snooks". But I think there would he a danger if the newspaper circulated outside Little Twissleton, because "Mrs. Snooks" might then say that she was no longer in the public eye and the fact that she won the booby prize did her damage in that it showed that she was not a very skilful whist player.
With Clause 3 I am in complete agreement: I think it is scandalous when reporters try to get information by force or threats, or try to get information from employees or from members of the family. I should be quite happy if the Bill were not given a Second Reading, and if the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, could then introduce a much shorter Bill—which would only cost him 4d., as the previous one did, instead of 6d., as this one does—containing only Clause 3, slightly re-worded. I think that the risks of giving this Bill a Second Reading are too great to take, and I would ask your Lordships to reject it. At the same time, I should like to make it quite clear that I am in complete sympathy with what I think to be the objects of the Bill, and if, as I say, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, could think of a Bill which consisted only of Clause 3 slightly re-worded, I should be delighted to support it and would hope that it would go through both Houses as quickly as possible.
5.10 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, by agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I intervene very briefly at this stage in order to lend support to the Bill. May I say at the outset that this is not due to the fact that I do not think that in many respects we have a very good Press, nor is it based on any general quarrel with our Press. May I also say that I agree with the noble Duke who has just spoken, to this extent? I believe that if this Bill receives a Second Reading it will, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, also pointed out, require some Amendment in the interests of the legitimate activities of the Press, with which none of us wishes to interfere.
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The reasons why I support the Bill are briefly these. I have always thought, from the first moment that I studied law, that the law of England should provide for some protection of privacy. I noticed that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, pointed out that this House as a judicial assembly has never decided that that right to privacy does not exist. Well, I wish my noble and learned friend Lord Denning luck when the matter comes before this House as a judicial assembly. I would much rather have a Statute on which my hopes could more certainly he based. The noble and learned Lord mentioned the case of Tolley v. Fry. Counsel in that case happened to be in my chambers at the time during my early days at the Bar. I can only say that all of us believed that, in order to succeed in that case, the plaintiff had to succeed in libel. I do not think it crossed the mind of any of the counsel engaged in that case that he might have succeeded on the ground of a Common Law right to privacy. Nevertheless, I listened with the greatest interest and enchantment to what the noble and learned Lord said.
My noble friend Lord Arran remarked as a reason against this Bill—or one of the reasons he adduced against it—that, after all, the readers dictate the tone of a newspaper. I do not know whether that is always true, but I am willing for the moment to assume that it is. But assume that the tone dictated to the newspaper by its readers implies the sort of conduct that every speaker in this debate detests. Then, notwithstanding that these things may represent the wishes of the readers, I would still provide the victim with a right of action at law. A good deal has been said about taste—that there is some intrusion against good taste. Does it not go further than that? Do we not all know that it sometimes amounts to persecution? What about people in the public eye? Perhaps, because they are engaged to be married, they cannot even have a peaceful week-end with friends in the country, because the Press can use helicopters, can mount ladders on adjoining property, can use a telephoto lens, and can do all these things in such a way as to deprive the injured party of any peace whatsoever during that weekend.

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Do we really wish that conduct of that sort should be without remedy in English law? I believe it is the universal wish of this House that such a remedy should be provided. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, says "No". I had forgotten or overlooked for the moment that he does not wish to give a remedy. I think he will find that a great many people do desire to give such a remedy. For those reasons, I shall certainly vote in the Division that this Bill shall receive a Second Reading. That does not mean that I have wholly overlooked some of the difficulties pointed out by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack and others. I am sure that there are objections of substance which will have to be met but, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, pointed out, there will be another opportunity of voting on this Bill if in the Committee stage we are unable to improve it.
May I mention one other matter raised by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack? He dealt with the point of the mention of the right to privacy in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the European Document, and pointed out that the protection of privacy—I am giving a general description—conferred by those two documents was clearly directed against the tyrannical action of Governments. I agree with him in everything except his conclusion. Would it not be very strange indeed if we thought it necessary and proper to provide in any Universal Declaration of Human Rights against the tyrannical action of Governments but left the victim entirely without remedy if the injuring party was not the State but a newspaper? It seems to me a most odd conclusion. I should have thought that if there were a case for this Universal Declaration of Human Rights to protect the injured party against the action of Governments, a fortiori there should be a right of action against a private individual or a newspaper that invaded such rights.
I am sorry to have delayed the House so long, but I have given the reasons why, without having any general quarrel with the Press, I think we ought to provide, although it is very late in the day, that the law of England shall give some right of privacy, and I think for that reason this Bill should be supported.
5.18 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think it is quite clear that this Bill is about to receive its Second Reading, and I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, not only on the skill with which he introduced it, but on his success in picking another winner so far as the Second Reading hurdle is concerned.
I do not think there is any need to recapitulate all the arguments, but I think we should recognise straight away that those of your Lordships who say that this is not a great evil must realise that Governments are always reluctant to deal with minor evils, especially when it brings embarrassment in its train. I think this is a typical Private Member's Bill which, in whichever House it starts, should probably start from the Back Benches; and I hope that after it has had its Second Reading the Lord Chancellor and the Government may change their tune a little and will seek possibly to make such improvements as may be necessary.
This Bill, of course, arises out of the failure of the Press Council to do its job. I do not propose to develop that theme any further, but certainly many of us had hopes that some restriction on the intrusion of privacy and breaches of taste would be brought about by a more effective Press Council.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, I must interrupt at this stage. The noble Lord is not being accurate. I have already pointed out that of the last 70 complaints to the Council only two have been on the matter of intrusion.
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Earl has made his speech, and I am going to deal with some of the points he made. He made one of the most unsatisfactory criticisms of this Bill that could be made. He set up a number of thoroughly unlikely propositions of the kind of cases that might come before the courts. The noble Earl dealt with what I can only regard as a ridiculous suggestion that cases might arise because people's dresses have been described at Ascot. The noble Earl also mentioned the possibility that, in referring to a George Cross winner, it would be too dangerous to mention his family. It would be perfectly in order. Nobody seriously considers for one moment that

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such an act might give rise to an action in the court, unless there was an intrusion of an improper kind and an attempt to find out details of a personal nature.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: Under the terms of the Bill it would be perfectly legitimate to bring such an action.
LORD SHACKLETON: All I say is that the noble Earl should study the Bill again. He cannot seriously believe, in the face of the advice he has already been given, that anybody is going to bring an action which is going to bring no benefit in its train. What is the possibility of damages arising out of a report of that kind? I do urge the noble Earl to look again at the Bill and to listen to the opinions given by noble Lords who are more learned in the law than I am on this point.
He went on to say that if he wished to take a step towards a dictatorship this would be one of the first measures he would take. I am thankful to say that the noble Earl is not made of the stuff of dictators; he is the last person to wish to introduce a dictatorship, and for that reason he is unsuited to judge the steps which a dictator would take. This Bill gives no right to the Government whatsoever; it gives merely a right of action in a civil court, and a judge or jury will decide whether the grounds are reasonable or not. Therefore, I am not, and I am sure your Lordships will not be concerned over this particular argument.
I should like to say something about this question of personal publicity. It has been frequently said and implied that everybody likes personal publicity. I do not, and I think there are many people, including many in public life, who regard personal publicity as distasteful and frequently in bad taste. I do not think, therefore, we ought to accept the view that people who are so frequently reported in this sort of way are secretly gleeful about it. My own experience of personal publicity is that it generally enhances the fury of your enemies and arouses the jealousy of your friends, and I think many of us would be very glad to be without it. But clearly there are matters which are of public interest, and those are the matters which are properly dealt with in the Press.
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I am glad that this Bill covers the subject of broadcasting. There are a number of programmes on which permission is obtained, some of which, despite what the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said, do, in my opinion, offend against certain canons of good taste and come very near to invasion of privacy. There is the programme, "This is Your Life". Certainly permission is obtained, and many people like it. But we know the case of Mr. Blanchflower who refused to allow it to go on. He spoiled his gesture a little later by appearing on commercial television the following week. There is an even more objectionable programme, and that is "Candid Camera". This has been referred to, and I must say that it is one of the most offensive types of programme one could see. I urge any of your Lordships who may not have seen it to see whether you can stand the sight of simple people being made fools of for the delight of those people who might begin to develop the very sadistic type of humour about which we have had so many criticisms with regard to America.
When the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack spoke about television and broadcasting seeking to maintain good standards, I noticed that he said that the B.B.C. did maintain them, but I think he did not say anything about the commercial television people maintaining them. But if he does think they are maintaining them, then I can only say that his standards and mine are different. I found some difficulty in understanding the arguments of the noble and learned Viscount—I am sorry if I misinterpret him. He referred to the Porter Committee. I do not think that reference threw any light at all upon this particular discussion. They indicated that there were difficulties in the matter. We know that there are difficulties in the matter. He referred also to the Declaration of Human Rights. Here again, I think we all have a very clear view as to what we regard as human dignity. We also have a clear view that things are done by the Press and others of this particular kind which we regard as an invasion of human dignity. This is not an attack on tile Press, and I hope that the Press and those who are interested in the welfare

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of the Press will realise that it is not an attack on them.
The only possible charge that I think can be brought against this Bill is as to whether, in fact, it will achieve all it sets out to do. It cannot be denied, and I do not think it has been denied, that there is a need for something of this kind, provided that it can be found. We have the support of two very distinguished noble and learned Lords, both with deep experience in this field, and both saying that it is desirable; and, furthermore, saying that it is perfectly possible, as all of us know, to decide what is and what is not reasonable in a particular issue. It is very difficult when you are confronted, as some noble Lords have attempted to confront us to-day, with a hypothetical issue, but once you have a case in front of you, once the matter has been argued out, then surely it is possible to arrive at a decision, and damages will be related to the damage done and the harm done. I hope that this Bill will receive its Second Reading, and that we shall take it through its Committee stage and that it will ultimately form part of the law of our land.
5.28 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we have another important debate ahead of us, and I will not take up any more of your Lordships' time. I should like only to thank those noble Lords who have been kind enough to come and support me to-day in this debate. I think at the moment I am leading 12 to 3. There

CONTENTS

Ailsa, M.

Conesford, L.

Hughes, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Jessel, L.

Airedale, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Latham, L.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Crathorne, L.

Lindgren, L.

Allerton, L.

Croft, L.

Listowel, E.

Amulree, L.

Crook, L.

Lothian, M.

Amwell, L.

Denham, L.

Lucan, E.

Archibald, L.

Denning, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Attlee, E.

Derwent, L.

Mancroft, L. [Teller.]

Auckland, L.

Dynevor, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Birdwood, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Meston, L.

Bossom, L.

Ferrier, L.

Milverton, L.

Boston, L.

Freyberg, L.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Goddard, L.

Newall, L.

Buchan, E.

Goschen, V.

Rea, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Grantchester, L.

Saltoun, L.

Burden, L.

Grenfell, L.

Shackleton, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Hatherton, L.

Silkin, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Horsbrugh, B.

Somers, L.

Colwyn, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Spens, L

Colyton, L.

Howe, E.

Stonham, L.

the matter cannot rest, because although the majority of your Lordships are clearly in favour of the general principles of my Bill the Government have advised your Lordships that it is not a workable measure. I bow with the greatest respect to my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, who treated my speech with the utmost kindness and consideration. I bow with equal respect to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Denning, who treated my speech with the greatest kindness and consideration but were in favour of it. That encourages me to ask your Lordships whether the Second Reading of this Bill should not be granted and the chance given to you to amend it—I should be the last person in the world to claim that my draftsmanship is anything like perfect—to see whether we cannot do a little more to improve the law of our land in a way which I think at the moment your Lordships clearly wish it to be improved.
On Question, Whether the Bill shall be now read 2a?
Their Lordships divided:
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I understand that I am in duty bound to inform your Lordships that the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, has voted in the wrong Lobby. He asks me to inform your Lordships and to ask that the necessary adjustment may be made.
Ordered (pursuant to Standing Order 48), that the Division Lists be amended accordingly.
Contents, 74; Not-Contents, 21.

Strang, L.

Taylor, L. [Teller.]

Tweedsmuir, L.

Strathalmond, L.

Teviot, L.

Williams, L.

Summerskill, B.

Teynham, L.

Wise, L.

Swinton, E.

Torrington, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arran, E. [Teller.]

Hawke, L.

Mills, L.

Atholl, D. [Teller.]

Home, E.

Newton, L.

Carrington, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Perth, E.

Chesham, L.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

St. Aldwyn, E.

Craigton, L.

Lansdowne, M.

St. Oswald, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Hastings, L.

Merrivale, L.

Wolverton, L.

Resolved in the affirmative; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE NATIONALISED TRANSPORT UNDERTAKINGS
5.42 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM LORD TEYNHAM rose to call attention to Cmnd. 1248, The reorganisation of the Nationalised Transport Undertakings; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in calling attention to the proposals for the reorganisation of the nationalised transport undertakings I should like to deal in the first place with the British Railways. I cannot myself claim to be an expert on railways, although during the General Strike many years ago I used to drive the Marylebone to Manchester express every day with a booking clerk as a fireman—and a jolly fine fireman he was. I must say that I rather lament the passing of the steam locomotive. I remember asking one of the drivers of the big new diesel engines the other day what he thought of his new car, and his reply was, "It doesn't breathe." I think I fully understand what he meant, and I must say that I sympathise with him.
My Lords, in this very complex matter of railway reorganisation, may I suggest that we must consider not what sort of railway system we want in the immediate future, but what we shall want in ten or, perhaps, fifteen years' time. The railways are going to have increasing competition, not only from road services but also from other forms of transport, and from improved air services. Before long we shall have, I suppose, the vertical-lift aircraft, and other forms of new transport, possibly based on the air-cushioning system. I foresee, in the not too distant future, a streamlined rail-
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way system, with perhaps one or two main lines running to the North and South, and one to the East and West, with most of the branch lines closed down except for high-density feeder traffic into the large cities. The closing of branch lines must, of course, mean the provision of other services, and it may even be necessary to subsidise buses and bus companies to provide the uneconomic services. At this point, perhaps, I should declare that I am a director of a bus company.
I entirely support the Minister of Transport in his re-examination of the whole of the proposed electrification of the main-line system, and his view that we should pause a little before undertaking to carry out the whole of the work. Do we yet know what is the most efficient system to employ, the diesel or electrification, for our main-line systems? Shall we get value for money if we carry out electrification of all the main lines? It is true that the electrical industry had been led by the Transport Commission to believe that a number of contracts were coming to them, and that postponements were affecting their interests. On the other hand, I would say the matter was so important that we must consider what is best for the country; as a whole, in matters of finance and value for money.
I would say straight away that I welcome the proposals for the reorganisation of the railways, which are outlined in the White Paper. I think we are now getting down to basic facts, and looking at the whole matter in a realistic way. But as regards the financial provisions are we correct in assuming that the capital assets of the railways, which it is proposed to write down, are only £1,600 million? I think it is true to say that the Chairman of the Transport Commission indicated in the White Paper in 1956 that the replacement costs of the

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Transport Commission's assets as a whole were in the nature of £4,000 million, and if we allow £1,000 million for road transport, docks and other ancillaries, the assets of British Railways would be very much nearer £3,000 million than the £1,600 million. Perhaps the Minister who is going to reply for Her Majesty's Government will be able to say something about these financial matters.
Also, we must not forget that, despite the financial reliefs which are to be given to the railways, very large sums will have to be provided from the Exchequer to meet current deficits over the next few years; in fact not less than £103 million will have to be found this year. But I cannot help feeling that Her Majesty's Government still appear to be over-optimistic in thinking that the railways will be able to pay their way, in five years' time. I feel sure that unless the railways are streamlined, unless all uneconomic services are suspended and abolished, there will be no hope at all. Even poor old Bradshaw is feeling the pinch at the present time! There is no doubt that certain essential railway services will have to be subsidised as necessary, and I hope, for the benefit of the taxpayer, that these subsidies will be indicated in the accounts of each particular region.
I was delighted to see that the Minister of Transport is proposing to convert certain railway tracks into roads. I believe that some six miles of a disused line are to be used as part of a route for the new Durham motorway, and I hope that this may be the beginning of many more conversions to roads in suitable cases.
In the new structure set out in the White Paper we are to have a Nationalised Transport Advisory Council. Perhaps the Minister who is to reply for Her Majesty's Government this evening would expand a little on the purposes of this new Council, and say how it will be related to the Minister and, of course, to the various Boards. It seems a little strange to me that this advisory body should have as its Chairman the Minister himself. Surely the Council should be in a position to advise the Minister independently, especially, among other matters, on the question of the relative
664
interests of road and rail. The real question, I think, is this: is this the right kind of body to do this? No doubt the Minister will be able to give us a little information on this point.
Under the White Paper, the Transport Commission, of course, will cease to exist, and I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating its Chairman, Sir Brian Robertson, on the great work he has carried out under immense difficulties. No one has worked harder to produce good results, and I cannot help feeling that a good deal of blame is attached to the Party opposite, who with the 1947 Act, brought the Transport Commission into existence and gave it a task which it was quite impossible for it to carry out. How could it possibly succeed without the "C" licence holders in it, and even, possibly, the private car owners? Any Government which tried to bring all these elements under control would, I think, be in for a very sorry time; and, of course, it would be quite impracticable in a free society like ours. In a Communist State, no doubt it would be practicable to produce an integrated service, about which we have heard so much in the past from the Party opposite. Surely, my Lords, it is much better to do away with the Transport Commission, as set out in the White Paper, and to produce an organisation which is more applicable to the present-day requirements of transport as a whole, and on a more workable scale.
There is one section of our transport system to which I should like to refer for a few minutes—that is, coastal shipping. I wonder if it is generally realised by your Lordships that between 1957 and 1960 coastal shipping has depreciated by more than 20,000 tons deadweight; or, putting it another way, that one coastal vessel has been either sold abroad or scrapped every nine days. Coastal shipping does not complain about fair competition, but the railways are to an increasing extent reducing rates without sufficient regard to their costs.
The right honourable gentleman the Minister of Transport in another place made it clear that the problem of coastal shipping, where that conflicted with the railways, was unresolved and still under consideration. I trust that the policy of Her Majesty's Government for coastal shipping will be decided before there is

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any legislation giving greater commercial freedom to the railways. That is a policy which can have very great effect on our smaller shipyards for which there is very little work now or in the foreseeable future. Only two or three coastal vessels are building in yards at the present time, and it is estimated that a further loss of almost one-third of the present fleet may be expected if there is no improvement in the competitive position of the coastal trade. I need hardly add that the smaller coastal vessels have proved of the greatest use, both in peace and in war and other times of emergency.
I should again like to remind Her Majesty's Government of the necessity for ensuring that new transport legislation makes adequate provision for securing fair— and I repeat "fair"—trading conditions for coastal shipping. Every section of British transport must stand or fall by its efficiency and service. It is no good bolstering up one at the expense of another; and the competition must be fair and reasonable. In this connection, may I suggest to the Minister of Transport the removal of what I would say is the one-sided privilege which now extends to the railways. As your Lordships are aware, this privilege permits the railways to object to applications by road transport operators for licences, without any similar right being extended to passenger road transport operators. This privilege is certainly not a fair one, and I maintain that if more freedom is to be given to the railways it should apply equally to all passenger road transport undertakings, and I trust that this will be dealt with in the forthcoming legislation. I beg to move for Papers.
5.53 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I do not know whether or not the speech I am to make will be a controversial one. We have to see how we go and how the spirit moves me. But in a fairly recent speech in your Lordships' House I urged that perhaps we were going along a little too politely with each other, and that there should not be prejudice against criticism, and even attacks upon one another and upon Ministers in another place.
I said that it would not be a bad thing if your Lordships had a small "dust-up" now and again. I must say that my appeal has been responded to in the last week, even if some of the speeches were
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not exactly in the true interests of the British Commonwealth: but there certainly was a proper "dust-up", especially between the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and the noble and learned Viscount Lord Hailsham. In fact, your Lordships' House is "on the map". We were dominating the front pages of the newspapers last week—which shows how good a thing it is to have a "dust-up" now and again; and we shall be on the front pages again to-morrow. I prophesy banner headlines: "Peers attack the Press"—because even though one attacks only some newspapers, one is attacking the lot, even in the opinion of The Times. So the status and public standing of this House has somewhat improved. But I must not pursue that theme, or I shall be out of order.
The noble Lord who moved this Motion criticised the policy of Her Majesty's Labour Government. Fundamentally, I believe it was right to lay down a policy of co-ordination of transport with friendly co-operation and some rivalry between different elements of transport. But that does not mean that I, or, I hope, any of my noble friends, necessarily take the view that if a Labour Government did something it could never be subject to reconsideration in its administrative set-up and organisation. I have always taken the view that we must learn by experience; that if one finds some imperfection in the administrative structure or organisation we should have the courage to say that it is proved not to be good and that it will be modified in this way or that. But that does not mean that I agree with what the present Government are doing—namely, failing to give transport, and particularly the railway, hardly five minutes' peace. They are constantly interfering, which they have a great right to do; constantly (as I would put it in my Cockney language) "messing about", and constantly changing even their own minds in a way which does not follow the sense of what I have said: that we must be ready constructively to reconsider. Rather the Government are doing it almost for the sake of doing it; and they are stimulating artificial and unnecessary competition between the different elements of transport.
The noble Lord who moved the Motion was somewhat illogical here, having regard to the geographical place

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in which he sits, and the general nature of the speech he made. The Government's case, or much of it, for cutting off the road transport elements from the British Transport Commission was that competition must be stimulated; and the whole doctrine of the Conservative Party about transport, and about television and some other things, has been to stimulate competition where, in my judgment, destructive competition was not likely to do any public good. But that Party having been protagonists in favour of competition, the noble Lord comes along this afternoon and, as I understand him, deprecates the competition between British Railways and coastwise shipping. Well, that is not very logical. One cannot easily pick and choose in this doctrine. If one believes in competition one must support it all round.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, what I was endeavouring to make clear was that coastal shipping was prepared to accept fair competition with British Railways; but that is quite another matter.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: What is not fair? Would the noble Lord like to tell us? If he does not, then I cannot very well deal with his point.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, my point is that if the railways cut their rates without regard to their costs, it is not fair competition.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, that is the whole philosophy and doctrine of the Conservative Party. The noble Lord is talking like a doctrinaire Socialist. The whole philosophy of the Conservative Party is not only to stimulate but to insist upon competition, cut-throat or otherwise. It is all very well for the noble Lord to come along when the competition does not suit him, and say, "We do not want competition here, because it may hurt private interests, but we do want it somewhere else, where it will hurt a public concern." I do not say the noble Lord said that; but that lies behind what he said, and it is a very had thing.
I thought it was held that British Railways should be more free, that the doctrine of free competition applied to them as well as to privately owned transport systems. But now, apparently, it is
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the case that the publicly owned British Railways are not to be allowed to engage in free competition while everybody else is—which is a new illustration of the complete anti-social bias of members of the Conservative Party; and the noble Lord opposite looks too nice a man to have that kind of idea at the back of his head.
We welcome, so far as they go, the financial proposals in the White Paper, but I agree with the noble Lord who moved the Motion that Her Majesty's Government are too optimistic as to the finances working out to parity in five years' time. I do not think that will happen, though I wish it would. It does not please me, as a Socialist, to see public industries not paying their way. I think it is better for everybody, for the taxpayer, and for the self-respect of the people in the industry that they should pay their way. I would much prefer it to be so. But the Government have done their best to see that the railways did not pay their way. They have cut off a profitable road commercial transport element; they are now cutting off from British Railways some other profitable elements. The Minister of Transport, who is a great enemy of the railways—especially of publicly owned services like the railways—has stimulated road commercial competition to the greatest practicable extent. Now they are going further in the same direction in the proposals in this White Paper. So, at any rate part of the financial troubles of British Railways have been encouraged, and even invented, by Her Majesty's Government.
However, some financial rationalisation is now promised in the White Paper, and I think that, in the circumstances, it is inevitable and right. But I do not think it is enough. I proposed quite tentatively in my earlier speech that there was a case for the whole of the cost of modernisation being met by the Government as a public policy, to put the railways right after years and years of neglect. I suggested that grants might be made in respect of the permanent way, somewhat on the lines of the road grants to the highway authorities; and that consideration should be given to paying compensation in respect of lines which, at the request of the Government, were not abandoned. But I do not think (I wish I could say otherwise) that the

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financial proposals in the White Paper are going to meet the bill. If that is so, it means that in five years' time the Government will have to come along again and poor British Railways will get more criticism in various quarters to the effect that they cannot pay their way, despite the assistance that has been given. I should have thought that the Government would do better to make a clean job of it right away.
In relation to modernisation there is a point that I think ought to be considered, though I am not final or dogmatic about it. I am inclined to think that, as an economic matter, electrification is better than the use of the diesel engine on suitable heavily-used main lines. But as things are, diesels are being used on these main lines. I have had a word with my noble friend Lord Lindgren and he says he thinks that probably the explanation is that electrification takes a considerable time to achieve, that the steam locomotives are wearing out meantime and something has to be done, and that, for the time being, diesels are a better proposal. But it is a point worth keeping in mind: that in the end, apparently, electrification is a better economic proposition than diesel.
This reorganisation is another disturbance of British Railways and the British transport system. It is presumed that it has some relation to the Stedeford Report. We do not know how much relationship it has—I wish we did. I think the public have a right to know; and it would be fairer to Sir Ivan Stedeford himself, who is a very able and good public-spirited man, I think, if the Report had been published. And here may I quote, at some little length, I am afraid, part of a speech made by Mr. Aubrey Jones on January 30? It must be remembered that Mr. Aubrey Jones is a former Minister of a Conservative Government: he was Minister of Supply. He said this—and I do not know that I could say it better—about the Stedeford Report [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 633, col. 643]:
"The statement of 10th March announcing the establishment of the Committee"—
that is to say, the Stedeford Committee—
"contained a very strong hint as to the findings which it should reach. However independent-minded the members of the Commit-
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tee might have been, it is very difficult to believe that that hint did not keep on entangling their discussions.
"Next, the Committee was invited to do its job in a hurry in order to catch the legislative Session. It did the job in six months, an interval of time which could not possibly have allowed much opportunity to do all the cross-examination necessary in an analysis of this kind. After all this, the legislative Session was missed.
"Finally, when the Government put forward their proposals in the House we are not allowed to know what the Committee recommended. The world is allowed to infer that what is proposed arises directly from the Committee's Report. I do not know, but it is at least a fair possibility that the Government have run away from some of the Committee's recommendations and that some, if not all, of the members of the Committee think that some of the decisions are downright erroneous."
My Lords, that arises from the situation whereby the Government publicly appoint a Committee as an act of public administration and refuse to publish the Committee's Report. It is bound to lead to suspicions and apprehensions in various quarters.
So now we get the proposal in the White Paper that the British Transport Commission is to be split up. It is a Further step in the process of disintegration of the nation's transport services which the Conservative Government have followed from the time they came into power in 1951—deliberate disintegration; deliberate incentives to increase competition, a deliberate policy of taking away from the Transport Commission and the railways elements of transport or concerns associated with transport which were profitable. So the railways are now to be isolated. Yet it was this Government, or their predecessor, which abolished the Railway Executive, because under the Labour Government's Act there was the British Transport Commission, but there were tinder it, with a considerable degree of autonomy, the Railway Executive, the Hotels and Catering Executive, the London Transport Executive, the Inland Waterways Executive, and so on. But they scrapped the Railway Executive; and now they have in a way, later on, reduced the Railway Commission to a situation whereby they are an isolated railway executive.
There are to be three new Boards. There is to be more hiving off of the profitable, as I have said, and there is to be a Holding Company, but with a

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series of transport undertakings and other undertakings under its supervision. There are to be railway regions. I do not object to administrative decentralisation in principle so long as it keeps in national hands those things that ought to be national in character. But the regions are supposed to be autonomous, or substantially autonomous. Nevertheless, their decisions are subject to reference to the Railway Board and then to the Minister of Transport.
This elevation of the Minister of Transport, which is not happening for the first time in the life of the present Minister of Transport, raises the point whether Questions in Parliament about all the activities of the transport undertakings can be put to the Minister of Transport; whether the doctrine that the public corporations are responsible for day-to-day matters and within that sphere cannot be questioned, though they can be questioned about a lot of other things, is now to be the case. The point probably has not occurred to the Minister of Transport, but I should think that some noble Lord will try it on, and I should certainly think that some smart Member of the House of Commons will try it on to find out whether, when the Minister is chairman of this national transport body, he can be questioned about anything within the field of publicly-owned transport. It is no good the Parliamentary Secretary shaking his head. I do not suppose he wants this to happen, and I do not blame him. But I suggest to honourable gentlemen in another place, who are not exactly slow in this kind of thing, that they might try it by putting down a Question and, if it is refused, raising a Point of Order with the Speaker. But I will come back to that in a minute—rather, I will deal with it now.
There is on page 14 of the White Paper a plan of the new structure, which puts the Minister of Transport right at the top. He is the supreme commander, so to speak. Under him, next, is the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council, which presumably can advise on anything concerned with transport, and of which the Minister is the chairman. I think he is in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis the gentlemen who like to put Questions in another place, and some noble Lords who might put them here. Below the Nationalised Transport Advisory
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Council is the British Railways Board, the London Transport Board, the British Transport Docks Board, the Inland Waterways Authority and the Holding Company. Under the British Railways Board there are the Regional Railway Boards.
However, despite the doctrine that you should decentralise and should not allow many functions to be discharged by one body, under the Holding Company, which at any rate has an oversight of them all, although it is adjured not to interfere very much with them, we get this remarkable variety of bodies: British Road Services, the Tilling (Buses) Group, Scottish Omnibuses Group, Hotels, Road Freight Shipping Services, Thomas Cook and Son Limited and then, in case anything was forgotten, Other Holdings. They are all separate bodies under the Holding Company. This is a funny set-up, and the Minister of Transport has put himself on the map as the supreme power over all these bodies.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord, but perhaps he will allow me to make, diffidently, one suggestion about what he has been saying. Of course, he is quite right to raise the accountability to Parliament of the Minister under the new proposals, but I think I am right in saying that we ought not to go into what would or would not be in order in another place. The noble Lord was, I think, expatiating on what honourable Members of another place could or could not do, and I think that perhaps we ought to be careful to speak only of what we can do in this House.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount, but, in these matters, the other place is more important, because Points of Order can be more effective. But I did not say what could be done in another place: I was merely giving a tip to Members in the other place.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I was quite honestly suggesting, in all humility, that since the noble Lord, as we are all so delighted to see, is in this House with us, honourable gentlemen in another place are jealous of their privileges, and they would perhaps not appreciate tips coming from this quarter.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am glad to know that the noble Viscount is in a polite mood today; it is nice to notice it. But I assure the noble Viscount that Members of another place will not be offended by me—they like me too much. In fact, they will be obliged because I have drawn their attention to this point, because it will give them a chance to have a bit of fun. However, I take the noble Viscount's point, that we ought not to raise the point in this House—because whom do we raise it with? We are the most wonderful legislative body in the world in the sense that we have no presiding officer. We take care of ourselves; and if we are in danger of getting into trouble, the Leader of the House intervenes, as he has done just now, in a very nice way. We have no Speaker to have a "dust up" with. Our officers do their work very well, but they do not rule. Consequently, this is not the place to try it out. But I have finished with the subject and I do not wish to annoy the noble Viscount any more.
I should like to ask how much action has been, or will be, taken in anticipation of legislation; that is to say, action which is strictly unlawful now, but which is being taken or may be taken in anticipation of the legislation which will follow. My Lords, this, of course, is another Tory triumph—the liquidation of the British Transport Commission, which they have been seeking all the way along and trying to hurt as much as they could, especially British Railways. But this coming and going, this constant pinpricking, this constant interference without any consecutive thought and philosophy behind it, is not something to take lightly. It has a serious effect on the morale of the people who are working in the transport system, and particularly the railways. It has a had effect on the morale of the management; it has a had effect on the morale of the men. I like people who are working in the public service to work well and to work hard. I have always urged them to work harder, if anything, than those in private industry, although those in private industry should, of course, do their best. But they are constantly being pushed around, and their task is deliberately being made more difficult. I believe that these proposals, added to the pre-
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vious pin-pricks, will be bad for British transport and bad for the morale of management and men, particularly in British Railways.
6.16 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lards, I find it difficult to believe that anyone speaking for the first time in your Lordships' House has done so without trepidation. If I am correct in that assumption, I can assure your Lordships that I am not breaking any precedent now. I have three reasons for having that trepidation. In the first place, quite a number of your Lordships have acquired the skill of Parliamentary debate in another place. That is an opportunity which has been denied to me, although I tried on two occasions; but I must have chosen the wrong jumping-off ground, because I never arrived. Secondly, most of your Lordships have had the consolation of speaking to an audience the majority of whom were your fellow countrymen. I do not have that consolation, either. I am not without Scottish friends in the House, but I gather that the tradition of this Chamber deprives me of the opportunity of referring to them as my noble friends because they sit in the wrong place.
LORD BOOTHBY: Not this one.
LORD HUGHES: The Rector of St. Andrew's University must always be an exception to any rule. Thirdly, I gather that, by tradition, a maiden speech should not be controversial. I do not think I have chosen the best subject on which to make a non-controversial speech from these Benches. I have said that I thought there were three disadvantages, but, because one noble Lord who was to have spoken immediately before me is not here, I now find added to my difficulties a fourth—that of speaking immediately after my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth. He has spoken of being a Cockney, and I believe it is among the Cockneys that probably the phrase most often occurs, "After the Lord Mayor's Show comes the dust-cart". I hope that is not the comparison which will be most obvious now.
In pursuance of what I believe I ought to do—that is, to be non-controversial—I would not seek to pursue my noble friend along the lines upon which he has chosen to speak to your Lordships, but would rather refer to those aspects of

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these reorganisation proposals which apply to Scotland, or the effects that they may have on Scotland. I do not think it is inappropriate that I should do so, because that aspect was raised in another place, and, having read the Report of the debate on that occasion, I do not believe that the questions which were posed about Scottish problems were dealt with by the Minister when he replied to the debate. It is to be hoped that the opportunity will be taken by the Minister replying for Her Majesty's Government in this debate to remedy the deficiencies of his colleague in that other place. With the Minister's statement of the Government's aim—that they wish to provide efficient services to industry and the public—I can find nothing to quarrel. When we come down to the matter and see that the heart of the problem is in the railways, and that they are a great national enterprise and a vital basic industry, I cannot find any cause for quarrelling with that either. My difficulty is in being satisfied that what the Government propose will be of help so far as my country is concerned.
Paragraph 7 says:
"The practical test for the railways, as for other transport, is how far the users are prepared to pay economic prices for the services provided".
If that test is going to be applied over a large area of Scotland, the people there will undoubtedly be without railway services of any kind. In many parts of our country we do not have the opportunity of supplementing the abandoned railways with bus services, because many of the bus services have already been abandoned as they cannot be operated by private enterprise under existing conditions. There was a reference in another place to co-ordination, and it is true that it was stated that suitable arrangements will be established for co-ordinating the day-to-day activities of individual undertakings, including co-ordination of road and rail services. I do not see how that can be done in Scotland, unless there is some measure for co-ordination of both public and privately owned transport.
I have been a member of the Scottish Transport Council since its inception, and when transport was reorganised, or dealt with, in 1953 a point was made
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by the then Minister of Transport about the importance in Scottish affairs of that Council. I should like to quote from what was said then. He said:
"It is our intention, of course, to see that there are appointed to that body people who would not for a moment consider serving it if it did not get effective powers of a coordinating character".
Although I have been a member of that Council for seven years or more, I have never discovered that we had any powers of any sort whatsoever. Quite early on, in fact, we discovered that our distinguished Chairman, now Lord Kilbrandon, produced for us a most excellent report of what he thought ought to be the pattern of transport in Scotland, but he advised us that he did not think there was much chance of getting the Government to accept it because it cut completely across Government policy. He believed—and the majority of us accepted his opinion—that a much greater measure of co-ordination between public and private transport was necessary. The only change that has taken place in the years which have elapsed since then is that quite a number of privately-owned bus undertakings in the North and in the Islands have stopped running. It would be wrong for me to anticipate the report of the inquiry into Highland transport which is presently being made, but I am sure that members of the Government know what is the trend, and I do not think they will be surprised at what will eventually come from that body,
In these circumstances, my Lords, I find it difficult to believe that transport in Scotland has much benefit to expect from the proposals which will in due course be put before this House arising from this Command Paper. I hope, for the sake of Scotland, that I am wrong, in that assumption, and if the opportunity is afforded me in due course to help make the Government's proposals better for Scotland, then I shall continue to make the night journey to Scotland for that purpose.
6.25 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, it is my duty, and certainly my pleasure, to congratulate the noble Lord upon his brief, witty, pithy and relevant speech. I wish that this privilege were going to be discharged by a Member of this House with longer membership than I, but it gives

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me special pleasure, as it is not long ago that the noble Lord and I went through the ordeal of being introduced to your Lordships' House. The noble Lord has confined himself to those special problems of Scottish transport with which he has been so long associated, and I am sure that the people of Scotland will be grateful to him for having taken this opportunity of putting forward their special problems, and that the Government will have listened to him in this House, just as I hope they will listen to the Advisory Committee of which the noble Lord has so long been a member.
I apologise for addressing your Lordships again so soon, but for three-and-a-quarter years I was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, and matters of railway finance came closely within my purview at that time. I was there when the financing of the much-criticised modernisation scheme was undertaken. I do not in any way regret what was then done; but I feel that I should make some suggestions about and criticisms of the White Paper which has been published by the Government. I welcome two of the main features of the White Paper. I am glad that the financial problem is at last being faced. The Micawber-like expedients in which we have all indulged for so long are now at an end, and I am sure it is a good thing that the country and the Government are facing courageously the financial difficulties of the British Transport Commission. In the second place, I welcome the fact that the railways are to be administered by a Railway Board. I think that for so great and important an undertaking, it is desirable that there should be a Board upon which rests responsibility for its administration. It should not be the part-time occupation of the British Transport Commission, with such very much wider responsibilities to discharge at the same time.
At this point I should like to sound a word of warning. It appears to me difficult to make sure that this whole-time Railway Board will not unduly centralise and concentrate power in their own hands at the expense of the regional boards. Provision should be made explicitly in the Bill to ensure that decentralisation, which has secured a great measure of agreement in the country as a whole and in which I think
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members of the Opposition on many occasions have participated, should not be ended. We recognise that it was one of the main recommendations of the Select Committee that British Railways, however much the day-to-day administration may be devolved on to the regions, must remain a single entity and run as such.
I do not find a great deal to criticise in the White Paper, but I feel that there is a great deal which has been omitted. I can see no sign at present that Her Majesty's Government have a transport policy as a whole. It may be that that is still to come. It may be a necessary step, to deal with the administration of British Railways before we get a transport policy, but I am hound to say that, so far, I cannot feel that this Government is applying to transport the philosophy of the book written by the present Prime Minister, called The Middle Way, which has so largely become accepted in industry as a whole. That is neither the centralised planning of the Socialist nor the old-fashioned cut-throat competition of the Liberal, but rather an arrangement by which policy as a whole is laid down by the Government and, without further interference, is left to be administered by those who have special qualifications for it.
Co-ordination, under the Act of 1947, was the responsibility of the British Transport Commission. Under the Act of 1953 the position was left very vague and, under the White Paper of 1961 it appears to me that the responsibility for this co-ordination rests with the Minister. I feel a great doubt and anxiety about that. It was the conception of the Act of 1947, on which the Conservative Opposition in Parliament did all it could to encourage the Socialist Ministers of the day to stand firm, that the British Transport Commission should be made independent of political pressure. And I am bound to say that I can foresee important decisions being taken by the Minister as a result of the movement of political opinion in another place.
I had a good deal of experience of that. The closing of stations and lines was a matter that was left to the British Transport Commission and they had to obtain the consent of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee. On almost every occasion when some line,

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however unremunerative, was closed, I, as Parliamentary Secretary, had to answer an Adjournment debate upon the subject. It was an immense help to me to be able to say that it was not the responsibility of my right honourable friend; it was a decision that had been taken by the British Transport Commission, with the approval of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee. Therefore, while I desire to see the Transport Users' Consultative Committees done away with, for a reason that I will give a little later, I feel it is desirable that the Minister should be protected in some way from political pressure.
As a result of recommendations of the Select Committee, it is proposed that the Minister should be the authority to decide upon social needs. Of course, that is exactly the kind of thing which attracts the interest of constituents and results in Members of another place rising and claiming that, however un-remunerative some transport service may be, it is essential for the welfare of a particular part of their constituency that the same number of trains should continue to run and the same number of stations should be open.
It is a trifle ironical that it should be the Tory Party which, in this White Paper, is showing signs of introducing the old-fashioned nationalisation that at one time used to be fashionable on the Back Benches of the Socialist Party; and I am afraid that, unless we are very careful with this White Paper, the Minister of Transport is going to be in very much the same position as the Postmaster General. My right honourable friend the present Minister of Transport was an extremely successful Postmaster General. He has, as an individual, many of those qualities of initiative, imagination and enterprise which, first of all, made him successful in business and then in the Post Office. But I am not a bit convinced that it is desirable that the Minister of Transport should have all these powers, for, however well they may be discharged by my right honourable friend, it does not follow that all succeeding Ministers of Transport will combine those special qualities which command our admiration.
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I fear that this White Paper is not likely to provide the necessary kind of co-ordination at the centre. The Minister of Transport is responsible for building roads and I cannot believe that he is likely to give the necessary consideration to co-ordinating them with the railways. As a matter of fact, that was made very plain by the Select Committee, in paragraph 335 of their Report, in which they said:
"There was no national planning of how the competition should develop; it was for the railways to assess their own future prospects (although the Ministry would then, in a non-technical way, consider whether the assessments seemed to be valid, before consenting to plans for investment based on them)."
I cannot think that that is going to prove entirely successful for the future.
Certainly, when M.1 was authorised (I was at the Ministry then) there was no careful consideration of priorities. If there had been, I can hardly believe that M.1, running parallel with and close to the Midland Railway, would have been the first motorway to be built. I should like to ask my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary this: what is the present position with regard to licences issued to coaches under the Act of 1930? Has the building of M.1 resulted in licences being granted to coaches which, in the earlier days when I was at the Ministry, would have been refused on the ground that it was uneconomic competition?
I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, that he was not quite fair to the Conservative Party when he said that they had never accepted the need for co-ordination. His Act of 1930 was accepted by a Conservative Government and continued to be applied. In the 1933 Act 1933 principles were applied to goods haulage which were somewhat similar to those which had been applied by him, when Minister of Transport, in the Act of 1930. So, when I am pleading to-day for a certain measure of co-ordination in transport policy, I am not speaking as a pink Socialist but only asking for a coordination of general policy, a coordination which a Conservative Government has followed in the past.
If there is going to be an insufficiency of co-ordination at the centre, I am even more sure that, unless something further is done, there will be an insufficiency of co-ordination in the regions. Under the

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Act of 1953 the boards that were set up were called Area Transport Boards. They were given that name in order that they should be able to assist in coordinating all forms of transport in the areas. I noticed that they are to be replaced by regional railway boards. These clearly would not have the powers which the previous boards had (although I confess that those powers were never effectively used) of co-ordinating road and rail in the regions. That is going to become of far greater importance in the comparatively near future than it is now.
Paragraph 7 of this White Paper draws attention to the need to reduce the network of British Railways until they can be economic. That will inevitably result in the closing down of large numbers of stations in rural areas, and I hope that when the railway lines making large losses are closed down they will be replaced by bus services. It may be that many of these bus services will also make losses, but they would make much smaller losses than those that are being made by British Railways. If this great change is going to take place, it is surely essential that there should be co-ordination of this policy of the replacement of the costly railways by the more flexible and cheaper bus services, and that that should be done in the regions. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will consider the desirability of making a change in the title and powers of these regional railway boards, in order that they may be effective for the purpose which I am sure the Government have in mind.
These decisions for co-ordination must be taken at a fairly low level: they must be taken by the people who are dealing with the day-to-day problems in the regions. It is most important that there should not he a financial inducement operating against co-ordination. The bus services, under the plan or, the last page of this White Paper, are to be owned by the Holding Company. The whole policy of that Holding Company, it seems to me, must he to try to maximise their profits, and that may not be in the interests of transport as a whole: it may, indeed, induce them to indulge in cut-throat and uneconomic competition with the railways. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give further thought to
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these matters. It is unfortunate that we are obliged to discuss these matters before the publication of the Jack Report. There will be great need to look carefully at the whole problem of rural transportation.
In conclusion, therefore, I would say there is much in this White Paper that is good. It is probably a necessary step forward in dealing with the problems which face us, and especially those which face the railways of this country. But I think a good deal more thought requires to be given before a Bill is drafted. As I have pointed out, it has not been the policy of the Conservative Party in the past to encourage cut-throat competition between different forms of transport; and this appears to me to be a time when it is most necessary that we should consider carefully, when the railways are being reorganised, how we are to ensure that some more modern, flexible and effective system of transport will be provided to take the place of what is being closed down.
6.43 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, may I add my congratulations to those offered by Lord Molson to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on his admirable and interesting maiden speech. He comes from the delightful city of Perth, from which my family also come, and I have lived a good deal of my life in Perthshire, a county I know very well and love dearly. It was a breath of fresh air to hear the noble Lord's well made and cogent remarks, and I congratulate him on a very worthy speech.
I propose to say a few words about the railways in Scotland, but first I should like to say something on the paragraph in the White Paper dealing with fares and charges. A great deal of anxiety is felt at the present time by season ticket holders, from whom a large part of the receipts of the railways is derived. While, on the one hand, the Minister of Transport is trying to discourage people from taking cars to the centre of London and there parking them, on the other hand season ticket holders are being milked more and more freely; and London is the discriminating point. It is open to argument that in relation to the cost of other commodities the cost of transport is still fairly cheap. The inquiry that is being conducted into the question of fares in the

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London Region is trying to bear out that point, but not, I think, very convincingly. The corresponding service which is being given to the season ticket holders is really not good enough: the punctuality of trains still leaves a good deal to be desired, and the availability of carriages is still inadequate.
I cannot see that one is going to attract more passengers, more season ticket holders and holders of long-term tickets, unless something is done about improving services. Trains are being cut out—and nobody is more conscious than I am of the necessity of cutting out uneconomic trains. I live in an area on the Southern Region which is electrified, and it is incredible on Sunday afternoons to see trains going through somewhere like Epsom with only three passengers. But the following morning on the half-past eight train there are probably something like 3,000 passengers. That may be an exaggeration—
LORD STONHAM: That is what it feels like.
LORD AUCKLAND: —but in comparative terms there is some logic here. I feel that the Government should look into the problem of season tickets. Excursion trains for football matches, and trains for rambling parties are all run at cut-price fares; and frequently one reads of heavy damage being done to carriages by holders of excursion tickets going to see Everton, or their favourite football team, play. I know that this will he an unpopular thing to say, but rather than try to extract more and more from the season ticket holder, who has to travel to his place of work by train, unless he is prepared to face a long and tedious car journey and the risk of being "told off" for parking in Central London, he should receive the benefits, if necessary at the expense of excursion trains. It seems to me that the economics of our transport system in this respect need a good deal of looking into.
I should like now to say a word or two about modernisation. At present, as I understand it, the railways cannot budget for their modernisation programme more than twelve months in advance, whereas the Electricity Authority can budget for something like seven
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years. Of course, there are difficulties in any transport system, financially and in every other way. But it is rather discouraging to the railways if they are to be given no better lead than this. Already there have been tremendous improvements, particularly on the Kings Cross to Cambridge line. The trains are much more punctual; and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, knows that line well.
I should like to put forward one specific suggestion. The new town of Stevenage, which is to have in due course, I believe, a population of some 65.000, is at present served by one tiny, ill-lit station. I know it well. I believe that there are plans for building a station in the new town. I have not given the Parliamentary Secretary notice of this matter, so naturally I cannot expect an answer to-day. But I know that the people living in that area would like some indication as to how long it will be before something is done about building a new station there.
Scotland has been touched on very adequately by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether there could not be an extension of the London-Perth car ferry service, which I am sure must be a profitable part of the London-Scotland railway service. I have used it several times and found it both convenient and efficient. It would seem to me that, particularly in the Cairngorm winter sports scheme, there is a case for running this service for a longer part of the year than it is now, and also for an extension of the service, possibly to Inverness. At present, as I understand it, one can go only from York to Inverness, and I am quite certain that if an arrangement were made, particularly for tourists, for facilities for a through car-sleeper service from London, Kings Cross or Euston, to Inverness, railway receipts would go up. Of course, the operating costs must obviously be borne in mind, but I feel that a profit could be shown here.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has said, in many areas North of Inverness road transport is extremely difficult, particularly at this time of year. Here again, there is a great deal of anxiety about the Government's proposal for the Inverness-Wick railway. People up there are very

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anxious as to the future of these stations. I am a great believer in the closing of an uneconomic service, provided that there is suitable alternative transport. In the south of England that can usually be organised; but in Scotland, for obvious reasons—climatic conditions and other things—that cannot often be organised. We are trying to open up and popularise the Highlands, but some of the public transport services leave a great deal to be desired. Another important car ferry service is the Surbiton-Okehampton service, which was very popular last summer. I would ask the noble Lord, the Parliamentary Secretary, whether there could be an extension of this service, with trains running two days a week instead of one.
The White Paper has merit, in so far as it is proposing at least some solution towards the problem of running the railways successfully. I believe that the policy of making the railways a separate entity is a good one, because with docks, inland waterways. British Road Services and the railways, the British Transport Commission has become a very cumbersome organisation. I believe that more decentralisation is a good thing. In prewar days one could see how much cleaner many of the engines were in the areas where they had inter-regional competition. In saying that, I am not trying for one moment to denigrate the work of the railwaymen of to-day: I believe that they do a very good job. In many cases their pay, even with the recent increases, is appallingly low. I believe that many signalmen in places like Crewe and Banbury are underpaid in comparison with many unskilled labourers in other jobs. Many of these railwaymen—I have spoken to some of them—are in favour of more regional competition.
In the Daily Telegraph last week there was a letter from an ex-railwayman, and with your Lordships' permission I will read a short extract from it. It says:
"The appalling tragedy of 'nationalisation' and its consequential elimination of all effective administration, management and operation utterly discouraged thousands of railway officers and staff, who had, despite their experience since 1931, endeavoured to maintain efficient service in work which had. in many instances, been the primary interest of their existence—particularly perhaps on the G.W.R."
That is a letter from a railwayman. I certainly have not sufficient experience of the railways to comment on it one way
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or the other. But there is still, I am sure, a feeling of frustration. Part of it, I think, is towards the Government, who I must say have been rather dilatory in their plans. There have been inquiries after inquiries into various aspects of the railways. I think the Stedeford inquiry has come out with something positive, and I hope that its recommendations will be put into practice as soon as possible so that at least the future of the railways—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, so rightly said, it is the future of the railways about which we must think—can be seen with some degree of certainty.
7.0 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, this debate has obviously suffered to some extent through having to follow on another rather lengthy debate. But it has been notable for two of the speeches which have been made, the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Hughes, which I thought had everything that a maiden speech, or any other speech, should have—brevity, wit and good sense. I am particularly pleased to hear these Scottish accents on this side, because in recent months, owing to the illness of some of my noble friends from Scotland, I, having nothing of the accent and nothing of the local knowledge, have had to don almost everything Scottish, except the kilt. Therefore it is a great pleasure to have my noble friend Lord Hughes here. Equally, it was a very considerable pleasure to us on these Benches to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Molson. Only last week we had from him a very remarkable maiden speech, and, if I may say so, with respect, although in a different context, the one that he delivered just now was equally outstanding. He spoke, of course, from deep knowledge of the subject, as we are all aware, but also with the constructive detachment which I personally long for but never achieve.
I know that we on this side of your Lordships' House echo the noble Lord's plea for co-ordination and, regrettably, share his misgivings as to whether the present proposals are likely to satisfy us in that respect. We support his plea that a great deal more thought should be given to the various matters, particularly the matters raised by the noble Lord, before a Bill is drafted. It was

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some encouragement to learn from him that it has never been Conservative policy in the past to encourage cutthroat competition in transport, and I hope that it will not be so in future; otherwise, we shall not have public transport, either publicly or privately owned; we shall have to go by motor car or moped, because there will be virtually nothing else.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, underlined what I think is the difficulty of all of us in this debate: namely, that despite the White Paper, and despite—or perhaps because of—Ministerial statements, the Government's intentions with regard to the railways in most, or at least many, important matters are still far from clear. Unhappily this uncertainty is extremely confusing to the railway staff and very bad for their morale, which has never been lower. I believe that if things are not to get even more desperate in that respect it is imperative that these uncertainties, which were also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, to whom we are grateful for introducing this subject, should be cleared up as quickly as possible.
With everyone else who has spoken so far, I have no quarrel with the financial proposals, which will go a long way towards removing one of the primary causes of hopelessness and discontent, and will help to put the railways on a stable basis. The proposals are, in fact, no more than justice. Because most of the losses which have been written off—and doubtless the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, will disagree—have arisen primarily from Tory policy; from the Government's interference with the Transport Commission's freedom to operate as a commercial concern. I do not think indeed it would lie with noble Lords opposite, and I am glad that they have not yet done so, to complain of railway losses for which, in my view, their policy is responsible. Indeed, the railways were earning a surplus in 1951 and 1952, and also in 1953. It is only since the 1953 Act that we have had the catastrophes which we all deplore.
But although the financial proposals are very satisfactory a number of questions arise out of them. For example, will the railways, as paragraph 36 of the White Paper appears to imply, really be able to pay their way within five
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years? I think that only a super-optimist would say "Yes" to that. At present they have a working deficit of some £60 million, and to "break even" five years hence they have to increase their earnings sufficiently not only to wipe off that working deficit but also to cover the estimated £60 to £70 million interest charges, a total of £120 million in increased earnings. When one considers that over the last three or four years total gross receipts—not earnings, but gross receipts—have not averaged much over £450 million, the size of the task becomes apparent. It means increased earnings of at least 25 per cent. in five years' time.
There again, there is really nothing in the White Paper about the Government's policy in respect of uneconomic services. As only one example the position of Scotland was clearly brought out by my noble friend Lord Hughes. Who is to decide this matter? The noble Lord, Lord Molson, said that the Minister would have to decide social questions, but is it going to be the case, as we read in some of the newspapers, for example, that rural services are going to be cut by 20 per cent. and replaced by bus services? If so, will the bus services be economic? Those are very serious and important questions. I am thinking at the moment of the effect on the Railways Board's finances and their prospects of making a profit, because apparently, according to the White Paper, the Railways Board must still bear the losses of uneconomic lines which are retained for social reasons. The Government, of course, promise in the White Paper to consider the question, and meanwhile any such losses will be recovered from the contributions from public funds. But they will still be included in the Board's accounts: they will still be shown in the red and we shall not know—at least we do not know now—the extent of the losses on these uneconomic services. The only fair way to deal with the Railways Board in regard to this will be to ascertain the losses on uneconomic services and for the Treasury to pay these losses by means of separate direct subsidy. That, at least, is my view.
Again, we still do not know from the White Paper the proposed size and shape of the railway system. It was only last October that Mr. Marples set up his Committee to study this particular problem, and no one knows what conclusions

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have been reached. There is no evidence whatever to encourage the belief that there will be such a major improvement in the railways over the next five years as to give them a chance of earning an extra £120 million. The British Transport Commission, I know, in its Reappraisal of July, 1959, a most overoptimistic reappraisal, did anticipate that by 1963 their earning power would have increased by anything from £45 million to £93 million. But that was based on a number of provisos which have not been fulfilled. They estimated a 15 per cent. increase in passenger traffic as compared with 1957. Instead, there has been a decline. They estimated a return to 1957 freight earnings, but instead there has been a decline. It is true that there was an improvement last year, but there is still a long way to go to reach the 1957 level. There have been wage increases since the Guillebaud Report, as well as disappointments and frustrations over the mechanisation plan.
Truly my Lords, the new Railways Board have an enormous task to justify the White Paper's optimism. I think their one hope is that they will be given real freedom to compete with road transport, especially for freight, and also that they will be able to compete on fair terms. Even if they are free to charge what rates they like, and to run such services as they deem to be economic, the competition will not be fair until they are allowed to get their equipment up to date. I do not think it is ever sufficiently acknowledged that commercial road transport has at its disposal completely modern equipment, and that the welcome road programme is ensuring that their road track is steadily improved, free of charge.
That brings us to the second major query arising from the White Paper—namely, will the modernisation programme be allowed to proceed speedily and without interruption, and will Government interference really be less under the new regime than it is at present, or was, under the old régime. I do not think the signs are encouraging. We know that wherever modernisation has been completed there has been an increase, sometimes a spectacular increase, in traffic and receipts and unquestionably the best, almost the only, hope of achieving viability within five years
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would be to speed up, not to slow down, the modernisation programme. But what do we find? On January 30, in another place, the Minister of Transport, announcing the long delayed decision to complete the electrification of the London-Crewe-Manchester line, said:
"This does not mean that other main-line electrification schemes will necessarily be approved."
So the uncertainty about the scope and pace of modernisation is just as great as it was before the White Paper.
In the same speech, Mr. Marples said:
"The Government think that these proposals provide a firm and clear hope for the future of the nationalised transport industries."
How can that possibly be true, unless at the same time there is a firm and clear decision to modernise the railways as swiftly as possible? The Minister may tell us tonight that that is the Government's intention, but how can we really accept that in the face of the Government's obvious lack of enthusiasm? What encouragement is there for believing that the Railway Board will get its programme approved and then be allowed to get on with the job without interference?
Mr. Marples, the Minister of Transport, has not only taken over the tasks to which the noble Lord referred, but he has taken upon himself the task of reviewing any capital scheme costing more than £250,000. It is extraordinary, astounding, that the Minister should have to review a scheme of, say, £300,000 in the context of what the modernisation of the railways is going to cost. Who is really going to make the necessary decisions? Perhaps the Minister will tell us that when he comes to reply.
The White Paper, in paragraph 14, says that the British Railways Board will be responsible for
"the determination of the future size and shape of the Railway system."
Yet the Minister has made it clear that he, with his special study group, is going to do precisely that, and not the British Railways Board. What is the truth? In my view, the new arrangements in the White Paper are going to make it an even more difficult and long-winded process to obtain sanction and a starting date for essential developments. When are we going to start? Major legislation is necessary. The White Paper makes that clear, and we agree. It cannot be

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on the Statute Book for about another two years. That is two years out of the five years in which the railways are supposed to become viable.
What is going to happen meanwhile, during this most crucial period in the modernisation programme? I submit that the Government must decide to act now. They cannot wait in this vital matter for the new Act. We are faced with the situation where our railways are still declining, while the number of road vehicles is increasing faster than we can improve our roads to cope with them. The development of the road system is an important and urgent, but a separate, problem. It must go ahead without impairment; but, equally, this need must not obscure the necessity for developing the rail sytem to the highest level of efficiency as quickly as possible. For that, modernisation is vital, and when it is accomplished and the railways can compete on fair terms it will ease our road problems. If the Government are honestly determined to rebuild and not destroy the railways, they will allow nothing to stand in the way of the speedy development of railway modernisation.
Even this may not be enough. We were promised co-ordination. The only co-ordination in the White Paper that I can see is the co-ordination of the ancillary departments, which are going to be hived off; but they are already coordinated at present within the British Transport Commission. They are going to be broken up and then co-ordinated together again. There is no particle of co-ordination suggested to cure the deep-seated cause of our transport problems—the great unbalance in the flows of long-distance freight traffic between rail and road. We have already poured hundreds of millions of pounds into rail and road without getting a proper return. No matter how much more money is poured in, and however efficient the railways become, they will never pay their way until they can carry an adequate tonnage of freight.
As my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth said, the Government has pinned its faith on competition. But transport history, here and abroad, shows that it is not enough. The railways will pay and our roads will be better used when we have the kind of co-ordination which will lift millions of tons of freight from our
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over-used roads to our under-used rails and enable the roads to cope more adequately with their traditional traffic and the ever-expanding private motoring. I am certain that that is the only cure. I am equally certain that it will not come from this White Paper. And I am equally certain that it will not come without a change of Government.
7.16 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Teynham for putting down this Motion this evening to give us an opportunity of discussing this most important White Paper on the reorganisation of nationalised transport. I am only sorry that we have rather a poor attendance in the House due to our first debate taking rather longer than we anticipated. I should like, first of all, to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on his maiden speech. I am sure we all enjoyed it very much and hope to hear him again.
Paragraph 2 of the Government White Paper states:
"The Government's aim is that the nationalised transport undertakings shall be soundly based both in organisation and finance."
I should like to say that I support very nearly all that which is contained in the White Paper, but there are just a few things that I am a little worried about. If I may speak first of all on the organisation, I should like to know who, ultimately, is going to decide the size and shape of British Railways, because undoubtedly we shall need to have a smaller British Railways. I think we shall have to cut out a large number of uneconomic lines. My noble friend the Minister set up a Working Party, and there is also the Jack Committee which is inquiring into the question of rural services, bus and rail services, and uneconomic services. I am only sorry that we do not have their Report in front of us to-night. I understand that it is going to be published in the very near future.
I think that ultimately Parliament will have to decide, because if such a large number of uneconomic services are going to be kept going they will require a subsidy. I think Parliament ought to decide what subsidy they are going to give,

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otherwise, of course, we shall never be able to try, as we all wish to do, to make the railways break even. A certain number of these uneconomic services will, I am afraid, if they are to he kept going, require to be subsidised.
There is only one other point I wish to make in regard to organisation and the new structure. Like my noble friend Lord Teynham and, I think, my noble friend Lord Molson, who made a most interesting and instructive speech, I am a little dubious about the wisdom of the Minister in putting himself in the position of chairman of the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council, because if the Council disagree an appeal goes to the Minister himself. I think that it is wrong to make an appeal to oneself. He is, of course, responsible to Parliament for that. I should have liked to see an independent chairman taking the chair over representatives of these nationalised organisations which are going to have seats on this Advisory Council: the British Railways Board, the London Transport Board, the British Transport Docks Board, the Inland Waterways Authority and the Holding Company.
The second point I wish to raise is on finance. I am extremely worried about this, and I think that Her Majesty's Government have been very courageous in attacking this problem and suggesting writing off the very large sum of £400 million which has been lost, in order to give the railways a better chance in the future. But, of course, the story goes further than that. It is a very depressing story when one studies the accounts of the British Transport Commission, as I have tried to do over the last week-end. Of course, I can only study the accounts of 1959, because the 1960 accounts are not yet out. If your Lordships would turn to page 44 of the Annual Report and Accounts, you would see that a sum of £25,492,578 was provided for depreciation, but last year the railways had an operating loss of £41 million. So they did not earn their depreciation, and if we take depreciation of £25 million from the £41 million operating loss, we still have a loss of £16 million.
Something like £100 million of new money from the taxpayers is each year being put into the modernisation programme. If they cannot earn even their depreciation, let alone their interest, and
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they have an operating loss, which last year was some £40 million and this year is a great deal more—in addition to which the working loss will be increased because of the recent wage awards—then, of course, the assets of the new money being put in will waste away, and we shall have to write off another very large sum of money. So I think the Minister is perfectly right in saying that we must have good financial control and he must know what is going on. Therefore I welcome the setting up of the Railways Board and giving the railways the capital assets which belong to them, and also the setting up of the Regional Boards and giving them an operating account, an important thing that they have never had before.
I do not know whether it is going to be possible when this is announced, but I was hoping that, when they are given an operating account, and we shall know how they are faring in the various areas, they may be given also a capital structure, so that we may know, for instance, what return we are going to get, or are likely to get, on this very large sum of money which is going to be put into the London Midland region and which I think is something over £130 million. At present we are unable to find that out; we know only the total losses, because they do not have regional accountancy in any form. I think the Minister is perfectly right, and it is a very great step forward that the men who are going to sit on these Regional Boards should know their operating accounts; and, if possible, they should be given a capital structure from the Railways Board. But, in any event, they will probably know, roughly, from their operating accounts what new capital has been put in and what sort of return they are getting.
I was reading an interesting article the other day about the French railways. The electrification there, according to the density of the lines, has shown anything from 13 per cent. up to 17½ per cent. return on the money. I should think that at any rate 15 per cent. to 17 per cent. is wanted to make it a profitable undertaking. But I think we must not go ahead too fast. I quite agree that we must try—and I believe that the Minister is endeavouring to do this—to give the railways, like the roads, a forward plan for their capital requirements

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for the next three years. He is trying to do that. But, in view of the very large losses that the railways are now incurring, we must be careful that this very large sum of money which has been authorised on the London Midland region is going to earn its proper return, because, as I have told your Lordships, I think it is very disturbing to see from the accounts that they are not even meeting their depreciation. If they do not make that in future years we shall have to write off another large sum of money. So I very much welcome this debate, which has given us an opportunity of discussing these important matters before the final legislation is framed, because I have no doubt that it will be a major Bill with which we shall be presented in the autumn. I thank my noble friend Lord Teynham for raising this important matter.
7.27 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I also should like to thank my noble friend Lord Teynham for bringing up this subject: because it is a matter of extreme national importance, and I think the great majority of the public are very perturbed by the railway accounts. There have been £400 million accumulated losses over the last few years against the B.T.C. since it came into operation. That is a great deal of money. Even £400,000 is a great deal of money, and if a company like I.C.I. lost £400 million I think the shareholders would be extremely upset.
Before I proceed I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on his very charming maiden speech. He need not think that there are no people with Scottish blood in the House, however, because, although I am not a Scottish Peer, my mother and my grandmother were Scottish. So he can feel quite at home. The noble Marquess, Lord Ailsa, and one or two others in the House who took part in this debate are also Scottish, so he need not worry about being Scottish; in fact he ought to be proud of it.
Now, my Lords, I was rather surprised by what the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth said. I understood the noble Lord to say that it was quite fair for the nationalised industries, which are
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being heavily subsidised out of taxation procured from private industries which are paying their way, to cut their costs to under-cut various private industries. I am, of course, referring to coastal shipping.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It would take a little time, and time is precious, for me to repeat what I did say; but I did not say what the noble Lord says: I said something else.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I thought the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, said it was quite in order for British Railways to under-cut coastal shipping.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: No; what I said was that one cannot have the argument both ways. If the Government are the apostles of free competition, then supporters of the Government must not get red in the face and indignant when there is a hit of competition the other way round, with competition for private enterprise from public enterprise.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: But by "free competition" one does not mean that when the taxpayer is handing hundreds of millions of pounds to an industry that industry can under-cut private industry. I do not call that free competition.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, if the noble Viscount will forgive me for intervening, do we not put hundreds of millions of pounds into roads and road construction as a subsidy to road transport, which is in competition with the railways? Road transport is more heavily subsidised by the taxpayers and ratepayers than railways are.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, road transport is used by millions of private car owners; it is not used only by commercial vehicles. I do not see that the two things can be compared: but I must continue. I personally am all in favour of the proposals of Her Majesty's Government. Something had to be done, and they are proposing to do it. The railways have been operating at an annual loss of £60 million a year. My noble friend Lord Wolverton said that the figure was £40 million but I believe

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the actual loss is £60 million. That cannot go on. I quite agree that a great deal of the railways' trouble in the past has been through the competition of road transport. If, however, we consider the amount of taxes that commercial vehicles pay (though I have not worked it out), I suppose they probably pay for one-quarter or one-third of their road usage; but I have no figures to bear that out.
The great thing about this decentralisation is that, under the Railways Board, we are to have all these Regional Boards (the former Great Western, L.N.E.R., L.M.S., and so on), each of which is to have its own accounts. I am almost sure that the British Transport Commission have not been doing their costing very well. I have often wondered whether, when they have ordered 500 diesel engines or multiple diesel units, they have ever really worked out how much oil they are to use, how many passengers they have to carry and how much profit they are to get. By having these Regional Boards, there will be far closer scrutiny of the accounts. And I am all for that, because the public, the taxpayers, do want value for their money; and they are entitled to have it.
Take, for example, the introduction of diesels and electrification. Looking at one particular aspect, I understand that there are about 5,000 multiple diesel trains, and it is true that they have increased railway receipts. I understand that the Leeds-Barnsley diesel service has increased the percentage receipts on that line by 460, but I should have thought it would have been more economical to have ordinary diesel locomotives, since those could have been used not only for passengers, during the rush-hour, but for other traffic when all the passengers had gone to bed. These multiple diesel trains, on the other hand, are standing idle all night. That is only one reason why I believe that the British Transport Commission have not always been very good in their costing.
I can quite understand that the traction industry and the electrical industry should be worried that the Government should have gone fast and slow on allocations, and should now have slowed up. I understand that the allocation for 1960 has been cut by 12½ per cent. I believe. though, that the Government are quite
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right. They have given the "Go-ahead" on the London-Crewe electrification plan. No doubt the industry feel they should do the same for the London-Doncaster service, but surely the Government are quite right to see first how the London-Crewe electrification works out. It is possible, I suppose, that it may he found that it would have been more economical to use diesels. I do not think that is likely, but it might be so; and I feel that the Government ought not just to give carte blanche for £X to be spent over four or five years. I believe that they are quite right to keep the closest scrutiny on the expenditure, because, after all, the history of the last few years has not been very happy.
There is no doubt that there have been benefits through modernisation, from the point of view of operating costs and the amount of train services., but I wonder whether the comfort of passengers also has been taken into consideration. I have brought up before the question of the Kent Coast Line, on which the trains are far from comfortable and the vibration is very great. There are other inconveniences also. Passengers cannot turn the heating on or off, and in this very mild weather we have had great discomfort as a result. That is a fault of the design. If something can be done about the vibration on the new electric trains, I hope that it will be done, because that can be very unpleasant.
My Lords, there is another point. If only the railways could wrest the heavy freight from the roads, how different would the position be! Every day one passes these huge coal lorries and car transporters. The answer, probably—it obviously must be—is to have fast freight trains; but it is not possible TO have fast freight trains without the right brakes. Other countries have these brakes: why cannot we have them? The average goods train goes at about 20 miles an hour, I think; which is quite absurd.
Another point I should like to make is as to these lines that are to be electrified. Was it really economic to put diesels on them? There is now a mixture If steam and diesel trains. Obviously, that is uneconomic, because it means having the steam motive-power depôt and the diesel depôt; and it means chopping and changing. I should have thought that it would have saved a great

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deal of money if the lines which are to be electrified had remained on steam until electrification was completed. I hope, too, that the Railways Board are not going to scrap all these steam engines that they do not require, because there may come a time when they will be needed. It is possible, I suppose, that we could have a hold-up in oil, or something like that; and if we found ourselves without any steam engines at all there could be a very great reduction in the train services. My Lords, the time is very late, and, to end, I will conclude by saying that I approve of this Government scheme. It is bold, it is imaginative, and I can only hope that it has every success.
7.43 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard will not mind if I follow him only to the extent of saying that I do not agree with what he has had to say with regard to the continuation of the London—Doncaster—Leeds electrification scheme. This evening I propose to endeavour to make only a few points with regard solely to the railways. As I see it, one of the most important functions of the British Railways Board will be the determination of file future size and shape of the railway system, apart from having to assume the responsibility of running the railways as an effective national system. In view of these two considerations, it seems to me that considerable attention should be given to the question of the composition of the Railways Board.
I should like to see, as chairman, a highly qualified, technical man of considerable standing and experience, and with extensive knowledge of the operational side of the railways. I would opt for someone of the calibre of Louis Armand in France, who did so much for the French Railways during their modernisation programme after the Second World War. To the task he was able to bring at least three essential qualities: a highly-qualified technical brain, a dynamic personality and a capacity for hard work. As I see it, during that post-war period in France the emphasis with regard to their railways was on achieving greater operational efficiency. It is interesting to
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note that, in 1959, there were 28 passenger services running at average speeds in excess of 68 miles an hour, ten services running at an average speed in excess of 74½ miles per hour, and two services running at an average speed in excess of 77½ miles per hour.
With regard to one of these services, the Sud Express, which runs between Paris and the Spanish frontier, I remember a taxi-driver telling me as I boarded his taxi at Austerlitz that he could adjust his watch as the train pulled into the station. With regard to this question of good timekeeping, I was also struck by the fact that, when I travelled in the cab of one of their main-line trains, the driver's constant attention was on the question of perfect timekeeping; and I think it is true to say that, at the present time, 97 per cent. of the French expresses arrive on schedule.
I think it is only when our railways are operationally efficient, and when they are provided with an appropriate fares structure, that we can expect to see any improvement in their finances. The Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries devoted a fair amount of time to this question, and I should therefore like to quote, very briefly, some extracts from paragraphs 375, 377, 378 and 379. They read as follows:
"In real terms, both passenger fares and freight charges are on the average substantially lower than they were in 1938.
For the fact is…that passengers in general and commuters in particular have not been paying the full cost of their travel. In earlier post-war days they were subsidised by freight; more recently, by the taxpayer.
Freight charges are now believed to be competitive;…But, both in freight charges and in passenger fares, flexibility in charging can only be effective after costing and financial accounting have established the true facts about the traffic in question."
The important relationship between the service provided and the charges was mentioned in an editorial of the Daily Telegraph which appeared on July 10, 1959, and I should like to quote a brief extract from that editorial:
"There is one thing, and one thing only, however, which will help it"—
that is, the Commission—
"with the travelling public: that is the conviction, which is certainly not widespread at the moment, that the railways are determined to be competitive both in the standard of service offered and in the level of charges imposed. Price increases are bound to cause

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some resentment, but elsewhere in the economy there is plenty of evidence that the public is prepared to pay a good price—once it is used to it—for a good service."
My Lords, in view of, as I see it, the importance of the operational side of the railways, it seems to me that one or two part-time members for the Railways Board is insufficient. As I see it, these part-time members should include representatives from such technical organisations as the Association of Consulting Engineers and of such Institutions as the Civil Engineers, Railway Signals Engineers, Locomotive Engineers, and so forth, so that these technical organisations can give qualified advice on matters of a definite operational aspect. No doubt the Regional Railway Board representatives will advise on the actual operation of the railways, but I feel that these technical organisations can play a big part, especially at the present time when the whole question of reorganisation is affecting the railway system of this country so much.
With regard to priorities appertaining to modernisation, I should like to see, first, that part of the plan implemented which is purely on the operational side; that is, track re-laying, overhead equipment, signalling, tele-communications, automatic train control, civil engineering 'work, new locomotives and new rolling stock. Such work as station rebuilding, remodelling or renovating which is not directly concerned with the operational side of the railways should, I think, take a lesser priority. In view of the present financial situation of our railways, I feel the primary need with regard to passenger traffic is to give, as soon as practicable—that is, at the optimum rate at which the railways and the supplying industries can provide the facilities—fast and reliable service, good time-keeping, clean and modern carriages, and a rapid diminution (I think this is an important point) of mixed forms of traction. Because mixed forms of traction make for less attractive train schedules, delay with regard to increased receipts, and also a duplication of servicing and maintenance.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, the Minister announced in another place the continuation of the London-Midland electrification scheme. But he also went on to say, as was stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that the continuation of that scheme did not
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necessarily mean that approval would be given for the King's Cross, Doncaster, Leeds and York schemes. The Parliamentary Secretary also went on to say, with regard to the London-Midland scheme, that there would now be a two-year delay which would be partly due to the reconstruction of Euston Station. That was said, in spite of the fact that where there has been an introduction of electrical services, or of diesel services, there has in every case been an increase in traffic and receipts. I think your Lordships might be interested to know that the London-Midland electrification scheme represents under 50 per cent. of the electrification scheme provided for under the original. modernisation plan.
I think it can be truthfully said that electrification pays when the traffic warrants it. According to M. Pierre Weil—the figures were quoted by my noble friend, Lord Wolverton, but M. Pierre Weil is Chief Press Officer of the French Railways—the yearly return on the investment on their electrified main lines is in the region of 12 to 17 per cent. With regard to traffic density—and that has an important bearing on dieselisation and electrification—the British Transport Commission assess the break-even point for electrification at 4 million trailing ton miles per annum: in other words, over 4 million trailing ton miles per annum for electrification; under 4 million trailing ton miles per annum for dieselisation. Surely the British Transport Commission and the Minister of Transport must have the traffic density figures for the Kings Cross, Doncaster and Leeds services. Therefore it seems to me that if the traffic warrants it, as in the case of the London-Midland electrification scheme, steps should be taken to put this scheme in hand fairly shortly.
It may interest your Lordships to know that there is up to two years' planning work with regard to overhead equipment before actual physical work can be undertaken in that field. With regard to electrical rolling stock, there is a time-lag of nine to twelve months from the time the order is received and the moment when work can begin on the shop floor. This brings me to the pressing need for a long-term plan for capital equipment. It is now three months ago (minus three days) that the Government

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received the Commission's proposals for the next four years. Naturally, with a view to obtaining value for money, the Minister asked for further information from the British Transport Commission. Is that further information now available, and when will the Minister make his intentions known? I hone his intentions will be made clear in the form of a White Paper, so that the Railway Board, the general public and the supplying industries will know what to expect. In other words, I hope that there will be a firm indication of the rate and extent of the modernisation plan.
I think a clear indication should be given, too, as to the capital expenditure programme for the next four years, not on a year-to-year basis, as has been mentioned before, but so that the industry, the general public and the Railway Board will know what they can count on during this four-year period. A succession of policy changes can only be detrimental to an industry committed in the past to considerable research and development by the British Transport Commission. Understandably, the Minister wishes to undertake a complete reorganisation of the railways' accounting and costing system.
A Bill which is to be laid before Parliament during next Session will lay the foundations for a new railway system of the right size and shape. But the putting into effect of such a measure will take several years, and if, during that time, the major orders for capital equipment are held up, the results may well be disastrous for the industries concerned. I should think it is fairly certain that there will be increased redundancy and even closure of some firms. That may even happen next year. A stable home market is recognisably essential for a flourishing export trade, for that is the only way to maintain an effective showroom for export sales. Empty shop floors are no incentive to overseas buyers. During the necessary period of reorganisation, which is sketchily outlined in the White Paper before us today, surely it is essential that the railway supplying industries should not come to a standstill—at least, if I am putting it too high, they should not be in the position in which they are at the moment, of finding themselves between the British Transport Commission, the
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British Railway Regions and the Ministry of Transport, with the whole question of further orders shifting from one body to the other and slowing up very considerably further orders to the supplying industries.
I would urge my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary in his turn to urge his right honourable friend the Minister to announce at the earliest possible moment the Government's four-year plan, if he wishes to see the plant, the skill and the key personnel of the various industries concerned properly absorbed. To end, I would stress the importance of this matter and ask my noble friend to give the House this evening some indication when this "Go ahead" signal will be given on a four-year basis.
8.2 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, first of all, perhaps I should declare an interest, for, until a month ago, I was a working railwayman and I am still a voluntary officer of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, which is the trade union catering, for the clerical, technical, professional, supervisory and administrative staffs of the British Transport Commission. My approach to this discussion will be that of a worker in the industry. May I make it clear that though, as workers in the industry, we rightly are concerned about as high standards of salaries and working conditions as it is possible for us to achieve, we are also concerned with efficiency within the industry and with giving the travelling public and industry generally the best possible service? May I assure your Lordships that it is not much fun and not much satisfaction to work in an industry which is always in the red and when you are always under public criticism? We would rather be paying our way and giving satisfaction.
Though it has been our objective to secure the highest possible standards of salary, of efficiency and of good service, we have failed in all these objectives, but through no fault of our own as workers in the industry. In regard to salaries, for generations railway workers and transport workers generally have subsidised the travelling public and industry by their low rates of pay and their bad working conditions, as has been admitted by one of the noble Lords opposite. The only attraction to railway

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employment before the war was its security. We got starvation wages, but they were regular.
We fell short of the standard of efficiency within the industry because we lacked the tools to do the job. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place, my noble friend Lord Dalton, got into trouble by saying that after the Transport Act, 1947, we took over a bag of useless assets from the old railway companies. That was a colourful phrase, but it was perfectly true. One cannot blame the old railway companies entirely. Tribute has never been paid to those technical officers who had to "make do and mend" during the prewar years on the budgets made available to them by the old companies.
I want to give just a brief history, because, after listening to some noble Lords this afternoon one would think that trouble has arisen in the railways only since the establishment of the British Transport Commission under the Transport Act, 1947.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, if it was true, as the noble Lord said, that the nation received a bag of useless assets at the end of the war, the railways would never have stood up to the wonderful work they did in the four years of the war. Surely they must have been in good condition in 1939, though they could not replace their assets during the war because our whole effort was concentrated on the war. I think it is unfair for the noble Lord to say this.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, the noble Lord is a long way out. In the inter-war years, particularly between 1930 and 1939, the engineering sides of the railways were having their budgets cut. Many civil and district engineers had to cut out re-laying because money was not available, and had to take the risk of possible accidents, which meant that they themselves would have to take the responsibility at any inquiry which might follow, because they had authorised deferment of maintenance. In 1939, when the war started, there were millions of pounds' worth of deferred maintenance, and we were able to keep the railways running during the war years only because the railwaymen and technical officers worked with great skill and efficiency and "made do" and mended.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Before he leaves the point, I want to ask him for clarity, which I may need when I come to reply. Is he saying that the six years of tremendous war effort did not have any appreciable effect on the railways? So far he has been implying that the "rotten bag of assets" was due to pre-war events, and rather discounted what happened to the railways during the war.
LORD LINDGREN: Noble Lords get very touchy about private enterprise. Nobody has come to the rescue of the British Transport Commission, but as soon as one suggests that the private enterprise railways companies were not as good as they might have been, speakers come up in hundreds to defend them. What I have said is that because of the improvident condition of railway receipts in the inter-war years, we had to make do and mend, with the old basis of maintenance. It was a case of deferring maintenance year after year. Part of my job was the programming of the re-laying works which were recommended by the permanent way inspector. Re-laying that he thought ought to he done in 1934 had been knocked out in successive years by the district engineer because of the short budget available, and when the war started in 1939 it still had not been done. Every technical officer in the old railway companies did the best he could and never took unnecessary risks, but the assets—mechanical, signalling and permanent way—were all in a very bad condition because of deferred maintenance in 1939, let alone what they were like when the war finished.
But because noble Lords opposite are so tender to private enterprise, let me give your Lordships a little of the history. I entered the railway service as a boy in 1914, and the railway service has been in the doldrums ever since—although not, I think, because I joined the service. In the 1914–18 war the railways did not measure up to national responsibility. There were 111 different railway companies. Our transport was interfered with and was not as efficient as it ought to be because of that multiplicity of control. What did the Tory Government do immediately after the 1914–18 war

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finished? We then had the Railways Act, 1921, which gave us the four mainline companies, the London, Midland and Scottish, the London North Eastern, the Great Western and the Southern.
But even amalgamating the 111 railway companies into four did not solve the problem of the railways. One still had the problems of deficiencies in the railway system developing year by year, because of the development of road transport and road transport competition. That is why we had the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, which established for the first time the licensing authorities, to which the noble Lord who opened the debate referred, and gave the railway companies the right to object to the granting of A and B licences. The Act also made provision for C licences. We had the "Square deal for the railways" campaign; we even had the Government coming to the aid of the railways on the financial side by guaranteeing their interest if they raised the money in the open market.
This problem with which we are dealing is not something that has arisen because of the existence of the British Transport Commission. It is a fundamental problem which has arisen because road transport takes off the cream of the traffic paying higher rates, leaving the railways with the most difficult and, generally, lower-rate traffic.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: Would the noble Lord tell me, if railway maintenance was so bad before the war, how it was that the railways had so few accidents compared with those under nationalisation?
LORD LINDGREN: The railway accident rates since nationalisation have been no greater than before. Railwaymen do not have accidents on purpose. I am sorry that the noble Viscount, in his defence of private enterprise, is prepared to bring in the question of the skill and the human element which comes into railway operations. May I say this to the noble Viscount? Prewar and post-war railway operating could have been much safer if the capital had been available to put in the automatic signalling. The invention has been there, and the possibility of doing it; and the desire of railway signal engi-
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neers has also been there to do it. But it was not done pre-war because of the lack of capital; it was not done during the war because we did not have the opportunity; it was not done after the war, again because of lack of capital; and since nationalisation it has not been done, although it has been developed to a much greater extent.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: But it had not been invented pre-war, had it?
LORD LINDGREN: Of course it had. It was in operation on the Great Western pre-war.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I am sorry.
LORD LINDGREN: The noble Viscount, in his speech, did not show a great deal of knowledge of railway operation. If he thinks that he is a better technical engineer than railway operators who have spent their lives in the business, then I think he should have second thoughts. We see transport as a whole, and its function is to move goods and persons from place to place, in safety and, as has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, with regularity. In doing that, it should use the vehicle that is most suited to the traffic being carried and to the undertaker. Every traffic expert who has ever expressed an opinion on the organisation of transport has always come down on the side of the integration of transport. Ignore politics; forget nationalisation or private enterprise. Every traffic expert who has expressed any opinion has always come down on the side of integration of transport. The first and only attempt at integration was the Transport Act, 1947. From my point of view, that did not go far enough, because it failed to deal with the problem of the C licence, and unless you are prepared to tackle the C licence, then you cannot tackle the transport problem, so far as this country is concerned.
This afternoon and this evening noble Lords opposite have been blaming the British Transport Commission. The problems of the day are not the fault of the British Transport Commission. We had the Transport Act, 1947, which came into operation on July 1, 1948. In three short years, with all the difficulties of bringing

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in thousands of small road haulage operators, and all the other problems arising from the setting up of the organisation of the British Transport Commission and its various activities, it was making a profit. When the Conservative Government came into power the British Transport Commission showed, in 1952, a profit of £8 million. Of course, in 1959 there was a loss of £70 million. That was the result of tell years of Tory rule, and, in fact, of the Transport Act, 1953. That Act broke dawn the road and rail integration under the 1947 Act. It dismembered the B.R.S. and decentralised the railways.
The 1953 Transport Act was not a Transport Act in the real sense of the word it was playing politics. It was a pay-off to the road hauliers of this country for contributions they had made to Tory Party funds. It was politics, not transport. The effect of ten years of Tory rule, as I said, was to turn a profit of £8 million, as it was in 1952, before the 1953 Act, into a loss of £70 million in 1959. It is not the British Transport Commission who have created the loss; it is the Tory Government and their playing politics with transport rather than dealing with transport as a service to industry and the people of this country.
Since 1953 we have had decentralisation of railways; we have been reorganised, disorganised, reappraised and further reappraised. We have not been left alone for five minutes without Government interference. If only your Lordships knew of the waste of money, of time and effort of highly skilled, highly paid railway officials, with their technical and clerical staffs behind them, who have been preparing plan after plan and reorganising plan after plan, at the behest and at the whim of successive Ministers of Transport, you would be shocked at the cost. Parts of the loss have been due to this political interference that we have had to suffer from successive Ministers of Transport. I may be a little prejudiced and biased—I am prepared to admit my bias as a worker in the industry. But the railway officers are highly qualified and highly skilled; they are men of integrity, and they are dedicated to their job—and that is a good list of qualifications. But they are not supermen. They cannot do two jobs at once. Nor can the staff, of which I was one, who were supporting them from behind.
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Whilst we were preparing report after report for Ministers of Transport, we were not doing the real job for which we were paid: maintaining and operating the railways. In fact, if we had been able to get on with our job of securing traffic and maintaining and operating the railways, instead of preparing all these statistics and plans for the Minister of Transport for political purposes, then, despite the 1953 Act, the British Transport Commission would have been in a better position to-day.
Under this White Paper we are to have a further upheaval. We are to be reorganised and disorganised again. We are in for a period of uncertainty which is going to last for at least three years, if not longer. You cannot get good service if the morale of officers and men is had. The morale of railway officers and railway employees to-day is at its lowest ebb, not because of something in the British Transport Commission, but because of continued political interference with the job they have to do. Let us face it. The reason for the White Paper is not the shortcomings of the British Transport Commission; it is the failure of the Government, the' failure arising from their 1953 Transport Act, from their subsequent blunders and the pressure and interference by Tory Back Bench Members of Parliament.
I am speaking for longer than I intended to, but I think this ought to be said, because not only should your Lordships know it, but as we in this House are getting a greater degree of publicity, perhaps even the country may know. This White Paper does not arise from the Stedeford Committee. It arises from a wage claim in 1957–58. As railway workers we went right through the whole of the negotiating machinery. It took us eighteen months to take the claim through, and when we had finished the tribunal said: "The claim is justified; a case for it has been made out. But we cannot make an award, because there is no money in the kitty." So we had to go to see the Prime Minister. See the political interference! The Chairman of the British Transport Commission could not negotiate with us. We had to get permission from the Prime Minister to give the Chairman of the British Transport Commission elbow room to negotiate on wages, which he did. As a result of those negotiations,

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we got a 3 per cent. settlement. Noble Lords may laugh, but if you are a worker in the industry and dependent upon it, you do not laugh. We are concerned with doing the job of serving our country; we are not concerned with playing politics and upsetting the industry which makes the flow of goods and people from place to place possible.
As a result of that 3 per cent. settlement. or together with it, we secured an independent inquiry into the structure of railway wages and salaries. That inquiry was finally carried out under the chairmanship of Professor Guillebaud. Its findings became known as the Guillebaud Report. When his Report was issued, of course, it showed what those of us in the trade union movement had claimed for years and years: that the rates of pay and the salaries of railway employees were very much below those of their colleagues in commercial undertakings and industry generally. Because of public opinion, the Government had to find the money in order to implement the Guillebaud Report. In order to appease the Tory Back Benchers, who did not like the Government making an outright subsidy to the railways, they had to have the Stedeford Committee.
I want to protest, as I believe one noble Lord opposite did, against the non-publication of the Stedeford Committee's Report. I was one of those who gave evidence twice before the Committee, and I admit that we were courteously received and could say what we liked. I am not making any complaint about the Stedeford Committee, but I think it is monstrous that their Report has not been published. The Minister has had a copy; the British Transport Commission have a copy—they have a perfect right to it. The Government are providing the money, and the B.T.C. have been responsible for administration. But we as railway workers have put our lives into the industry: it is our future, too. Are we not to know what the criticisms are, and on what they are based; the recommendations, and why? Yet we are denied that. May I remind your Lordships that, from the point of view of Parliamentary responsibility, we have a White Paper which is supposed to be based upon the Stedeford Committee Report. But do we know that it is? We
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do not know what those recommendations are. We do not know which recommendations the Government have accepted and which they have rejected.
As trade unionists we are very critical of the White Paper, and we are critical of it because it does not deal with the problem of transport. If I may say so, I was delighted to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who has gone some way towards accepting the responsibility for the integration of transport. But this does not deal with the basic problem of transport in any shape or form. Road transport is not mentioned; the question of the A, B and C licences is not mentioned. Under the new proposals, of course, the British Transport Commission is to go.
Apart from the question of its coordinating function within the various undertakings over which it has control, the Commission had another very vital function to those of us who are trade unionists. Under the umbrella of the British Transport Commission we have been able to secure a measure of coordination between the salaries and wages paid in the various undertakings for which the Commission has been responsible. We have had independent negotiation machinery for each of the undertakings—railways, docks, inland water ways, London Transport and B.R.S. But when we have come to a sticky patch, as one always does in negotiations, we have always had the Chairman or Deputy Chairman of the British Transport Commission to whom we could appeal and who, in his own way, could make arrangements for the parties to be brought together and for agreement to be reached. So far as the employees are concerned that co-ordinating factor has gone, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, said in his speech, the co-ordinating function is to be undertaken by the Minister of Transport as the Chairman of the Transport Advisory Committee. Is he going to act as the court of appeal when there are problems of wages and salaries within the various undertakings still under the umbrella of transport? I hope not, for his sake; because he is going to have a very busy time if he is.
We have no objection, as trade unionists, to the setting up of the Railways Board. As has been mentioned by many other noble Lords, it is a reversion

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to the 1947 Act and the Railway Executive. But, quite honestly, if we are to have the Railways Board, there is no reason whatever for the Regional Boards. They are redundant: they are an extra link in the chain of communication and administration which is unnecessary. There has been talk about a regional accountancy. But that is a lot of poppycock. The traffic in this country, the goods and services which have to be moved, is not dependent upon whether there is this region or that region. It originates in Dundee and comes down to Penzance. Are we going to have the whole of the Railway Clearing House set up, as we had in the days of the 1931 railway companies? We refused it when we had the four main-line companies. It is impossible to get regional accountancy on any true basis because traffic does not originate or terminate within the same region. Most of it is through-traffic or coming into one region or the other.
On the question of finance, there had to be capital reconstruction, but this is not a realistic capital reconstruction. The Railways Board is left with £400 million of its own, £280 million from the railway "Super" funds in the savings bank, and to accept the responsibility for future investment under the Modernisation Plan. That means that to service the capital it is left with it must provide £60 million to £70 million a year. In 1959, the gross receipts of railways were only £457 million and on the operating costs alone there was a deficiency in that year of £42 million. In 1960 the figure was £60 million; and in 1961 most probably it will be £100 million. Let us face it; a 13 per cent. increase in receipts is needed even to meet the working deficiency. In order to service the capital as well, an increase of 25 to 27 per cent. on receipts, an increase on receipts of £120 million, would be needed. As a workman in the railway industry I am optimistic: given the tools I think that we can do a good job. But it is just foolishness to expect that with depleted railway systems the Railways Board can be viable in a matter of five years.
Reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, to the fact that it was undesirable that the Minister of Transport should be the person to determine the social value of a branch line. Thai is perfectly true; and he cannot
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do it. The Government speak with two voices—and I am quoting this illustration in no spirit of personal criticism. There is a closure of the Colne Valley line. That line runs through the Home Secretary's constituency. Mr. R. A. Butler, as a Member of Parliament under pressure from his constituents, puts in an objection to the closure of the line. He goes before the Transport Users' Consultative Council. Mr. Butler does not appear, but his agent does, and on behalf of Mr. Butler puts up the case for the retention of the Colne Valley line. What does the Chairman of the Transport Users' Consultative Council say? With a little wisecrack he turns to the agent and says, "Is Mr. Butler as a member of the Government prepared to authorise a subsidy if I recommend the branch line should be kept open?" It is an impossible position for a Minister of the Crown to be placed in, that he should have to make these decisions.
My Lords, I must just add one word, in spite of the time I have taken, about modernisation, because except for the question of finance the White Paper does not mention modernisation. The Government itself, by its action, has cost the British Transport Commission hundreds of thousands of pounds.
A NOBLE LORD: Millions.
LORD LINDGREN: No I stretch a long bow, but I do not go to that extent. It has cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds by its stops and starts, reappraisal after re-appraisal. We have had an upsetting of the programme to such an extent that it has not got value for the money it has spent, and money that has been spent has been lying idle. As the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, said, if you are going to have a modernisation plan you must have a programme. There has to be a period of time over which it can be done. There has to be the getting together of the technical staff, the survey, the programming of work, ordering of materials, obtaining of equipment.
What has happened because of the Government's stops and starts? At the office which I have left we have had hundreds of highly paid technical people standing idle, not through their own fault but because the work they are engaged on has been stopped overnight,

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as a result of Government action. Those people are civil engineers, young fellows, vital fellows, good teams. They are not prepared to stand about. As soon as the job stops, off they go, the best of them. One or two—perhaps those you would like to go—have stayed. Now as soon as we get the word "Go" we have once again to collect the technical team and start the whole programme again. As trade unionists we have met the Minister of Transport. At our last meeting he told us, as apparently the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale has also heard, that he was prepared to sanction a four-year programme; but so far as the Eastern Region is concerned, we have not yet had the word "Go". I think we ought to have the opportunity of having a programme, of knowing what we are going to do and of being allowed to get on with the job.
My Lords, I apologise for speaking for so long, but it is impossible to work for nearly 50 years in an industry without having some affection for it and wanting to see that it is a success. We, as workers in the industry, will support the Government in anything it will do to develop transport. But we are a little sick and tired of playing politics with our living. So I say: for goodness' sake, create a policy and let those appointed to administer it get on with the job! As trade unionists and workers in the industry we will give them our full support to make it efficient.
8.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I, too, am one of those noble Lords who are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, for giving us the opportunity of discussing this problem of the nationalised transport undertakings. It is unfortunate that this debate was preceded by another one and we had to start so late, because this problem is one of enormous difficulty and of great importance. Before I move on, I think we must all agree that the noble Lord who has just sat down speaks with enormous sincerity and knowledge, having given a great many years of his life to the railways. We agree with him that the men on the railways are, and always have been, a magnificent lot of men and they are capable and efficient. At the moment he says their morale is low, and I would agree with him; but as to the
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causes why it is low I do not altogether agree with him. I may have misunderstood the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, but I thought he said that the making of the regional boards was bad for the morale of the workers.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: No.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: Then I am wrong; I must have misunderstood him. I personally do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, on this point. I have gone into this matter and talked to a great many railwaymen, and I can only say that those I have talked to are all for the regional system. This regional system has been a hobby horse of mine, because I have lived for many years on what I describe as a family railway, and all the people I have met on that railway, on that region, are in favour of an organisation of that degree.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I will give the noble Lord this: it is quite true, so far as the Great Western and Southern regions are concerned; they have always been units and they are inclined to accept it. But you do not get the same feeling in the North Eastern and L.M.S. They are all much together, interchanging on the lines.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: I thank the noble Lord. I think the regional system leads to greater competition and therefore to greater efficiency.
Most of the points which I wanted to make have, at this time of night, already been made. My noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard, touched on one of them. Coming to modernisation, I am not going to speak on electrification because that has already been dealt with at length, or dieselisation, except to say that I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard that it is better to have diesel units pulling ordinary trains rather than diesel multiple units. The essence of a diesel multiple unit is that it is rather like the underground or the local Southern electric, where the acceleration is good; but that would not be so if you had a diesel unit pulling that train.
I want to talk on a matter on which he touched. I consider the most important aspect of modernisation to be this question of automatic brakes on freight trains. If you have high density

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traffic the whole thing is completely wasted—all modernisation is wasted if you have goods trains which, because they cannot stop, are not allowed to go at more than 15 to 20 miles per hour. That must seem obvious to everyone. I understand that a great deal of money has already been spent on this question of putting vacuum brakes on to goods trucks. But if a number of them have been actually converted, they are not in use. Further, I understand that it is impossible to put these vacuum brakes on to some types of truck because it is impossible to tip them. But surely we must get on with that, because it bolds up the Whole of the traffic and, incidentally, it takes a long time for the goods to get from one point to another. I understand that the average pace of a goods train throughout the Kingdom is still not much more than between 3 and 5 miles per hour.
The other point, which was touched on by Lord Lindgren and one other noble Lord, was the question of automatic signalling. As the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, knows only too well, it has been operating on the Great Western section for some forty years. I believe that in the past it was not taken up by other railways because of jealousy. Surely, nowadays we must get on with it straightaway. I should like to know how far it is being done, because with the density of traffic nowadays to places like Lewisham (which we all remember) to the South, in the Manchester area, and all over the country where there is high density traffic, it is hardly fair to ask drivers to carry on in foggy weather. It is not impossible to provide this system. It has been done. We have had it for forty years on one section of the railways. Surely we can have it over the whole system.
I am not going to detain your Lordships any longer. I approve of this White Paper. I believe that the Government have "started the ball rolling"; in fact, they have given it a pretty good shove. They have written off the enormous money losses in order to give it a free run. Now it is up to everyone—it is up to the Boards of the various concerns; it is up to the railwaymen, and to the public as well—to give it a fair trial and to make the railways in particular, and the transport which was once the pride of Britain, a good service again.
8.44 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, paragraph 5 of the White Paper says, and I think quite rightly, that the heart of the problem is the railways. That is the reason why I felt I might speak for a few moments, even at this late hour, because for the last twenty years, I suppose, I have been a part-time railway man. The first ten were spent connected with one of the more amusing of the South American railways, and the last ten with the locomotive manufacturing industry. For that reason, I have to declare an interest and shall not be able, for example, to follow up all the things that my noble friend Lord Merrivale said.
I think we are all bound to give a general welcome to this White Paper because it is a serious attempt to deal with the situation which now exists in the transport industry. Never mind what are the causes of it and why it exists, but it certainly does. I would welcome this White Paper not as something to be taken in isolation, but as a step in the evolution of British Railways to meet modern conditions, which they certainly have to do; and from the financial point of view—I shall have a little more to say about that in a moment—this White Paper comes none too soon.
I do not know whether all noble Lords, except the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, realise the great length of time which it takes to carry through the physical and the organisational changes which are called for in the post-war modernisation programme of the railways. It takes an immense time and an immense and largely unrewarding effort. That is why I was so glad to hear one noble Lord earlier this evening sing the praises of Sir Brian Robertson, because few people know, except those close to the industry, what an immense task he has had to perform, what an immense responsibility he has had to shoulder, and what little thanks he has had for it at any time.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, said—I agree with a lot of what he said, but by no means all, as noble Lords opposite can imagine—this problem has been in existence since before the First World War. There is no doubt about that. It would be wrong to pretend that

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the old private enterprise companies were very forward-looking or were wonderful financiers, or possibly made the effort that they should have made to shake themselves free from the shackles of legislation which was quite unsuitable for the age in which they lived. Then, as other noble Lords have said, came the War, which left the railways "out on their feet". After the war, came nationalisation. I am not going to argue tonight whether nationalisation was right or wrong: but I am going to say that it was impossible for the managements of the railways to carry through the organisational changes consequent upon nationalisation and, at the same time, attend to the technical problems of modernising the railways after the war, because at that time it was not merely a question of putting the railways back as they had been in 1939—that, in fact, would have been utterly wrong, although at one moment it looked as if the managements of British Railways were trying to do that when they designed the whole of their range of steam locomotives, some of which have never left the drawing board from that day to this: and that at a moment when everybody else was turning his mind to diesel and electric traction.
To my mind, whether nationalisation was right or wrong, from other points of view it most certainly had the effect of delaying the modernisation of the railways, if only because the unfortunate people who were running the railways could not attend to nationalisation and modernisation at the same time. Therefore, at a point, if you like, ten years ago, the modernisation of the railways and the mechanisation of its processes off the rails—goods yards, stations, accounting and so forth—was at a very low degree. As a result—and this is something on which I do not think anybody has spoken so far—because modernisation and mechanisation had proceeded such a little way, there were places in the railway industry for a larger proportion of low forms of industrial life than in any other industries that I know of in this country. Hence, with these low forms of industrial life in an industry I do not see how the morale of the industry can prosper. I can also understand the great difficulties which the managements were faced with in trying to get
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a proper wages structure applying equally to the high-grade footplate men, the signalmen and so forth, and to the Teddy-boys whom you and I can see on the platforms of any main-line station. My Lords, that sort of thing is no good. So now the bill has to be paid. There is the bill, and we have to pay the bill at the right price. But we have to pay it.
To come back to paragraph 4 of the White Paper, it says that "Sweeping changes will be needed." Of course they will. Paragraph 4 is all very well, and sweeping changes may well be necessary but, if they are, for goodness' sake! this time let us go all the way and see that whoever is going to make those changes really makes a job of it, once and for all. I doubt very much whether anybody who is not close to the railway industry knows just how much there is yet to do. I think the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, said in his speech that, once a decision had been taken on what was to be done, professional railwaymen should be left alone—or words to that effect: I think I have quoted him rightly.
It will be necessary to spend money on modernisation. And though we all moan and wail about the enormous losses the railways are supposed to have made, I very much doubt if anybody at the present time knows whether the railways in this country can be run without a subsidy. We should know a great deal more if we knew what the Stedeford Committee had said about that. I wonder whether any railway line, except the most heavily trafficked, is capable of running without a subsidy, and whether all this talk about the wickedness of the railways losing so much money takes sufficient account of the fact that the roads are entirely subsidised and the motor user, apart from his licence, pays very little for them.
At all events, as many noble Lords have said, we shall not get the matter right until we go through with the modernisation programme, complete it, and eliminate redundant labour and redundant operations, thus leaving the railway industry with a labour force of a much higher average skill than they have now, doing worthwhile jobs and being paid worthwhile proper wages.

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That, to my mind, would eliminate a great many of the complaints which have been before the public about railway wages for a long time.
To come back for a moment to this question of profitability, I feel myself that it is a great pity that the Government so far have not followed out a number of recommendations which were made by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries in another place, which I think was largely chaired by my right honourable friend, the Member for Blackpool, North. In paragraphs 421 and 422 they talk a great deal about this question of profitability. They say, I think rightly, that if the need, social or strategic (though I do not think they use the word) means keeping certain lines of railway in operation—and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, may think of some of the railways in the North of Scotland—these should be frankly and openly subsidised and the railways should not have that can tied to their tail, for reasons which I am going to try to explain, if noble Lords will bear with me for a moment.
I think we are still in a state of some doubt about how to handle passenger traffic, because this Report on the country buses—which I think we are to expect in a day or two—has not yet appeared. Yet that subject is tied up most closely with it. If I may he allowed one criticism of British Railways, though I certainly do not want to make that my tone tonight, I think that the integration of railway services with bus services has had nothing more than lip service. A great number of stations have been closed recently in my county of Shropshire, in my view perfectly rightly, but the people who used those stations have to be carried there. And, supposing I went into the inquiry office at a main-line station, and asked for the bus service which was to replace the train service which had gone, I can just imagine—and so can the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren—the abuse and scorn which would be poured out on me. Now, my Lords, that is one of the things that must be put right. It is all part of that problem, and its solution would provide a good deal of the answer to the problem of profitability.
All this work has got to be done by professionals. I am not going to argue about diesel, steam and electric traction
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tonight, though I would say, with great respect, that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was entirely right in what he said in his speech about the relationship of diesel and electric. Diesel can move about anywhere on any line, and therefore they can come in, temporarily if you like, to take over from steam which is now being replaced, and run a service until that line is electrified.
On that same subject I think that a great deal of hot air has been talked on the doubt about whether this or that line will pay if it is electrified. My Lords, surely the answer is well known. Even if statistics are not available from the Manchester—Sheffield line, they are certainly available from the Continent, where heavily trafficked railway systems in France and Italy, I think in Western Germany, and certainly in Sweden and Spain, have been running for some time. Why, then, is there this smoke screen of doubt about whether or not a line will pay? Frankly, my Lords, I do not believe it.
But all this technical work, which can be done only by the railways—it cannot be done by politicians, civil servants or anybody else—must be done against the background of this set-up. I should like to say (if I am not detaining noble Lords too long) that in certain places the set-up leaves me in some doubt. If I can put it shortly, there are three ways in which the Government can control a nationalised undertaking. The first is the very simple way: to have the Government Department and the management the same, as we have with the Post Office. The Post Office people can argue very nicely with themselves and one hears nothing about it.
The second way is the sort of relationship the electricity industry has had with the Ministry since nationalisation; and no one has known better than the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, how to "make that tick". The third way is the way that we seem to be having with the railways; that is to say, with the management of the undertaking to some extent duplicated by the Department. That may he necessary for certain special circumstances, and for a certain limited time, but for a great many reasons it is most certainly undesirable as a long-term piece of organisation. That I feel quite strongly

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about. I wish now that that view had been recommended by the Stedeford Committee; that would fortify my views on it a good deal. But as it is, with the proposed Advisory Council and so on, it may be all right when there are great and good men in office, assisted by great and good men in the Department. It is, nevertheless, fraught with a good many dangers, because, to put it bluntly, by this system any Minister can deal himself a hand of jokers.
Nor am I particularly keen on the Advisory Boards; but then, my Lords, I am never keen on advisory boards or consumer councils. If you are going to collect eminent businessmen or tycoons, or whatever you like to call them, to serve an undertaking or an industry, I cannot help thinking that it is better to use them in the way they are accustomed to be used in industry, as members of boards of directors, and give them not only the responsibility but the power. There again I think we may find that some of the proposals may need a new look.
Then we come to the cutting up of the existing Transport Commission, and here the picture begins to be less in focus. We do not know, from the White Paper, a great deal about the degree of centralisation and decentralisation that is to be expected. It has always seemed to me that "centralisation" and "decentralisation" are not two creeds to be held, one by the Right and one by the Left, any more than in the old days, when some of us were boys, Free Trade and Protection were two different religions to be followed slavishly. Both are expedients to be adopted, in this case, or that.
It strikes me that one can make quite a good case for decentralisation in regard to certain operations—civil engineering, and commercial operations; but when we come to design, research, development and similar things, one would have to go a long way in industry to find anybody who would recommend any such practice. I believe also (I think the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, mentioned this point) that decentralisation of accounting would have its dangers, and very great ones. By that I do not mean that the local accountant in a region should not be responsible for keeping his own
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accounts. I mean that the whole system should be on one design, making the best use of business machines and treated in such a way that the results of the regions of the railways as a whole can be consolidated and compared. But if we go back to the technical decentralisation we shall revert to what one might call the "jungle fighting" which took place over continuous braking and automatic train control, because the survivors of the old days in the regions are like members of very good regiments; they do not always realise who is the real enemy and sometimes mistake the regiment next door for the enemy, when in fact they are not. I have made one or two criticisms, but I hope I have made them, as I meant to do, within the framework of the White Paper itself.
Before I sit down I want to say one thing, arising from my connection with the locomotive manufacturing industry, which I do not think will be controversial. That is that, whatever criticism one may offer to the railway managements—and a good deal has been offered at different times, here and elsewhere—one of the things that have happened in recent years is that British Railways have taken in the international railway world a place which I do not think they occupied a few years ago, because there was a time when one could quite fairly have described the British railwayman as an introvert compared with his Continental counterpart.
Two or three years ago the railway manufacturing industry in this country was severely threatened by a French organisation called Sofrerail, sponsored by the French nationalised railways, S.N.C.F., with suitable banking and manufacturing support. That organisation set out, and goes out, to offer railway advice to countries with supposed need of it, with, no doubt, the result that Continental equipment is bought on that advice. To my mind, it was an urgent matter for the railway manufacturing industry in this country that something of the same kind should be set up. That has now been done through the United Kingdom Railway Advisory Service (U.K.R.A.S., for short) and before I sit down I should like to pay a tribute to those high officers of British Railways and people in the Board of Trade who have given their support

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and preached the gospel to other people and thereby have shown that the railway industry—whether part is nationalised and part is not does not matter—is one industry, and that we have a part to play opposite other railways in the world.
9.5 p.m.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I should like at the onset to express my warm felicitations to my noble friend Lord Hughes for his most impressive maiden speech. It was a penetrating and informed speech dealing with transport in Scotland, and he was speaking from an abundant and continuing experience. I am sure that we should all hope that in like matters and otherwise we shall frequently have the benefit of his contribution to our debates.
The Motion standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, refers to:
"the reorganisation of the nationalised transport undertakings."
I am sure the noble Lord will forgive me when I say I felt that in his speech he dealt rather more with detailed management and matters of detailed policy, such as the competitive relations between the railways and coastal shipping and with road passenger transport, than with the subject matter of his Motion. What we are discussing this evening is really the consequences of the monumental injury done to our economy by the Tory Government when they dismantled the integrated system of transport in 1953.
The Times, on December 21, 1960, took occasion to remind us of the statements made by the Opposition, as they then were, to the proposals of the original Transport Bill; and I think it is worth while reading this statement of The Times leader for that day:
"Fourteen years ago, when Parliament debated the Transport Bill which nationalised the railways and much other transport besides. Mr. Herbert Morrison, as he then was, and Mr. Barnes saw in the Bill a plan to 'weld the, transport needs of the country into an efficient and economic whole' and 'the largest and most extensive socialisation measure ever presented to a free democratic Parliament.' Mr. Anthony Eden"—
as he then was, now Sir Anthony Eden—
"and Sir David Maxwell Fyfe"—
now the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack—
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"saw in it a national disaster' … they thought little of the co-ordination' and 'integration' which were on every Labour speaker's lips, and Mr. Oliver Poole evoked the loudest cheers when he said that 'he could only look forward to the day when they would reverse some if not all of its provisions'. The Conservatives have looked forward to some effect. What their 1953 Act began, their 1962 Act, if it follows the organisation plan now outlined, will complete. The last remnants of co-ordination between different forms of transport will then be liquidated"—
and how satisfied the Tories will be!—
"And the tone of the White Paper suggests that, if it had been practicable to liquidate co-ordination between railway regions themselves, Ministers would not have been averse from it."
Even now they are still unsatisfied in their desire to dismantle the integrated system of transport which was ushered into this country by the Act of 1947. But what disastrous effects and results this policy has had! This White Paper is the evidence and record of the disaster which this policy has brought upon the transport system of this country. In truth, the wreckers of national transport have destroyed worse than they knew. Having dismantled an integrated transport system designed to serve the public interest, they find that they cannot put the pieces together again—pieces that they have mis-shaped out of all utility. And so the Government are in a continuing mess. There have been four Ministers of Transport and one overlord for a brief spell, and things have proceeded from mess to muddle and then from muddle to mess.
In 1953, as former speakers have mentioned, the Government sold off to private enterprise the profitable road transport and dealt a mortal blow at integration and the profitable operation of the transport system of this country. All the Executive Committees were abolished except the London Transport Executive, and Area Boards were created. In the result, according to the White Paper, there is a deficit of £500 million in the Commission's accounts. That, my Lords, is a measure of the price which is being paid by the nation for this obtuse, doctrinaire wrecking of the national transport service and system. And now the Government are in a fix. This exercise of pulling down proved too successful, and something had to be done about it. The Ministry did not know what to do. They have tried everything, one way and

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another, especially when new Ministers were appointed to the office.
So the Government went outside to a number of "wise men" in industry, and asked them how to get the Government out of the mess. The proceedings were to be private: the public were not to know the extent of the mess. More than that, the recommendations or the Report of the "wise men" are still withheld from publication. The public, my Lords, who are the owners of the public transport system of this country, must not know what is wrong, or what the "wise men" advise; whether the Government have adopted their advice, or whether this pitiful scheme of so-called reorganisation is based on the advice of the "wise men" wholly, or partially or at all. I cannot think that the so-called reorganisation envisaged in the White Paper is based on the advice of able, competent and informed business men.
In the light of this scheme of reorganisation, I can understand the Government's keeping things dark. What is the scheme, if it can be so called? What does it set out to do? To abolish the Commission, the one unifying element in securing co-ordination and integration. That is to be abolished. Disintegration is to follow, as my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth said in his speech. And who, if you please, is to take its place?—the Minister. In paragraph 9 of the White Paper, it is stated:
"The activities of the British Transport Commission as at present constituted are so large and so diverse that it is virtually impossible to run them effectively as a single undertaking."
That may or may not be so, although there is no evidence that any one of the units of the Transport Commission's properties and activities suffered. But, if that be the case, how does it come about that the Minister will have the time and capacity to do what that paragraph states the British Transport Commission could not do? In any case, the British Transport Commission was free from political interference; the Minister, of course, will not be. He will settle policy. True, he will be advised, as we are told, by the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council, which, as Lord Teynham and other speakers have said, will not enjoy any real independence because the Minister will be the chairman.
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It strikes me, when one looks at the chart of organisation, that the idea of a Nationalised Transport Advisory Council was an afterthought and was put in after the arrangements had otherwise been settled. In any case, it will have no functions except to say "Yea" to the Chairman—namely, the Minister. We are told that the Minister will settle the problem of the future size and shape of the railway system; but, as one noble Lord has stated, he has already appointed a study group. It was appointed in October to do precisely that—to settle the future size and shape of the railway system. I refer noble Lords to the OFFICIAL REPORT of October 26, 1960, column 2365. But this duty is also given to the Railways Board. The end of paragraph 14 of the White Paper says:
" … the British Railways Board will be responsible for such matters as national staff and wage negotiations, overall control over finance and investment, policies for safety, training and research, and the determination of the future size and shape of the railway system."
So there are to be two bodies dealing with that one question. But that is not enough for these people who can really reorganise, for, in paragraph 7 of the White Paper, it says this:
"The practical test for the railways, as for other transport, is how far the users are prepared to pay economic prices for the services provided. Broadly, this will in the end settle the size and pattern of the railway system".
So it is going to settle itself, on the basis of economic prices for the services provided. Right through the White Paper this muddled thought, and equally muddled expression, prevails.
Now that, as a master-stroke, the Commission has been supplanted by the Minister and the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council, which has no executive functions, one is entitled to inquire: Who initiates new developments? Which organisation is going to be the dynamic organisation, moving towards modernisation and development? It is now proposed to re-create as Boards the Executives which were abolished in 1953. The old Railway Executive now becomes the new Railways Board. Area Boards become Regional Boards. What profundity! What fundamental wisdom! The Minister of Transport, if he is responsible for this White Paper and this scheme, must be a genius. Before 1953 the Railway Executive, as part of the

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Commission, was co-ordinating with the other activities of the Commission—the associated activities. It was always a part of the integrated structure. Under this precious scheme, the Railway Executive, as one of the Boards, is separate. It is isolated from other forms of transport. The position of British Railways is, in fact, worse off, so far as relationships and co-ordination with other transport facilities are concerned, whether publicly owned or privately owned, than were the railways in 1930.
In its leader of 30 January, The Times said this:
"Decentralisation is being carried too far. In many respects, there will be less integration than there was in the 1930s".
It went on to say:
"Of this plan two broad criticisms can be made. The first is that it may isolate the railways too much from other transport operations. The second is that the decentralisation proposed is unreal and even within the terms of the White Paper natural forces will tend as the years go by to bring about centralisation once again".
I wonder, my Lords, at what cost that slow process of repairing the disastrous mistakes and injuries to the nation's interests by the Tory Government will be carried out.
Then we are told that the Regional Boards are to be autonomous. But how can they be autonomous when the Area Boards are limited to an expenditure of £100,000 on any single proposal? The Commission itself is limited to an expenditure of £250,000. The Treasury have first to give consent. How can it be said that Area Boards are autonomous when they are limited in their expenditure to £100,000, and when the Commission, dealing with traffic receipts amounting to nearly £500 million a year, are limited to an expenditure of £250,000? Will the Under-Secretary say whether the Minister is to be under this limitation which the Select Committe stated, on the evidence given to it by the Commission, was the case?
On January 30 this year the Minister made great play that the British Railways Board would have the assets transferred to them, and of course the capital debt. What does that mean? It does not mean anything at all, because British Railways must conform to the policy which is to be settled by the Minister, not by an independent Commission. This is the
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precious reorganisation scheme as regards structure. My Lords, it is a pretty sorry attempt to meet a condition for which the Government are wholly responsible. In these respects, where the proposals are of value, they are a return in fact, if not in appearance, to the structure of the Act of 1947. And where they are not, they are of little or no utility.
I come now to the finance of the proposals, into which, at this late hour, I do not propose to go in any detail. I join with other noble Lords who have expressed doubt as to whether the railways can within five years increase their net receipts by something in the region of £125 million. After all, a good deal of unjustified criticism is levelled at nationalised transport, and especially the railways, because of their deficit on operations. Practically every industrial country with a railway system finds that it is not paying. Eighteen months ago there was a deputation of chairmen of many of the railways in the United States to Washington asking for a subsidy because of the deficits being accumulated by their respective railways. The French Government are taking steps to co-ordinate road, rail and water transport and to fix freights on a basis which will make the most economic use of all transport. They propose to raise road freights in some cases where road transport is taking business away from the railways. When we come to West Germany we find that the number of vehicles to ply for hire or reward outside a 50-kilometre radius has been limited to the number in operation in 1958. Long-distance road and rail charges are fixed by statute to prevent harmful competition; and for some bulk traffic the charges are deliberately fixed to favour the railways.
It was stated by the Select Committee, and repeated by the Minister, that fares and charges in this country on the railways are, in real terms, lower than they were in 1938. If that be the case, it means that the railways have been giving a continuing subsidy to industry as regards freight charges. I think those circumstances should be borne in mind and remembered when the railway systems come under the criticism they do, most of it uninformed. So much for the so-called reorganisation. In my submission, my Lords, it will not achieve the putting of the railways on to a sound

731
basis. It is tinkering with the job. It transfers to the Minister the running of transport in this country. It plunges straight into the cockpit of politics and ministerial autocracy. The Minister will settle policy with the assistance of the National Advisory Council. In short, the National Advisory Council will "rubber stamp" the Minister's decisions.
I should now like to say a few words about the Victoria line. The Victoria line project was approved in 1949, eleven years ago. Powers were obtained from Parliament in 1955, six years ago. The powers for compulsory acquisition of land expire in December of this year. Renewed powers are being sought in the current Commission Bill. Experimental tunnelling is proceeding. In February, 1959—that is, ten years after—the Minister asked the London Travel Committee to report upon the value of the tube. They were asked to consider whether the £55 million which the Victoria line would cost would pay a better dividend were it spent on off-street parking or on some other project. In their Report, which they presented to the Minister in July, 1959, the Committee described it
"as essential to meet present and expected future demands for travel on the underground system."
They found it
"the most effective means of relieving the severe peak hour congestion on many of the present underground services."
They concluded that
"the construction of the line should be started as quickly as possible."
That was in February, 1959. On March 2, 1960, the Minister of Transport said that he was unable to make any statement. He was pressed again on March 23, and said:
"The scheme must be considered in the general context of the British Transport Commission's position."
The Minister was asked again, on November 25, 1960, when he expected to make a statement about the Victoria line, and he said that he could make no definite forecast. On March 1 of this year he gave a similar answer. Why the Minister cannot make up his mind with regard to this, I find it difficult to understand. Here is a project which would reduce bus traffic on the roads by about 2,000 bus trips a day—and a bus trip is
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the double journey. It would cost £55 million, including the rolling stock. Had it been done in 1949, it would have cost £38 million. Its benefit to transport can be put in another way: namely, it is estimated that the line would have the transport potentiality of five new six-line motorways through the heart of London and out to the North-East. The cost of these new motorways would be vastly larger than the cost of the Tube. The cost of rehousing the displaced persons from the properties which would have to be demolished and of resiting the industries which would have to be moved would be vastly larger in total than the cost of the Tube, including rolling stock.
I have suggested that this project should be regarded as an underground road and should rank for grant on the basis of a Class 1 road—namely, 75 per cent. If that were done, we should find that the project would not only be of benefit to road congestion but would also be able to pay its way on the reduced capital expenditure arising from the gift of the grant.
Finally, may I refer to the pipelines, a new element of transport which is emerging in this country, as it has emerged and been adopted in other countries? It will have profound effects on our freight transport and on our social and economic life. It could be fairly stated to be revolutionary in its potential effects. We can see the situation in which pipelines might supplant railways in the way that the railways supplanted the canals. This would involve not only a loss of traffic for the railways but also a diminution of earning power of the railways, and the value of their assets would be rendered obsolescent or redundant in that measure.
On March 6, the Minister of Fuel and Power made a statement in another place and I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for information on some points in that statement. I understand that some rough indication has been given to the noble Lord of the information on which I should like some clarification. What is the orderly development to which the Minister referred? Is it orderly by reference to what criteria—national planning, public interest or private interest? Who will be the planners and what will be the plan? Will it be a national one, or will it be a plan which is determined piece

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by piece, until, of course, there is no plan? Are we going to repeat the mistakes of the past?
In his statement the Minister refers only to objections; provision is to be made for objectors to be heard. But supposing there are no objections, is there to be no inquiry? And is there to be orderly development but no control? What will be the incentives and terms upon which private ownership will be permitted? Or is private ownership to be combined, as would seem to be the case, with public control? If there is no compulsory purchase, what kind of control will exist in any case? Are the lines (and I regard this as being very important) to be the monopolies of the owners? Are they for the use of the owners only or are they to be of common use and become common carriers?
We may well be on the threshold of a great development in transport. Pipelines are not limited to the conveyance of liquids but can also be used for the transport of solids. If we are to have an integrated system of pipelines, it should also be integrated with our transport system. It should be regarded from the start as a part of national transport. It should be publicly owned and publicly operated. It is to be profoundly hoped that the Government will not dither with doctrinaire considerations and repeat the mess and muddle and tragedy of the replacement of the canals by the railways in the nineteenth century.
I hope that the noble Lord may be able to clarify the points I have indicated to him. This White Paper, which ought really to be a white sheet, is an attempt to cover up the results of this dismantling of the national transport system of the country and to piece together one or two pieces of the structure which they dismantled and destroyed. We hope that the time is not far distant when the winds of change, which are blowing in this country as well as elsewhere, may lead to the situation in which there will be in office a Government who will once again restore a proper system of socially owned, socially operated transport for the benefit of the people of this country.
9.41 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, as has been said by other noble Lords, I am sure the House should be grateful to
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my noble friend Lord Teynham for starting off this debate, which is coming towards its end; but because of the important nature of the subject we have been discussing and the many things that have been said in various ways, I am sorry to say that it is not coming quite so near to an end as your Lordships might perhaps think. I appreciate very much the way that my noble friend has welcomed the Government's proposals, by and large, as I do the way that other noble Lords behind me have done, too. I am glad that he raised and dealt with, I think quite effectively, the question of integration, to which I will come in a moment, because, while I greatly appreciate such a measure of approval as some noble Lords opposite were able to give, it seems to me that there is no doubt that what difference they find between us is based on a political concept rather than the more practical and realistic approach that we have been endeavouring to make. Quite frankly, the tone of speeches from noble Lords opposite has been political, with the notable exception of that of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, whose admirable, well thought-out and interesting maiden speech we all enjoyed; and I hope that we shall hear him often in the future.
I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren. I thought for a while that, with his great knowledge and expertise, both of which are extremely welcome in transport debates in this House (and I hope he will always take part in them, as no doubt he will, as well as others), he was going to speak purely, if I may so put it, as a railway-man. But I am afraid his political inclinations rather got the better of him in respect of a number of things that he said. To the extent of being highly political, this debate is very like the one in December; and in some ways it has gone so very like it that I almost began to think that one or two noble Lords, and, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, had rather forgotten what had been said in that debate. However, the noble Lord did not adduce any evidence to support any of his criticisms on any basis other than a political one. I think the

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political approach of noble Lords opposite, which, in my view, is out-moded by events in the meantime, just will not do.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what the Government have been doing ever since they have been in office?
LORD LINDGREN: Politics.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It has been politics, dogmatism and a doctrinaire policy. Now they are getting to the culminating point. Why should the noble Lord be so superior about politics? Anybody would think that he was innocent.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, if the noble Lord will be a little patient I will continue with my speech and, even if it puzzles him at the moment, he will find out exactly what I mean. That is precisely what I am saying: that noble Lords opposite are quite unable to approach this matter from any viewpoint but that of politics.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, would the noble Lord say that accepting money for political purposes from the Road Hauliers' Association is not a political purpose? The Tory Party accepted monies from the Road Haulage Association as a contribution to their political funds, as a result of which they gave them back road haulage.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am no expert on these things, and I will not deal with it myself, but I am not sure that the noble Lord is in order in saying that kind of thing. It sounds to me as if he is getting up and alleging bribery and corruption. That is what I understood him to say, and I think he should stand up again and repeat it clearly.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I do say that. And if it wants to be disproved, the Tory Party can do it by publishing their accounts. They are the only political Party who do not publish their accounts.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Except the Communist Party.
LORD CHESHAM: I feel quite shocked.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: You are sunk without trace.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, if it were not for the noble Lord's not having been in this House very long. I would practically go so far as to say that I think that is probably the most disgraceful thing I have yet heard in your Lordships' House.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: What about last week?
LORD CHESHAM: There is absolutely no foundation or evidence for what the noble Lord says. It is not a question of publishing accounts, or anything like that. The noble Lord has made a charge, which he says he can substantiate, of bribery and corruption by the Government. There let the matter stand, because I have a lot to talk about which is rather more relevant.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, would the noble Lord refer to the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, Mr. Hay, which referred to the close co-operation between the Government and the Road Hauliers' Association?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord considers that some form of bribery. I thought that the relationship between the various forms of transport and the Government was supposed to be a close one. I thought that was what noble Lords opposite rather liked. Otherwise, I do not know why we hear so much about integration, a subject about which I am going to talk now. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, referred to the pronouncement of transport experts of various kinds, and I have no doubt that he would regard the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, as a considerable expert in the matter. Unfortunately, the noble Lord was unable to be in his place, but he wrote a letter, which was published not long ago in Modern Transport, which I know has aroused a good deal of interest. He points out that integration envisages a large measure of common ownership of the various forms of transport. In fact it requires the placing in the hands of a central authority with a high degree of centralised control a very large part of our transport facilities. But how much might this common ownership or central

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authority be? It does not seem that the Transport Act, 1947, could have provided enough.
More than one noble Lord opposite has complained bitterly that noble Lords on this side of the House blame the British Transport Commission for everything. That is not correct. Let us get it perfectly clear. We do not blame the B.T.C. for everything; we blame the Party of the noble Lords opposite for creating the B.T.C. in the circumstances in which they did. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, himself said that the Act did not include the C-licence vehicles; nor did it extend to private cars or any other means of private passenger transport. But it is just that private transport, including the C-licence vehicles, which offers the most effective and massive competition, particularly to the railways. Did those who advocated integration really believe that it could be secured without some material curb on these other forms of transport, without a lot of private cars being heavily controlled and the C-licence vehicles being nationalised as well? If they believe that, did they think that it was practical or realistic to expect that any such curb would be desirable or acceptable to public opinion?
The answer to that question must be, No. The fact is, that experience has shown that, given the scope of the Transport Act, 1947, it did not prove practicable to extend the control of the B.T.C. even as far as that Act envisaged. The fact is that the Commission did not have, nor have they ever had, control over sufficient part of the transport facilities of this country to effect integration, even if it were to be practicable or the right course to pursue—which we do not for a moment believe. Nor do we believe that it is sensible to expect that a central authority—whether it be the B.T.C. or anyone else—with monolithic control over the major part of our means of transport is best placed, or is able to decide how trade and industry and individuals should send their goods or travel and what, in the very many different and complicated and practical circumstances of day-to-day operation of trade and industry is the method best suited to individual needs. We do not believe it, my Lords.
I thought at first that the word "integration" was being avoided from the Benches opposite, but it came in
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in the end. I do not believe that, as long as Lord Hurcomb is something like right about its meaning, the wind of change will blow many Governmental changes into the transport world for a good many years to come. But we think integration is wrong; we think it is irrelevant to the practical problems, and against the background of a reasonable freedom of choice for transport users we seek co-ordination, which is a very different thing, and for which my noble friend Lord Molson asked. As I have explained to your Lordships on more than one occasion, each form of transport should be in a position to attract the traffics most suited to it. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, agreed with me, at least to a limited extent, that that was so.
The Government, in its control of public sector investment, should foster the development of all forms of transport by road, rail, sea, air and, very likely, as the noble Lord, Lord Latham, said, by pipeline. They should foster it in the way which is most effective and most in the interests of the user and the national economy. It means, in short, bringing together, in an efficient and flexible relationship with each other, the different forms of transport, and not seeking to weld them altogether in one vast, great, rigid framework, which is unsuited to practical circumstances and the problems of the day.
LORD LATHAM: And to lose £500 million in the process.
LORD CHESHAM: That betrays a certain financial irresponsibility to which I shall return, but I will do that in due course, if I may. The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, made the remark that coordination which carries no clearly realised degree of common ownership is unlikely to be effective in practical application. The fallacy of that approach is the assumption that co-ordination can be achieved in practice only by direction from the top, under a huge and unwieldy structure of control which owns all the different forms of transport concerned. I do not think that is true, because co-ordination is achieved in two main ways. It is achieved through investment control, and through the co-ordination of operation. I must just touch on those. I agree that co-ordination of major policy and development

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through investment control needs to be exercised centrally. This is a function in which the Minister will certainly be better placed than the B.T.C. has been, because it is his function to oversee a wider field going beyond the nationalised transport sector and, in particular, including roads. He has a broader view and a greater knowledge of the main factors to be taken into account. What is more, he is responsible to Parliament for the allocation of investment in this public transport sector.
The White Paper, in paragraph 28, says:
"… the Minister's main charge will be for overall co-ordination and for securing the general efficiency of the undertakings …"
While it is true that the broad co-ordination of investment and development must be from the top, the opportunities of operational co-ordination occur in day-to-day working and management. This is properly the responsibility and the result of efficient management. It does not require direction from the top in the same way as co-ordination through investment.
I should think that the most important example is the working arrangements between British Railways and London Transport, and not least important because they have been in existence over a large number of years, over a wide field of common concern. They were in operation long before the B.T.C. was established. I have no doubt, and the White Paper has no doubt either, that they will continue in that form. Effective co-ordination in operational matters can surely best be secured and developed by direct contact between the management concerned in the ordinary course. The nationalised transport undertakings are, after all, living in a competitive world which they do not dominate. Co-ordination between them has to take due account of whatever effect that may have on their competitive strength, and I am sure that their respective managements are best placed to make this judgment. I hope my noble friend Lord Bridgeman will not find anything in what I have said which contravenes his views on the matter.
There is one further aspect which has been referred to by a number of speakers, and that is that the Minister, in
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exercising his co-ordinating functions, will have available the advice and help of the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, before my noble friend goes on to that subject, may I ask him whether he would go a little further into what he has just been referring to? Under the Act of 1953, there were Area Transport Boards who were supposed to co-ordinate the different forms of transport in the regions. Under the proposals of the White Paper, their name will be changed into Regional Railway Boards. Having regard to the likelihood of the railway system being somewhat reduced, I should like to ask whether it will be a function of the Regional Railway Boards, or of some other kind of authority, to arrange for the substitution of some other kind of transport when any contraction takes place in the railway system.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I thought I had been fairly specific on what our view of co-ordination is. I do not know quite how much further my noble friend really expects me to go. I have traced the possibilities and desirability of co-ordination—at least I was just going to finish doing so—from my right honourable friend down to the Regional Boards, and I do not know what more I can offer at the moment.
LORD LINDGREN: We are, in fact, having closure of branch lines. There are supposed to be substituted bus services to take the traffic that originated in those areas. Who is to supervise that matter? Who is to arrange it, and where is the co-ordinating point?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, perhaps noble Lords will wait a little until I get a little further on in my speech. I have a great many things to say, and a number of these things will probably become more clear.
On the subject of the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council, it is just as well to bear in mind exactly what that title is, because there seems to have been some misapprehension about that. The Council will not only have the full knowledge and experience of the nationalised transport undertakings, but will also have, through its outside membership, a wider knowledge and experience of affairs generally. Perhaps I

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may refer your Lordship to paragraph 30 of the White Paper, which explains what it is intended, or suggested, shall be the make-up of the Board. My noble friend, Lord Teynham inquired whether it was right that the Minister should be the Chairman of this Board; and the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was doubtful about it. It seemed to be thought in some way that the fact that the Minister was Chairman of this Advisory Council somehow put him in a sort of pre-eminent position, so far as taking decisions and running the whole of the nationalised transport undertaking was concerned. But this will be an Advisory Council set up to advise the Minister.
It may be said that if there is a divergence of views on the Council it will mean that the Minister has to appeal to himself. But that is not so. He has to take the final decision anyway, arid if he has first-hand knowledge of what the Council has been talking about, I should have thought that will be a rather than a hindrance, in reaching his decision.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. It is a most curious set-up that there is an Advisory Council to advise the Minister, and the Minister is in the chair taking part in all the discussions of the Council. I can understand an Advisory Council in which there is no Minister and on which independent outsiders send their advice to the Minister. Then he is uncommitted; he is free. But if he is sitting in he is bound to say something; and knowing this Minister, I think that he will say a lot. Is this not an instrument of the Minister's will rather than an Advisory Council?
LORD CHESHAM: I do not see how it becomes an instrument if its function is advisory to the Minister.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, is not advice an instrument of mind?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, but not a very practical instrument. It does not convert the Council into having some executive function, which is what I am trying to explain.
I must come on to the White Paper proposals, because it seems to me that there has been so much curious misapprehension. I thought that some of
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the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Morrison of Lambeth and Lord Lindgren, even allowing for a political slant, were rather curious, though not half so much so as the extraordinary misunderstandings and misconceptions which were expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Latham.
Starting from the point that the main defects which experience has shown exist in the structure of the British Transport Commission's organisation stem largely from those features of the 1947 Act which the Commission's organisation still bears, paragraph 9 of the White Paper says:
"The activities of the British Transport Commission as at present constituted are so large and so diverse that it is virtually impossible to run them effectively as a single undertaking."
British Railways, in particular, representing about three-quarters of the Commission's organisation, and responsible for the problems and the difficulties which overshadow the Commission's activities as a whole, have no authority with the single-minded task of running them.
LORD LATHAM: They did have before 1953; the Railway Executive ran the railways.
LORD CHESHAM: The House of Commons Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries picked up the point and they said:
"It cannot have helped to achieve efficiency in the higher direction of British Railways that there should have been no one authority whose only duty in the field of transport was to ensure an efficient system of railways".
LORD LATHAM: And now that authority is to be the Minister.
LORD CHESHAM: I am sorry to be going so slowly, but it is not entirely my fault.
LORD LINDGREN: What we should really like to know is this. After three years of operation, the British Transport Commission, under its structure of the 1947 Act, was making £8 million a year. Now, as a result of ten years of Toryism, it is making a loss of £70 million, and that is all due to the 1953 Act. The noble Lord is not answering that point.
LORD CHESHAM: For the second time, may I say that, if I am allowed to make my own speech in my own way, I shall come to that. Come to it I will.

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Noble Lords are constantly interrupting me; I hope they will go on; I will willingly give way; I like to be courteous to the House. I am prepared to stay till one or two in the morning.
LORD LINDGREN: I am used to night work.
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, some people are; it will surprise the noble Lord to know that we can do it. I am quite prepared, if that is what he wants. The proposals in the White Paper recognise the things I have been talking about, the lack of a single-minded authority and so on. They provide, in the Government's view, the right framework in which the co-ordination from the top can best be administered without what one might call blurring the responsibility or intervening in the ordinary processes of management and operation; and the working co-operation to be achieved in these processes. The White Paper proposals are also designed to overcome the main difficulties of the present organisation that I have just mentioned.
In separating the various major activities of the Commission, they recognise that there are two main kinds of activity. There are those which, by their very nature and the problems to which they give rise, need to be conducted by a statutory authority with the necessary statutory powers and duties. These are, of course, British Railways, London Transport, British Transport Docks, and Waterways. Each of these very large activities ought to have their separate statutory authority strictly designed for their particular needs and purposes, and equipped with the necessary powers and duties for their efficient conduct.
The other activities—the noble Lord listed them before—buses, road haulage, shipping services, Thomas Cook, hotels and so on, are, in fact, commercial undertakings. They do not require to be conducted by a statutory authority but in the Government's view, can best be operated, as commercial undertakings dependent upon their own commercial strength. They are therefore to be run as separate commercial companies under the Companies Act and grouped under the holding company. The holding company will not actively intervene in their management and operation but will, by advice and encouragement, ensure that
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the right standards of operation and financial judgment are applied. I am sure it is in this way that these undertakings are likely to make the most effective use of, and get the best return from, the considerable public assets they will have in their charge.
The White Paper proposals therefore amount, in all, to the replacement of the present organisation by an entirely new structure, specially designed to provide those charged with the responsibility for conducting the various activities with the best opportunities to give of their own best. Each management will have a clearly defined task in a set field, and the authority as well as a clearly defined responsibility to carry it out. That is what is most important of all for the railways. They are so big, their problems are so severe and pressing, that it is essential that there should be a strong authority with the single-minded task of running them and bringing them on to a sound basis of operation. It is essential that they should be run as a national system—that is not in question. The railways are a single entity, and must be effectively conducted as one.
The setting up of a strong Board to tackle their problems will also provide the means and opportunities for an adequate devolution of authority to those who are charged with day-to-day operations. While the Railways Board must, of course, keep in its own hands those functions of prime importance to the railways as a whole, including of course, as I think has been mentioned, the national wage negotiations and the general responsibility of its position as employer of its staff, the British Railways Board will not seek or wish to do everything at the centre. If it is to be free to deal with the major problems that it will have, it will certainly need to be relieved of a good deal of the press of everyday operational affairs. Therefore, the Regional Boards are an important feature of the new organisation. It will be their job to translate into terms of regional operation the national policies of the British Railways Board. By their representation on that Board the Regional Boards will be able to bring to the formulation of the national policies the energy and experience which they will get from being in day-to-day and close contact with railway operations.

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The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said he found many of the proposals in the White Paper very vague. I am not particularly surprised, because the White Paper does not set out to be a blueprint in exact detail. The proposals are a broad outline of the new organisation and do not seek to cover all the details. In fact, a number of doors have been deliberately left open on the practical arrangements that have to be made. Some of those are matters of management and operation which do not require legislative provision and which will be primarily for the new Boards to work out. On the other hand, others will require consultation with the interested bodies and people. The Government propose to provide, in the course of preparing the Bill, opportunities for full consultation with the people mainly concerned.
The Commission are, of course, already in close and continuous consultation with the Department. They have publicly announced that they will fully co-operate with the Government in giving effect to the White Paper proposals, and this they are doing. As the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, told us, the Minister has already started consultations with the trade unions. He tells us that they had what was, I believe, quite a long meeting the other day; and I understand that the Minister undertook to consider various points put to him, and the trade unions agreed to let the Minister have their views on certain other matters. No doubt there will be a number of other meetings to follow. The Minister attended a meeting of the National Production Advisory Council on Industry in February last and spoke to them. He asked them for their views, particularly about the size and composition of the Boards. After all, on that Council are represented all the main industrial interests.
LORD STONHAM: Will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him? I have not done so before. I am most grateful for what he has said. But my difficulty (and I think it is one of the difficulties which confronts the people in the industry) is to know whether action will be taken in relation to the White Paper arising out of those consultations—things are being left deliberately vague—or have we to wait until after the Bill is on the Statute Book?
LORD CHESHAM: May I just get that point right? Will action be taken in the sense of something physical happening, or looking ahead to decisions and plans? Which does the noble Lord mean?
LORD STONHAM: Of course, something can happen only after decisions have been taken. The noble Lord has said that the White Paper is vague—in other words, decisions have not been taken. What is going to happen, for example, about the Modernisation Plan between now and the time the White Paper is converted into an Act on the Statute Book?
LORD CHESHAM: As it happens, I was about to come on to that point. In the process of drafting the Bill it is the Government's intention to have extensive consultations with the people who should be brought into consultation and, as my noble friend Lord Merrivale advised us, certainly fresh consultations will be particularly necessary and likely to be helpful in regard to the composition of the Board. As preparations for the Bill proceed, the position of each new Board will be worked out with those most closely concerned. As the White Paper says, regard will be had to the special contribution which can be made by those with trade union experience.
My Lords, I should like now to turn for a moment to finance. I think it is true to say that the financial proposals in the White Paper have been generally welcomed and have had a largish measure of support in your Lordships' House today, not least from those who have had other points to make. Of course the financial provisions are an essential part of the proposals for reorganisation, and certainly the full benefits of one cannot be realised without the other. But they seem to me clearly set out in the White Paper and they are well understood, I think. Therefore, I do not think I need go into them at all except to make one or two points.
The first point is that figure of £1,600 million attributable to the railways. My noble friend Lord Teynham was rather worried about that figure, which he thought was wrong. But I know of no reason to query it. I think he should realise that that figure refers to the

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capital liabilities and not to the value of the assets. It is not supposed to do that, and I think it is probably a perfectly fair figure to take for that purpose. Of that sum, only the £400 million, which is left "on the railways' plate", so to speak, can be accounted sound. That sum, my Lords, has all been invested since 1955, mainly in modernisation. A good deal of it, therefore, has perhaps not yet fully fructified, but it is reasonable to assume that that capital is capable of earning its keep. If you do not assume that—if you think otherwise—it throws a strong doubt on the process of modernisation as a whole, and I think it is perfectly reasonable that the railways should be expected to carry that burden.
The second point which I want to make about the £1,200 million, of which the railways are going to be relieved, is that this cannot disappear into thin air. It will fall squarely on the taxpayer, and the Treasury will take over responsibility for the existing British Transport stock. I am not sure, when you have considered those figures and the other figures of investment yet to come, plus any deficit grants, that you would be entirely in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, about the roads enjoying preference over the railways. I do not think, however, we need argue that point out now, because I want to come on to the fact that the whole object of these measures is to give the railways a fresh start from a hopeful position. While they will certainly be faced with a formidable task to achieve solvency, they have at least the practical hope, and I trust the resolution, to attain it.
My Lords, we know that the task is formidable, and we know that the drastic reduction in their immediate capital debt will not of itself be enough to enable the railways to carry on. More still will be required from the Exchequer to meet the deficits likely to occur over the next two, three, four or five years, or whatever the period may be.
There seems to be a feeling that perhaps the Government are being a little over-optimistic in this matter. Well, we shall have to see; but we will try our best to make it work. It is certainly no use writing off past deficits if you allow others to pile up straight away.
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I do not want to argue with anybody about whether my right honourable friend is or is not anti-railway, but I should not think it easy to accuse anybody who has taken the kind of action I have been talking about, and which we have been discussing, of being anti-railway. But he certainly is also protaxpayer, and he fully realises the burden which the taxpayer will have to take over. That is why it is so important to overcome the present difficulties in the structure of the nationalised transport undertakings, and to put them in the best position to make the best use of the very considerable public assets in their charge, so as to give real value for money.
If the railways are to have a fair chance of achieving their targets, they must be given as free a hand as practicable to conduct their commercial operations on a commercial basis. Why the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, felt so strongly that the Government had busily prevented that for a long time I could not understand; but perhaps we shall not mind that, either, because only in the London Passenger Transport Area will it be necessary to have a statutory control; otherwise, as paragraph 57 in the White Paper says, the railways will be free to fix their own prices. But it will be no good giving them freedom to fix their own prices, unless they exercise that freedom—or so it seems to me. Railway fares in general have lagged behind both railway costs and the general movement of prices.
LORD STONHAM: If the noble Lord will allow me, to intervene, I said that surely he knows that the railways have not been free to fix prices and freight rates—indeed, the Government have deliberately thought fit to prevent them from raising their freight rates. They have not been free and that has contributed to their losses.
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps I expressed myself badly. What I meant to say was that I thought it was rather odd that it came from him. Perhaps if he were criticising such an activity, it would probably be the pot calling the kettle black.
LORD STONHAM: I never introduce politics into these things.
LORD CHESHAM: That is what I meant. I am sorry—perhaps I should not have taken the point up at all. It is no good the railways having freedom to fix their own charges unless they exercise that freedom. And it seems to me that they will need to have a pretty purposeful kind of fares policy to ensure that they can reap the reward for the commercial freedom they get, and see that it makes its due contribution towards improving railway revenues and towards solvency. At the same time, I think the public should get a better deal out of it all round.
This brings up, as has been mentioned, the question of coastal shipping. The statutory restrictions which have been imposed on the railways in the interests of coastal shipping are, of course, a limitation in the way that I have been discussing. I am quite aware of the problems, as I think my noble friend knows, and we are now considering them most seriously, as I think is also generally known. The General Council of British Shipping have submitted a memorandum giving the views of the various shipping interests, and consultations are taking place with them.
My Lords, I have said that the proposals in the White Paper are not the whole picture. They cover those matters on which legislation will be mainly required. They are, indeed, no more than the first essential steps in the long haul to get the nationalised transport undertakings, particularly the railways, on to a sound basis.
Now I am going to turn to modernisation. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, complained first—though not very strongly—that there was very little about modernisation in the White Paper. I do not think that is particularly unreasonable, because the White Paper, after all, is entitled Reorganisation of the Nationalised Transport Undertakings. I do not see why lie should expect to find a great deal about modernisation, in view of what the White Paper set out to do.
But, my Lords, what I think was a little more serious were the complaints made about interference by the Government and "messing about". The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, told us that the railways were in a very bad state in 1939. He admitted, rather reluctantly, if I may say so, that the war must also have had
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an effect on them. But, my Lords, there was a time, as he also said, when the B.T.C., as a whole, made a profit—not a vast one, but a profit. I ask: How in the world could the Party of the noble Lords opposite, had they been in power, have carried on the operation unless they had done the same kind of thing—provided vast sums of money for modernisation? The noble Lord tells us that, for one reason or another about which we need not argue (we could, but we need not), they were unable to improve the railways much in the first years after the war. How can it be claimed that if certain things had not been done the position today would have been very different? The noble Lord may claim that, but it is difficult to argue these matters on a hypothetical basis. It might be that. British Road Services, if they were reconstituted, might have operated at a profit of £10 million; but that would not have gone very far against the £100 million a year deficit with which we are now faced. Perhaps I am in some way wrong about this.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, the difference has gone to the road hauliers, who picked up the traffic previously carried by British Railways. That was the intention of the 1953 Act and that is where that has gone.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am very surprised to hear that, and I should think that the road hauliers would be shattered. But never mind: I must get on with the modernisation aspect, because I know that wants talking about. What exactly has happened in regard to that? In 1960, it became clear that the financial forecasts associated with the modernisation proposals were unlikely to be realised. That resulted from the re-appraisal. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, rather complained that the reappraisal was some covert kind of action on the part of the Government, but it was the British Transport Commission who carried out the re-appraisal and it had nothing to do with the Government.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, did the Government ask for it to be done?
LORD CHESHAM: It may well be that they did. I cannot remember; but I do not see that it makes the slightest difference.
LORD LATHAM: It qualifies the noble Lord's statement.
LORD CHESHAM: The re-appraisal was by the British Transport Commission, and surely it was the organisation looking at themselves. I do not think that that was any queer kind of action on the part of the Government. Indeed, in view of what was seen, if it did result from Government action, then I should have thought it was a jolly good result.
LORD LATHAM: But it was done at the request of the Government. Is that it?
LORD CHESHAM: I do not see that it makes any difference, whether it was or not.
LORD LATHAM: But that is not an answer to a plain question.
LORD CHESHAM: I thought I had already said I could not remember off-hand whether the re-appraisal was made at the request of the Government. But I have said I do not see that that made any difference, because it was a question of the organisation looking at themselves.
LORD LATHAM: We must be content with that inadequacy.
LORD CHESHAM: I could answer that, but I will not, for the hour is too late. What the Government then did—and here I thought the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, was a little less than just, at any rate in the words he used—was to institute, in agreement with the Commission, a scrutiny of all investment projects costing over a quarter of a million pounds. The noble Lord rather implied that the Commission were limited to that amount. They were limited to spending more than that without reference, but there was no reason for it not to be spent with consent, and I do not think that that can fairly be described as a limitation. In any case, and by any standards, a quarter of a million pounds on an individual scheme is quite a lot of anybody's money.
There was also agreement on the rate of investment while modernisation was being looked at again. But even with that pause the allocation to the railways for 1961 was fixed at £140 million, as noble Lords know; and that is 8 per cent. of the total investment in the whole of the public sector. Perhaps that should
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not really be described as a halt to modernisation. The measures taken were no more than any prudent banker would take with his client—and were benign also, because the position in regard to the rate of investment did not stop work from going ahead under the procedure for scrutinising major projects. Work went ahead on 70 such projects costing £140 million which were already well advanced or whose justification was self-evident, or where essential replacement was involved. Little or no delay could have been caused to any such projects. Other projects were re-examined individually and work on them has proceeded where there were existing contracts. Indeed, I believe I am perfectly right in saying that no contracts have been cancelled.
Your Lordships already know about the London-Midland electrification scheme, the total cost of which is £175 million—which is rather more than was thought by my noble friend, Lord Wolverton. I believe I have spoken of the next part, from Crewe to London, for which the figure, I think, is £130 million. My noble friend, Lord Merrivale, made a point which I did not think was entirely fair. He spoke of taking two years longer, implying that sometimes there were delays when in fact, as he rather suggested, it was a question of extra work being brought into the original scheme.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? I think it was mentioned by the noble Lord, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, that the plan for this electrification scheme was delayed by two years. One of the reasons was it was decided to rebuild Euston Station; and that was what I said.
LORD CHESHAM: It is merely a question of words, and I am afraid we are rather falling over them tonight. I should have thought "extended" would have been the right word. It has been said, too, that because my right honourable friend has not so far been able to fix the investment allocation for the railways for the period beyond January, 1961, they will be hampered in placing orders for rolling stock and locomotives. In fact, expenditure during 1961 on programmes for freight stock amounted to over £14 million, and for passenger stock, over £17 million, has been agreed.

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The situation with regard to locomotives is a little different. The Commission's 1961 programme costing £46 million was already in hand before the pause occurred, and orders for nearly £24 million worth of locomotives have been placed for 1962. The Ministry have co-operated with the Commission in examining proposals for batches of locomotives before the full programme is available and in agreeing to the ordering of materials in advance. It is always open to the Commission to put proposals to my right honourable friend for expenditure in advance of the settlement of investment allocations for a particular year, and that they do.
My noble friend Lord Auckland made some mild criticisms, as did my noble friend Lord Merrivale, about forward planning and budgeting. My right honourable friend is anxious to make investment allocations to the Commission for a period longer than one year. His aim has been for the Commission to produce a firm programme, properly phased, indicating priorities of expenditure in relation to modernisation plans as a whole and in relation to any changes that may take place in social and industrial patterns that would affect the matter. It is for this very purpose that the Commission produced a set of proposals relating to the proposed expenditure on the railway modernisation over the next four years. Those proposals were received on, I believe, December 19, and are under discussion with the Commission. The task is a considerable one, and involves a good deal of money. It will necessarily take some time to complete. I quite appreciate the point made by my noble friend Lord Merrivale that the earlier some decision can be announced the better, but at the present moment it is not possible for me to say when something may be announced.
My Lords, to sum up, modernisation must, and will, go on; but it must be worth it. These are the means by which the Government will seek to discharge their obligations both to the railways and to the taxpayer, to ensure that the large, though still limited, funds available for investment in modernisation are channelled into the right parts of the railway system, so that we can work towards a modernised system of the right size and shape.
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I have been going on for a very long time, I am afraid, but I must come to the "64,000 dollar question", as it is nowadays called, and that is, the size and shape of the railways for the future. We know that the present size and shape is unsuited to modern circumstances. The railways were laid out in the last century, in a very different set of circumstances from those obtaining to-day. The system has to become more compact, and there has to be a purposeful process to achieve it. It must be done to give railwaymen the best chances of efficient and profitable operation, and to enable effort and modernisation to be centred on those operations which the railways can do best. But the real point is this: that the size and the shape of the railways for the future cannot be settled as a blueprint in complete detail at any given moment of time. We are not starting with a clean slate—it would be very much easier if we were. We have to face the fact that the present railway system is an existing and extensive organisation with a long history and is built into our economic and social set-up.
Whilst the process of making the railways more compact must be purposeful, it must also be evolutionary: and, by one means or another, we must pick out what to modernise and what not; what to keep and what not to keep. Rationalisation is very much bound up with this question, and, in the process of rationalising them and making them more compact, modernisation will obviously have to be guided in those directions which will give the best value for money. It must be applied to those operations of the system which have the greatest contribution to make to the future rôle of the railways and their struggle for viability.
The question I have been talking about, the determination of the size and shape of the railway system of the future, cannot be on the basis of a once-and-for-all decision, but must be on the basis of an evolutionary process in which the Minister, through his investment control; the Railways Board, in their effort to modernise the railways, both in layout and shape, as well as in techniques and equipment, and in their struggle for economic viability; and the transport user, in what he is prepared to pay for the railway services and the use he makes of them, will all have a part to play.

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My Lords, I have been speaking for a very long time, and I am aware that there are a number of points that noble Lords have raised to which I have not yet referred—the noble Lord, Lord Latham, and his pipelines, and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and his Scottish points. But I really think that many of the points are matters which will be for consideration when the reorganisation comes into being, or by the B.T.C. in the meantime—and some, indeed, emphasised the need for reorganisation. As it is rather late, I should like, if I may, to consider a number of these points, and to write to noble Lords about them, in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Latham.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me? I appreciate the point he has made. He has been speaking for a long time, and it must be wearying; but I wonder if he can answer me now, and, if not, write, on the point whether administrative, executive action is being taken in anticipation of legislative power coming later on.
LORD CHESHAM: I am not quite sure how to answer that properly. Would the noble Lord say the first part again?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Yes. The first part, which I think the noble Lord wants, is: how far is administrative, executive action being taken in advance of legislative authority, if at all?
LORD CHESHAM: With regard to reorganisation of the structure?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: With regard to the White Paper.
LORD CHESHAM: Yes. So far as I am aware, it is not being taken. I have been explaining that there would have to be consultations, and so on, as the legislation is prepared, and these consultations will enable the detail to become clearer. As far as I am aware these have now started, and the process will no doubt become more obvious as the discussions continue.
My Lords, I should like to finish by assuring your Lordships that what has been said to-day on all sides of the House will be studied with the greatest attention. The views that your Lordships have
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expressed will be most useful and most welcome in the many and difficult and complicated considerations that lie ahead. I want to give your Lordships this final assurance: that the fact that they are many and difficult and complicated will in no way deflect Her Majesty's Government from their determination to achieve a successful outcome from the proposed reorganisation—a determination of which, I think I may judge, your Lordships largely approve.
10.47 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will agree that we have had a full and interesting debate on this very complex subject of transport. I think the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has covered most of the points very well indeed. The noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has chided the Government with "messing about" with transport. I would say it is a very good thing to take a second look when you are going to have a very big reorganisation. He also said that the Conservative Party have destroyed integration. As I maintained in my speech, we have never had integration. You cannot have integration except in a Communist State. I think we had a very valuable speech from the noble Lord. I will not detain the House any longer, but I hope we shall hear from him again.
I was also much interested in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, with his working knowledge of the railway industry; but I cannot follow him in his statement that the railway system was in a very poor state before the war. If it had been, it would never have lasted the war out. I must also differ, I am afraid, from the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, in his statement that road users pay little for the roads. I would say that, on the contrary, they pay a great deal. They pay a very large sum every year in road taxes and road licences, and they also pay a heavy fuel tax. Incidentally, the railways, with their diesel oil, pay no tax at all on their fuel. My Lords, I do not want to keep the House any longer this evening. I think we have had a very good debate, and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at ten minutes before eleven o'clock.