Lords Sitting of 27 March 1961

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

RIVER WEAR WATCH (DISSOLUTION) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
GREAT NORTHERN LONDON CEMETERY COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

POOLE CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. In doing so I should like to say a few words, because this is the first General Powers Bill to be passed by the House since the introduction of the Public Health Bill, which, as your Lordships will remember, contains a considerable number of clauses, many of them model clauses, which have been incorporated from time to time over the years in
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Private Bills. Out of the 124 clauses in the Poole Corporation Bill, 32 are clauses which, provided that the Public Health Bill becomes law in this Session, I anticipate it will be possible for the Promoters to ask leave to withdraw before the Bill is passed through another place. In view of the possible economies which may be effected in this way, I thought it might be of interest to your Lordships to know. In future Sessions, of course, again provided that the Public Health Bill is then law, it will be possible for similar clauses to be left out of Private Bills without its being in any way to the detriment of the Promoters.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

DRAFT NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) (COLLIERY WORKERS SUPPLEMENTARY SCHEME) AMENDMENT ORDER, 1961
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be approved.
Moved, That the Draft National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme) Amendment Order, 1961, be approved.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE CONTRIBUTIONS BILL
2.40 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, the proposed adjustments in the finance of the National Health Service, which were put forward by my right honourable friend the Minister of Health last month, and which were discussed by your Lordships on a vote of censure in the middle of last month, require two legislative measures to bring them into effect. This Bill is concerned with the raising of contributions. In another place it was
introduced by those Ministers who speak for the Treasury, since it was allocated
to that Department, and as the Treasury is one of those Departments for which I have the duty of speaking in your Lordships' House I am therefore in charge of that Bill here. The other measure, which is, I understand, to be before your Lordships immediately after Easter, is that which increases the prescription and other charges; that was moved in another place by the Minister of Health, and it will be dealt with here by my noble friend who speaks for the Ministry of Health in this House.
This is a Money Bill which we cannot amend—or, at least, in practice we cannot amend it. Apart from one or two minor administrative provisions, such as the transference from the two Health Ministers to the Treasury of the duty of making regulations about the payment of contributions by foreign seamen, the
only thing which this short Bill does is to increase the contributions payable to the National Health Service by 1s. in the case of an employed man, and correspondingly lower figures in the case of employed women and juveniles. The increase provided for is from 2s. 4d. to 3s. 4d. a week, of which 10d. falls upon the employed person and 2d. upon the employer. The present position is that the employed man pays 1s. 10½d. and the employer the balance of the 2s. 4d. Under this Bill he will pay 10d. more and the employer will pay the balance of the 3s. 4d. It has always been an accepted principle that a proportion of the expense of the Health Service, since it was first brought in in 1948, shall
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be paid in the form of contributions, but by far the greater part is paid by the Exchequer.
I shall not trouble your Lordships with a great many figures, but if I may I will mention what are perhaps the salient ones. When the scheme began in 1948 the total cost was £336 million, of which £41 million was met by contributions, £50 million odd by other revenue, and £243 million by the Exchequer. In 1958–59, when the most substantial increase in contributions was made, as your Lordships may remember, the total cost of the Service was £675 million, of which £105 million was met by contributions and £500 million by the Exchequer. This year the gross cost has gone up from £336 million in 1949–50 to £773 million, of which £111 million was met by contributions and £583 million by the Exchequer. The balance, with which I will not trouble your Lordships, was again met from other revenue. The estimated cost for next year is £850 million, of which, on the present basis, £113 million would be met from contributions and £649 million from the Exchequer.
The effect of the change proposed by this Bill, raising the contributions by 10d. from the employed person and 2d. from the employer, would be that, instead of £113 million £148 million would be met by contributions, while the burden upon the Exchequer—that is, the estimated burden next year—would be reduced from £649 million to £601 million. If we look upon the change in the contributions in relation to the insurance payment as a whole, as your Lordships know until recently the total insurance contribution, which is all collected in one lump is 9s. 11d., of which 2s. 4d. (the worker's share of that being 1s. 10d.) is allocated after collection to the National Health Service.
As a result of two successive National Insurance Acts concerned with old-age pensions, which we discussed at great length, the contribution was first of all to go down and then to rise again to very nearly 9s. 11d.—to be exact, to 9s. 9d. The total contribution will in future be 10s. 7d. a week, instead of 9s. 11d. as it is now. The proportion of the total expense of the Health Service which is met by part of that contribution will be £148 million, compared with £601 million paid by the Exchequer.

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Of course, when we talk about economies in public expenditure, particularly in the social services, we never mean reducing expenditure. Nor do we even mean keeping it as it is and preventing it from increasing. There was a time (I think it was in 1949 or 1950) when the Chancellor of the Exchequer tried to put a ceiling on the Exchequer expense of the National Health Service. But the expansion and automatic increase in the cost of all social services is in our time much too rapid—and in fact is almost automatic—for any kind of ceiling to be maintained. When we talk of making economies we accept the inevitability of an increase. All we can do is to make the increase slightly less rapid than it would otherwise have been. The purpose of this change is to try to bring about, or maintain, a reasonable balance between the cost met by the contributor and the cost met by the Exchequer.
I think from the figures which I have given your Lordships you will see that the proportion of the total cost met by the Exchequer while it has not, of course, remained constant year by year, has over the whole period been round about three quarters of the total. I have the actual percentages here. The Exchequer paid 72 per cent. of the total cost in 1949; in 1956 it had gone up to 82 per cent., in 1959 it was down to 74 per cent., and in 1960 it was 75 per cent. It would next year be 76 per cent. if there were no change. As a result of this change it will be brought down to 70ç7 per cent., according to the best estimates that can be made.
The reason why the Government feel that this ought to be done is that we know that the cost of this and all other social services to the Exchequer whatever happens, is going to continue to increase at a fairly considerable rate, and if the increase becomes too great then it becomes very difficult for any Chancellor of the Exchequer to agree to any extension of our social services, either in relation to health or to any other kind of service. Indeed it makes it more difficult for him to agree to any new action on the part of the Treasury which may be desirable for any social or economic purpose. The Minister of Health in another place laid considerable stress on the development of hospital services, which he pointed out were going to cost
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us a great deal more, and he felt that this would make it easier for us to be less inhibited by the growing burden on the Exchequer in proceeding with our hospital programme.
But if we prefer to look at our social service expenditure as a whole, if we include local government expenditure of about £400 or £500 million, it is now about £3,750 million, of which about £1,000 million is met by National Insurance contributions, apart from the Health Service, about £150 million by the National Health Service contribution, on the assumption that this Bill passes, and about £2,100-odd million by the Exchequer. This expenditure will, of course, inevitably increase as time goes on. We believe that we can afford it, but we think we ought to maintain, for the sake of balance and for the sake of flexibility, a reasonable proportion between the expense which is laid upon the Exchequer and that which falls upon the contributor; and we believe that the proportion aimed at for the National Health Service in this Bill is, upon balance, that which will contribute most to the efficiency and progress of our social services. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
2.55 p.m
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, the noble Earl has moved this Bill in plain straightforward terms, as we expect of him, and though I cannot say that I followed all his figures to the full, I will read them more carefully, and no doubt they will be found to be correct. In another place this Bill, in conjunction with the other proposals of the Government regarding Health Service charges, was met with very determined opposition, and my colleagues in the other place kept the Government members up several nights in succession and caused a great deal of trouble. I may as well say at the outset, though it will not be a surprise to noble Lords in any part of the House, that we are not going to follow the same tactics here. For one thing it is a certified Bill, as I understand it, and we could not take the proceedings that they took in the other place; nor should we be entitled to do so. But apart from that it is not our practice in this House to try to make ourselves obnoxious by resisting proposals of which we thoroughly

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disapprove. We have to accept them. We state our reasons, and let it go at that.
That is why I am going to make a comparatively short speech this afternoon, and why not a great number of my friends on these Benches will follow me in dealing with this Bill. I should be very sorry, however, if the Government were to deduce from that fact that our feelings here are any different from those of our colleagues in another place. They felt very passionately about this Bill, and we feel quite as passionately here as they felt there. If that surprises the Government, I propose to give very shortly our reasons why we, in common with our colleagues in the other place, do take strong exception to this Bill.
The position is that we feel it is a war on the principles of our Party. It is a war in which we have to engage strongly and determinedly on every front. I say that in spite of what appeared to be the moderate and reasonable remarks of the noble Earl who moved this measure, because I want to make clear to this House why we feel so strongly. Our position as Socialists is this: we consider that the people of this country are a community, and we look upon the interest of civilisation here as affecting the community of which we are all part. We do not take the view that the people of this country are a miscellaneous assortment of disparate individuals who can each pursue his own interest to his own liking and that, somehow or other, in that way the general good will be promoted. We are entirely believers in the community character of this country, as we are of the community character of the Commonwealth as a whole.
I say "community character" deliberately and carefully. The word "communism" has become in our language to-day a dirty word, because the real truth of communism has been obscured and overridden by a number of quite extraneous circumstances. In this country, and still more in the United States, "communism" is a debasing word which means all sorts of evil things. It has got mixed up with the Soviet Government and the idea of general aggression which the present Government of Russia inherited from its predecessors, the Czars of Russia, who in the old days
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were always thought to be making aggression on their neighbouring countries. Not only that, but at the present time it has got mixed up with anything that is anti-democratic; anything which stands for elections by the people the Soviet system is apparently opposed to, and therefore resists. Finally, and most seriously of all, it has got mixed up with religious matters, and it is thought to be anti-God in a sense in which many other civilisations which are not remarkable for their Christian attitude are supposed to be pro-God. All these consequences have reduced communism, which is in itself a great idea, to, as I say, a dirty word with which no one wants to be in any way associated. But I have tried to keep the word "community" free from that smear, and that is largely what lies behind the attitude of my Party to many questions.
In the past there have been a number of examples, and there are still, of the community attitude of this country. We have free and open parks which it is the right of everyone to use. We have free roads without tolls. Where there were tolls in days gone by the roads are now free to the public. Rivers are free of access; our education is free and our Health Service is free to a certain extent, subject to certain payments which have been made up to now and which this Bill is increasing.
I should be the last to suggest, therefore, that noble Lords on the opposite Benches in this House were all opposed to the community spirit of this country—it would be a serious slander on their attitude; they are neither as a whole opposed to it, nor are they even indifferent to it. And what is true of noble Lords sitting on that side of the House is quite as true of noble Lords sitting on the Benches to my right. But what we do say is that inside the ranks of what is called the Conservative or Tory Party are a number of people with a different mentality. Those people are always anxious to reduce, to stultify and to render of little importance—of less importance than they have been—the benefits of the community attitude of the society in which we live to the mass of the people.
We say here—and I think that noble Lords who are as honest with themselves and their Party as I am with regard to

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my Party and what I have said about noble Lords opposite as a whole—that noble Lords opposite will be forced to admit that there are quite a number of people in the ranks of their own Party who are anxious to decry the Welfare State, to reduce the community benefits arid to make everything a paying thing. Unfortunately, some of those people are influential people in the Conservative Party, and every now and again they have to be given a sop to keep them loyal to the Party. That is the way I look at it and I do not think that noble Lords who know their own Party and who know its mistakes, as I know the mistakes and difficulties of my own Party, will think that I am making a false statement.
What we are afraid of here is that once you start charging for things that were free, or more free than they are under the new circumstances in this Welfare State, you are putting a wedge into the freedom of the community interests of the Welfare State. I was talking to a lady only the other day, and she said to me, "Don't you really think that it is rather a good thing that they should have to pay for some of the benefits they receive? Otherwise they will not appreciate what they are getting, but if they have to pay more for them they will appreciate them more." When she used the word "they", of course what she meant was the members of the lower orders. There, again, I should not like to suggest that she represented the whole of the Conservative Party. There were many great men in the Conservative Party in the days gone by. Disraeli himself wrote about "two nations". Shaftesbury and a number of other noble Lords in the past were taken up with these views. But, as I say, they have been only a part of the Conservative Party.
We are speaking not from any great superiority at all, but from the fact that our ideology, our Socialism, impels us to look at the interests of the community as a whole as distinct from the interests of private individuals. Of course, it is true that among working people there are a number who are slackers and who are out to gain benefits for themselves and let the community go hang. But that is equally true, as I have learned in the course of my life, of all sections of society. In all sections of society there
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are those who hope to get something and give as little as they possibly can in return; and the rest of us no doubt take care of our own interests—it is only natural that we should. But the great bulk of us in all classes of society are anxious to do a good clay's work for any remuneration that we can get for our services. So I think it is a most dangerous thing that there are some people who imagine that faults of that kind are all confined to one class of society.
That brings me to consideration of this Bill in particular. Of course, the cost of public health has gone up greatly in recent years. Since the Welfare State first gave medical health to large sections of the community who did not benefit from medical services in days gone by, the cost has increased enormously. But there are one or two things about that that I would ask your Lordships to bear in mind. In the course of the debates in another place on this Bill and the other Bill connected with the same subject, one Member brought out this interesting point—I have not checked it but I imagine he is correct when he says it is true—namely, that though the cost of the Health Services is very heavy, the cost of working days lost through ill-health of one kind or another is no less than 75 times as great as the cost of working days lost through industrial disputes. Therefore we cannot ignore the great importance of all the Health Services that we render to men and women at the present time, in the interests not only of individuals' happiness and the welfare of the community, but also of industrial and economic advantage. I feel that that is a most important thing.
in the second place, I do not know how many of your Lordships have recently been reading the articles in The Times newspaper—I expect a great many of you have—but I was most struck just under a week ago by an interesting article on the leader page by a Mr. Lees, who was writing about the cost of the Health Services. Instead of asking us whether our Health Services are costing too much, he asks whether we pay enough for them, because he regards it as of the highest value that they should be adequate. Although the cost of the Health Services has increased in recent years—the

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noble Earl who initiated this measure gave figures to that effect which I do not in the least challenge—Mr. Lees points out that in fact, compared with the gross national product, the actual cost of the Health Services has remained roughly constant over the years. So that the rise is partly due to inflation and partly due to extension, but compared with the national product it has not increased over the period to which the noble Earl was referring.
Then I read, as no doubt some of your Lordships will have read, a most interesting leading article in The Times. In that article cold water was thrown on the idea that money was being thrown away, and that patients were making improper use of the Health Services; and the writer commented on the danger of restricting in any way the use of those services. I am aware that part of that criticism was dealing with another Bill, which is not before us to-day; but I believe that the general remarks apply, to some extent, both to the measure that we have before us and to that which we shall have before us in the future—or which, at any rate, has to be passed through another place.
Those are very important facts which came out in those articles in The Times: that although the cost of the Health Services is going up every year, it is not increasing as fast as costs are increasing in the United States, where, as your Lordships probably know, the bulk of the health charges are paid individually. So that it is not due to some malign action on the part of those who benefit that the cost of medical services have gone up in this country, for the increase is reflected to an even greater extent in what has happened, I understand, in the United States.
It is said that in this Bill the Government are only carrying out a principle that is more or less accepted. That has been said by the noble Earl to-day, and it was well put by the spokesman for the Treasury during the Third Reading of the Bill in another place. That principle is that part of the cost should fall on the insured people, and part on the taxpayer, in the Budget. As the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, has pointed out, this is undoubtedly a finance Bill, and while the right honourable and
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learned gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer is perfectly entitled, when making up his Budget for the year, to say, "These people shall pay this, and those people shall pay that," we rather dislike the way in which this particular Bill has been introduced "off the cuff" as it were, dealing outside the Budget with this method of making a certain section of the community pay.
If it were part of the Budget we might have said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was making very severe charges and putting additional taxation on certain sections of the population by direct taxation; and perhaps it is not unjustifiable that some part of the additional cost should come by indirect taxation. What we feel is wrong is that this part, which is entirely what might be called, in a sense, indirect taxation, should be brought in under one Bill, leaving the Chancellor of the Exchequer free to make such provisions as he wishes, with this aspect put out of the way. For there is no question that this is a poll tax, and all down time that has been considered as the most regressive taxation which can be used. We therefore take strong exception to a poll tax, which this proposal is and find it contrary to our fundamental principles.
So, my Lords, I come back to what I said at the beginning. We on these Benches take strong exception to this measure. We find that as a poll tax it is regressive in its character and is whittling away, in part, at the principles of the Welfare State. We are nervous lest this step may be followed by other small steps in some other direction which will have the effect of further whittling away some other part of the Welfare State, and the provisions which we and our forefathers have made for the well being of the people of the country as a whole. Therefore we join entirely with our colleagues in another place in being passionately opposed to this Bill; and although we know that we can only make a protest, we express our opinion in the terms I have used to-day.
3.15 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, I shall be even shorter and to the point than the noble Lord who has just sat down, to whom we have all listened with such pleasure, and generally, I

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believe, agreement. As he knows, I cannot object to all that is in this Bill. I believe it is generally accepted that health is worth paying for, and we know that the cost of health, in money terms, is and has been going up ever since the National Insurance Act, 1946, was passed. That cost has been going up for two reasons. The main reason is the fall in the value of money, which has been brought about, affecting so many people in this country, by the raising of wages following the raising of prices—due to those two things going on together. The second cause is the growing proportion of people who are making use of the National Health Services.
The question is whether this increased cost of health should be met partly by contributions or wholly by taxation, or whether, as I think I have heard suggested, for some reason not yet explained to me, the poll tax imposed by the Labour Government of 1946, in the shape of contributions, should be abolished and replaced wholly by taxation. I do not know the reason for that, and until I am given some reason for the suggestion that that poll tax ought to be abolished, or at least not increased as the value of money falls, I must say that, if I were asked to vote against the Government on this Bill, I could not do so. I am delighted that there will be no question of voting and therefore no question of disagreeing either with the Government or, except verbally, with my friends on the left.
I see no objection to higher contributions from people who are getting higher money wages, and from employers who are getting higher money prices. I do not see at all what is the objection to that, or what hardship that would mean either to employers or to wage-earners. But, as I said when this matter was before the House earlier, there are people who may suffer hardship from an increase in the cost of the Health Service —the non-earners and, above all, the old, who are liable to suffer because the value of any savings or pensions (other than State pensions) with which they have provided themselves is continually shrinking in value, so that they are less able to pay any additional health charges. I feel that the alternative of being able to get National Assistance, subject to a means test, is a denial of
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the fundamental principle established in 1946, when national insurance and the National Health Service were introduced, and is open to serious objection from practically all people who have suffered from it.
There is just one more thing that I should like to say. As noble Lords who heard me on the last occasion know, I said that I would study the problem of the old and would try to discover whether this National Health Service Contributions Bill was likely to involve hardship and whether everything was being done for the health of the old that ought to be done. I am not going to give to-day the definite answer to that question. So far as I know, I shall give it shortly when we reassemble, after the results of my investigations have been obtained. I can say only this: that I think there is a need for taking some very special care to see that old people do not suffer in health through poverty or ignorance or shyness. There are many people who keep on telling me that the poverty of the old needs investigation to bring it out and so that those who are suffering may be discovered: we cannot sit and wait for them to force themselves on our attention. If that is confirmed by my further inquiries I shall make it clear later.
Meantime, I can only say that I heard with great sympathy what was said by the noble Lord who spoke last. I am glad that he is not asking me to vote with him or against him. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will keep an open mind as to what further steps may ultimately prove to be desirable in the interests of preserving the health of the old people—people even older than myself—if they will kindly do so.
3.23 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, after my introduction only a little over a month ago, the first of the Members of your Lordships' House to give me a personal welcome after I left the Chamber was my friend the noble Earl who is presenting this Bill for Second Reading. I am sorry that I should repay his kindness on that occasion by disagreeing, and disagreeing most strongly, with him on this Bill to-day. I have been here on just a few occasions and I have had the pleasure of listening twice to the noble

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Viscount the Leader of the House, speaking, first, on defence and, secondly, last week on South Africa. It was, I must say, a little disconcerting to me to find that I was in agreement with the greater part of what he said on both occasions. I wondered whether I was very quickly becoming affected by the
atmosphere of this Chamber. However, as the second debate proceeded it became obvious to me that probably the noble Viscount had much more occasion for concern than I had, because there were few of the noble Lords who spoke on the other side who were agreeing with him; and it became obvious to me that what the Prime Minister called "the wind of change" was regarded by noble Lords on the other side, not so much as a beneficent breeze but as a damnable draught.
It is obvious, however, that in home policy, particularly in relation to the Welfare State, there is much more agreement among noble Lords opposite, and if there are, in fact, differences among them it is merely over method and not over principle. If some noble Lords opposite had their way, I have no doubt that there would be a much more open attempt to dismantle some of the principles of the Welfare State. But Ministers, at any rate, are more cautious. Some people might say they are more cunning. Their line is, "If people wish to have social services, let them have them, but we will make sure, a the years go by, that those who find it necessary to benefit from this Welfare State shall pay more and more directly out of their own pockets". I would take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, and I was very surprised at what he said. He said that health is well worth paying for. It was because the research which he undertook showed that health was beyond the reach of many people in the country, because they could not pay for it, that the Service was introduced.
While it may or may not have been a reasonable thing (and there are obviously two opinions about it) for the then Government to have introduced the element of poll tax, at least the Government might have been content to let it rest where it was. The figures which the noble Earl gave in resenting this measure to us indicated that when consideration of the Service was first before
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the House the cost was £336 million, of which £41 million was paid in contributions. I have worked that out, as a percentage of contributions to the total, as being 12·2 per cent. The noble Earl did it another way: he worked out the Exchequer's percentage of contribution. But what is under consideration to-day is what the contributors are to pay, and I prefer, therefore, to direct your Lord-ships' attention to the former percentage. When the cost had risen to £850 million, the estimate for this present year, the contributions were estimated to be £113 million. By the same method, £113 million is 13·3 per cent. of £850 million; so the poll tax, even without any alteration in contribution, is already slightly higher than it was when it was originally fixed.
What does the Government's proposal turn this into? It increases the poll tax element from 13·3 per cent. to 17·4 per cent., by far the highest percentage for contributions that we have ever had. It is argued, or it was argued in another place, that it is necessary to do this because there must be a budgetary limit to what is being spent on the social services. Quite frankly, I do not understand this. Many times, as a member of a local authority, when I sought to have powers to do things in my own little area I was told, when we were willing to do the things ourselves, that it did not matter whether we were spending our own capital or seeking to get a Government grant: the most important thing was the overall expenditure, because the economy of the country required a firm check on the overall expenditure.
On this Bill, the noble Earl has stated, quite frankly, that when we are told there are to be economies we do not mean a cutting down of the Service, nor do we mean the imposition of a ceiling. If, therefore, it is accepted that the money which has to be spent is a desirable expenditure in itself, by the arguments which the Government advance in other directions it can matter little out of which of the national pockets this money comes. The result of the methods by which the Government are doing this is that the increases of direct contributions are to place the largest share of the burden on the shoulders of those who are least able to bear it.
I should like your Lordships to bear with me for a minute or two while I

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translate the charges proposed in this Bill into an equivalent in income tax. At the present time, the man who earns £12 a week, pays on the taxable part of his income at the rate of 1s. 9d. in the £. This increase of 10d. a week, added to his income tax, if it were all income tax, would be the equivalent of an increase of 11d. in the £ in income tax, and would take his contribution up to 2s. 8d. in the £. The man with £15 a week is presently paying on his taxable income at the rate of 3s. 4¼d. in the
£. The effect of this 10d. increase is to increase his rate of taxation
by 3d. in the £. The man with £2,000 a year is presently paying on his taxable income at the rate of 6s. 8¾d. The effect of the increase of
10d. per week is to increase his rate of tax by ½d. in the £. The man who earns £5,000 a year is presently paying at the rate of 9s. 11·14d. in the £. I am sorry to have to go into decimals, but it is the only way I can show the difference that this 10d. will make to him. It will take him up to 9s. 11·29d.; so his tax will go up one-seventh of 1d. in the £.
Now that is bad enough, but we have to remember that this is not the first time that the Government have done this. In ten years of alterations in pensions and alterations in insurance benefits and health benefits, the contribution has gone up and up. When the Government inherited it, it was 4s. 11d. that the adult male worker paid. To-day, as the noble Earl has said, it is 9s. 11d., with another 10d. to come. The effects of the total transference to direct contributions during the Government's ten years of manipulations are staggering. The £12 a week man, when he adds to his income tax the amount that he is paying in direct contributions, is paying on the increase—not his total, but just the increased share that the Government have placed on him—not at 1s. 9d. in the £ but at 8s. 2½d. in the £ on his taxable income; the £15 a week man is paying at 5s. 2d.; the £2,000 a year man is paying at 7s.0¼.; and the £5,000 a year man at 10s. 0·16d. The equivalent increases in rates are: for the £12 a week man, 6s. 5½d. in the £; for the £15 a week man, 1s. 9¾d. in the £; for the £2,000 a year man 3½d. in the £; and, for the £5,000 a year man, 1d. in the £. I did not take it up to the £24,000 a year man, because that coin has been made illegal tender.
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There was one other point that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, made to which I wish to refer. He said that he did not see why a higher-paid worker, or an employer who was gaining higher profits, should not pay more for the services. I agree with him entirely: there is no reason why such people should not pay more. But it seems to me that the obvious and the most equitable way that each should be required to pay should be according to his means, and that a tax which says that, from 1951 to 1961, each individual, whether he is getting £9 a week or whether he is getting £900 a week, should pay the sum of £15 3s. 4d. in additional contributions is wrong; and there is nothing which can be said either from the Government or from the Liberal Benches which will persuade my colleagues on these Benches that there is either equity or even a pretence of justice in these proposals.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, as he has referred to the Liberal Benches, would allow me to say that the poll tax —that is to say, the system of contributions for the National Health Service —was not proposed by me in the Beveridge Report at all. I left it absolutely open. The poll tax—contributions to the Health Service—was invented by the Labour Party when they brought in the Health Service. I am very glad they did bring the Health Service in, but they invented the poll tax, and I have no responsibility at all for the idea of contributions to the Health Service.
LORD HUGHES: I am quite willing to agree that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, had no responsibility for that poll tax. It would therefore be surprising if he did not find it much easier to agree with the arguments that I have advanced to-day: that the poll tax, whether introduced by a Labour Government or increased by a Conservative Government, is by itself a bad thing.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, may I ask whether I must agree to the things that the Labour Party do, not on my advice?
LORD HUGHES: Perhaps there will be an opportunity to pursue the argument with the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, on another occasion. The important thing is not what he wishes

19
to do or what I wish to do: the important thing is what Her Majesty's Government are determined to do. I should not like to carry the figures any further, except to say this: I have not referred to the poorest section of the community, but perhaps £9 a week is a fair figure to take because it is the figure at which the Government have pitched the beginning of payment for graduated pensions —the minimum rates are payable at that wage and less. Now because that man does not pay any income tax at all, it is impossible to follow the analogy that I have made in relation to higher-paid wage-earners, but it is possible to follow an income tax comparison in another way.
The fact that this man has to pay an extra 10d. a week has exactly the same effect on him as if the allowance for his wife were abolished. So far as the £9 a week man is concerned, the total effect of the 5s. 10d. (or the 5s. 8d., as it will become in a day or two) is to wipe out £181 of his allowances. For a man with £10 a week, the total effect of all that the Government have done is to wipe out £140 of his allowances—in other words, to say to him, "You will not be entitled to any personal allowance before you pay tax". One can imagine the reactions both inside and outside the Houses of Parliament if the Government announced changes of that kind in the system of income tax allowances: but because it has been done in small sums of a shilling or a few pence per week in five, six or seven different Bills, the Government have accomplished exactly the same thing as if they had made this radical alteration in taxation. It seems to me, my Lords, that, whatever may be the policy of the Conservative Party on foreign and colonial affairs, their doctrines in relation to home policy remain quite unchanged; and if it were my business to write their next Election Manifesto (which I have do doubt I shall not be invited to contribute to), I would suggest that under "Home Policy" all that they need write is: "St. Matthew, Chapter 25, Verse 29".
3.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I think we all appreciate the depth of feeling with which the noble Lord, Lord
20
Pethick-Lawrence, and his colleagues look upon community service, including the Health Service and social services of all kinds, which, in the noble Lord's opinion (though not in ours), will be adversely affected by this Bill. We also appreciate the reasons why the noble Lord did not wish to press his dislike of the Bill more strongly than he felt right to do. He will not, I think, expect me to pursue the argument now, but it would be wrong if I did not acknowledge both the sincerity and the moderation of the noble Lord, virtues which we do not always find in political speeches. Perhaps we should also express our gratitude to the noble Lord for his sensible decision not to keep your Lordships up every night for some time to come.
As the noble Lord indicated, there are some differences between this House and the other place. I think one of them is that members of the Party opposite in your Lordships' House are all very fond of each other. It is not always necessary for them to conceal their antagonisms, perhaps, by talking for two and a half hours each at three o'clock in the morning.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, for his intervention and for the balanced nature of his criticisms. It is nice to feel that if there could be a Division on this Bill, on balance the noble Lord would probably vote for it. We always look with particular respect at what the noble Lord says on these matters, since he was the author of the Report on which our Health Service is based. I hope he will pursue his inquiries and representations concerning old people, and particularly, as he said, the possibility that some of them may be deterred, by shyness or other reasons, from taking advantage of various services to which they are entitled. Of course, so far as this Bill is concerned, the noble Lord will agree that National Health contributions are not payable by retired persons—men over 65, or women over 60—and this Bill is concerned only with those particular contributions.
It was a matter of great regret to me that when my noble friend Lord Hughes made his maiden speech to your Lordships he chose to do so on a Monday when I had to fulfil an engagement in Dundee, where I got a very different

21
kind of "damnable draught" from that to which the noble Lord referred in his speech just now. But I am delighted to have heard him now, to have the opportunity of congratulating him on his performance in this House, and to say that I hope we shall hear him again very often. The noble Lord, as your Lordships know, fulfilled for six years the office of Lord Provost of Dundee, performing signal and outstanding services during that period for his native city. I think it is a very good thing that he should have come into your Lordships' House. He said something about being affected by its atmosphere, but it is very satisfactory to me to see that he has not been affected in any way in the vigour and ability with which he speaks, either in his grasp of the subject, in the power of 'his expression, or in his love of accurate mathematical analyses. I am sure your Lordships heard him with great appreciation.
As he said, he did not want to give us too many figures, but if he had given us a few more he might also have mentioned that while National Insurance contributions have, as he said, gone up from 4s. 11d. to 10s. 7d., benefits and pensions in the same period have gone up from 26s. to 57s. 6d., which is quite an appreciable difference. I hope the noble Lord will speak again very often, both on Scottish and on other subjects; and I am glad to have the opportunity, which I missed on an earlier occasion, of congratulating him and welcoming him to your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order Number 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of March 23):
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, in moving that the Bill be read a third time, I have it in command from Her Majesty to signify to the House that Her Majesty having been informed of the purport of the National Health Service Contributions Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's interest, so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, at the disposal of Parliament for the purpose of the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. —(The Earl of Dundee.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to say, just before the Bill passes the third time, that I very much liked the tribute which the noble Earl paid to my noble friend Lord Hughes, but I felt that perhaps he might, as we had been so reasonable on the matter, have put a little more detailed argument in reply to those extraordinary deductions which my noble friend Lord Hughes was able to prove from the studies he had made. I do not wish to say any more. Perhaps on some future occasion, when the noble Earl is answering on an economics debate, he may have some details to put forward on those two angles, and which can be criticised from those two angles, and then perhaps we may get a proper assessment of our fairness in this particular matter.
In the meantime, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, went so far as to say that he might, in certain circumstances, if he had been challenged to vote, have voted for the Bill; but seeing that we hardly ever vote on any Government measure on Second Reading from a point of view which is convenient to both sides of the House, he would never be called upon to do that in any case. After all, this is a Money Bill, and it would be useless to do so.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, as I have been referred to again, may I say something which may possibly correct a statement of the noble Earl, when he was speaking for Her Majesty's Government? On the occasion when this question was before this House on a Motion by the Labour Party, the Liberals in your Lordships' House did not vote for the Government or against the Government: they did not vote at all. I want to make that possible correction of the expectation that was raised—that they would on this occasion have voted with the Government. I think we should not have voted at all.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, could I ask whether that created a precedent for the Liberals?
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911, and read 1a.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of March 23), Bill read 2a; Committee negatived. Bill read 3a, and passed.

SIERRA LEONE INDEPENDENCE BILL
3.50 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, I have it in Command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty. having been informed of the purport of the Sierra Leone Independence Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of this Bill. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
When I first came to occupy a place on the Front Bench in your Lordships' House I had to move the Second Reading of the Ghana Independence Bill. I remember that I ran into quite a lot of trouble on that Bill. Subsequently I had the honour to introduce the Federation of Nigeria Independence Bill. Now we are considering the independence of the third of the West African Territories, leaving only Gambia which has not yet become independent in the whole of that area.
Sierra Leone is the oldest of our Territories there. It was nearly 200 years ago, in l787, when we first assumed an interest in the Colony. Many of your Lordships will remember that the occasion for that was the existence of many homeless Africans in London and elsewhere as the outcome of changes in the slave trade. We find a reminder of this in the name of the country's chief port and capital—Freetown. About 100 years later the jurisdiction of Her
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Majesty was extended to the hinterland of the country, to the Protectorate as a whole.
A year ago the Constitutional Conference took place at which the decision was taken that April 27, 1961, should be the date on which Sierra Leone would become independent. The account of that Conference is to be found in the White Paper, Cmnd. 1029. Since the Conference an immense amount of work has been done to give effect to the decisions then reached. I would make only one comment—namely, that during the past year we have been very much confirmed in our belief that the people of Sierra Leone and their Government are ready to run their own affairs, under their eminent Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai.
Last November the House of Representatives of Sierra Leone passed a Resolution calling for independence, on April 27, 1961, within the Commonwealth. As your Lordships will recall, this Resolution was considered at the recent Prime Ministers' Conference, which gave a welcome to Sierra Leone as a member of the Commonwealth, once the necessary legislative process had been completed. This Bill is one of the main instruments of that process. I would apologise to your Lordships because we have not had much time to consider the Bill, but I think that your Lordships will realise the circumstances. As the entitlement of the Bill shows, it is
"to make provision for…the attainment by Sierra Leone of fully responsible status within the Commonwealth."
It was not possible to draw up the Bill until it was known that the Prime Ministers' Conference, which took place such a short time ago, had approved the Resolution passed by the Sierra Leone House of Representatives. While I regret that the presentation of the Bill has had to be rather hurried, I think that it does not contain anything that is controversial. The Bill follows the usual pattern of Independence Bills.
The White Paper which set out the background to the independence of Sierra Leone was published in May of last year. As your Lordships will know, Sierra Leone will be one of the smallest of the Commonwealth countries: in size, it will be about the same as Scotland, and in population about the same as New Zealand. Sierra Leone will be able

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to stand on its own feet economically. It will not be a very rich country. Its main economic development lies in agriculture, and must always lie in agriculture, but there are several other important sources of wealth. In particular there are the diamond mines. Last year no less than £15 million worth of diamonds were exported from Sierra Leone. There is also an important and growing export of iron ore.
We are most anxious of course to do all that we can to help Sierra Leone in her future development. Shortly after the Constitutional Conference we announced our intention of giving aid, at the moment of Sierra Leone's independence, to the tune of £7· million; about half under Commonwealth Assistance Loans and the other half as a gift to take care of Colonial Development and Welfare schemes not yet completed. And we are only too ready to give what help we can in the way of technical assistance. Only last month the Director of Technical Assistance of the Commonwealth Relations Office went out to discuss with the Government of Sierra Leone what more we might be able to do to help them in this way. Again, since the announcement of our help, the Overseas Service Bill has been passed, and if Sierra Leone 'wished, we should be able to help her in meeting the expenses of civil servants who wish, as we hope they will, to continue to serve in that country.
We have had the Commonwealth Development Finance Corporation working on the Guma Valley hydro-electric scheme, which is very important for the country's development. But we want to help Sierra Leone not only on the economic side but also in the development of her educational facilities. Your Lordships will know of the Fourah Bay College, the establishment of which was so generously helped by Durham University. We want to do all we can to help on the educational side, in so far as Sierra Leone may wish it. So much for the background, my Lords.
What will be the form of the new Constitution? That, of course, is not contained in the Bill itself but will be the subject of an Order in Council, as is the usual practice in such cases. The White Paper giving an account of what happened at the Constitutional Conference last year (Cmnd. 1029) sets out in
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considerable detail the lines which we are going to follow for the Constitutional Instrument. For example, and importantly, there will be protection of fundamental rights, and that will be in a form similar to that which was followed in the case of Nigeria. Then one will find that the independence of the Judiciary, the independence of the Civil Service, the life of Parliament and so forth will all be prescribed in the Constitution; and they will be, and importantly, entrenched clauses in the Constitution. The entrenched clauses are, if I may put it that way, really entrenched, in the sense that it is going to be very difficult to change them, save if there is an overwhelming desire on the part of the country itself for a change. The procedure laid down is that for any change one must start by getting a two-thirds majority in the Sierra Leone Parliament, the House of Representatives. Once that has been done, then there has to be a General Election, fought, presumably, if it is a controversial matter, on the subject of change. Then there will be the need for passing the same change again by a two-thirds majority. So I think your Lordships will agree that the entrenchment is a fairly strong one; and that is of great importance.
May I now turn to the Bill itself? In Clause 1 we see that Sierra Leone is to be part of Her Majesty's Dominions on April 27, 1961, and that after that date she will no longer be subject to the laws passed in the United Kingdom: her laws will prevail. That is, of course, the essence of independence. Clause 2 deals with the question of nationality. Like all these nationality clauses, it is very complicated, but I think the result is that there is to be established a. Sierra Leone citizenship, in the same way as there is a citizenship of Ghana, and of Nigeria. That citizenship will cover both the Colony and the Protectorate. The citizen of Sierra Leone will become a British subject or Commonwealth citizen under the laws of the United Kingdom and Colonies. Clause 3 is consequential, and Clause 4 is the Short Title to the Bill. Then we have the Schedules, which I hope and feel explain themselves.
My Lords, there is only one other item on which I would touch, and that

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is the question of defence. Again referring to the White Paper (Cmnd. 1029), in paragraphs 23, 24 and 25 your Lordships will see that the question of defence was considered at our meetings. It was agreed that, while a defence agreement between the two countries would be highly appropriate and desirable, none the less it would not be appropriate to try to work out any details until after Sierra Leone was entirely independent and on her own, so that nobody could possibly say that this was in some way a condition of the agreement for independence. We are doing it in the right way; that is, once Sierra Leone is independent, we will enter into discussions, if they so wish, and together, as equal parties, hammer out what is appropriate in the way of a defence agreement.
It is nearly 200 years, as I have said, since we first went into Sierra Leone. One has some sorrow, in a sense, that an association of 200 years is coming to an end. But that sorrow is quickly replaced by happiness, because, after all, it is the end of a purpose which we set out to achieve—for Sierra Leone to be independent. I think the balance is on the side of pride and of thanks to all those who have made this achievement possible—to the missionaries, to the traders and to the civil servants. Generally it is invidious to pick out names, but I do want to mention the present Governor, Sir Maurice Dorman, and the great compliment that has been paid to him by the people and Government of Sierra Leone in that they have asked Her Majesty whether it will be possible for him to be the first Governor-General of Sierra Leone. But, as always, the real tribute is due to the people of Sierra Leone themselves, because if they were not as they are, and if they had not had the leaders they have, we should never have reached this stage.
Above all, one recalls "the Doctor", as he is known to all the people of Sierra Leone—the Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai. I remember well how I first had the occasion to meet him four years ago at the Independence celebrations for Ghana. Quite naturally, at that time we had a talk, and in some degree it turned to the prospects for his own country. I was very much struck not only by his moderation and his charm, but also by his wisdom, which had in it
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a certain firmness of purpose. We have seen that firmness of purpose over the years as he has been leading his country to this end, which will be finally given effect to on April 27 next when Sierra Leone is to become independent. I feel that it is a country which will be well launched under his guidance and the guidance of others of his Cabinet. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Perth.)
4.7 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, when your Lordships pass from the domestic policy of the Government to their colonial policy, as we have done this afternoon, there is usually a perceptible drop in the wind of controversy. That may not be so in all cases, but it is certainly true in the case of this Bill. We are all equally delighted that our oldest African Colony will achieve its independence next month, and that this transition from colonial to independent status has, thanks to the goodwill and co-operation that has existed on both sides, been brought about very smoothly and without any after-taste of bitterness. It is most gratifying that Sierra Leone has chosen to stay with us as a member of the Commonwealth, as the noble Earl pointed out, and that this wish has been endorsed by the other Commonwealth countries at the recent Prime Ministers' Conference. Though we may regret that the Bill had to be hurried, I am sure we should all agree that it was vital to have the endorsement of the Commonwealth countries for Sierra Leone Commonwealth membership before the Bill was introduced.
It is also most satisfactory that Sierra Leone intends to remain one of the Queen's realms. As somebody who knows from personal experience the enormous affection and respect felt for the Royal Family in West Africa, I am certain that Her Majesty The Queen will have a tremendous welcome when she goes there this autumn; and the Duke of Kent will have a no less happy time when he represents Her Majesty at the Independence celebrations in April. His mother's charm is well remembered in Ghana; and his sister had a great success in Nigeria. So he will find his family already established in the affections of West Africans.

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It is certainly a compliment to this country—and I am glad the noble Earl mentioned it—as well as to the personality of Sir Maurice Dorman, that the Government of Sierra Leone have chosen him as their first Governor-General. I heard a great deal about Sir Maurice Dorman before I had even met him, because he had served as head of the Welfare Department in Ghana, and during his time in that service had given the Gold Coast, as it then was, the most advanced system of community development in the Colonies —something of which we were all very proud. When, subsequently, I did meet him, and he was kind enough to ask me to stay with him in Freetown, I realised that administrative ability was not his only quality and that he was universally liked, both in the Colony and in the Protectorate. I should like to join with the noble Earl in offering him our congratulations and wishing him all success in his new office.
I was also glad that the noble Earl referred to that great figure, Sir Milton Margai. I think Sierra Leone is particularly fortunate to have in Sir Milton one of the wisest political leaders in Africa. I know that that judgment is one which would be shared by all who know him. He belongs to the old school of African statesman, both in years and in chiefly descent. As a doctor he has travelled all over the country, he has delivered babies almost everywhere, and he had become a popular, if not a national, figure long before he made his mark in politics.
There is, of course, still a certain amount of suspicion and distrust between the Colony and the Protectorate. Sir Miles himself is liked and trusted by everyone, and he is therefore in the best possible position to bring about a better understanding and to create that sort of loyalty to the nation that a new country, still divided by tribal and local loyalties, has gradually to acquire. Sir Milton has also established extremely satisfactory relations with his neighbours in Liberia and Guinea, and that is not always an easy thing to do in Africa, because national boundaries cut across tribes, and you find members of the same tribe living on different sides of these boundaries. But he has acted with great statesmanship in forming the happiest possible relationship with the political leaders in both these countries.
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Sierra Leone, as the noble Earl has said, is not a wealthy country. Indeed, I am afraid it would be true to say that it is a poor country, and needs a great deal of assistance. It is not merely essential to give Sierra Leone technical and capital aid; it is also essential to avoid saddling the country with a heavy additional burden of public expenditure with the coming of independence. Defence and diplomatic representation are the two most expensive items in the budget of a new country, and I hope Her Majesty's Government will do their best to help Sierra Leone in both these respects. The noble Earl mentioned that an agreement about defence will be negotiated after independence. I am glad that it is being done in that way, so that Sierra Leone can negotiate as an equal.
The noble Earl did not mention this question of diplomatic representation, but I hope that both the United Kingdom and, indeed, other Commonwealth countries, will put at the disposal of Sierra Leone any services that may be required from their missions overseas and in that way, of course, save this country a very large additional expenditure. That is the other side of the picture—the provision of more aid from this country. The noble Earl mentioned the capital aid of £7½ million in the form of loans and grants which Her Majesty's Government have decided to give. Of course, that will not be a net gain to Sierra Leone, because it will be losing Colonial Development and Welfare Funds, and it will also lose fresh investment from the Colonial Development Corporation. So that will set off what Sierra Leone would otherwise lose as a result of independence, I do not know to what extent, but the noble Earl may be able to give us some information in that regard, although I did not give him notice of this point.
I am still not at all satisfied—and this is my only criticism—that the Government are doing enough to help these new Commonwealth countries., especially the poor ones like Sierra Leone, in the early years of independence, when their need is most urgent and when they are deprived of funds they have had during the period of time when they were a Colony. In regard to assistance from public funds to independent Commonwealth countries our record compares badly with the record of France,

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and I hope that is something we shall not continue to accept for any considerable length of time.
I was delighted to hear what the noble Earl said about a new Constitution for Sierra Leone. It certainly sounds as though it was extremely well drafted, and I think everyone will welcome the inclusion of the Bill of Rights and the entrenchment of certain provisions basic to the Parliamentary system of government and for preservation of freedom of the individual citizen. These things are taken for granted in this country, but they are not so easily retained in Africa, and it certainly shows wisdom and prevision to entrench provisions of this kind and to make them difficult to alter. I am sure we would all join with what the noble Earl said in wishing the people of Sierra Leone the utmost success in this great adventure in freedom.
4.17 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like to associate my Party and myself with the welcome which the two noble Earls who have spoken have given to this Bill, and also, of course, to the new member of the Commonwealth who will take her place with the others on April 27. As the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said, we in this country have had a long association with Sierra Leone, the longest of any with the West African Territories. As your Lordships know, our first association with West Africa was in the reign of the first Elizabeth, when we went there for the purpose of slave trading. Although it is quite true that we put down slave trading, it is equally true that we started it. It was started in the reign of the first Elizabeth, and I am happy to-day that in the reign of the second Elizabeth we have been making amends to the people of the West Coast for the activities of our forbears.
As the noble Earl has said, this is the fourth (I think he said the third; but it is the fourth, for there are the Cameroons) Territory on the West Coast which will no longer be under our guidance and supervision. In the course of the last few years, these vast Territories, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Cameroons have become, or will shortly become, independent, leaving us only with Gambia, which stretches along the Gambia River, a distance of some 200 miles, 10 miles in width, as our sole
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remaining Colonial Territory. Not only is Sierra Leone the oldest Territory, but it also happens that this Colony was created in an intimate and curious way, so far as this country was concerned. It really arose out of the great and historic judgment of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield—not the present one, of course, but his ancestor—who was Chief Justice in the eighteenth century. Lord Mansfield made the celebrated and historic judgment that everyone who arrives at these shores and lays his foot on the soil becomes free.
As your Lordships can imagine, a great number of people tried to do that —a very estimable thing to do. So much so that in the course of time, with the activities of the Royal Navy, which was also scouring the seas to stop the slave trade, a large number of former slaves arrived in this country, and with a combination of shrewd judgment and philanthropy it was possible to establish the Colony, a philanthropic Colony and a religious Colony to some extent, on the shores of West Africa.
Anybody who may think we have had difficulties in our time with colonial development might read the experiences of those early colonial developers headed by the Reverend Zachary Macaulay, who was the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay, the historian. Not only did they meet great hostility, as can be imagined, from the people already there, but they also ran into a sort of backwash of the French Revolution. Shortly after the Colony had been established, a cruiser squadron of revolutionary Frenchmen arrived, and proceeded, in the way in which revolutionary armies and navies are inclined to, to wreck the Colony; so much so that they destroyed poor Mr. Macaulay's chickens, cut the throats of his pigs, took away the grain and left him and the Colony in very poor shape. But of course the Colony survived; and from that day to this it has had a particularly strong and intimate association with our country and with the religious life of this country. Your Lordships will remember the missionary college at Fourah Bay. This College long supplied educated people right down West Africa. If a clerk or a station master or some officer of that kind was wanted in other parts of West Africa, one generally went to Sierra Leone to get him.

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Now Sierra Leone has almost completed, and next month will complete, her full stature in the Commonwealth, and I join with the noble Earl, Lord Perth, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in welcoming the fact. The Queen is to be the Queen of Sierra Leone as well as Head of the Commonwealth. I hope to have the honour of being present on April 27 in Freetown, when His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent is to perform the ceremony of Independence, and it will be for me a great joy to be there on that occasion.
There are just one or two points that I should like to ask the noble Earl. The first concerns the Privy Council. I take it that the Privy Council will be the ultimate, authority, so far as appeals from Sierra Leone are concerned. As your Lordships know, many of us in this House have regretted from time to time that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has net felt inclined to be a little more mobile, so far as these Territories are concerned. Some of the members, I am quite sure, would be more mobile if their colleagues would allow them. I feel that if they are not prepared to travel and hold Count occasionally in West Africa, particularly, and maybe in East Africa too, we shall lose that very important link that we have with them; and, far more important, they will lose the benefit of this most eminent Court, one of the most eminent Courts in the world, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to supervise their legal life.
The noble Earl, Lord Perth, has said that there will be in the Constitution entrenched clauses relating to these matters of humanity. This point is never very clear to United Kingdom people, because we, not having a Written
Constitution, and not having a Supreme Court, as there is in the United States, do not see the need for it. But if you have entrenched clauses, if you have human rights clauses entrenched in your Constitution, it is very important to have the most eminent Court, if necessary, to interpret them arid enforce them. That is another reason why, especially in a comparatively small Territory like Sierra Leone, it is very important that anyone aggrieved should have the opportunity of carrying his case to the Privy Council.
I do not think that the Privy Council will be able to sustain these links with
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Nigeria and Sierra Leone—the links have gone, unhappily, with Ghana—unless occasionally the Privy Council goes there. I believe that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has sat in Sierra Leone. He took part in an interesting innovation there, because he sat in a Peer's robes. That was, I think, an interesting circumstance, because, of course, members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and the Law Lords of this House, have no robes as such. The only robes they can wear are Peers' robes. That is one way, I believe, in which we can overcome this difficulty of robes. Of course, if the Privy Council does sit in these Territories, the members will have to sit robed; they cannot sit, as they do here, in lounge suits. With that one query and one hope, may I most warmly support this Bill, and say that I hope the Territory of Sierra Leone, the new independent member State of Sierra Leone, will have every possible good fortune in the future.
4.27 p.m.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, last Thursday in this Chamber we had rather a sad debate, but to-day it is a happy one. I would rise from these Benches just to welcome the Bill and the fact that Sierra Leone next month will become a fully independent member of the Commonwealth. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in the name of noble Lords opposite has welcomed the Bill. In passing, I would say how glad I am to see the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, back in his seat. I hope he is now well on the way to complete recovery. The Bill has also been welcomed from the Liberal Benches by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore. I must say that I feel that if the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, went in for television competitions on the matter of history, he would be sure to make a great deal of money. He has really a great knowledge of it.
I am glad that Her Majesty's Government are going to give all the help they can., in the way both of direct and indirect finance and also of technical help, to Sierra Leone when she becomes fully independent. As to defence, I am glad that the defence solution is going to be made after the date of her independence, because, as has already been said, she can then make it as a fully fledged member of the Commonwealth. I congratulate all the people of the country

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itself, and the Government and all the helpers behind the scenes who have made this independence possible at this time. My great hope is that Sierra Leone will enjoy being a member of the Commonwealth as much as we shall enjoy having her as one.
4.29 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, as an old Colonial Secretary and as a Resident Minister who spent many days in Sierra Leone during the last war, I should like—and I know my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who succeeded me, would wish to be associated with this—to extend our best congratulations and the warmest welcome to Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone played an important, indeed an indispensable, part in the last war in winning victory for us. Of all the ports in the world Freetown was perhaps the most important. Certainly, without Freetown it would have been almost impossible to carry on the war. It was the assembly point on which converged all the convoys coming from the South and North. All the independent tankers and food ships coming across the Atlantic concentrated in the port of Freetown which, happily, remained to them a free port all through the war.
I well recall four or five critical days when I happened to be in Sierra Leone, when we had 70 or more ships at risk coming from all over, and little to defend them with. The little M.Ls, which were meant really for river traffic, were going far out to sea, and there were, for certain, as we saw on the chart in the War Room, fifteen enemy submarines—there may have been more. Many attacks were made. Three certainly, four probably, of those submarines were sunk. One was sunk by a Wellington bomber with a young New Zealand pilot in charge. I well recall this because it was a Commonwealth episode in every sense of the word. The plane was lost. There was a little rubber dinghy afloat and we hoped that this contained some of the airmen, but it did not; it turned out to have aboard the German commander of the submarine which the aircraft had sunk.
When he came ashore he told the story of how his submarine had been sunk. His was one of the largest new
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German submarines. It was surfaced, and he said that this aeroplane came over and dropped a stick of bombs but missed him. He "opened up" at it with everything that he had got—and he had quite a number of guns. He said that the aeroplane was not only badly hit but was blazing from stem to stern. It managed to turn, to come back again and to drop a final stick of bombs on the submarine, which sank, and the plane crashed into the sea just in front of the submarine. That German commander said that if ever any man deserved the Victoria Cross it was the captain of that aeroplane. The Admiral and I were able to send that story home. The only evidence was that of the German submarine commander and, on the strength of that evidence, the young New Zealander was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
That is the sort of Commonwealth story that one likes to remember on an occasion like this, and I am quite sure that if ever—pray God it may not be!—the need came again, that port, the free port of Freetown, would be freely at the disposal of the forces of freedom. Not only did Sierra Leone provide that port and the men—tens of thousands of them, who did an enormous amount of work at the docks, on installations and in regard to water supply, because every ship has to be watered there, and on the airfields which were vitally important —and many of them enlisted freely in the forces of the Crown, and not a few served with the Army in Burma.
I am happy to think that Sierra Leone has other assets. Certainly it has its agriculture, but there are considerable assets besides. There are the diamonds, which are of enormous value. I recall that when I was Colonial Secretary I made the agreement with the Selection Trust for the exploitation of the diamond mines, I must say with great credit to the company, on extremely favourable terms. They did all the exploration and the Sierra Leone Government got 27½ per cent. of the profits. I think that was a pretty good deal. I remember that when Lord Balfour of Inchrye and I were in Africa the Government's diamond share then, in the war, was bringing in something between £350,000 and £400,000 a year. Then I remember—I do not suppose it is exhausted

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—the considerable iron ore supply, with a railway to get it. I imagine that iron ore is still coming from it. There was quite valuable timber as well.
The Prime Minister of Sierra Leone has, as has been said, shown himself an able and responsible man. I believe that these people will be able to discharge the great responsibility as well as the rights which now devolve upon them; and they will start with the warmest good wishes, not only of both Houses of Parliament but of all the people of this country.
4.38 p.m.
LORD DENNING: My Lords, it was my privilege last year to go to Sierra Leone to open the new Court of Appeal, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has said, I attended the sitting of the Court wearing a Peer's robes together with a full-bottomed wig. Indeed, it was a great occasion to see that the people of Sierra Leone are perhaps in advance of the other countries, because the people there have trained up their own lawyers, and from those lawyers have produced their own judges; so that in Sierra Leone you now have judges and magistrates of the country very much attached to the Common Law which they have inherited from this country, and at one in upholding the fundamental human rights which are now to be in their Constitution. Their attachment to the appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is to be ensured, and the independence of the judges, which also is to be ensured by the fact that a judge cannot be removed except after inquiry there and eventually on an appeal to the Privy Council, means that they are carrying through the principles which they have inherited from this country. With that strong bulwark, I am confident that they will play their full part among the emergent countries, and I would add my word of welcome to this Bill.
4.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am not surprised at the welcome which has been given by so many of your Lordships to this Bill, for it is a Bill in which we all rejoice, and this is a very happy occasion. I was particularly glad to hear, and I am sure the House welcomed. the words of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, for not only had he been Colonial Secretary but—more to the
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point on this occasion—he was for a long time Resident Minister during a critical period. The noble Earl recalled the great service that the people of Sierra Leone gave, particularly those around the port of Freetown, and that so many of them volunteered to serve in our common cause at that time. It was a pleasure, also, to see the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, here, for as your Lordships will know, he succeeded the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, as Resident Minister.
Then we heard words of welcome from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who mentioned particularly how fortunate it was that His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent should be going out to represent Her Majesty at the Independence celebrations. I know we all rejoice at that and feel it is very appropriate, in that there is this, as it were, special relationship with that family, in the link between Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent and Ghana and Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra and Nigeria. That is particularly happy. One can express no higher expectation than that he will perform that duty as well as other members of his family have done.
The noble Earl asked me a question on economic assistance, and, in particular, whether we would help in such matters as diplomatic representation. I have no doubt that the answer is: if we can help on the diplomatic side, as we have done on other occasions, we shall be only too pleased to do so. No doubt, so will other members of the Commonwealth, if that should be appropriate and in accordance with the wishes of the people of Sierra Leone. It is true that, to some degree, in comparison with the aid given by France to her overseas territories our aid may be somewhat less; but it certainly does not warrant any unfavourable comparison being made, for I believe that it stands out as second in the world in relation to the wealth of a country. And, after all, it has to be borne in mind that, besides the help given by the Government, there is help given by private individuals.
As your Lordships will know, from those two sources together, something 1¼ over per cent. of our gross national product is now being invested abroad; and we have to be careful not to do

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more than that, for a reason of which your Lordships all know; namely, that we must avoid strain on our foreign exchange. There has, therefore, been some limit to what we are able to do. I can assure your Lordships, however, that we will continue, under technical assistance or otherwise, to give all the help we can. For example, £3½ million of the £7½ million I mentioned will be in the form of Commonwealth assistance loans which will replace, and may perhaps more than replace, aid which might have been given to Sierra Leone as a Colony.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore gave us some interesting historical comments on Sierra Leone. In particular, he asked —very appropriately and properly, I thought—whether the right of appeal to the Privy Council would remain. In Command Paper 1029, to which I have referred several times this afternoon, it is stated in paragraph 20 (j), on page 8, that:
"The rights of appeal to the. Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in matters concerning the interpretation of the constitution, and also the existing rights of appeal to the Judicial Committee…"
should be "entrenched" and remain. The noble Lord was very right in stressing the importance of that right remaining. It was good to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, speaking of his experience last year, and making the important point that the people of Sierra Leone are well served in judicial matters, having both their own lawyers and judges—for which, I suspect, Fourah Bay College is largely responsible. We heard from the noble Viscount, Lord
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Goschen, that after last week this was a happy occurrence; and I very much agree with him.
My Lords, I think there is nothing more for me to do except join with other noble Lords who have spoken in wishing the people of Sierra Leone every happiness and prosperity in their new venture into independence.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then Standing Order Number 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of March 23), Bill read 3a, and passed.

SAINT PANCRAS, PANCRAS LANE CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bills was withdrawn: the orders made on February 7 last discharged, and Bills committed to Unopposed Bill Committees.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: the order made on the 16th instant discharged, and Bill committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
House adjourned at a quarter before five o'clock.