Lords Sitting of 3 July 1962

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Durham
The Marquess Townshend—Took the Oath.
The Lord Trefgarne—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

TALL BUILDINGS IN LONDON
2.35 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the results that are being achieved by the existing form of planning control now in operation in London, particularly with regard to the new visual effects created within the Whitehall square mile due to the presence of the several new skyscrapers which have recently been erected without any apparent consideration being given to the existence in the vicinity of many famous historic buildings and places; and, if Her Majesty's Government are not satisfied, whether they will stop any more such buildings being constructed until some other effective form of planning control has been introduced.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do not contend that there is no room for improvement in the existing form of control for high buildings. I informed the noble Lord, in reply to his Question on May 22, that the criteria by which proposals are judged are being reconsidered by the London County Council in the light of experience. I understand that the Town Planning Committee will be submitting
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a full report to the Council shortly, following consultation with the Royal Fine Art Commission on a draft restatement of principles.
My right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government is satisfied that further action or discussion on this matter should await the new statement.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for the information he has just given to the House, may I ask him if he can go a little further and say whether the Government are satisfied with what has happened so far? Or are we to assume that they are satisfied?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think my noble friend can assume that we are not completely satisfied.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while again thanking my noble friend for that comment, may I ask whether he does not agree that it is important that no more destruction shall be done to the beauty of London before a revised system of control is introduced?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think it would be extremely difficult, indeed impracticable, to defer consideration of applications for high buildings while the present criteria are being considered by the London County Council. I understand that applicants have a statutory right to have their applications dealt with by the planning authority within two months, unless they agree to an extension of that period, and that if their applications are not dealt with within two months they have a right of appeal; and, of course, in the case of existing applications for buildings which have not been built but which have been approved there would be the question of compensation in addition. Therefore, I do not think that my noble friend's suggestion is really practicable.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, would Her Majesty's Government consider looking into and evolving for the Whitehall area, about which the noble Lord has just asked his Question, something on the lines of the scheme which is operating so successfully in the City of London, by mutual agreement

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between the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's and the City Corporation, for the preservation of the views of the Cathedral from the south?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, we should of course be glad to look into that suggestion; but I really feel that it would be better to await the statement of principles from the L.C.C., upon which they are working at this moment, before coming to any final decision in this matter.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, is it not a fact that a quite satisfactory system has been worked out for Washington and for Paris? Is it not also a fact that the Minister has overruled precautions that have already been introduced to try to protect London? This is a most important matter, and I cannot urge upon the Minister too strongly that we must try to preserve what we have, because we can never replace it, once we have defaced and defiled it by putting up undesirable buildings in what I suggest are the wrong places. Let buildings be put up if they want them put up, but not in the wrong places.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, naturally I sympathise with my noble friend's concern about this matter. I hope that what I have said indicates that the Government themselves are deeply interested in it. But I would urge on my noble friend that what suits the inhabitants of Paris or of Washington does not necessarily suit the inhabitants of London. We must apply criteria which fit the circumstances of London.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, is the House to deduce, from what the noble Earl has said, that the Government consider these buildings do suit London, as opposed to Paris. Do the Government think that these skyscrapers are really worthy of London?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I should have thought that if my noble friend had listened to my reply to the first supplementary question he would not have needed to put that question to me.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, I put that question deliberately; because the answer given by the noble Earl to the second supplementary question implied
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that the planning authority thought they could not turn down an application because delay would involve compensation, and I do not know what. If the noble Earl looks at what he said, he will find that what I am saying is correct.
EARL JELLICOE: Unfortunately, I am unable at this moment to look at what I said. All I was pointing out was that there were great difficulties involved, practical difficulties and difficulties of compensation, which made it extremely doubtful whether it would be sensible to follow the specific suggestion made by my noble friend about delaying action until these criteria have been published.
LORD KILLEARN: Thank you very much.

CIVIL AVIATION AND THE COMMON MARKET
2.43 p.m.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they agree that there is some doubt as to whether technically civil aviation is outside paragraph two of Article 84 of the Treaty of Rome.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MILLS): My Lords, an English translation of paragraph two of Article 84 of the Treaty of Rome reads:
"The Council, acting by means of a unanimous vote, may decide whether, to what extent, and by what procedure appropriate provisions might be adopted for sea and air transport."
This clearly covers civil aviation. Equally clearly the provisions about transport set out in Title IV of Part Two of the Treaty do not cover civil aviation since the Council has not yet taken a decision under Article 84.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, against the background of the contents of paragraph two of Article 84, which the noble Lord has just quoted, might I ask whether it is not a fact that the European Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution in December, 1961, in which, inter alia, it requested the

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Council of the European Economic Community to put the problem of a common air transport policy on the agenda of one of their forthcoming meetings to enable the provisions of paragraph two of Article 84 to be made rapidly? Then, in extension of that, perhaps I might be allowed to ask this: would not the noble Lord agree that, if this matter is decided in a certain way before Her Majesty's Government join the European Economic Community (if in fact in due course she does so), the matter of air transport, including provisions for negotiation of traffic rights, might be decided before Her Majesty's Government become a member of the Community, and the fears I have ventured to express might become real instead of hypothetical?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, the answer to the first supplementary question is, Yes. In regard to the second supplementary question, theoretically the European Economic Community Council may decide on appropriate provisions for air transport at any time; and, if they did so decide, that would be a matter for Her Majesty's Government to take into account when deciding whether or not to join the Community. But it is, I think, highly unlikely that the Council, which has certain other important matters before it, will reach an early decision on this.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether there is not already on the Statute Book the Civil Aviation (Euro-control) Act, which controls military and civil aviation throughout Western Europe?
LORD MILLS: Yes, my Lords, that is a fact.

COMMONWEALTH AND COMMON MARKET: MR. HARE'S REMARKS
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on the widely reported expression of the Minister of Labour in a
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public speech on June 30, that in connection with the Common Market negotiations Commonwealth countries were "behaving in some respects like children".]
LORD MILLS: My Lords, my noble friend the Foreign Secretary will, with the permission of the House, answer this Question, and the following Question in the name of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, in the form of a statement at a convenient moment after 3,30 this afternoon.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, as I understand that this is in consequence of a personal statement made in another place, I hope that this will not preclude a direct answer to the specific Questions in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and myself.
LORD MILLS: I have no doubt that the Foreign Secretary, in repeating the statement to be made in another place, will answer the noble Viscount's Question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that, at a suitable time after 3.30, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will be making a statement on Trafalgar Square, and my noble friend Lord Dundee will be making a statement on National Assistance.

SOUTH ESSEX WATERWORKS BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the following Amendment to this Bill: in Clause 19, page 11, line 17, leave out the words "authorised to supply" and insert the word "supplying". This has been suggested by the Promoters and is approved by all parties concerned. Clause 19 repeals certain enactments, but, by a proviso, the clause is not to come into effect until Section 37 of the Third Schedule of the Water Act, 1945, is brought into operation and applied throughout the area in which

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the company is authorised to supply. This part of the area overlaps the area of supply of the Metropolitan Water Board. In that part of the area Section 37 does not apply because the Third Schedule of the 1945 Act has not been adopted by the Metropolitan Walter Board. Therefore, unless this Amendment was made, the whole of Clause 19 of this Bill could not be put into operation. I think there is no opposition to this Amendment, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Clause 19, page 11, line 17, leave out ("authorised to supply") and insert ("supplying").—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

MARRIAGE (WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL
2.51 p.m.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

HEALTH VISITING AND SOCIAL WORK (TRAINING) BILL
2.52 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Newton.)
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I can only say that I have a certain pleasure in welcoming the Third Reading of this Bill. I emphasise the word "certain", because I want to put on record the fact that I am very disappointed at the manner in which the Committee stage of this Bill was conducted. Your Lordships will agree that we are not here simply to put a rubber stamp on business that comes from another place, but on the Committee stage of this Bill some Amendments were put down, not drafted by myself but drafted and approved by the organisations of the social workers and
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the health visitors. Some of the Amendments were of a very modest kind, and it seemed to me—I may say, my Lords, that I am echoing something I said on Committee stage—that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, who was replying for the Ministry of Health, had come here simply to tell us why these could not be accepted. It seemed that he was not even prepared to consider them. He was not even prepared—although, of course, he was briefed to give an answer—to take back anything which some noble Lords in this House and myself felt should have further consideration. I felt, indeed, that it was a mockery of democratic discussion.
I should not have raised the matter on this occasion, had I not felt that it was following the pattern of the way health workers in the National Health Service are being treated. Very briefly, I would remind your Lordships that the almoners and psychiatric social workers for many months received a negative answer from the Ministry of Health. because they had made a claim for a higher salary. The Industrial Court reversed the policy of the Ministry of Health and gave them a generous increase. But this argument went on for many months, and they were no doubt treated as we were treated last Tuesday night on the Committee stage of the Health Visiting and Social Work (Training) Bill. Then comes the nurses' case. We had a very good debate last week, in which it was made quite clear that for weeks and months the nurses appealed for consideration. Again, their appeal was rejected and they are forced to go on to the Industrial Court for the matter to be reconsidered. Then, again, on the Committee stage another important group of health workers, the social workers and health visitors, asked me to put down certain Amendments, and these were rejected out of hand.
My Lords, it is not only the number that I bring to your notice. I would say that this attitude, an attitude which I suppose can be only dictated by expediency, finally must be reversed. These women in these organisations are weakly organised, I agree. They do not have the powerful organisations of the doctors or the dockers. Nevertheless, as your Lordships know, although a woman's voice may be weak, when she

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has made up her mind she finally gets her way. In spite of the lessons which the Minister of Health must have learnt by now, the lesson that he is forced to leave by the backdoor while the women demonstrate at the front of the hospital, the noble Lord (and I do not blame him personally, as I said on the Committee stage, when I implored him to reject the voices of his masters) was on the Committee stage last week, given a brief which, in effect, said, "Do not budge. Do not move an inch. Finally say, No." I bring that point to the notice of your Lordships, because I think it is undesirable that no protest should be made when this kind of thing occurs in your Lordships' House.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to rise very briefly to support what the noble Baroness has said. I am encouraged to do so even more, because she did say that, although a woman's voice may be weak, in time she gets her way. Therefore, I feel I am attaching myself to something rather good when I rise to support her now. Although the noble Lord, Lord Newton, dealt with our Amendments most courteously fully, and kindly, certainly it was my impression, too, that, on the Second Reading the Bill was criticised very largely by every noble Lord and Lady who spoke. When the Committee stage came we put down our Amendments, after consultation with the bodies involved, but not one was even promised further consideration. I feel that that was treating the bodies concerned in a rather rough way, and I should like to support the noble Baroness in the words of protest she has now used.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I just say one word in support of my noble friend Lord Newton? The arguments in favour of the Bill and against it were certainly dealt with in debate, and Amendments were put down, but I find it an extraordinary theory that, just because Amendments are put down in a large number, the Government should accept them, even though they disapprove of them. The Government listened to the arguments, and if the arguments were not good enough to convince them they would be quite wrong to accept the Amendments. I find the argument that we have heard to-day quite extraordinary.
2.57 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I agree very much with what my noble friend Lord Derwent has said. When I listened to the noble Lady, it seemed to me that she was advancing a very novel argument, a very novel doctrine. What she was, in fact, saying to your Lordships was this: that because ten Amendments were put on the Marshalled List during the Committee stage of this Bill, at least one of them must have been of sufficient merit to be accepted by me on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. It seems to me that the noble Baroness is really saying to your Lordships that, the greater the number of Amendments put down to a Bill, the greater the obligation, therefore, on the part of the Government to accept one or more of them, irrespective of their merit. That seems to me to be an entirely novel doctrine.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, although he supported the noble Baroness in this connection, for saying that I replied adequately to the arguments submitted to me. I think we had two and a half hours on the Committee stage on these ten Amendments, and I certainly did my best to explain to your Lordships why I was unable to accept them. We divided on one Amendment, and the majority of your Lordships supported me, and your Lordships in Committee accepted the advice which I offered on the other nine Amendments.
I should also like to add this further comment. The matters which were the subject of these ten Amendments were all debated during the Second Reading, and were all replied to by me, so I do not think that any Member of this House who was present during the Second Reading debate, or read the Report of it in Hansard, was surprised to find last Tuesday that I was not able to accept the Amendments. Furthermore, these same arguments and these same Amendments were discussed at great length during the proceedings on the Bill in another place, and they were not accepted by Her Majesty's Government there, either. I hope, therefore, the House will think that I am right in refusing to stand before your Lordships in a white sheet, either literally or metaphorically.

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Finally, my Lords, may I just say this to the noble Baroness? She said in her opening remarks that your Lordships are not rubber stamps. No, my Lords; we in this House are not rubber stamps. But the noble Baroness said that one reason why I ought to have been more sympathetic was that the Amendments, or many of them, were put down on behalf of the organisations representing the health visitors and the social workers. It is perfectly right that the views of those interested parties should be considered by the Government and by your Lordships alongside the arguments of other interested bodies, but we in this House are not rubber stamps for anybody, not even for those organisations.
LORD STONHAM: Neither, my Lords, are we rubber stamps for another place. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, has just put forward as one of the reasons for curtailing discussion here (or he implied it) the fact that these subjects were extensively discussed in another place. I hope that that will never be accepted as a reason for not having a discussion here.
LORD NEWTON: May I interrupt the noble Lord? I introduced that point in order to elaborate the wider point I was making: that I did not think any of your Lordships could have been surprised that I was unable to accept the Amendments.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we had a very thin House throughout the Committee stage, and we did not have the great advantage of the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent. Otherwise, I am of opinion that he would be less ready to jump to the defence of his noble friend.
LORD DERWENT: If I may interrupt the noble Lord, I particularly said that I was not dealing with the merits of the Bill, which were discussed on the previous stages. I was saying that the arguments put forward by the noble Baroness were, to me, extraordinary.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am doing very well: two interruptions in two sentences. I would say that my noble friend was dealing with the merits of the Bill. Indeed, that is a quite proper matter to deal with on Third
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Reading. But I would say this: I like the sight of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, whether he is in a white sheet or not; it is always an entrancing sight. But anyone who considers what those Amendments were, or who read the Report of the Committee stage or was present at the proceedings, will know that there was absolutely no cogent reason for refusing them. Indeed, one Amendment was to the effect that, although the Bill provides that there shall be one chairman for the two Councils that are to be set up, there may be two separate chairmen. One would not have thought that it would have brought about anything earth-shaking to have met the wishes of the people concerned, primarily women, so that it might be possible, one day, to have a woman chairman for one of those two Councils. I feel that on this particular occasion we were treated to an exhibition of complete stonewalling which was quite unjustified.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

CARRIAGE BY AIR (SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS) BILL
3.4 p.m.
House in Committee (according to Order):
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (HISTORIC BUILDINGS) BILL
3.6 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Duke of Atholl.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Power of local authority to contribute to preservation of historic buildings]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, in subsection (4), in the definition of "local authority" to leave out

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"or county district" and insert "county district or parish". The noble Viscount said: This Bill seems to me to be entirely admirable, apart from one small defect; that is, that among the list of the local authorities which are enabled by the Bill to contribute towards the upkeep of historic buildings there is not included the large number of parish councils in the British Isles. The buildings which the Bill intends to preserve, or in the preservation of which it will help, are not only houses as such but also, by the definition in the Bill itself, any other structures or erections. Consequently, this would include a large number of smaller but, I think, in this context, equally important buildings and other things of that nature, particularly in villages throughout this country. There are things like lychgates, stocks and pounds, and there are windmills, tithe barns, market squares and so on. These are all very important parts of our heritage in their small way, and the danger must lie in the fact that the county district councils, which are at the moment the lowest tier of authority which can make contributions under this Bill, will perhaps have, as they see it, rather more important things to preserve in their areas and upon which all their available funds will go.
The parish councils are, of course, the smaller authorities, and they are particularly interested in the little things of historic interest in their areas. It is by no means an original idea that they should have power to look after these matters. Before 1933, if they had a building of such a nature in their possession they could contribute to its upkeep and its repair; and they could still do so later, if the building came into their possession before 1933. Equally, under the National Trust Act, 1937, a parish council may make contributions to National Trust buildings in its area. It therefore seems to me that it would be a mistake to mar what is otherwise an excellent Bill by forgetting, as I am afraid will be the case, the smaller and more local objects of interest, such as those which I have mentioned.
I hope that my noble friend the Duke of Atholl will feel that he can now, at this stage, allow parish councils to come within the scope of the Bill. After all, many of them are by no means inconsiderable bodies: they have funds at
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their disposal; they take the greatest possible interest in affairs in their area; and they want to contribute to and to help to look after these things. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships may think that they should be included and should be given the power to do the things that can, under the Bill at the moment, be done only by the higher and rather larger authorities. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 22, leave out ("or county district") and insert ("county district or parish").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I welcome my noble friend's Amendment. With his unfailing skill he has succeeded in finding about the only point that was not exhaustively discussed on the Committee stage of the Bill in another place, and I congratulate him for this. Nevertheless, I hope I shall be able to persuade him to withdraw his Amendment, or, failing that, to persuade your Lordships to reject it. I think there are three reasons for doing so. The first is that this Bill already gives two tiers of local government the power to make grants, and it would only complicate matters, I think, for a third tier to be given this power, in that if you want a grant or a loan for some building you own you can go either to the district council or the county council. If neither of them is willing to give you a grant, the chances are that your building is not worth preserving or is not worth preserving with the use of public money, although if you are prepared to preserve it with your own money the situation is completely different.
Secondly, while there are some quite large parish councils, in the vast majority of cases to allow them to contribute to buildings of this sort, even to something like a parish pub, would probably put an impossible burden on the rates for the parishioners concerned, and would, I think, tend to make them much less keen to preserve and be appreciative of the historic buildings they have in their midst. The third reason why I would ask my noble friend to withdraw his Amendment is that parish councils, on the whole, do not have the same expert advice which larger councils, like county councils and district councils, have. While if a building is not on the statutory list they would have to ask my noble friend for permission to give a grant,

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they would not have the expert advice to see that the grant was well spent and that the job was done in a workmanlike and efficient way. Therefore, I would ask your Lordships to reject this Amendment if my noble friend divides us.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I thank the noble Duke for his explanation. I think, if I may repay the compliment, that he has rehearsed a few new arguments from those which were advanced in another place. I do not think he would wish us to infer from anything he said that parish councils in most cases would not, on the whole, be quite capable of deciding whether or not they ought to use their powers under this Bill. But it may well be that they are not quite so fully advised as some of the higher authorities. I wonder whether he could in any way tell your Lordships how much degree of consultation there will be between the county and district councils and the parish councils upon the choice of buildings which may possibly obtain grants under this Bill. I think if he were able to hold out some hopes in that respect, it might be easier for the parish councils to accept their exclusion from this Bill.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I should of course hope that there would be a great deal of consultation between the various councils concerned. I should like to point out to my noble friend that, if a parish council consider they have a building in their midst which is worthy of a grant or a loan, as the Bill now stands it is up to that parish council, or it could be up to that parish council, to go to the district council or the county council and say they think it is a building worth preserving, and ask whether the district or county council would please consider it. If they both then refuse, I am afraid that it puts the parish council in rather a difficult situation; but no doubt such is the great power of public duty that they could wake up their parishioners and get them to make the district council or the county council give a grant for something that the parish council consider would be beneficial to their area. I hope that this will convince my noble friend that consultations should be possible between the various local authorities concerned and the parish councils, which, of course, are not included in the Bill at the moment.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I must say that instinctively I have some sympathy with the parish councils, probably perforce because they are the smallest of the local governing authorities. But I must say that I think the noble Duke in charge of the Bill has made the case that, on grounds of resources, finance and technical advice, it would be difficult to make a parish council a principal authority for the execution of the clause. But may I put this to the noble Duke? There is one argument which can be adduced against their becoming an executive authority under the Act, but it might be useful if the parish councils had some right to be consulted by, or, at any rate, to make representations to, the district council, which consultations or representations the district council or the county council should be required to take into account. That would seem to me a reasonable proposition, so that the voice of the parish council could be heard, and the higher authorities would be required to take this view into account. May I suggest to the noble Duke that it would be a fair compromise between him and the noble Viscount who has moved the Amendment if, at Third Reading stage, he were to consider an Amendment whereby the district council and the county council—or one or the other, as the case may be—were required to take into account the views expressed by the parish council in the matter?
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I thank the noble Lord opposite for, on the whole, supporting me in my rejection of this Amendment. I will, of course, willingly do what he requests and see whether, before Third Reading stage, we can produce some Amendment which would meet the case. Therefore, I will promise my noble friend that I will not to-day move that the Report be received.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: With that undertaking by my noble friend, I think I ought to withdraw my Amendment, and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

TRANSPORT BILL
3.18 p.m.
Further considered on Report (according to Order).
Clause 3 [Duty and powers of Railways Board]:
LORD LINGREN LORD LINGREN moved, after subsection (2), to insert:
"( ) The Railways Board shall co-operate with other Boards and other Nationalised Transport Undertakings for the purpose of ensuring that railway services provided by the Board are properly co-ordinated with services provided by the other Boards and undertakings to provide efficient services to the user."
The noble Lord said: I think most noble Lords will agree that during the discussions yesterday on various Amendments the Government must have felt very uneasy. At least, I thought the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, in replying to one Amendment was far from happy. That uneasiness in this House and the concern of noble Lords arose from the fact Chat there was disquiet at the drastic withdrawals of services, and facilities which are likely to take place under the reorganisation which this Bill sets out to facilitate. In replying to an Amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Mills, pointed out that the Minister had no executive powers, which is correct. And the noble Lord did not appear to like the word "co-ordination", but I would refer him to the Government's own White Paper (Cmnd 1248), where, under the heading "Co-ordination", paragraph 28 reads:
"The new organisation is intended to provide for direct contact between the Minister and the main component parts of the nationalised transport industry."
It goes on to say, as the noble Lord suggested in his speech yesterday:
"Nevertheless the Government do not propose that the Minister's existing statutory powers and responsibilities in relation to the nationalised transport undertakings should be extended."
We have to face the fact that there is to be a considerable reduction of services and it is our desire to help the Minister if we can. He does not have executive functions but a number of the Boards set up under the Bill have, and the intention of this Amendment is to place responsibility on the Railways Board, which is an executive authority, to secure co-ordination with other Boards in order
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that there should be an effective and efficient service of transport.
This is the more essential because there are bound to be considerable reorganisation of railway transport, both passenger and freight, and a considerable curtailment of facilities available to industries and the public. In many cases we do not question the necessity for some reorganisation, but in bringing about reorganisation the various Railway Boards are bound to go in for a policy of concentration, on both goods and passenger sides, in order to draw into the depôts passengers and freight from over a wide area. The Amendment provides that within the catchment area (if I can use a water phrase for transport) the Railway Boards will have direct responsibility under the Bill for all traffic likely to arrive at the concentration depôts and also for consulting with and securing the assistance of the other Boards set up under the Bill to provide services in conjunction with their own so that the public can have the highest standard of service possible.
One feature of this Bill is that it does away with the British Transport Commission. I am not going to argue whether that is right or wrong. I have my own opinions but this is not the place to argue them. But the fact is that, while the Commission exists, there is a considerable degree of co-ordination amongst its various sections. If I may say so, they have done that work very well indeed. Sometimes, when the various departments have had conflicting views on the standards of service, the Commission have been the arbitrator. Appreciating, as the Government do in their own White Paper, that coordination is essential, we ought to place the responsibility somewhere for securing that co-ordination. Yesterday we moved an Amendment, which was No. 1 on the Marshalled List, but it was rejected by the noble Lord, Lord Mils, because the Minister has not executive functions. We are trying to place responsibility on the Railways Board in order to secure to the public and to industry the highest standards not only within the railways but also within its complementary forms of transport which are affected by the Bill and over which the various Boards set up under the Bill will have control. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 31, at end insert—
("( ) The Railways Board shall co-operate with other Boards and other Nationalised Transport Undertakings for the purpose of ensuring that railway services provided by the Board are properly co-ordinated with services provided by the other Boards and undertakings to provide efficient services to the user.")—(Lord Lindgren.)
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I should like to support the Amendment that has just been moved by my noble friend. As he said, we endeavoured yesterday to have inserted in the Bill a provision laying a duty upon the Minister to see that an adequate public service was provided. That Amendment was defeated. Therefore, we have fallen back upon this Amendment, which seeks to provide that the Railways Board should co-operate with other nationalised undertakings in providing a service adequate for users. The word "co-ordination" arises in the Amendment. I know that the word is regarded as suspect by noble Lords opposite, but in fact the word arises at least twice in the Bill.
May I invite the attention of the House to Clause 3 (2), where it is laid down that the Railways Board are to co-operate with the London Board to ensure that there are better and adequate services in the London area? Obviously the Government realise that it is necessary that there should be a certain degree of cooperation and co-ordination of British Railways and the London Board for providing an adequate service to and from London—commuter service. I invite your Lordships' attention to Clause 54, which, if the Government Amendments are accepted, as no doubt they will be because the Government will have support from this side of the House, provides for a National Transport Advisory Council for the purpose of advising the Minister on questions relating to the co-ordination not only of the Railways Board but of other nationalised Boards. In fact, in this clause the Government envisage the necessity of having a good deal of coordination. What we are trying to achieve is that the Railways Board will themselves co-operate in providing coordination. There will be the question of having it referred to the Commission
1180
and by the nature of the operations they will see that it will be to the advantage of the undertakings that there is this degree of co-ordination. I hope that the Minister will see the wisdom and necessity of having this Amendment inserted into the Bill.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, in moving this Amendment was kind enough to say that he thought I showed a certain uneasiness in replying to an Amendment yesterday. I hope that the noble Lord will not infer that any uneasiness which I may have displayed in my endeavours to act as a mediator between the Government and a large number of absent friends in Scotland is necessarily applicable to the rest of this Bill. I must confess that I do not feel any uneasiness, but only pleasure, coupled with regret, that I cannot agree with the noble Lord in replying to him on this Amendment. I do not think he has put forward any new considerations which were not advanced and considered by your Lordships when an identical Amendment to this was considered in Committee. I think there is already ample provision in the Bill for co-operation and co-ordination—these blessed words—between Boards.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, mentioned two instances of the use of the word "co-ordination" in the Bill. One was in Clause 3, which he could hardly have failed to notice, because this Amendment follows immediately after it and repeats the exact words of the preceding subsection, and the other in Clause 25, to which I will refer in a moment. The noble Lord did not refer to Clause 7 (2) where he will see, if he is interested, that there is a reciprocal provision requiring that
"The London Board shall co-operate with the Railways Board for the purpose of ensuring that the services provided by the London Board are properly co-ordinated …"
and so on. We think there is already ample provision in the Bill for co-ordination. The first example I will give is that which the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, gave (and I choose it because he quoted it), in Clause 54 of the Bill, which used to be Clause 55, and probably

1181
will be again when we have a new Clause 11. It there says:
"There shall be established in accordance with this section a Nationalised Transport Advisory Council for the purpose of advising the Minister on such questions relating to the co-ordination, or any other aspect, of the nationalised transport undertaking as the Minister may refer to the Council."
Then, if the noble Lord would look at Clause 13—I am not sure if the word co-ordination actually occurs here or not, but it there says that
"… the Boards shall have power—
(a) to enter into and carry out agreements with any person "—
that is to say, not only with other Boards, but with any private transport operators—
"for the carrying on by that person, whether as agent for the Board or otherwise, of any of the activities which the Board may themselves carry on."
We want them to do that; we want them to co-operate with private transport undertakings, as well as with other Boards. Then, under paragraph (b), the Boards have power:
"… to enter into agreements with the other Boards and with any subsidiary of any of the Boards or of the Holding Company, for the management, working and use by one party to the agreement of works, land or other property belonging to the other party, and with respect to the rendering of services and the pooling of receipts or expenses."
The noble Lord's Amendment comes much earlier, after subsection (2) of Clause 3, and it exactly repeats the words of subsection (2), which particularly requires the Railways Board and the London Board to co-ordinate their activities. The reason for that is that
the London Board have a monopoly of transport, and it is therefore necessary that they should see that their services are properly co-ordinated with the services provided by the Railways Board, and vice versa. Clause 3 requires that the Railways Board shall co-operate with the London Board; and Clause 7 provides, conversely, that the London Board must co-operate with the Railways Board. In their case there is no question of their co-operating with anybody else, because they have a monopoly. In all other areas they have not a monopoly.
We have provided already in the Bill for all the necessary co-ordination, and if we add here that the Boards must cooperate and co-ordinate their services with each other, repeating exactly the language of subsection (2), it would certainly be taken to mean by owners of private haulage undertakings and all kinds of private transport that these public Boards were required by the Bill to co-ordinate their activities with each other, to the exclusion of private trans-port, which is not the intention of the Bill. This is the argument on which your Lordships negatived this Amendment in Committee. I do not think that anything further has been added on Report, and I would therefore ask your Lordships to reject this Amendment again.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 30; Not-Contents, 66.

CONTENTS

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Latham, L.

Shepherd, L. [Teller.]

Attlee, E.

Lawson, L.

Silkin, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Lindgren, L.

Sinha, L.

Chorley L.

Longford, E.

Stonham, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Summerskill, B.

Francis-Williams, L.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Taylor, L.

Hall, V.

Ogmore, L.

Walston, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Rea, L.

Williams, L.

Henderson, L.

Rusholme, L.

Williams of Barnburgh, L

Kenswood, L.

St. Davids, V.

Wise, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Brecon, L.

Davidson, V.

Atholl, D.

Broughshane, L.

Denham, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Carrington, L.

Derwent, L.

Bathurst, E.

Chesham, L.

Devonshire, D.

Bossom, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Dudley, L.

Boston, L.

Colyton, L.

Dundee, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L,

Conesford, L.

Dynevor, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Forster of Harraby, L.

Ironside, L.

Northesk, E.

Fortescue, E.

Jellicoe, E.

Rathcavan, L.

Freyberg, L.

Jessel, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Goschen, V.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

St. Oswald, L.

Grenfell, L.

Long, V.

Salisbury, M.

Hampton, L.

Margesson, V.

Salter, L.

Hastings, L.

Marks of Broughton, L.

Somers, L.

Hawke, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Soulbury, V.

Hayter, L.

Merrivale, L.

Swinton, E.

Hereford, V.

Mersey, V.

Teynham, L.

Home, E.

Mills, L.

Townshend, M.

Horsbrugh, B.

Milverton, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Monsell, V.

Waleran, L.

Howe, E.

Newall, L.

Willingdon, M.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House resumed.

COMMONWEALTH AND COMMON MARKET: MR. HARE'S REMARKS
3.42 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, in answer to the questions put down by my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye and the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, I should like, with the permission of the House, to repeat a statement which is now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour. After the usual preliminaries he said:
"I attended a meeting in my constituency last Saturday afternoon. At the end of the meeting I was asked a question which suggested that the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference should itself decide by a majority vote whether or not Britain should agree to join the European Economic Community.
"I pointed out in my reply that the United Kingdom had the obligation to secure terms which safeguarded the essential interests of the Commonwealth, our own home agriculture and our partners in the European Free Trade Area, but at the same time the decision as to whether we should join or not must rest with us. In making my reply—as has been accurately reported in the Press—I drew on the analogy of the Commonwealth as a family of nations. I would never wish either to seem patronising or to say anything wounding to any country in
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the Commonwealth. On reflection, it is clear to me that what I said on the spur of the moment could be, and indeed has been, interpreted in a sense that I certainly did not intend. Both as a Member of this House and as a private citizen I have always endeavoured to promote the interests of the Commonwealth. I therefore take this opportunity of expressing my deep regret to any in the Commonwealth who may have felt hurt by what I said."
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, while thanking the Foreign Secretary for that reply, may I say that I do not suppose there is any single one of us who has played any part in public life and who, at some time or another, has not used words or expressions which he regretted afterwards. The real cause of concern is not in the unfortunate words, which we can forget and forgive, but that such an outlook of mind should be possessed by a senior Minister. May I ask the Foreign Secretary this? May we be assured that no member of the Government, least of all those who are responsible for negotiations, is in any way unsympathetic with the portrayal of what are sincere, reasonable and justified Commonwealth representations as regards their interests in relation to this country?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, as I understood the Minister of Labour's statement, he himself has said that he is not of this outlook of mind, and he very much regrets that the words he used conveyed the impression that this might be so. Of course, neither is any member of the Cabinet of this outlook of mind. Indeed, we take the most scrupulous care in this matter, and in all other matters, to acquaint ourselves with the

1185
view of the Commonwealth countries who are equal partners with us in the Commonwealth association.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are much obliged to the Foreign Secretary for having made the statement. I agree with the opening words of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye. What I am concerned about is what impression must have been left upon the minds of representatives of the Commonwealth as to future procedure. I am wondering whether this statement in another place quite answers that point, because it says:
"I pointed out in my reply that the United Kingdom had the obligation to secure terms which safeguarded the essential interests of the Commonwealth, our own home agriculture and our partners in the European Free Trade Area, but at the same time the decision as to whether we should join or not must rest with us."
What I should like to be made quite clear is this. Is it the intention of the Government to announce, when an agreement has been made by them, that in their view the agreement covers the actual needs of the Commonwealth; or are they going to adopt what the Commonwealth think about that particular point—their own needs—and not what somebody else thinks?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I think that at least two of the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth, certainly the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers, have said that they recognise that the ultimate decision on whether or not Britain enters the Common Market must rest with the British Government. They have said that time and again, and I am sure that is widely recognised within the Commonwealth. At the same time we have said to the Commonwealth Governments that we will bring them into consultation, as we have done all along during the negotiations; and the purpose of the meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers is that we should continue that consultation so that we may have the benefit of the views of all the Commonwealth countries before we actually take the decision whether or not to join.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, it is a very fair statement that the Foreign Secretary has just given of previous statements
1186
made by the Government, but, in view of this particular form of words, what I want to know is who decides whether Commonwealth interests have been properly safeguarded? Am I to understand from that last answer that the home Government here decide upon entry having decided that the Commonwealth interests are properly safeguarded?
THE EARL OF HOME: It is very difficult to outline the exact form which the future discussions will take, but we hope towards the end of July to have a broad picture of what is involved and to be able to present that picture to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. It is only after we have presented that picture to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers and consulted with them that we shall be able to decide ourselves whether or not we are able to enter the Common Market.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, might I ask the noble Earl this? While not committing oneself to the belief that the Minister of Labour's remarks were directed to any particular part of the Commonwealth, so that I am not obliged to put the cap on, and while agreeing that his remarks might be regarded as a little close to the bone, would not the noble Earl believe that it would be a bad thing if this incident—as one might call it—were made the reason for denying the right of the use of plain words as between members of the Commonwealth for the future? Further, would the noble Earl agree, from his experience in the Commonwealth Relations Office in the past, that the Commonwealth would be a better thing now if over the last generation there had been more speaking in popular terms by responsible members of Governments of all parts of the Commonwealth?
THE EARL OF HOME: Yes, my Lords. I am all for using plain words, but I am beginning to think that this mother complex—Mother of Parliaments and Mother of the Commonwealth—may have been a little over-used.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is it the Foreign Secretary's view that the speech has done no more harm than can be put right by a little "Hare" restorer?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I hope that what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Casey, will not remove from our countrymen's minds over here the feeling that we owe an enormous debt to members of the Commonwealth. It is a free Commonwealth. It may have plain speaking—I do not mind plain speaking, either—but when we come to very great issues like this, wrapped up with these negotiations, I sometimes feel that perhaps we do not remember what kind of debt we owe the Commonwealth.

NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT AND TRAFALGAR SQUARE INCIDENTS
3.56 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I shall repeat the statement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place on the incidents in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. Mr. Butler said:
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and I think at the wish of the House, I want to make a statement about a meeting organised by the National Socialist Movement which was held in Trafalgar Square on the afternoon of Sunday last. I am informed that this movement has less than 100 members.
"The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that when the meeting began about 2,000 people were present. Later the number rose to about 5,000.
"The speakers were interrupted by an organised body of 300 to 400 persons. The police found it necessary to stop the meeting on two occasions while order was restored, and they eventually closed it altogether on the ground that a serious breach of the peace was imminent.
"Twenty arrests were made—in fifteen cases on charges of offences against Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936. All but two of these cases have been dealt with by the courts, the offenders being fined or conditionally discharged. The speakers themselves were not arrested, but were told that a full report was being submitted for consideration of proceedings under Section 5 of the Public Order Act.
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"I deplore the disorder which occurred on this occasion, and even more the obnoxious doctrines expressed. As I have indicated the police dealt firmly with the situation, and I believe existing powers to be adequate.
"We must not put ourselves in a position of lightly restricting free speech. However, I wish to make it quite clear that we shall not tolerate the provocation of disorder by the abuse of free speech. I shall therefore watch the position with care; and shall consider any representations that honourable Members may wish to make to me."
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, the House will appreciate the statement that the Lord Chancellor has made on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. We on this side of the House would not wish to champion the idea of an absence of free speech, partly because we suffered from the interference with free speech in the 1880's, in the last century, in this very Trafalgar Square. But may I ask the noble and learned Viscount whether the Government are aware that there can be a kind of speech which is not only provocative of disorder in itself but is announced in advance in terms which incite people to come and the disorder is provoked? Is he aware that most of us think it would have been better if everybody had left this meeting alone except the so-called National Socialists, in which case there would probably have been an audience of 30 or 40? But they came, as they had the right to do, and they expressed themselves strongly. But the disorder was in the main created by the promoters of the meeting who were deliberately provocative at the meeting and in their previous announcements of the meeting.
May I also say this to the noble and learned Viscount? While not saying that the Government were necessarily wrong in permitting the meeting to take place on this occasion, nevertheless it is the case that experience of this meeting showed that meetings of this character are liable to provoke disorder and to put a great strain upon the police; and I think they have had enough strain put upon them by the unilateralist sit-downers without this. And may I ask

1189
the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor whether, having regard to this experience, and having given these people one chance to "have a go", so to speak, the Government will now say, under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, that they will not permit this organisation to have any future meetings in Trafalgar Square? I submit that that would not be an unreasonable conclusion arising out of this experience, which is a very nasty one.
4.0 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am quite sure that my light honourable friend the Home Secretary will be as grateful as I am to the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, who speaks with great authority as an ex-Home Secretary and from his experiences of London. The noble Lord has correctly stated the position: that at the present time permission to hold this meeting was given in accordance with normal practice, which is to allow any organisation to hold a public meeting provided the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police sees no reason, in conformity with his duty to ensure that public order is maintained, to object. The Minister of Works wrote on this point, and I think all noble Lords would agree,
"I am sure that it would be wrong for me to use my powers under the Trafalgar Square Regulations to operate political censorship, intensely as I dislike the objects of this particular meeting."
As the noble Lord implied, the Commissioner had no evidence before this meeting to suggest that the meeting might constitute such a threat to public order as would justify recommending the Minister of Works to withhold permission for the use of the Square. I agree with the noble Lord that a new factor has come in, and I will, with great pleasure, convey what he has said to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and my right honourable friend the Minister of Works, who, I am sure, will give it the great attention it deserves.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, there are, I think, two things which worry many of us in this particular case. One is the actual incident which took place last Sunday and the other is what steps can reasonably be taken, without, as my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth
1190
said, interfering with free speech, to prevent such a thing from happening again. Many of your Lordships will recollect that this matter was in fact raised in very good time by my noble friend Lord Longford, who some time ago asked the noble and learned Viscount Whether this meeting should be held or not. It was later raised in another place only a few days ago. I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount now, in view of the actual disturbances Which took place and which had been foreseen by many people, whether he and the Home Secretary are still satisfied that Section 5 of the Public Order Act is sufficient to prevent this sort of thing from happening, or whether the time has not now come, after the experience of last Sunday, to amend Section 5 or some other section of the Public Order Act in order specifically to state that any meeting which has the object of inciting racial hatred shall be against the law. Because that, after all, must be the criterion by which this particular incident Should be judged.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, while I appreciate the sincerity of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, I think all your Lordships would agree that it raises an extremely difficult point. The criterion of Section 5, if I may just remind our Lordships of the point, is that any person who
"in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned shall be guilty of an offence."
As I think I told your Lordships—and those of you who were there at the time will remember it—when the Bill was before another place an Amendment was moved in the sense that the noble Lord has suggested to-day and was defeated. I could not go beyond what was said in another place by the Minister of State for the Home Office, and if I may quote his words I think they put it well. When he was asked a similar question he said:
"No, Sir. However much we may deplore appeals to racial and religious prejudice, my right honourable friend is not convinced that there are sufficient grounds for proposing any amendment to the Public Order Act. It is already an offence under the Act to use in any public place or at any public meeting threatening, abusive or insulting words or

1191
behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be committed."
I think one has to be very, very careful on this matter. The present rule is that one takes the forecast of the Commissioner of Police as to whether there is likely to be a serious breach of public order. Many of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Walston, have long records of political experience. We all know what happens at various meetings—what has happened at various meetings at which we have spoken. None of us for a moment would, I think, want that treated as a serious breach of public order. We have all been through it. But to go further than that and to use the other language of really imposing a political censorship is very dangerous. We all dislike what was said on this occasion, but if one drifts into the position of imposing a censorship over something which one dislikes then it is very difficult to say where we stop. Therefore, I should prefer to leave it, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has asked me to do, in this way: that the matter will be reconsidered in the light of this experience but reconsidered on the basis of public order.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I put this point to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor? We do not disagree with the spirit of approach dealing with any possible amendment of the law or change in administration of the law that has been evinced. But I think what people outside are saying is this: the pre-advertised objective of this meeting, the specific purposes they wished to promote, being to re-introduce into this country all the doctrine and practice which led to the horrible war of 1939, in which millions of people lost their lives, many of them by shocking slaughters by the people who uttered the same principles which they also intend apparently to carry into effect, a war that cost our country alone not only lives but thousands of millions of pounds, would the Government not consider it should be put to Parliament to consider Whether that ought not to be declared an illegal organisation?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, of course I will consider, as
1192
always—and I say this with complete sincerity—anything advanced by the noble Viscount and any suggestion of his. I should like to say again, although I do not like intruding personal matters, that nobody could feel more strongly than I do on the point, as it was part of my working life to investigate, examine and present before the Bar of International Justice the crimes against the Jewish people in Europe to which the noble Viscount referred. But I still feel that the threat to public order is the only safe consideration. I will willingly consider what the noble Viscount has said in this sense, because I think there is a synthesis between the two points of view. What the noble Viscount is really saying is that if the procedure takes this course it must ipso facto be a threat to public order. I should very much like to consider that and discuss it with Mr. Butler. But I do want to assure everyone, if it is necessary, of my complete detestation of the views expressed.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, may I put the question in another form, because as I understand the noble and learned Viscount's answer it is difficult, if not impossible, for the Government to take action in prohibiting a meeting until disorder has taken place? I should like: to ask him whether he would not consider that where there is reasonable ground for apprehension that disorder will take place there should be justification for stopping the meeting—that is, quite regardless of the views that would be expressed, and purely on the basis of public order and with reasonable apprehension that disorder will take place.
4.10 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, before my noble and learned friend answers that, will he bear in mind, as I am sure he does, a most important leading case which shows the danger of stopping what would otherwise be a lawful meeting simply because those who object to it threaten disorder? I share fully every view expressed by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, but I feel sure that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, if he examined some of the leading cases, would see the danger of the doctrine which he has just announced.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I would rather have had a reply from the noble and learned Viscount than from the noble Lord.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I explain the position: that the decision as to whether a meeting will be held rests with the Minister of Works. The procedure is that of course he consults the Commissioner of Police, who expresses his view as to whether there is likely to be disorder in the sense that I explained—the ordinary noises and perhaps occasional scuffles that happen at political meetings would not be sufficient. On this point, the Commissioner had no evidence to suggest that the meeting might constitute such a threat to public order as would justify his recommending that the Minister of Works should withhold permission for the use of the Square. Mr. Colin Jordan had addressed meetings in the Square on previous occasions, and police records showed that on two occasions, in September, 1960, and April, 1961, he had used the platform to attack the Jewish people. He had been met with boos and catcalls, but there had been no violence. I can tell your Lordships that I saw the Commissioner myself before this and got his assessment. It seems to me, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has suggested, that if this meeting had not taken place it would be right for the Commissioner to take that into account in making a further assessment, and for the Home Secretary and the Minister of Works to consider it also. I should have thought that was the approach.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am quite certain that we on these Benches would wish to agree with the final sentence in Mr. Butler's statement. Is he aware that we feel that the importance of free speech is such that it can occasionally stand a certain amount of difficulty of this kind? The question of free speech is paramount. But there is one other point that I should like to put to the noble and learned Viscount. As I understand it, the position is that all of those who were charged and convicted were those who had been incited, while, as yet, the persons who did the incitement have not been charged. I take it that they may be charged in the near future.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, as I think I said, those arrested did not include the speakers. The speakers have, however, been informed that a full report of the meeting was being submitted for consideration of the taking of proceedings under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936. Further consideration will be given to this when examination of the typescript of the shorthand notes has been completed. I do not think I ought to say anything more at the moment.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I submit to the Lord Chancellor that we have got ourselves, or the Government have got us, into an altogether lamentable position? I ventured to raise in this House the desirability of banning this meeting, or at any rate of refusing the use of Trafalgar Square for this purpose. I quoted then the poster which was being exhibited, where we were told "Don't vote for any supporter of coloured immigration or Jewish control", and the headline was "Mass meetings: Free Britain from Jewish control". That was the attraction held out, and we were told on the strength of that that the meeting could not be stopped. We are now told that it could not be stopped because on previous occasions the Jewish community had not protested violently. Now that there has been a violent and understandable protest from the Jewish community we are told that it could probably be banned in future. I think that is an outrageous position in which to be landed, and I only hope that the law will be amended.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with the greatest respect, I entirely disagree with the approach of the noble Earl, Lord Longford. I do not think that he is giving the proper weight and influence to free speech. There are many things which the noble Lord detests because I have heard him express his detestation of many of them. There are many things that I detest. But if he or I impose a censorship because we detest things, we are on the way down a slippery slope. I ask him to reconsider the views that he has expressed and to see whether he cannot take the view that only the threat to public order should be allowed to infringe free speech.

INCREASES IN NATIONAL ASSISTANCE RATES
4.16 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I will, with permission, make a statement about National Assistance. A similar statement is now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. The Minister has received from the National Assistance Board proposals under Section 6 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, for further increases in the current rates of National Assistance which came into operation, as the House knows, on April 3, 1961. The Minister has accepted the Board's proposals and has made draft regulations accordingly. Those have been laid to-day and together with copies of an explanatory memorandum by the Board are now available in the Vote Office.
Those draft regulations require the approval of both Houses of Parliament by Affirmative Resolutions. Subject to this approval being given, the regulations will provide for the weekly rates for a single householder to be increased by 4s. from 53s. 6d. to 57s. 6d., for a married couple by 5s. 6d. from 90s. to 95s. 6d., and for adults living as members of somebody else's household by 2s. from 49s. 6d. to 51s. 6d. Appropriate improvements are also proposed for young people and children. As the House will see, when noble Lords have had an opportunity to study the draft regulations, the Board have on this occasion felt that rather more proportionately should be given to the single householder than to other people.
I should add that broadly proportionate increases are also proposed in the special scales relating to blind and certain tuberculous people. The rate for a married couple of whom one is blind will, for example, be raised by 7s. 6d. to £6, and for a single blind person by 6s. to 82s. All the rates I have quoted are, of course, exclusive of rent, for which separate provision will continue to be made.
Subject to the approval of Parliament it is proposed that those now improved rates will be paid from September 24.
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On the basis of the present numbers of cases their additional cost will amount to about £20½ million in a full year.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I understand that the draft of the Statutory Order is being laid to-day and that it will be in the Printed Paper Office. Is that so?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I think it is now in the Vote Office.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Then one could well reserve any remarks on the statement which has been made until we come to consider that.

TRANSPORT BILL
Report stage resumed.
Clause 4:
Railways Board's road services
4.—(1) Subject to this section, the Railways Board shall have power—
(a) to provide transport services by road—

(i) for the carriage of goods which have been or are to be carried by rail or water by the Railways Board, and

(ii) for the carriage of goods where a railway service has been temporarily interrupted, and

(iii) for the carriage of passengers where a railway service has been temporarily interrupted, or has been discontinued,

and to carry goods and passengers by those services;
4.20 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, in subsection 1 (a), to omit sub-paragraph (ii). The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I would deal with Amendments 6 and 7 together as they are on the same point. I think the point can be dealt with quite briefly because a similar Amendment was fully debated on the Committee stage, when the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, was able to give assurances on at least half the case I put forward. The point at issue—it is still at issue—occurs in relation to the difference between sub-paragraphs (ii) and (iii). In sub-paragraph (ii) the Railways Board shall have power to provide transport services by road
"for the carriage of goods where a railway service has been temporarily interrupted".
On the other hand, in sub-paragraph (iii), they will have power to do so
"for the carriage of passengers where a railway service has been temporarily interrupted, or has been discontinued".
Our Amendment seeks to delete the section dealing only with goods and to amend the other section, so that, whether it be passengers or goods, the Railways Board shall have power to carry them by road not only when a service has been temporarily interrupted but when it has been discontinued.
We visualise the position—I think this is generally recognised—where quite considerable distances of railway track, goods stations and goods yards which are now in use will no longer be used when the proposals of the British Transport Commission or the Railways Board are approved by the Minister. When we discussed this on the last occasion I pointed to the increasing practice in the railways of discontinuing shunting at small stations and conveying goods by lorry from the remaining railhead or junction. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, assured me that what he called "the normal delivery services" would continue, and therefore there is no difficulty there. Indeed, Clause 4 (1) (a) (i) says that they should be able to provide transport services by road
"for the carriage of goods which have been or are to be carried by rail or water … ".
Therefore, if goods have been conveyed a certain distance by rail under the Railways Board they may be carried by lorry. But it is visualised on the railways that major marshalling yards for goods may be at least 50 miles apart—in other words, 25 miles from the centre either way. That really envisages transport by lorry of something which can scarcely be called "the normal collection and delivery services" which we discussed in Committee. We are afraid, therefore, that unless this Amendment is accepted and it is made clear that the Railways Board shall have power not only to carry passengers but to carry goods by road when a railway service has been discontinued, it will interfere with the kind of service which is projected on the railways in future and which in some areas is now beginning to become a fact.
The Government may say, "Well, it is quite all right. The kind of carriage you
1198
are thinking of will still be covered by the clause as it now stands because the goods have been, or will be, carried by rail." In other words, they are being collected together, perhaps over a 50-mile radius, to go to a railhead, and therefore it could be argued that that would be covered by this clause—although I should like to hear from the noble Lord who is replying whether that is the case. I think it is clear that, as the clause now stands, the Railways Board would be able to carry goods by road—assuming it was a new service—only if they were either coming from or going to a railhead. I can see conditions in which that might not only be uneconomic, or not as economic as it could be, but deprive traders and manufacturers in the area of a goods service which they would very much like to have. What we should like to see is power given to the Railways Board to provide, by road, a service for the conveyance of goods to take the place of a goods service which was provided by rail and has been discontinued. The only way we can see of achieving this is for the Government to accept this Amendment. I hope I have made the point clear, and that it will prove acceptable to the Government.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, leave out lines 28 and 29.—(Lord Stonham.)
4.28 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has moved his Amendment in an eminently reasonable and clear fashion, and I am grateful to him for that. Despite doubts which remain in the noble Lord's mind from things I said in Committee, I still think that I can allay his fears considerably and show why we ought not to accept his Amendment.
First of all, I ought to say a word or two as to the reason why the clause is drafted as it is, and why there is this distinction of treatment between passenger services which are to continue to be provided by the railways after a closure, and the goods services which are not provided and which the noble Lord thinks should be provided. In the case of the passenger services, of course

1199
we know the facts of the matter about bus services. That is not something I am going into at the moment, but that very fact must be admitted, if nothing else is, by the proposals which have been written into the Bill to cater for alternative passenger services where the rail services are discontinued. I need say no more about that, except to emphasise that in many cases where there are closures the bus services may that is the reason why provision is made well prove to be inadequate. As I say, in the Bill to replace them.
But, my Lords, that is not so in the case of goods services. I do not think anyone has ever claimed that there is any lack of road haulage facilities in the country. Therefore the problem here is not in the least bit the same as it is with the bus services. I think it is quite safe to feel, where a railway service is discontinued, that so far as goods are concerned road haulage facilities will be easily available from what already exists to cater for that need, if, in fact, a need such as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, described exists. I think someone will very soon fulfil it.
On this point of the railway collection and delivery services, I should like to reassure the noble Lord, because, as he said, they operate those where the goods are to be transported or have been transported by the Railways Board, and they collect and deliver them in their own lorries. No doubt if there are closures, various railheads, from and to which goods have previously been despatched, may disappear as well. But I want to assure the noble Lord that it will be perfectly possible to continue the collection and delivery services, even -though the new railhead is considerably further away than was the one they were accustomed to use. There is no bar within any reasonable limit on the Railways Board's developing those services in order to meet the needs of the traffic they have to carry.
That is all perfectly fair and justifiable, but what I think the Railways Board ought not to be free to do, and which they would be free to do if the Amendment were accepted, would be to build up a large, general road haulage system operated by themselves in substitution for discontinued railway services; and
1200
which, if the closures indeed turned out to be as widespread as some people anticipate with apprehension they may do, would almost end with their really becoming road haulage operators at large. The reason I think it is wrong for them to do that is that it conflicts with the philosophy of the Bill, and with the duty imposed on the Railways Board to run the railways. It is not their job to run large fleets of motor vehicles.
It has, furthermore, been decided that the nationalised road haulage activities should come under the Holding Company. I do not think it would be right that certain of them should be under the Holding Company, and that a rival fleet, so to speak, should operate under the Railways Board. In addition, my Lords, I think that it hardly seems right, when such very large sums are in any case to be spent on the railways, and if they are going to be in deficit and in receipt of Exchequer assistance for some time at the very least, that they should use their financial resources for this purpose. For those reasons I think that your Lordships should not accept this Amendment.
4.35 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, went some way to allaying the fears which we had on this side of the House, when he said that in fact the concentration of goods depôts will not preclude the collection and delivery services of British Railways from being extended to cover the area from which the normal facility has been withdrawn. If they will be extended and maintained, I would agree that this Amendment has to a considerable exent been met and, therefore, that it is not so essential. It was not the intention of the Amendment that the railways should enter into the road haulage business. But it is, of course, essential, if we are to maintain the goods traffic which is so necessary if the railways are to make any progress in regard to reducing the deficiency—as it is on the carriage of goods traffic that we are likely to make some money—to provide a service that will, in fact, take the goods from the manufacturer's depôt to the railhead, or from the railhead to the person who is to receive the goods.
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham—and this is one of the reasons why we put

1201
down the Amendment—referred to British Road Services. We should have been much happier if we could have secured much greater co-ordination between B.R.S. and the railways. For a very long time I have held the view that there is no reason whatever why B.R.S. should not be the collection and delivery agency on behalf of British Railways. But under the 1953 Act B.R.S. are precluded from increasing their number of vehicles and, therefore, with the withdrawal of railway services and railway facilities, the need will not be met unless it is covered by an expanded collection and delivery service, because B.R.S. cannot increase their number of vehicles.
The noble Lord said that if the railway facilities are withdrawn, there will be road haulage facilities in the area. There may be those facilities, but over quite a large part of the country they are sparse. Although I do not want to be accused of downing the little man, one of the problems of road safety is presented by the one-man or two-man lorry organisation, which is sometimes collecting goods for delivery outside the area of the commissioner's licence which the operator holds. I should much prefer to see goods handled by reputable undertakings, whether road haulage companies or railways, than by a number of these rather free-lance carriers who seem to operate in a number of rural areas of this country—and operate, as one might say, with an extension of their licensed facilities or, at least, a freedom that would not be allowed in many other parts of the country.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment, as I feel that the answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, was a very reasonable and satisfactory one.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7:
Duty and powers of London Board
7.—
(5) Subject to the next following subsection, the London Board shall have power to let motor vehicles on hire to other persons who hold public service vehicle licences under Part III of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, for use by them for the carriage of passengers.
(6) The London Board shall not keep for operation as public service vehicles more vehicles than are in their opinion required for
1202
the purpose of providing such transport services as they have power to provide under subsection (3) of this section and under the next following section and, accordingly, they shall not keep for operation as public service vehicles more vehicles than they would keep if they did not possess the power conferred by the last foregoing subsection.
(7) The London Board shall not have power to let motor vehicles on hire to other persons for use by them for the carriage of goods.
4.39 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM LORD TEYNHAM moved to leave out subsection (5). The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the permission of the House, perhaps Amendments Nos. 8 and 10 could be taken together. Both these Amendments are similar to those debated during the Committee stage of the Bill, and I have really set them down again in order to get a clear statement from Her Majesty's Government. During the debate on the Committee stage, I think the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said that the Holding Company could not set up a subsidiary company for the purpose of operating hired vehicles from London Transport during week-ends when they had a surplus of vehicles. Later in the debate I think the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said he thought they could do that and I believe the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, then retracted his statement, although I am not quite sure. I do not propose to weary the House with all the arguments put forward during the Committee stage as to possible unfair competition by London Transport on contract hire. Perhaps the noble Lord, Who is in charge of the Bill, could now give the House his considered views on the whole matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 39, leave out subsection (5).—(Lord Teynham.)
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, since I can speak only once I shall take my noble friend at his word: that he is not really trying to get this Amendment through but is merely after a statement from me. Therefore, I, too, will not address myself to the same lines of argument that I fired back at him in reply to his own arguments on Committee stage. I accept what he says, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to clarify this matter, because I think my noble friend was right in that I did,

1203
perhaps, leave the House without clear guidance on this matter, there being some doubt remaining.
As I said I would, I have, of course, been carefully into this matter, and the fact is that technically the Holding Company could form a subsidiary to operate buses hired from the London Board on this basis. That is the fact of the matter, so let us be quite clear about it. I have really no more to say on that side of it except that I should like to make a remark or two on what the situation would be if it were considered that such a thing should be done. I cannot personally see what would be the point of forming such a subsidiary in order to endeavour to compete with other firms carrying out this work, with an indeterminate number of buses and coaches available at unspecified periods; but if there is any fear of unfair competition In this regard then the safeguards here are in the restriction on the London Board from keeping more vehicles than they require for their own purposes and, in particular, from building up a hire fleet. Therefore they will have only differing numbers of vehicles, no doubt available at different odd periods. I do not want to anticipate discussion on a further Amendment, but I should have thought existing operators would find this service useful, even though it fell far short of a proposition to set up a subsidiary under the Holding Company specifically to operate these vehicles.
Now even if that were so, I should like again to refer my noble friend Lord Teynham to something said in Committee, and that is that if there were to be any question of unfair competition—or, indeed, of hiring these vehicles out at ridiculously low rates and undercutting other people who hire out vehicles—there would, I am perfectly sure, very soon be representations to the Minister and a general noise made about it. The further safeguard lies in the fact that the Minister may call upon the London Board to provide him with any information that he wishes from it, and he may also give a direction or even require them to discontinue what they are doing if it seems not to be in the best interest of the public. I would specifically refer my noble friend to Clause 26, where those powers which the Minister has are set out, and he will see that
1204
what I say is amply borne out by what is in the Bill. In view of what I have said, I hope my noble friend will feel more satisfied about the matter, because it is going to be difficult for me to amplify it any further if he is not.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I believe that this situation rather ties up with something in an Amendment I have put down to Clause 15. What we fear is that the London Board may be able to delegate powers to the subsidiaries of the Holding Company. In the case of my noble friend's Amendment, that would mean, perhaps, being able to let out coaches; and, by delegating powers, it would obviate their needing a road transport licence to cross the London area. When we come to Clause 15 my noble friend will no doubt be able to give me every satisfaction on that subject, but perhaps it might meet my noble friend's point if he could do it also at this stage.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I have the guidance of the House? The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has said he cannot speak a second time. It has happened during this Report stage that we on this side, certainly, have spoken after the Minister. We have done so mainly because we have wished to hear what the Minister had to say; and, if he has agreed with us, it has proved that there was no need for us to make our speeches earlier on. But I think it is right that the Minister, if he so wishes, can, by leave of the House, reply to any subsequent debate that may have taken place after he spoke in the first place. I should have thought that that would have the approval of the House.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, may I just ask the noble Lord opposite whether he means only the Minister?
LORD SHEPHERD: And others.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, if I may interpret Lord Hawke's remarks as a question, perhaps that would make it even easier, because I think it is justifiable to answer a question. In any case, I am asking the leave of the House, just to make sure. Briefly speaking, I should be glad to reassure my noble friend Lord Hawke on the point he raised, in that there are no means of delegating powers

1205
to a subsidiary of the Holding Company (or, for that matter, of any other Board) whereby they could use the London Board's vehicles to operate services for which they would normally need a road service licence. It simply cannot be done. Therefore I am glad to assure my noble friend that his fears about that are completely groundless.
LORD TEYNHAM: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for his full explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.48 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN LORD LINDGREN moved to leave out subsections (6) and (7). The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Amendment of which we have just disposed, which has reference to subsection (5), and the Amendment which I now move, to leave out subsections (6) and (7), show the clash within the House. The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, is anxious to protect private enterprise, and is afraid of competition from public enterprise; and subsection (5), of course, gives the London Transport Authority the right to let to other operators certain of its vehicles which are surplus to it because they are standing idle during off-peak periods. I want to be quite frank with the House. Subsection (6) restricts the London Board to the number of vehicles necessary to operate the public service within the confined area of its operation. That number includes, of course, the vehicles necessary to deal with the peak load. It is the peak-flow vehicles standing idle which subsection (5) allows the Board to hire out. I and my noble friends on this side of the House would far rather see the London Board have a larger fleet, in order that it can go out into the private hire field and get added revenue in the very difficult circumstances under which it operates.
One of the reasons why noble Lords who are associated with bus companies and private hire firms are so anxious not to get London Board competition is that it is recognised that the private hire section of the motor transport industry is the most profitable. A full load from point to point, and knowledge of time of start and completion, are essential for the economic use of a
1206
vehicle, and private hire is a very profitable section of the industry. Many other operating bus companies are allowed fully to engage in it.
What we suggest—and this is the purpose of the Amendment; I do not want in any way to hide that—is that the London Board should be equally able to go fully into the private hire business, not only to the limited extent permitted at the moment, but to a greater degree. I move this Amendment not only for the financial reason, which would enable London Transport more easily to meet its costs, but also on the basis of safety. There is not the slightest doubt that one of the biggest factors contributing to road accidents is the unworthiness of road vehicles. Many vehicles are operated on a shoe string, and when there is difficulty in making ends meet financially, it is the standard of maintenance which falls.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I hope he will produce his authority for his statement. Because it is not what most police forces in the country say.
LORD LINDGREN: Which part of my statement?
LORD DERWENT: That it is bad maintenance which causes the majority of road accidents.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, if I said "majority of road accidents", I will certainly withdraw that; but it is a very big factor in road accidents. Those who are associated with petty sessional courts, and who sit as magistrates, know the number of cases that are brought by the police after an accident has occurred because a vehicle is unroadworthy.
But at least let me say this: I do not think there will be any conflict on the fact that the standard of operation and maintenance in the larger bus companies, and also in London Transport, is exceedingly high. In fact, I should like to take this opportunity of paying a compliment to them. London Transport do not get many compliments, certainly not as many compliments as they really deserve. In spite of the staff difficulties they have had over a long period of years—wages, hours, conditions of service, and the rest; difficulties which

1207
have to be faced in any public service—the general standard of care, of efficiency, and of courtesy in the operation of their buses, driving, and the rest of it, has been extremely high.
Subsection (6), which we ask to be removed, is the subsection which limits the size of the fleet vehicles required, and the reason we should like to increase that fleet is, as I said, to enable the London Board to go out into the public hire side of the business. As regards subsection (7), I will be quite open and say that I am not so anxious, at least, about the withdrawal of that. London Transport never have gone into the business either of owning or of hiring vehicles for the carriage of goods. They are not in the road haulage business on that basis. But what I am concerned about is the fact that they should be precluded by legislation from hiring out a goods vehicle which they have, which may be a vehicle necessary for their own purpose of carrying materials or parts from one depôt to another. If it is available, if someone wants to borrow or hire it, that should be possible. But I move the Amendment mainly, I agree, because of subsection (6); I am not so definite about subsection (7). My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 1, leave out subsections (6) and (7).—(Lord Lindgren.)
4.55 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I have listened with great care to the moving of this Amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, because I thought that perhaps he might have some fresh line to pursue which he did not pursue in the Committee stage. But that did not turn out to be so. I must admit that I am just a little confused about the purpose which the noble Lord stated he had in mind in moving this Amendment—I am now talking about subsection (6); I will come later to subsection (7). I think I recollect that we said the same kind of thing on Committee.
LORD LINDGREN: Very largely.
LORD CHESHAM: The noble Lord told us that it is his desire that the London Board should be able to go out and pick out this profitable business—
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what he said was the cream of the contract carriage business. That is why I am a little puzzled. Because if his Amendment were to be accepted—which I hope it is not—it would not achieve the purpose which he has in mind. What the Board are empowered to do in this clause is to let out vehicles on, hire to operators who hold the necessary licence to operate them, and thereby, of course, to earn a little more money from the asset which they have to possess for the purposes of their business, which is running buses in the London area, and to help with the duty that is on them to do the best they can for the public purse.
But, my Lords, all the noble Lord's Amendment would do, if it were carried, would be to allow the London Board to invest money in further vehicles, vehicles which they did not need for the purposes of their undertaking and which they would hold purely and simply for the purpose of hiring out to other people. The Amendment, in fact, would not allow them to go into the contract carriage business; it would allow them to go into unrestricted business as hirers of vehicles for other people to operate. So to start with, the Amendment would not do what the noble Lord wishes, and I hope that on that account alone he will not wish to pursue it. I do not think it is right or proper that the London Board, whose job it is to run and to operate a good bus service in London, should be going into business as vehicle hirers at large. Again, I would think that it was the wrong use of their financial resources to put them into a large number of buses which they do not require, for the purpose of hiring them to other people in connection with that business. I repeat, the object of this power is to enable them to make better use of the asset which they are required to have.
Now, my Lords, if I may move on to subsection (7) and the question of goods vehicles, the noble Lord more or less agreed with what I said last time: that London Transport had no power previously to do what he suggests. They had no number of vehicles which would be suitable for hiring for the carriage of goods. Their vehicles were mostly specialised maintenance vehicles and the like; and they were not surplus to the same extent because they are not subject

1209
to peak and off-peak demands. The noble Lord queried why it should be expressed in legislation that they should not be lent as breakdown vehicles at a charge of "a couple of quid". The reason is that it is desirable, so far as possible, in a Bill of this kind to make it abundantly clear what each Board can and cannot do, in pursuance of the set task which the Bill gives it. Judging from what I have heard, that is the opinion held in various quarters of the House. What the noble Lord put forward about the odd individual case does not amount to strong enough grounds to alter the Bill from its present state of clarity on this subject. Therefore, I hope that he will not wish to press his Amendment.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, London Transport are all the time putting into service new-style buses of the latest type. Under the Bill as it is, for every 100 new buses they bring into service, they will be expected to scrap 100 of their older vehicles, yet these may be perfectly roadworthy and if they could be used for hire, that would bring in some remuneration for the Board.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, surely they can sell some of these vehicles, not only in this country, but abroad. There is a market.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, if I may answer, by leave, the answer is, No. They could not retain vehicles for hire purposes only. I must make it clear that we shall expect the Board to act as they normally would be expected to act to carry out the functions which they have placed upon them. This hiring out of vehicles at times when they are not busy is to be regarded as "a little bit of bunce". As my noble friend Lord Stuart of Findhorn says, if the vehicles are in good condition, there must be a market for them somewhere. This also would have the effect of improving the finances of the Board.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, their resale price would be a good deal lower than their value standing in the books.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, to sell such vehicles to somebody else would go clean against the instructions issued by the licensing authority: that people must make sure, before they acquire any
1210
vehicle, that a licence will be forthcoming to allow them to run it. Does it follow that, if London Transport were to sell off some of their vehicles, licences would automatically be given to run them?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, that may or may not be so. They may not be bought for continued operation as buses. They may be bought for a variety of reasons—even for conversion as dwellings in some cases.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, the noble Lord is not thinking of building up another slumdom with old passenger vehicles?
LORD CHESHAM: No, my Lords, I am not; I am merely indicating to the noble Lord that there are a variety of reasons. He will not disregard the fact that there is a certain overseas market for these vehicles. Those who wanted to operate them as buses would require licences; but if they wanted to use them as contract carriages, that would be another matter.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, it is the same with British shipping, a great deal of which is sold abroad, not always to our benefit, but to the benefit of other countries. Kipling wrote a poem about the old Clyde-built boat sailing the Aegean, "painted like the whore of Babylon."
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, it would be a pleasure to see these old London buses when one is travelling abroad.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8:
London Board's road services outside London
8.—(1) The London Board shall have power to carry 20 passengers outside the London Passenger Transport Area by stage or express carriage—
(c) with the consent of the Minister, by any service beyond the limits specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection.
The Minister shall not give his consent under paragraph (c) of this subsection unless he is satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances which make it desirable that the Board should carry passengers on a particular route outside the said limits.
5.7 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, in subsection (1), to omit all words after the end of paragraph (c). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friends and myself, to leave out lines 32 to 35. Clause 8 gives the London Transport Board the power to carry passengers outside the London Passenger Transport area on roads within a radius of ten miles from any point on the boundary of the area or on London Transport Executive routes which go beyond the limits specified in paragraphs (a) and (b). In addition, under paragraph (c), they can, with the consent of the Minister, have power to carry passengers beyond these two limits. That qualification is very satisfactory until we come to the next qualifying paragraph, which says that the Minister shall not give his consent under paragraph (c) unless he is satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances which make it desirable.
When we discussed this matter in Committee on a somewhat similar Amendment, it so happened that the debate had to be adjourned on the first day to allow other business to be discussed, and we resumed the following day, and for that reason we had two replies to the Amendment, one from the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, on the first day, and the other from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, on the second. It may be that the night's interval for reflection resulted in two totally different replies being given on what are "exceptional circumstances". Obviously, if the Bill says that the Minister is not to give his consent to any extension of services unless there are exceptional circumstances, we ought to have an idea from the Government of what are "exceptional circumstances".
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, gave his view and said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 240 (No. 84), col. 1122]:
"In my view, these exceptional circumstances would be mostly where the Board are approached to operate some kind of on-demand service—for instance, to diversionary airports when these serve the London area or are adjacent. … This power might be used for bus services in substitution for railway services where these were suspended due to accident, landslide, major repairs, or something of that kind."
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I think we should all agree that those circumstances would be really exceptional. In other words, London Transport would not be able to run these extra bus services outside these areas unless there was some kind of disaster, and, therefore, they would have a very limited power.
On the second day, when this matter was further discussed and my noble friend Lord Shepherd had spoken on particular points, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 241 (No. 85), col. 15]:
"I should have thought that if nobody else would do it"—
that is, nobody other than London Transport would provide a bus service to take the place of some other service that had been suspended—
"then the circumstances would be sufficiently exceptional."
There does not have to be a disaster; there has to be merely a need. That is precisely the view that we put forward: that the London Transport Board ought to be allowed to provide a service if there is a proved need. The noble Bad, Lord Dundee, went even further and said [col. 20]:
"I thought I had made it plain that we did not intend 'exceptional' to mean 'emergency and temporary'.… We do not regard the word 'exceptional' as having that connotation. We merely think it is reasonable to give the Minister some general guidance as to the manner in which he shall or shall not give his consent."
It is true that a night's sleep had intervened, but this is the same Amendment, and we have two noble Lords on the Front Bench, one saying that there must be an earthquake or terrible accident before the circumstances are exceptional, and the other saying: "You need not have anything like that; it is merely if there is a need—a service is required—and those circumstances would be regarded as exceptional". Then the noble Earl went on to say that the Government wanted these words in the Bill so as
"to give the Minister some general guidance".
It is a curious sort of guidance if these words, "exceptional circumstances", are to have two totally different meanings. The Minister will be rather like the golden dustman in the song:
" 'e don't know where 'e are ".

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Neither do we; and that is the important point.
I would just go back to paragraph (c), under which the Board can provide services
"with the consent of the Minister".
We feel that that should be enough. It is inconceivable that the London Transport Board would want to supply a bus service outside their present limits unless there was a need and unless there was a reasonable prospect that it would pay its way. We have already had the procedure explained to us that if the railways want to suspend a service the Consultative Committee will look into the matter first, and if they are satisfied that there will be hardship, then the Minister can require the Railways Board to provide a service or get some other agency—it can be a private agency—to provide a bus service to replace the railway service that has had to be shut down.
If this is in the Home Counties, it will be a natural thing, in view of all the provisions in the Bill for consultation between the Boards, for the Railways Board to say to the London Transport Board: "Will you provide this service? Will you extend one of your existing services to cover this particular area where the line is going to be shut down?". I should have thought that that was most desirable and reasonable, and that the words to which we object in lines 32 to 35, saying that the Minister shall give his consent to such extensions only in exceptional circumstances, are entirely unnecessary. They will be the cause of delay, and of discussions which will not be needed, and, indeed, they will limit the Minister's judgment.
It will be no use for the noble Earl to argue that that is not the case, because he said that the words are to be there
"to give the Minister some general guidance as to the manner in which he shall or shall not give his consent."
If noble Lords opposite are in such complete disagreement as to what the Minister regards as exceptional circumstances, where do we stand? And where do the London Transport Board or the Railways Board stand? Nobody knows. I think the case is unanswerable for an acceptance of this Amendment to delete these words, so that the Minister can
1214
exercise his discretion in these matters without these restricting and obviously meaningless words. I ask the Government to accept the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, leave out lines 32 to 35.—(Lord Stonham.)
5.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I think this Amendment is not merely similar to, but verbally identical with, that which was moved in Committee and which, after a long and full discussion, extending, as the noble Lord has reminded us, over two days, was rejected on a Division. I do not feel, therefore, that noble Lords will wish to spend much time in going over all the same ground again. The Amendment seeks to leave out a qualification in Clause 8 concerning permission which may be given to the London Board to run services outside their own area. They are permitted to do so in three cases under Clause 8:
"(a) on roads within a radius of ten miles, or in the county of Kent five miles, from any point on the boundary of the London Passenger Transport area, and
(b) on the London Transport Executive's Routes (so far as they extend beyond the limits specified in paragraph (a) of this subsection), and
(c) with the consent of the Minister, by any service beyond the limits specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection."
It is in respect of paragraph (c) that the condition is then imposed that the Minister must be satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances.
I think I fully explained to your Lordships in Committee that, while in the case of applications to run a service within the radius of ten miles all that is necessary is the consent of the traffic commissioners, subject to an appeal to the Minister, if the service is outside this ten miles limit the Minister must be satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances in order to warrant his giving permission for the service to be run, because the London Board is not intended to operate services outside London, or at any great distance beyond it, unless there are very exceptional circumstances which might be held to justify it.

1215
The only new point which the noble Lord has brought up is one where he has mistaken two terms as a contradiction, one of which includes the other. It is as if he were to ask the Government for a definition of a crustacean, and someone were to reply, "A lobster", and the next day somebody else were to say, "Of course, there are crustaceans like the langouste, the crawfish and so on" and the noble Lord were to say, "That is a complete contradiction." But it is not a contradiction. One term includes the other. It includes these emergency and temporary possibilities, of which my noble friend Lord Chesham gave one example.
In his quotation about what I said about "exceptional circumstances", the noble Lord appeared not to have understood the argument which had led up to it. During the debate a number of noble Lords opposite had said that it would be very hard luck if there were a closure of a branch line beyond the ten-mile limit so that there were no proper transport services for the people in the areas between which the former branch line had run, and that for this reason the London Board ought to be allowed to step in and run a bus service. I replied that the procedure under the Bill was laid down under Clause 55. I will not go through it again—we have been through it many times—but under the clause, if the Minister is satisfied that nobody else can do it, he can require the London Board to provide a bus service of their own, even although it should involve them in a loss. Or the Railway Board can get a private bus company to do it. There is no reason at all why the London Board should do it.
What I said was that, in the unlikely event of the Railway Board not being made to run such a service—though they may be required to do so by the Minister—and there being no private individual willing to do it, that would constitute an exceptional circumstance. I pointed out at the end of the debate that "exceptional circumstances" did not mean emergency and temporary circumstances only. I do not think there are any other new points which have been brought up in this debate, apart from those which were pursued at great length in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham,
1216
said then that this was a vital point on which he wished to divide. That being so, we gladly agreed to have a Division at the end of a very long discussion, and I do not think any useful purpose would be served in prolonging the discussion now.
LORD STONHAM: Before the noble Earl sits down, would he please deal with this point which I raised? He said that he made it plain that we did not intend "exceptional" to mean "emergency and temporary". But the quotation which I gave from his noble friend's speech says just the opposite. That is what we are concerned about. Would the noble Earl answer that point?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, of course "exceptional" includes "emergency and temporary", because emergencies are exceptional. We do not live in a continual state of emergency. What I was concerned to point out about the possibility of giving leave to the London Transport Board to run a service was that if, owing to some exceptional circumstance, nobody else would run it, that would not necessarily constitute an emergency. An emergency means something different from that. It is an exceptional circumstance, but it is not the only point which can arise.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, might I ask the noble Earl this question? There is no definition of "exceptional circumstances" in the Bill. It is not what is said by the noble Earl which will count—it is what is in the Bull. As that is the position, is it possible that the Minister could be challenged in the courts by an interested party or parties in the event of his granting permission to the London Board to do something which some interested party or parties thought was not justified by "exceptional circumstances"?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I do not think the Minister could be challenged in the courts, but if the noble Lord thinks there is any doubt about it he must get an opinion—or, if he likes, I will gladly get it—from the Law Officers. It is not contemplated under the Bill that this should lead to litigation.
LORD BURDEN: It is not what is stated in the Bill; it is what interested parties may do when the Bill is in operation.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: In reply to the noble Lord's question, I would say that I do not see how one can give a definition for every kind of exceptional circumstance which might arise. We must leave something to common sense.
LORD BURDEN: But the words "public interest", would be much better than "exceptional circumstances".
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Those words might also be challenged in the courts.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
5.27 p.m.
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE moved, in subsection (5), after "instrument" to insert:
"executed not later than three months after this section shall come into force".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Bill provides that the London Board can operate on routes over which the London Transport Executive has powers. They are defined in subsection (5) as follows:
"… 'the London Transport Executive's routes' means such routes as the Minister may by order contained in a statutory instrument certify to be the routes on which the London Transport Executive had, at any time in the period of twelve months ending on the second day of November, nineteen hundred and sixty-one, power to carry passengers by stage or express carriage".
This clause is somewhat peculiar in its wording, and nobody has yet discovered the significance of choosing a whole year's span to cover a period of qualification during which they have to have power. Normally, one would expect it to say "over which they had a power to operate on a certain given date," say, the second day of November. To refer to a year like this in the Bill seems to suggest that there is some difficulty in obtaining precise knowledge of what these routes really are.
The process of arriving at these powers to operate is a very complicated one, arising in most cases out of the powers of delegation of the British Transport Commission under the Act of 1947. There may be, and in fact there is, a doubt as to precisely what these routes are. Nevertheless, if one is supporting the application it is advisable to remove all possible doubts and to have a list—and we are agreed on a list, I think. But the first problem to arise is: should the list be of routes actually used by the London Transport Executive during that
1218
period, or of routes over which they had power to run over at that period?
On Committee we sought to restrict the list to those actively used during the period. My noble friend Lord Dundee resisted this on the grounds that it is reasonable to re-enact the status quo. But, of course, he was moving from the clearly provable—that is, you can prove whether somebody actually did run on a certain route—to the more nebulous ground of legal right, as to whether the party in question had any legal right to run a route but did not do so. He mentioned that there were 50 routes in the two areas concerned and said that the London Transport Executive used powers to operate on 48 of the routes in both areas, though not on all the routes within those areas. The two odd sections are an emergency way somewhere around Windsor and the other—he wrote to me about it after-wards—is some route near Bunting-ford in Hertfordshire.
LORD CHESHAM: Royston, near Buntingford.
LORD HAWKE: Yes, Royston. Those ware the routes he said had not been operated in these areas. Private bus operators naturally find it rather difficult to check these figures and their information is that twelve of these routes were not used during this period and twelve of them were used as to only part of the route. All this should be perfectly possible to resolve around a table should it become necessary through the acceptance of Amendment No. 13.
As there is still doubt to be resolved, we are not in favour of putting the list in the Bill as suggested by my noble friend Lord Conesford, because it would not be ready in time and, in any case, the list would be remarkably unwieldly, as I know from having seen it. So we are left with this statutory instrument procedure as set out in the Bill. But we have one proviso here. The delegation of these powers is most complex and we are dealing with records that go back to 1947 and are, in fact, subject to possible argument. We think that, given the principle of the list, we should insist on a list which cannot be added to in the future by legal delvings in forgotten files and the issue of fresh statutory instruments. In fact, we propose that the

1219
problem should be cleared once and for all by the statutory instrument envisaged in this Bill, and we therefore propose that the Minister should make his statutory instrument list within three months of the coming into force of this clause. During those three months it is to be hoped, of course, that any doubt as to what the routes really are can be resolved between the interested parties. I suggest that this is a very reasonable Amendment and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will see their way to accept it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 10, after ("instrument") insert ("executed not later than three months after this section shall come into force").—(Lord Hawke.)
5.32 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I would agree with my noble friend Lord Hawke that this is a very reasonable Amendment indeed, and I can see no reason why Her Majesty's Government could not see their way to agreeing to it, because it solely seeks to lay down a time limit during which the Minister would certify the routes of the London Transport Executive by order in a statutory instrument. Subsection (5) of Clause 8 refers to a statutory instrument, but, as I understand the reading of this subsection, there is no limitation to the number of statutory instruments which the Minister could propose or which could be requested by the London Board.
Like my noble friend Lord Hawke, I feel that it is conceivable that the London Board might in a few years' time go to the Minister and seek to prove that certain routes have been omitted in the previous statutory instrument and that the London Transport Executive had had powers to operate other routes during the specified twelve months' period. I feel that this would indeed be, as I say, conceivable in view of the very widely drawn powers in the scheme of delegation of 1947 which delegated certain powers from the British Transport Commission to the London Transport Executive. Also I feel this to be conceivable because under Section 2 (b) of this scheme of delegation the London Transport Executive is
1220
empowered to carry on activities in connection with, or ancillary to, activities undertaken by the old London Passenger Transport Board. Therefore I think it could be argued that the new London Board could seek to operate a service from London to Birmingham, for instance, or any other place, subject of course to the Traffic Commissioner's approval, because they might argue that this was in connection with, or ancillary to, the running of London Transport.
However, should Her Majesty's Government not wish to be tied down by this, as it seems to me, innocuous Amendment, would they at least be willing to give an assurance that there would be only one statutory instrument laid down by the Minister? I think it is very reasonable to ask for at least that so that the private operators may know where they stand in this matter.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that the two noble Lords who have supported this Amendment are right to have paid very great attention to this matter and I could only think, having paid that proper attention, that again they have seen somewhat graver possibilities in this than in fact exist. I hope shortly to be able to set their fears a little at rest, because in looking at this Amendment at its face value I am by no means out of sympathy with the argument put forward by my noble friend Lord Hawke. But the thing that I particularly do not like is the three-month aspect that is laid down in his Amendment.
LORD HAWKE: May I interrupt the noble Lord to ask whether he would accept six months?
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps if I can finish what I was going to say the noble Lord will not find it necessary to ask the question. What will happen in practice, of course, is that the London Board will not be in a position to exercise their powers under Clause 8 until vesting date because it will not be until then that they will have vested in them the appropriate assets of the Commission. Clearly, therefore, the Minister must make his order before vesting date, so that when the London Board become possessed of the assets they can operate them at once, without any dislocation on the routes which will be contained in the order. It

1221
will certainly be in the interests of everybody—of the Minister, the London Board, and the public and private bus operators—for the order to be made as soon as possible after Royal assent; and the Minister will therefore make the order as soon as he can after the clause comes into force.
As is usual, the Minister will want to consult various interested parties and associations about it, and therefore the date on which the order can be made may not be entirely under the Minister's control. I think it is quite reasonable to suggest that the order be got right, so far as possible, by consultation, which the Minister is going to do, rather than do what my noble friend fears; that is, to produce more than one order, which might be the case if one hurried the matter and got it wrong. What I should like to do is to give my noble friend Lord Hawke an assurance that the order will be made before vesting day, and as long before vesting day as it is possible to make it. But on that particular ground I should not like to accept a limit of three months, because I feel that it might rather tie the Minister's hands with his consultations and would not be in anyone's interest—and the noble Lord will, I am sure, agree that it is to the interest of everyone concerned that the order should be correct.
On the question of the fact that there might be another order, it is possible as the Bill is drawn that there could be another one. That is, however, very unlikely, provided that there is the possibility of the order being right the first time after the necessary consultation. After all, the order is expressing only what is a fact, and no one is going to have a new idea, or something like that, requiring an endless string of orders; because the routes either are or they are not. The fact that there is the possibility of there being more than one order has no significance. The only thing one can do is to forget one, which seems very unlikely. Therefore, it is not of any particular consequence that it is drawn in this way. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will see that his three months' period would be a slight handicap, and I hope my firm assurance that the order will be made before vesting day he will find adequate.
LORD MERRIVALE: In view of the noble Lord's Department's efficiency,
1222
would he guarantee that there would only be one order?
LORD STONHAM: While the noble Lord is thinking about that, may I ask him to clear up a litle doubt in my mind also? On two occasions he used the term "vesting day". But in the Amendment which we are considering the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, uses the words, "after this section shall come into force". Was there any significance in the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that he expects the order to be made before vesting day (he used that expression), and Lord Hawke's words, "after this section shall come into force"?
LORD CHESHAM: No, my Lords, I do not think that there was any significance in that; and, obviously, nothing can happen until the Bill receives the Royal assent. My assurance to him was that I did not want to be tied, or rather the Minister did not want to be tied, to making the order within three months of that date. But I assured him that it will be made before vesting day, because, of course, it must be; otherwise the Board will find themselves left with buses and nowhere to run them. It must be made before vesting day, and I do assure my noble friend that it will be made.
So far as the further order is concerned, if there should be one, I cannot give an absolute guarantee on the matter. But what I do say to my noble friend Lord Merrivale is that the Minister has only one function, and that is to certify the factual position. He has no discretion in the matter; it is not a matter of his opinion or his ideas, or anything like that: he has to certify the factual position. It is his duty to certify that, and normally, with the commendable efficiency of the Department to which my noble friend referred, I should certainly expect that there would be only one order, because after the necessary consultation I should have expected the order to be right. But, of course, I cannot put my hand on my heart and give a personal guarantee at this moment.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his explanation and assurances. On the question of date, I certainly would not press him, because I think his argument a very reasonable

1223
one. On the question of delving into the past, we all know what lawyers can do when they set their hands to it. I should have thought he might have met me at the next stage of the Bill by putting in some such words as, "the Minister may by order contained in a statutory instrument made before the vesting date"—or his own time period. If he puts that in it means that it is the final and last list, and that there can be no "jobbing backwards" in the days to come. Perhaps the noble Lord would look at that between now and the next stage. If he would put that in, I should have thought it would be perfectly satisfactory from his point of view, and it would meet my point.
LORD CHESHAM: I certainly should not want to hold out on that, and I am prepared to consider what my noble friend has suggested, although at the moment I cannot undertake any positive commitment in the matter. However, I will certainly be prepared to look at that.
LORD HAWKE: With that assurance, for which I thank my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.48 p.m.
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE moved, in the second paragraph of subsection (5), to leave out "power to carry" and insert:
"route on which the London Transport Executive were in the said period carrying"
The noble Lord said: This is the other point. We have argued at some length about the list and how it should be published, and so on, and we still think it more just that "the list should contain the routes over which the London Passenger Executive have actually run during this year, the year in question, rather than those they claimed but did not use. My noble friend Lord Dundee said that he wanted to keep the status quo. If one chooses to split hairs a bit, one can argue that the status quo is the list over which they ran for a year rather than the list for which they had powers but did not run. If the Government accept this Amendment, it will mean merely that the statutory order will contain a list of the routes actually used rather than a list of routes over which power to run is claimed.
I personally believe it is quite possible the Bill, in its first draft, set out on this particular course, owing to the rather queer wording I mentioned, of choosing a period of twelve months as the qualifying period during which the powers existed. I think that it was then found that under that wording, probably an important but seldom used route like the Windsor route would be dropped out; and so it was decided to put in the routes over which there were powers, and the date or time was not altered to conform with the new wording. If the Government choose to accept the routes de facto rather than the routes de jure, I feel sure that we can find some method of including the Windsor route and, if necessary, if it is really vital, the Royston route. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 15, leave out ("power to carry ") and insert the said new words.—(Lord Hawke.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, as my noble friend says, we want to preserve the status quo in this Bill and, so far as the powers of the London Board are concerned, to leave those powers as they are unless there is some good reason for altering them. I should just like to make quite clear what would be the effect of this Amendment. As we have already discussed, under the first three paragraphs of subsection (1) of Clause 8, the London Board are given certain powers to carry passengers both on the routes on which they already have power, and also beyond them; and subsection (5) of Clause 8, which we have reached now, provides that the Minister is to make an order by statutory instrument certifying those routes on which the London Transport Executive had power to carry passengers on stage or express carriage services at any time in the year ending with the date of the publication of the Bill.
The second paragraph, which it is proposed to amend under my noble friend's Amendment, which we are now discussing, expressly excludes from the Minister's certificate those routes on which London Transport were carrying passengers under powers proceeding from working agreements. The working agreements were made under Section 18 of the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933, but they did not depend on the authority of that section; the section merely established the power to make working agreements,

1225
and the validity of the service depended upon the working agreement. The effect of my noble friend's Amendment would be to exclude from the Minister's certificates not only those routes, but also all routes on which the London Transport had carried passengers in accordance with a working agreement, whether or not the powers to do so derived from the agreement itself or are expressly provided for in legislation.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, is my noble friend quite certain that he is not answering Amendment No. 14 rather than Amendment No. 13? I do not know whether I am right or wrong in that.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, surely Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 hang together. If there is any misunderstanding we have time to correct it, because it is now my duty to move that the House adjourn during pleasure for the Royal Commission.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
6.15 p.m.
The following Bills and Measure received the Royal Assent:
Animals (Cruel Poisons).
Recorded Delivery Service.
Housing (Scotland).
Agricultural and Forestry Associations.
Northern Ireland.
Sea Fish Industry.
Marriage (Wales and Monmouthshire).
Health Visiting and Social Work (Training).
Melville Trust Order Confirmation.
Saint Thomas Apostle (Queen Street) Churchyard.
Saint Peter's Church, Nottingham, Churchyard.
Shoreham Harbour.
Ecclesiastical Fees Measure.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

TRANSPORT BILL
6.26 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, owing to a slight aberration on my part I find that it was not the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, who was replying to the wrong Amendment: it was I who had been moving the wrong Amendment. Therefore, as Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 are very closely connected, I think the best thing would be for me to withdraw No. 13 and to proceed to make my argument on No. 14, allowing my noble friend to reply on 13 and 14 together, if that has his agreement.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes, my Lords. I would apologise for having been under the impression that my noble friend was moving the two Amendments, to lines 15 and 16, together, but the first one, if he will forgive me for saying so, is so trivial when broken down that I did not think he was moving it by itself. But as he is kind enough now to discuss them both together, I will leave that until he is finished.
LORD HAWKE: Then I must withdraw Amendment No. 13, I think, before we can go on to No. 14.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I do not know that you need do that.
LORD HAWKE: Then I will take my opportunity of speaking twice. I might even be able to speak three times, if the House will allow it. My Lords, we are trying to discover now what are the proper routes which the London Board may inherit from the London Executive, and, moreover, inherit in perpetuity. We have already dealt with routes on the list I spoke about on the last Amendment, but there are various other routes which they are operating and which they operate only by means of working agreements with other, private operators. Where the working agreements lapse, the right to operate should lapse, too, and not move into perpetuity. As the Bill is drafted, there is at least one of these cases which is not yet caught by the Bill, and which would give to the London Board in the future an unfair power that was never intended. We had some sort of debate on this on the Committee stage, but not a very full one.

1227
I would refer, in particular, to the case of Crawley New Town. When Crawley New Town was created (and the map I have with me has a certain nostalgic property about it, because it pictures it all fields and trees as I remember it), the boundary of the London Transport Executive and the Southdown Bus Company met in the middle of what is now this big new town. There was obviously a case for making a working agreement, so that one party could run through into the territory of the other party, and vice versa. But owing to certain legal repeals which have taken place, the London Transport Executive had no power to cross the boundary to implement any agreement that they might come to to work the New Town by a working agreement, and the British Transport Commission had to give them power, using their power under the Act of 1947, to delegate; and it was that delegation which enabled the London Transport Executive to leave their own boundary in the Crawley area, and to make an effective working agreement with Southdown. The delegation was made at the end of 1947, and a working agreement was signed in May, 1948; and the London Transport Executive are to-day operating in Crawley by virtue of this agreement. Southdown are also operating over the London border, and I understand the service to the general public is perfectly satisfactory.
The agreement, which I have here, is one which can be terminated by six months' notice by either party after December 31, 1970. Clause 8 deals with that termination. Clause 9 goes on to say that
"the Executive shall forthwith, on the termination of this Agreement, cease to operate within the area,"
and that the company shall also cease to operate within that area. So that at any moment, on six months' notice, after 1970 this working agreement can be terminated by either party. Yet, as the Bill now stands, it would be perfectly possible after 1970 for the London Transport Executive to terminate that agreement, and their power to operate in Crawley would still exist, springing, as they claim it to do, from a delegation by the British Transport Commission, whereas the power of the other party with whom they made the agreement
1228
would cease. That is not only unfair, but is a state of affairs which was certainly never visualised at the time when the working agreement came into being.
I think it is a clear case, my Lords, that the delegation had to be given, in order that the working agreement could come into force. If a working agreement had never been in question, there would never have been any delegation of the overall powers of the Transport Commission. Yet it is claimed that because the Transport Commission did give these powers by delegation, it is those powers which are the charter for the Executive to continue to run into Crawley. They would have the perpetual right to do so by reason of those powers; yet we claim that they do so only because they went in there to fulfil an operating agreement with their partners in the area, the Southdown Bus Company. I suggest that it is a very legalistic point, and it is not in keeping with the spirit of the intention, which was to divide the work in Crawley, that this state of affairs should be allowed to continue under this Bill. I have put down these two Amendments, Nos. 13 and 14, to make it clear that routes cannot be the property of the London Board in perpetuity merely because they have been derived in the past from a working agreement with some other bus company.
6.36 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for saving time by putting his arguments on these two Amendments to the second paragraph of subsection (5) of Clause 8 together. In my reply before we adjourned for the Royal Commission, under the misapprehension that he had moved both I began by staiting the general principle, which in fact applies to both: that we wish to preserve the status quo in this matter. In order not to go to the length of analysing the precise effect of these Amendments, I think my noble friend will agree that his first Amendment, No. 13, affects only two small routes, Windsor-Datchet and Royston-Buntingford. The second Amendment, which is a far more important one, would affect two very important areas, Crawley and Dagen-ham, in which the London Board is now operating and has been operating for

1229
some time. Since my noble friend expressed his willingness to withdraw Amendment No. 13, I will not, therefore, spend time on the Royston-Buntingford question.
I do not know that the world would come to an end if the power which has not been exercised for the last twelve months of the London Transport to run this route were abrogated, but as it happens to be a statutory power we do not see any good reason why it should be taken away, even though it has not been used in the last twelve months. In an earlier speech my noble friend suggested that there might be some doubt as to the extent powers to run transport services have been exercised. That, of course, is for the Minister to ascertain. Subsection (5) authorises the Minister to ascertain the facts and to issue a Statutory Instrument, not creating any new powers, but stating what the existing facts are. Subject to what his inquiries may ascertain, the only two routes which would be affected at present by the first of my noble friend's Amendments are the two small ones to which we have already alluded.
Amendment No. 14 would have much more important effects because it would take away from the London Board power to run services in the areas of Crawley and Dagenham. I think that I ought to go over the legal position. I was already halfway through it when we adjourned. The 1933 Act did not give statutory power but enabled working agreements to be made, and where they have been made the actual vires derive from the agreement and not from the Statute. When a power to run a transport service arises not from a working agreement but from a Statute, we want to continue the status quo, which I think is right, even though it might be supplemented later by a working agreement, as has been done in the case of Crawley and Dagenham. This is the point which we went into in Committee and which I would put to your Lordships again.
The Bill as drafted would exclude only three minor routes, with which I will not bother your Lordships at the moment, whereas my noble friend's Amendment would exclude most particularly the important services in the Crawley area which are at present run jointly by London Transport and Southdown Motor Services. There is a
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distinction between practices which have been created by voluntary working agreements and those which do not depend for their existence on such agreements, although an agreement may have been made supplementary to the statutory power. And subsection (5) of this clause as at present drafted excludes only the routes on which the power springs solely from working agreements and not those operated under statutory power. Where the necessary power was delegated to London Transport by the Transport Commission under Section 5 of the 1947 Act, we think that it is right to continue it, quite apart from the merits of the case. Whether such cases can or cannot be considered on their merits is another question. We think it is reasonable under the Bill to leave the statutory power as it is. After all, half of Crawley is in the London area, anyhow. The agreement enables the London Board, in conjunction with this private motor company, to run services in the area of Crawley beyond the actual boundary of the London area.
Although I am anxious to consider any reasonable case which my noble friend puts forward, as I always am, I cannot see any justification for abrogating an established practice of this kind. Power in this case does not depend on the working agreement itself but on statutory power delegated by the Commission, and the fact that there is a subsequent working agreement in force about the detailed operation of these services is, in my submission to your Lordships, beside the point since the agreement is not the source of power to run the services but has been concluded as a matter of convenience and for operational reasons. I do not think that any new arguments have been put forward since your Lordships decided this in Committee which would justify us in coming to a different conclusion on Report. Therefore I appeal to my noble friend not to press this Amendment, which would have the effect of upsetting these established arrangements which I think are working well, and would not result in any general improvement in the transport system in the London area and its neighbourhood.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I am sorry to say that I have listened to my noble friend's explanation with considerable dismay. He takes a fundamentally

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different point of view on behalf of Her Majesty's Government to the view taken by the private operators. They say that the reason for the delegation by the Transport Commission of power to cross the boundary was in order to fulfil the working agreement. My noble friend puts it the other way round and says that the working agreement was subsidiary to the power to cross the boundary. Frankly, I cannot accept that that is the more probable of the two explanations. I should have thought that when this New Town was created, the first thing to be thought of was an arrangement by which each concern could cross the other's boundary and in order to arrive at that it was necessary for the London Transport Executive to have power to get into the new area.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: They were already half in the London area.
LORD HAWKE: But it was necessary to cross the boundary to make a proper service. They could not have a proper service if one bus service was confined to each half. I am not going to take the point to a Division, but would voice the view that the private operators are getting an extremely harsh and legalistic deal in this particular matter.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, it has been proposed that this would be a convenient point at which to adjourn consideration on Report. If that be the wish of your Lordships, I would beg leave to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved, That consideration on Report be now adjourned.—(Lord Mills.)
House adjourned at twelve minutes before seven o'clock.