Lords Sitting of 16 July 1962

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

LABELLING OF TEXTILES
2.34 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 will consider introducing legislation for the compulsory labelling of the fibre content of textiles described as wool, in view of the fact that the wool industries of the Common Market countries are already discussing a similar proposal in their own countries to facilitate international trade in wool textiles.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, the British Standards Institution has already made some progress in this matter by devising for woollen cloth a British standard known as B.S.2020 of 1953, and I understand that it is the general practice in the trade to have regard to this standard in describing woollen cloth. The British Standards Institution is, of course, alive to the importance of harmonising British and European standards in this as in other fields. I understand that the discussions referred to by the noble Lord have not so far been conclusive, and that the Commission of the European Economic Community have no immediate plans for making compulsory the labelling of the fibre content of textiles. In the United Kingdom—as I expect in Continental countries—the misdescription of goods exposed, offered for sale or sold is already against the law, and this applies to textiles described as wool.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply,
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might I ask whether it is not true to say that the popular descriptions that have been traditionally associated with woollen textile goods in the past—that is, such things as tweed, worsted, flannel and, in other connections, Axminster and Wilton—no longer have their old significance, in that they do not necessarily indicate any given percentage, high or low, of woollen content, and even, in fact, may not contain any wool at all? In to-day's circumstances, would the noble Earl agree that it is possible for the purchasing public to be unintentionally misled as to the content of the goods that they are buying?
Might I also ask the noble Earl whether Her Majesty's Government believe that, even against the background of what he has been good enough to say, further and more specific legislation is needed, under which the traditional descriptions of woollen goods should be reinforced by mandatory instructions, to indicate in any given woollen textile description the actual percentage of wool, in addition to the popular description, against the background of the importance of wool to the wool-producing countries of the world—
SEVERAL NOBLE Lords: Speech!
LORD CASEY: —and to Her Majesty's Government, with the export trade in our woollen textiles? Would the noble Earl agree that this matter is worthy of consideration by the Government, both from the United Kingdom's domestic point of view and also from the point of view of her export trade?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, there is a large volume of legislation under the Merchandise Marks Acts, which range from 1887 to 1953, and I would remind the noble Lord that the main sanction in the whole of this matter is that misdescription is actionable under the law of this country. Since the beginning of 1959, I am told, the Board of Trade have prosecuted in fourteen cases in respect of suspected offences involving the use of the word "wool" or "woollen" in a way which was believed to constitute a misdescription, and thirteen convictions have been obtained. So I would wonder whether further legislation is actually required at the moment. The only further thing I would say is that the British standard is a voluntary standard but when there is an allegation

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of misdescription the existence of the British standard, which has been accepted by the trade, is a very strong inference and guide as to what the particular commodity should, in fact, contain.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, how does this apply to so-called "woollen stuff", which is purchased in the form of suits or costumes composed of what I believe in the trade is termed "shoddy"? Are there any special merchandise marks for shoddy?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: I should need notice of that question, my Lords.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, would the noble Earl bear in mind that this matter has been for long considered by the International Wool Textile Organisation; and, in connection with that, would he make recommendations that the labelling, if and when it comes, should include the proportion of the content of synthetic as against animal fibre? Secondly, since the noble Earl's reply referred specifically to woollen textiles, may I ask—so that there shall be no misconstruction of his words—whether it is right to understand that he intended to include worsted fabrics, which are of an entirely different structure from the woollen fabrics, and could not possibly contain any shoddy.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, as to whether there should be mandatory labelling, this matter is very much more far-reaching than the adoption of standards, and I cannot say whether or not in the view of Her Majesty's Government it will be desirable to introduce legislation for compulsory labelling. In answer to the noble Lord's second supplementary, the Questioner was of course asking about woollen fabrics, and I was answering, to the best of my ability on behalf of my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, on the subject of woollen fabrics.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, the noble Earl did not take the opportunity of confirming that his intention was to cover worsteds as well as woollens.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I was not trying to deal with any intentions. What I was doing was quoting the fact that for woollen goods, woven
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apparel fabrics containing wool, there is a British standard, No. 2020 of 1953. That is as far as I went, because that is as far as I thought I should be required to go from the Question that was on the Order Paper.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the customary labelling of woollen goods is extremely misleading to the consumer? For example, an article which is labelled "pure wool" contains nothing but wool, whereas one which is labelled "all wool" can contain other things.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I should have thought this was indeed a matter on which we may find guidance (I notice that the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, is not here) when—not "if and when"—we receive the Report of the Molony Committee.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, could I pursue the noble Earl a little, and ask what would be the situation in respect Of British exports of woollen textiles from the United Kingdom to, say, Belgium, which has, as I understand it, quite precise legislation to the effect that the actual percentage of wool in any allegedly woollen garment is to be stated on the textile itself?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I really do not know the regulations in force in Belgium but I do know that there is Belgian legislation existing on this subject. I understand from our delegation in Brussels in connection with the Common Market negotiations that discussion is going on about this matter.

DUTIES ON TRADE WITH EIRE
2.42 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: 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 with regard to trade with Eire whether they will state the respective values of the two-way trade in classes of manufactures which into Eire from the United Kingdom attract import duties, and which in reverse, if exported to the United Kingdom, presumably attract no duty.]
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I regret that precise information is not available in the form requested. However, the published trade statistics of the Irish Republic show that, in the year 1961, the Irish Republic imported from the United Kingdom goods classified as "other raw materials and manufactured goods" to a value of about £106 million. The Irish Republic exported to the United Kingdom goods in this class to a value of some £30 million. In the year ended April 30, 1962, the value of British exports so classified which were nominally liable to duty under the tariff of the Irish Republic was about £63 million. In practice, a substantial pan of these goods entered the Irish Republic free of duty. This comprised some £14 million of goods exempted under various statutory provisions, and in addition a considerable volume of imports, to a value that cannot readily be ascertained, Which were admitted free of duty under licence. Some of these descriptions of goods, such as vehicles, clocks and watches, and articles containing man-made fibres, attract duty if imported into the United Kingdom from the Irish Republic.

CIGARETTE FILTERS AND LUNG CANCER
2.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: 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 there is any evidence that the use of aqua-filters in any way reduces the dangers of lung cancer from cigarette smoking.]
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, as it is not yet known which constituents of tobacco smoke cause lung cancer, the value of any form of cigarette filter cannot be assessed.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that there is an intensive campaign under way to popularise water filters on the ground that they provide the safest way to smoke cigarettes; and will
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the Government, in the light of the lack of evidence to support the point, use all available means to inform the public that there is no reason to believe that these contraptions reduce the risks of lung cancer in any way whatsoever?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, it is, as I say, not established what are the constituent parts of tobacco smoke which do the damage, and the public must draw their inference from that in judging the value of any advertisements. The water filters, of course, do remove substances from the smoke which can do you no good: whether they do you any harm at the same time is open to question. It may be like the holy water on Mount Athos—"It will do ye nae harm and it will do ye nae guid".
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as the Royal College of Physicians, who were originally responsible for the recommendations on smoking which have been accepted by Her Majesty's Government, mentioned this matter, is the noble Viscount satisfied that what he has said can be reconciled with the statement by the Royal College?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I thought it was exactly in accordance with it, but I am willing to have my error pointed out and to wear sackcloth if it is not.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, will the noble Viscount the Leader of the House approach my noble friend Lord Arran, remembering that he was willing to give himself for experiments as regards drink? Perhaps my noble friend will be prepared to give himself for experiments as regards smoking.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Earl, Lord Arran, has sacrificed himself once in the cause of science; but in order to achieve any notable results on him he would have to undergo a prolonged course of treatment.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether there are any statistics on cancer in Turkey, where they smoke hookahs?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Ah, the hubble-bubble! But that is a kind of pipe, whereas the dock at the moment is occupied by the cigarette.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, we have just heard from the noble Earl who replied to the earlier Question that there are fairly stringent regulations about the misrepresentation of various fabrics which one wears. Are there not also some regulations concerning misleading advertising; and if there are such, would not what the noble Earl read out to us from the advertisement possibly be considered to come under such regulations?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I should not like to pronounce upon a subject of that kind without re-reading the advertisements, which I am bound to say do not concern me and which, therefore, I passed over somewhat lightly. My Impression was, having looked at it again since my noble friend put his Question down, that the advertisement was very careful not to say anything about lung cancer.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, while appreciating and being grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for What he has said, and to the House for the jovial manner in which it has taken the matter, may I at the same time point out that it is still a matter of life or death?

SAFETY BELTS
2.46 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: 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 their proposal to make safety belts compulsory is intended to apply to new commercial vehicles as well as to new cars; and to the actual wear-ling of safety belts.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, if I may answer the second part of the Question first, it is no part of my right honourable friend's intention to propose that the actual wearing of safety belts should be made compulsory. As to the type of vehicle to which the compulsory fitting of safety belts should apply, the House will be aware that regulations may not be made on, this subject until consultation has taken place with appropriate
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organisations. My right honourable friend considers that the most urgent need is to protect the occupants of the front seats of private cars, and his proposals will be primarily directed to that end. Application to commercial vehicles would involve a number of considerations, of which the pros and cons are by no means so easy to determine. We intend to follow the statutory procedure and obtain the views of the organisations concerned, notably the operators and the manufacturers, before coming to a decision.
LORD AIREDALE: I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, will the noble Lord note that the reply he gave to the last part of the noble Lord's Question—that the Government have no intention of compelling passengers in motor oars to be trussed up in safety belts—will be greeted with considerable satisfaction?
LORD REA: My Lords, as the noble Lord considers that passengers will benefit from safety belts in front seats, will he also consider, perhaps, safety belts being attached to Front Benches?

UNITED NATIONS AND KATANGA
2.48 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question of which I have given Private Notice. The Question is:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have instructed Her Maejsty's Representative in New York to make to the United Nations authorities regarding the action of the local United Nations Commander in Katanga in cutting the last road connecting Elisabethville with the outside world.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL of HOME): My Lords, representations have been made on the spot to the responsible United Nations authorities by Her Majesty's Ambassador in Leopoldville and Her Majesty's Consul in Elisabethville. I understand that the sole purpose of the road block was to control military movements, and I have received

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assurances that the United Nations forces have been instructed to do everything possible to avoid incidents. Her Majesty's Consul in Elisabethville has since reported that the atmosphere is much less tense and that traffic is passing freely both ways through the road block.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, ten days ago the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, stated in London that the United Nations had no intention of imposing a political solution of the Katanga problem by force, and I gather from what my noble friend said and from what I have seen in the Press that this present action was taken on local initiative. I should like to ask my noble friend three questions. First, is it not a fact that this fresh action constitutes an open violation of the "hold-fire" of (I think it was) December 20 last? Secondly, despite the reassuring reports that my noble friend has received, has he not seen Press reports to the effect that these events might well lead to further fighting in the immediate future? Thirdly, may I ask him whether he will now make representations, or will instruct our representative to make representations, to the United Nations authorities in New York to restore the status quo, and to allow the traffic which is proceeding into and out of Elisabethville to be free and unrestricted by any military action?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, my noble friend asks, "Is this not a breach of the 'hold-fire'?". As I understand it, there was an agreement between Mr. Tshoimbe and the United Nations forces that some 300 troops should come in for the so-called independence celebrations, and that in fact some 2,000 troops arrived. That is not unknown. The Lady Mayoress here invited, I think, 4,000 people to go to something in the City, and 30,000 turned up. I do not know that we need make too much of this. No shot, let us remember, has yet been fired, and Press reports to the effect that shooting might break out are a speculation which I hope will be falsified.
So far as representations in New York are concerned, U Thant is well acquainted with my views, which I have expressed to him time and again, that there is no solution to this matter if
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force is used; and he himself has said that he has no intention of using force. So I hope that this incident will be handled locally and sensibly, and that it will not involve the wider issues which are concerned in getting an agreement on the Constitution, and on a fair division of revenue between Mr. Adoula and Mr. Tschombe.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, whilst I agree especially with the last part of the statement of the Foreign Secretary, may I refer to an earlier matter he mentioned? Is it not reasonable for the United Nations authorities to make the kind of instruction which is complained of for the direction and control of troops if the Katanga people brought in six times as many troops as had been agreed upon between the two sides for the celebration? Was that not a perfectly reasonable attitude for the United Nations authorities to take?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, it is difficult to judge these matters from this distance; but, of course, the United Nations troops are charged with preventing a situation arising which might lead to civil war. Whether this situation would in fact have led to any difficulty, I do not know, but in fact it did not, and therefore there is a difference of opinion as to Whether or not this action was wise. But the great thing is that now, as I have said, on the spot traffic seems to be passing freely backwards and forwards, so I profoundly hope that this particular incident is over.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether there is any truth in the Press statement that the Katanga gendarmerie threw stones at the United Nations forces? I think we all agree with, and accept, the statement by U Thant that there is no intention of imposing a solution by force; but it is surely the right of the United Nations forces to protect themselves if they are attacked in any way. I am asking whether there is any truth in the statement.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I have had no corroboration of Press reports to this effect.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, referring to what the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition said, my noble

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friend had not seen one Press report, which quoted an Indian officer of the United Nations Forces as saying that "the Katangans have caused no trouble; we have no idea why we have been alerted".

HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
SHOPS (AIRPORTS) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO INDEPENDENCE BILL
2.56 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I have it in Command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purpose of the Bill.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The object of this Bill is to provide for the independence of Trinidad and Tobago. I feel sure that your Lordships welcome the fact that at the recent Independence Conference it was the unanimously expressed wish of the delegates that Trinidad and Tobago should remain within the Commonwealth, and that they should continue in allegiance to Her Majesty The Queen as Queen of Trinidad and Tobago.
My Lords, it is now some 160 years since Trinidad was ceded to the British
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Crown, and in that period the population has risen from some 18,000 to over 800,000 people. As your Lordships know, it is one of the most cosmopolitan populations in the world. The two largest population groups are those of African and Indian descent, but in addition there are British, French, Spanish, Chinese and Syrian stock.
In recent years there has been the possibility of racial tensions, due to the fact that the Government Party was largely supported by people of African descent, and the Opposition Party largely by people of Indian descent. I am glad to say that the recently-concluded Independence Conference has made a big contribution towards the, easing of these racial tensions. For the Constitution agreed upon will provide considerable safeguards for minorities and the protection of human rights. The determination of the Prime Minister, Dr. Williams, and of the Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Capildeo, to work together and to unite the people in one nation has, of course, been a prime factor in allaying the anxieties of minority groups, and generally in reducing racial tension. In Trinidad and Tobago there has recently been great advance in the social field, particularly in education and in housing. I think it right that I should pay a tribute to Dr. Williams, whose energetic and imaginative leadership is so largely responsible for this progress.
As noble Lords are aware, the principal source of revenue of the country was originally from sugar. Later cocoa and citrus were developed. While not of primary economic importance to the country, I must also mention the Pitch Lake, and Angostura Bitters. But, most important of all, of course, my Lords, was the discovery of oil early this century. Great efforts have been made by the Government to diversify the industries of the country, and there are now a number of thriving industries manufacturing such things as textiles, industrial chemicals, cigarettes, cement, glassware, gramophone records, and so on. So Trinidad and Tobago will enter into independence in a strong economic position, and with good prospects for the future.
My Lords, this Bill is in a similar form to other Independence Bills which have been placed before your Lordships,

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and I do not think it is necessary to detain the House for long in explanation of it. Clause 1 provides for fully responsible status for Trinidad and Tobago. Clause 2 deals with the citizenship question on lines already embodied in several previous Independence Bills. Clause 3 provides for the consequential modifications to various United Kingdom enactments. Clause 4 gives the delimitation of the country of Trinidad and Tobago. Clause 5 is the short title. All the clauses are perfectly straightforward. I commend this Bill to your Lordships, and I am sure that it will receive support from all parts of the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
3.0 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, once more this is a Bill which we are delighted to welcome. Any step forward towards giving former Colonies their independence must be an occasion for rejoicing. But it is difficult, particularly on this occasion, to mention nothing except the rosy future that lies ahead. I do not want to be a pessimist, and I do not want to cast any gloom over what is undoubtedly a great and happy event; but Trinidad, like the other newly independent territories, has great problems, and I hope that the fact that the noble Marquess has spoken only briefly and cheerfully does not mean that he and Her Majesty's Government are unaware of these problems.
The noble Marquess was perfectly right in mentioning the racial difficulties—what he described as "the cosmopolitan society"—which exist in Trinidad and Tobago, and which are a very real danger. While I express my admiration for Dr. Eric Williams, in his capacity as Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, an extremely able politician and a statesman, and also for Dr. Capildeo, who I am certain is a fine leader of the Opposition, I must frankly say that both these gentlemen and their followers, great though their qualities may be and great though their patriotism for their own country's welfare may be, are not necessarily the people who are going to minimise the real racial tension which exists at the present time in the two islands and make it disappear altogether. The mere fact that independence
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has been achieved does not mean that racial tension will automatically disappear. I think that that is something we -must face, however unpleasant it is to have to say.
I am happy to see from the White Paper, which is the framework of the Constitution (and once more I must say that I should be much happier if on these occasions we were able to see the actual Constitution before such a debate as this took place), that one of the "ordinarily entrenched provisions" relates to human rights and fundamental freedoms. I cannot help feeling that it seems to be an extraordinary sense of proportion in those who have appended their names to this White Paper, who include not only the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and the Leader of the Opposition, but also Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs at that time, that the provisions relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms come under ordinarily entrenched provisions, whereas among the important matters under the head of especially entrenched provisions is the remuneration of the Governor General. Surely it cannot be asserted that there is anything more important to entrench in the Constitution of any country, even our own, than the provisions relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms, above all in a country such as Trinidad and Tobago, with the difficulties which the noble Marquess has mentioned. To put those provisions as of ordinary or rather minor importance, and the remuneration of the Governor General as being of greater importance, cannot be the right way to start off with due regard to the social rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals in this new country. I hope that serious thought will be given to this point by Her Majesty's Government and by the islands themselves, because I look on this as one of the fundamental difficulties which will arise in Trinidad and Tobago now that they have their independence.
There are other problems which face these two islands. First of all, there is the straightforward economic problem. The noble Marquess has referred to the fact that there have been conversations with Dr. Eric Williams on this aspect. I hope that he is satisfied, but if one can

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go by what has been said by Dr. Williams on his return home, he has certain doubts and reservations as to whether this country is, in fact, going to do what at least we on this side of the House should like to see it do in helping Trinidad and Tobago to achieve real economic viability. We cannot allow the fact that former Colonies have become independent in any way to interfere with our obligations to them to see that they progress economically, as well as socially, in the way they wish to and we wish to see them, go. I hope that the noble Marquess will be able to assure the House that the aid we are morally bound to give will be forthcoming in fact, and that any misgivings and fears which Dr. Williams may have are entirely unfounded.
Turning to the actual economic situation in Trinidad, as the noble Marquess told us, the islands now have a population little short of one million. It has risen rapidly over the past twenty or thirty years. The islands enjoy, so far as the Caribbean area goes, a high standard of living among certain individuals and have an advancing economy. But, as your Lordships know, their economy is based on oil. Eighty per cent. of the export trade is in oil, and 40 per cent. of the revenue comes from oil. This makes the economic problem a dangerous one, and one particularly doubtful at the present time, with the Common Market negotiations that are going on. I hope that in these negotiations we shall not take as an example to be followed the arrangements already reached with the Dutch possessions of Aruba and Curacao, although conditions there are different from those in Trinidad.
Leaving the economic side but remaining with oil for a moment, the economic and social evolution of Trinidad is different from that of many other islands because of oil. The wealth which has come to the islands has come entirely from one economic sphere, and as a result other economic development has been largely neglected. Above all, agriculture, which is normally the mainstay of such islands, has fallen far behind. I am not referring to sugar, which is an efficient and important industry, and which I hope will be continued to be safeguarded by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement; nor to the agriculture
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which is carried on in large plantations, but to the smaller people whose farms should provide the major part of the food for the islands. Production from these farms has fallen so much behind that it is incapable of supporting the rural population in a condition of life which is in any way comparable to the wages which can be earned in the oil industry. This has led to a movement of people from the land, to a rapid urbanisation of a society which is not used to such things, and to the creation of appalling slums, shanty towns and overcrowding, together with juvenile crime and all the other things which go with these conditions.
My Lords, all these social evils, including racial hatred, envy of those who have and disillusionment among those who have not, are the things which make it so hard to build up a really stable democracy, no matter how admirable the leaders of the Government and the Opposition may be. We can still help in many ways; but, above all, we can help with financial and material aid. Once more I would ask the noble Marquess to give us an assurance that this aid will be forthcoming, and that our responsibility towards these two islands will remain just as real as ever it was. Unless that happens, no matter how sincere our wishes are for the happy future of these islands, there is little chance of those wishes being fulfilled. Our wishes for them are good wishes, but I hope that there will be action to go along with them.
3.11 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like, from these Benches, to welcome this Bill and to express our hope that Trinidad and Tobago as a new State will have a successful voyage into the future. But, before saying anything about Trinidad and Tobago, I should like to say a word or two about the remarkable event that has just happened with regard to the Colonial Office, whose representative we have here to-day. We have now come round almost full circle after 37 years. When we left here on Thursday evening there were two Secretaries of State and two separate Departments of State. To-day, after the chopper has come down on a big scale, there is one Secretary of State, and for the time being—although I think it is

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only for the time being—two Departments. In case the two Departments are merged when the House is in Recess, as may well happen, I think we should pay tribute to the Colonial Office—which, as I say, has ceased to be as an independent Office with its own Secretary of State—for the great work it has done throughout the centuries it has been in existence, starting, as it did, as the Department of the Plantations, and at one time exercising, in so far as they were exercised, some of the functions of the War Office. It is an Office in which many distinguished statesmen started their ministerial careers, including Mr. Gladstone, Sir Winston Churchill and, as no doubt the Prime Minister will remember, Mr. Phineas Finn.
I am not at all sure that this is the right moment to have this merger of responsibility, because, so far as I can see, there is an enormous amount of work in the Colonial Office which falls to the head of it individually. Just lately I have been engaged, as has the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, in the Uganda Conference—and we have two or three others coming on. I do not know how Mr. Sandys is going to manage with the Prime Ministers' Conference looming up and the functions that will fall to him to perform personally. I hope it does not mean that the Colonies that remain will be pushed in the background and have less attention given to them than they should have: because this is an important stage in their evolution.
The Colonial Office to-day is very different from the days when the late H. G. Wells wrote Ann Veronica. Your Lordships may remember that when one of Ann Veronica's suitors came to see her in South Kensington she asked him what he did for a living; and he said he was an official in the Colonial Office,
"a post which does not unduly interfere with my leisure."
I do not think anybody would say that to-day, because the officials there are hard pressed. The only way in which the Secretary of State will be able to do the work is to have a sound system of devolution. I do not know whether the noble Marquess and the noble Duke opposite will be beneficiaries or otherwise of that system; but we are, at any rate, glad to see them here to-day. One
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almost wonders Who one will see when one next comes to the House. However, let us hope that they remain with us.
To turn now to the Bill——
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD OGMORE: Well, a little introduction is always welcome, especially when there have been such changes as have taken place over the weekend: surely one is entitled to make reference to them.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: There is still hope for the rest.
LORD OGMORE: To turn to the Bill, the new State has considerable advantages, and rather unusual ones in these days. As the noble Marquess said, it is viable; it has a favourable balance of trade. That, as I say, is a considerable achievement these days because in most cases in which we have been granting Constitutions the countries have been doubtfully viable, to put it at its highest. So Trinidad comes forward under a very favourable wind. It also has, as the noble Marquess said, a mixed economy. It is not tied, as so many of the territories we have been considering are, to a single crop, and one that is very much at the mercy, as a single cash crop usually is, of world markets.
The disadvantage (and I think the noble Marquess skated a little smoothly over this) is that politics in Trinidad, as in British Guiana, are on an Afro-Asian basis: not the Afro-Asian basis of the United Nations, where they are generally joined in criticising everybody else, but an Afro-Asian basis in which they criticise each other. This is an unfortunate situation. I do not think there will be political health in Trinidad and Tobago until politics get on a sounder basis than depending on the particular race to which the voter or the member of the Party happens to belong. We have found elsewhere that when a political system is based on race it is a very weak one and generally leads to trouble in the end. I hope that Trinidad and Tobago will get away from that.
So far as their relationships with other countries are concerned, I would say that, unlike Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago are not sufficiently close to the United States. They are too critical of

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the United States, and they do not sufficiently take into account the great deal of help they could get from that country if they were prepared to accept it. So far as their relationships with ourselves are concerned, as Lord Walston said, Sir Eric Williams, the Prime Minister, has, rightly or wrongly, been very critical of our help. So perhaps when the noble Marquess comes to reply he can give us an indication of whether he thinks there is anything we could or should do to satisfy Sir Eric Williams, or whether he thinks that all that we have done is enough.
I should just like to say a word of welcome to Trinidad and Tobago from another angle. In the Schedule to the Bill there is a reference to the admission of the new State as a member of the Commonwealth Institute. As a Governor of the Institute, I should like to welcome them, and I hope that they will play their full part and take a keen interest in the affairs of the Institute. It so happens that the interest of Commonwealth countries in the Institute is rather patchy; some are very good and take a good deal of interest, but others do not. It is, in my view, a most important organisation. It is the only organisation, so far as I am aware, which is maintained and supported by all the independent Members of the Commonwealth; it is a true Commonwealth organisation, although, of course, in the main, the support comes from Her Majesty's Government.
Finally, I should like to ask the noble Marquess a few questions, and if he cannot answer them to-day perhaps he will be able to do so during a later stage of the Bill. First of all, what is the position of Chaguaramas base? Is it affected at all by this new arrangement? Secondly, do any of the eight smaller Colonies want to join with Trinidad and Tobago? I have heard it said that Grenada wishes to join with them and to leave the suggested Federation which the United Kingdom is proposing. Is there any truth in that, and what is the United Kingdom attitude to such a suggestion or wish, if Grenada puts it forward?
Finally, what is the position of the common services? To what extent will Trinidad and Tobago be entitled to take advantage of them? Your Lordships will perhaps remember that when the
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West Indies Federation broke up recently it was decided to keep on the common services—or, at all events, some of them—and a high official was sent out from this country in order to take charge of them. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in a previous debate expressing the wish that these services should not be allowed to die away. They are highly important in this area, and it would be most unfortunate if such a strong territory as Trinidad and Tobago were to depart from the common services scheme on becoming independent. With those few comments, and the questions that I have asked, may I reiterate my good wishes for the new State of Trinidad and Tobago?
3.22 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I rise to join with other noble Lords in offering a warm welcome to this Bill. I should also like to join the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, in paying a tribute to the work of the Colonial Office and its officials, at home and abroad. I must confess that, having paid three visits to Trinidad as Minister of State for the purpose of negotiating the establishment of the Federation of the West Indies, my welcome of the Bill to-day is tinged with regret that we are not now welcoming a Bill for one independent Federation of the British Caribbean territories. I still hope that one day it may be possible for them to move closer together politically for I feel sure that one great single unit in the Caribbean, imbued with the traditions of British democracy and justice, could have been, and still could be, a great bastion of freedom, security and common sense in a region which has not always been notable for those qualities. Meanwhile, however, Trinidad and Tobago will now get the opportunity to "go it alone" in circumstances in which we hope will prove to be both politically and economically successful.
On the political side, Trinidad and Tobago are entering into independence under excellent auspices. Dr. Williams, a statesman with remarkable knowledge of the workings of democracy, and the determination and drive to put it into practice, is their Prime Minister. They also have an efficient Opposition under Dr. Capildeo, who may be trusted to keep a watchful eye on the Government's activities. Here I should like to refer

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to the statement by Dr. Williams and Dr. Capildeo at the end of the Marlborough House Conference, to the effect that they were united in their determination that they would work together to make Trinidad and Tobago into one country with one nation.
I should also like at this time to pay a tribute to my old friend, Mr. Albert Gomez, who did so much in the past to develop Constitutional progress in Trinidad and Tobago. Incidentally, it is of interest to note that for the first time, so far as I know, in any Commonwealth Constitution a leader of the Opposition is to be appointed by the Governor-General who will act on his "own deliberate judgment", and will select as leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives the head of the Party Which in his view commands the largest number of Members. Certainly welding together the very diverse races which inhabit Trinidad and Tobago, including persons of African, Indian and Chinese descent, as well as those of many other European origins, will not be an easy task, as the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has said. However, I feel sure that the great natural intelligence of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, fortified by the British Parliamentary institutions and the rule of law which they enjoy will enable them successfully to contend with those difficulties.
As has been said already, the territory of Trinidad and Tobago starts from a strong economic position. With her oil deposits, the great pitch lake, and her agricultural resources, Trinidad is far and away the best-equipped territory in the British West Indies economically to embark on the path of independence. But this does not mean that we in this country should be forgetful of her needs, and here I should like again to make a plea for the alteration of the powers of the Colonial Development Corporation to enable them to initiate new schemes in newly independent members Of the Commonwealth. With the number of dependent territories dwindling year by year—almost month by month—the scope of the Colonial Development Corporation is now becoming seriously restricted. My honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in another place the other day gave a slight hint that something was in fact
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brewing. I hope that that is so, and that we may have an announcement on the subject before Parliament rises.
My Lords, I should like to say one more word on the economic side; and that is, as has been done already by the noble Lord, Lord Omore, to urge on the leaders of Trinidad and Tobago (and this applies equally to Jamaica) that they should give the utmost support and encouragement to the arrangements for continuing the common services for the West Indian territories. Sir Stephen Luke has been entrusted with working this out, and certainly no one could be better qualified to do so. I hope and trust that the contacts which these common services will involve will help to harmonise the policies of these territories in a still wider field, including, I hope, that of concerting political action.
Finally, I should like to refer to one matter which gives me some concern. As in the case of Jamaica, this Bill contains no provision whatever for any arrangements for defence. Unfortunately, I could not be in the House when the Jamaica Independence Bill was debated on Second Reading, or I should have raised the point then. The position is perhaps more acute in the case of Jamaica, owing to her proximity to Communist Cuba. It cannot be a very comfortable position for a country to be lying a bare 90 miles from a bellicose dictator such as Dr. Castro, who has already proved himself only too ready to indulge in acts of subversion in other Caribbean and Central American countries, and who has all the necessary material to hand, in the form of Russian jet aircraft and tanks. Against this, all that Jamaica can put up, as I understand it, is one battalion of the West Indian Regiment, with no artillery or aircraft.
It could be argued that Trinidad and Tobago are far removed from immediate danger, but it would be absurd to ignore the fact that Communist subversion is taking place throughout Latin America, and that Venezuela is one of the main targets. Trinidad lies only seven miles from the coast of Venezuela, and it has in the past frequently been the first place of refuge for political leaders from Venezuela who have been overthrown in some revolution. One cannot dismiss the possibility of a situation arising in

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which a successful coup in Venezuela led to a wholesale influx of non-Communist leaders and refugees into Trinidad. Nor can one ignore the possibility that the Communist régime in Venezuela would exploit the difficulties arising out of such a situation to threaten and perhaps even to invade a small and wealthy neighbour such as Trinidad, which at present, apart from the American base at Chaguaramas, which is already greatly depleted, has no defences of any kind. There is no NATO ORGANISATION, no SEATO, no CENTO in the Caribbean.
Should we not, when granting independence to these small territories in the West Indies, at least give them some kind of guarantee of military assistance in case of need, and, at the same time, work out with them defence plans to make such assistance effective? Of course, this would have to be done by agreement with them, and it may be that some wider form of defence organisation in which the United States could also play a part would be more appropriate. But I really do feel that to leave these small, new, independent countries in this troubled world with virtually no arrangements for defence is a grave breach of our responsibility. Having said this, my Lords, I should only wish to conclude by repeating how warmly I welcome this Bill as a whole and express my best wishes to the Government and the people of the Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, as it is described in their Constitution, for a successful and prosperous future as a member of our Commonwealth of Nations.
3.32 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, before the noble Marquess replies, and if no one else is going to speak, I should like to say just a word or two. Of course, we all welcome this Bill. I must say, however, that I was profoundly disappointed with the tone of the parting message which Dr. Williams gave on leaving this country and the great publicity which was given to it over the broadcasting service. While I welcome very much the introduction of this Bill of independence, I should have hoped that we might this afternoon have a firm lead from the Government as to what real
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help is going to be given to this country of Trinidad and Tobago; particularly in view of the publicised statements of Dr. Williams that they could not rely upon us and must seek to go on their own and look to other quarters. That is the general interpretation I put on this speech of farewell. I am pretty anxious about that and I hope the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, will be able to tell us what was the nature of the discussions between Dr. Williams and his Department and what is likely to be done along the lines that Dr. Williams obviously had in mind to secure substantial help and assistance and, I take it, some assurance on defence.
The other thing I should like to say is that the White Paper on this Bill is perhaps the best in the present circumstances that could be obtained, but I feel that the Department and the Minister will have to watch carefully the effect of paragraphs 36 and 37. I noted that the noble Lord who has just sat down said a word which I thought was rather in praise of paragraph 36, about leaving the appointment of the Leader of the Opposition to the Governor General. How ever circumstances may have led him to think that that was a good permanent principle with an independent country, it seems to me to be a little difficult to understand.
LORD COLYTON: I merely drew attention to it as an innovation.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: I see; I am much obliged. I dare say, from inquiries I have been making in the meantime through my noble friend Lord Walston and others, that no doubt the present organisation there of the Opposition, or Oppositions, would not always be fruitful in throwing up a clear-cut, outstanding leader of an Opposition. But if you grant independence to a country of this kind, then surely people who are dissident from the majority at an election should have the power to appoint their own leader unless there is some very special objection to it. We do not have to go to Her Majesty for approval of a Leader of the Opposition whether he be Labour, Liberal, or, as perhaps he may be in the future, Conservative. I do not think we should like it altogether.

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I think therefore that we ought to have some note of this point made and see what is going to happen.
Paragraph 37 of this White Paper says:
"The Governor-General will be required to act on the advice of the Cabinet in the exercise of his functions except in respect of"—
then come two items—

"(a) any function in respect of which he is required to exercise his own deliberate judgment; or

(b) any function in the exercise of which he is required to act on the advice of persons or authorities other than the Cabinet."

I know it is very early days for this new independent State, hut I hope we may get from the noble Marquess some idea of exactly what are the functions paragraph 37 of the White Paper is expected to cover. Certainly the administration of the Governor General in these respects will he followed intensely closely by the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and we ought to know exactly what these functions will actually cover. Perhaps the noble Marquess could tell us some more about this in the course of his winding up speech in this debate.
The other thing I want to say is this. I support most strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, said about the rendering of help to a State of this character. It is a great disappointment to many of us—for example, those who have watched the work of the Colonial Development Corporation—that directly a State becomes independent, however handicapped it is at present in development, it shall per se be ruled out straight away of any further arrangements for help from the Colonial Development Corporation. I know the title of "Colonial" was so separate from anything else and that it entitled only those to whom it applied to be eligible for help. Now that these two Offices are united together I should not have thought it was altogether out of place to make this a time for a re-examination of the limits of that Corporation and to see whether the Minister who will now be Secretary of State for both the Commonwealth and the Colonies might have a proper and beneficial eye to aid these particular States. I hope we may have an answer to these points.
3.39 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure it will be a source of satisfaction to the people of Trinidad and Tobago that this Bill has received such a warm welcome from all parts of the House. I think that perhaps I should at once say something about the question of the racial tensions, to which the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, referred, reminding us of the observations made by Dr. Williams and Dr. Capildeo at the end of the Marlborough House Conference. I should particularly like to remind the noble Lord, Lord Walston, of this. Of course, life in a cosmopolitan country such as Trinidad is indeed much more complicated, but should it not be a source of great satisfaction to us all that the Leader of the Government there and the Leader of the Opposition have expressed their determination that all races in Trinidad and Tobago should be given an opportunity to work together; that the Government should not be conducted on a racial basis; and that it is their purpose to see that their country is united and welded together as one people? I hope that, in expressing our good wishes to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, we shall not for one moment suggest that we feel any doubt of their determination to do this.
Perhaps I might digress for a moment. I remember not long ago finding myself in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, a country which has been alluded to today. I was in the great military circle which was built at great expense by the late Dictator Pérez Jimenez, and I remember seeing a huge mural. It represented the Arms of Venezuela being cut by hammer and chisel by three types of men, an Indian, a Spaniard and an African. This made a very deep impression on me. Here was a graphic representation of a real attempt at multi-racialism. Let us not be pessimistic about the prospects of Trinidad and Tobago. Let us believe in their leaders. Let us hope that they will, in fact, heal the divisions which were at one time evident among them. There has been in this respect a great improvement in recent times, and it is my hope, as I am sure it is the hope of all noble Lords here, that this will continue.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, referred to the question of human rights and how these are entrenched in the

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Constitution. It is perfectly true, as he says, that human rights and fundamental freedoms come in Appendix B in the ordinarily entrenched list—a fact which seemed strange to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who wondered whether there was some misapplication of emphasis, if I may put it that way. Perhaps I can help the noble Lord here. What in fact happened was that at the Conference there was quite a degree of disagreement on how the human rights and fundamental freedoms should be entrenched in the Constitution. It was, in fact, a ruling of my right honourable friend. He suggested this compromise, which was accepted, after considerable discussion, by all.
But I think I should point out this: that the Constitution will provide that in times of emergency the Government may act contrary to the human rights provisions. That is inevitable in times of emergency. But in order to prevent unreasonable suppression of such rights during such a period, it was agreed that a provision would be included which would give the courts power to determine whether any derogation from fundamental rights and freedoms was reasonably justifiable for the purpose of dealing with the situation as it existed at the time. Appeals from the decision of the courts in these matters can be made to the Privy Council. The period was also agreed during which such an emergency could remain in force; if it was to be extended, it could be done only by a vote of a majority of the House of Representatives; and actually it could only run for six months without another vote being taken. So I rather hope that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who I think is perfectly right to raise this point, will realise that although in fact the human rights and fundamental freedoms are described only as ordinarily entrenched, there are very considerable safeguards ending up finally with an appeal to the Privy Council. I hope he will no longer feel that this Constitution is too loosely drawn in this respect.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess a further question? I am grateful to him for explaining it so fully. As I understand it, the ordinarily entrenched provision of the Constitution can be changed only by a certain majority in Parliament. Where
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there is a specially entrenched provision it requires a greater majority in order to change it. All I was drawing attention to was the fact that it appeared from this that we were prepared to allow such laws as will at present exist to be changed when they relate to human rights sooner than we would those which relate to the emoluments of the Governor General. That was the specific point which the noble Marquess has not answered.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I quite take the point, and I had hoped that I had answered it. I was trying to explain that there was considerable disagreement on this, but I think the noble Lord will find in effect that the human rights, although in this list described as ordinarily entrenched, are in fact very deeply entrenched, because of the appeal to the courts and from the courts finally to the Privy Council. In effect—which is what matters—I think the noble Lord will agree they are very well entrenched That was the point I was trying to explain to the noble Lord.
There were other points to which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and other noble Lords, drew my attention. I think the noble Viscount, the Leader of the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, have all been somewhat disturbed by the observations which Dr. Williams is alleged to have made. I do not know exactly what Dr. Williams said. I have two newspaper cuttings here, which no doubt noble Lords have also seen, but I take it to be the case that Dr. Williams, on his return, has said to his people that of course they must, in so far as they are able, fend for themselves. After all they are getting independence.
If Dr. Williams did in fact say these things, it would be a sad thought to me that he implied by them that after independence we, in the United Kingdom, no longer cared. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition and other noble Lords know, this is quite untrue. It is not the case that we no longer care, and I think a perfectly good proof of this, if proof is required, is the immense amount of trouble to which we have gone in the Common Market negotiations to see that the people of Trinidad and

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Tobago get as fair a deal as it is possible to get. Furthermore we hope Dr. Williams himself will participate later on in the discussions with Commonwealth Prime Ministers on this subject. I regret it if Dr. Williams did in fact say what he is alleged to have said. Perhaps he put rather too much emphasis on the need for the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago to paddle their own canoe. But do not let us assume for one minute that the British people, the people in the United Kingdom, are saying goodbye and we no longer care any more. This is certainly not the case. I am very grateful to noble Lords for having given me the opportunity this afternoon of saying this so that it can be brought into perspective in Trinidad. I am grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition.
On the question of revenue, of course I am not trying to pretend that everything is going to be easy for Trinidad and Tobago. They will have difficulties as indeed all new independent countries will have difficulties. What I was trying to say was that Trinidad and Tobago enter into their independence with a very high degree of economic viability. But, of course, at the same time they are vulnerable, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Walston, reminded us, a very large proportion of their revenue is derived from oil. I think it is for this reason that the Prime Minister and others in the Government have gone to such pains to try to diversify, as far as possible, the industrial life of the country, and I think they deserve every congratulation for this.
I was interested to hear the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, about departmental reorganisation here, but in no way has it any bearing on what we are discussing this afternoon. So I cannot in any way comment on that, beyond saying just one thing which I am quite certain that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, knows as well as anybody else in your Lordships' House. There is certainly going to be no question whatsoever of Her Majesty's Government paying less attention, giving less time and devoting less energy to the affairs of the Colonies than heretofore. Of course that is not going to be the case, and I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, realises that.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am glad to hear it. But I just wanted to point out that there is a limit to what any one man can do, however capable that man may be. Mr. Sandys has all the problems of the Prime Ministers' Conference, and so on, to face. Will he be able physically to devote the amount of time that Mr. Maudling was able to devote to these grave problems of the emergent territories? That is what I had in mind. I should have thought it quite a proper observation.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, of course the noble Lord is entitled to ask such a question; but I think, equally, he must admit that I am entitled to reassure him that Her Majesty's Government have no intention whatsoever of not giving all the regard which is necessary and should be given to the Colonies, as heretofore. I can only repeat what I have already said. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, also asked me something which has a bearing on what we are discussing this afternoon—namely, the position about the Chaguaramas base. The position is unaltered, because the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, as is said in the White Paper, assumes all the treaty obligations which already exist. So that so far as the Chaguaramas base is concerned, the situation is unaltered.
The noble Lord also asked me whether there was any sign of other territories in the area wishing to join with Trinidad and Tobago. The answer to that is that, so far, there is none of which I am aware. But like the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, and other noble Lords Who have spoken, I think we all feel it is sad that the West Indies Federation came to an end, and despite this we all hope that these countries will tend more and more to work together. I believe that in the fullness of time something of this nature will take place.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, also asked me about the common services. I promised last week, when speaking on the Jamaica Independence Bill, to give your Lordships any information I could. Representatives of all the countries in the area, as I reported to your Lordships, met on July 10, and their Conference is still in progress. The discussions are confidential, and so I cannot disclose in

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detail to your Lordships exactly what is taking place, but I understand that the Conference got off to a very good start indeed; such important matters as the University of the West Indies, the meteorological service and the shipping service are matters which are receiving serious consideration, and we have every reason to hope that the outcome of this Conference will be satisfactory and that these valuable common services will be continued in so far as that is possible. But, of course, this is a question for agreement between the territories concerned.
As for the Colonial Development Corporation, the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition said that he hoped he might get some satisfactory answer this afternoon. I do not think he seriously expected a statement from me this afternoon. I should greatly have liked to be able to give an answer, but I am not in a position to do so. Noble Lords who study Hansard closely may perhaps have drawn certain conclusions. Whether or not they are entitled to draw those conclusions I am not in a position to say; but I perfectly appreciate that, with the contraction in colonial responsibilities, there is a good case for the Colonial Development Corporation's being able to assume other responsibilities. I am afraid that this afternoon I cannot give any definite undertaking on that point.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I thought that the slashing of members of the Government might lead to an expansionist policy.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I must ask the noble Viscount to contain himself in patience for a little longer. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, expressed anxiety about the defence arrangements, and he also told us that he wished he had had an opportunity to express the views which he expressed to-day in relation to Jamaica as well as to Trinidad and Tobago. The position is this: that in fact we have not entered into any specific defence agreements, but should the Caribbean territories, now our responsibility from the defence point of view, on independence ask for our assistance, we will continue to give it, as is perfectly clearly stated in the Defence White Paper. If anybody wishes
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to verify that matter, the words of paragraph 21 are:
"Should they, however, thereafter"—
that means after independence—
"seek our assistance, Britain will remain the main base for this task."
That is clearly stated in the Defence White Paper. I think I should also remind your Lordships that this question has not been allowed to go by default, because we have already sent experienced military advisers to both these territories and they are helping now to lay the foundations of an efficient local force. That is in fact in train already.
Perhaps I should also remind your Lordships of the geography. Surely we cannot deny the fact that these territories lie within the defence influence, if I may so put it, of the United States of America. But that does not for one moment mean that we forget the arrangements that we have undertaken with them—certainly not. There is a further point which I think we should bear in mind this afternoon—namely, that these countries, on independence, are perfectly entitled, should they so wish, to apply for membership of the Organisation of American States. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, was regretting that there is no pattern of defence arrangements in the area; but, of course, the O.A.S. is such a defensive organisation, and these countries may, in the fullness of time, decide that they wish to adhere to this organisation. As noble Lords are well aware, an attack on any one member of the O.A.S. is an attack upon all. It is perfectly possible that Trinidad and Tobago, and indeed Jamaica also, might elect to join this organisation.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. Could he say whether, in view of this offer of military assistance, if it is necessary, it would not be a good idea to work out plans in advance—staff talks or something of that sort—as to how it would be given, by way of naval, air or land defence?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, at the time of the Independence Conference, and before it, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, is well aware, there were informal discussions, and I have every reason to believe

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that these were perfectly satisfactory. What we are discussing to-day is a Bill to bring about the independence of Trinidad and Tobago under an agreed Constitution. What is taking place is with the entire agreement of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, and there has never been any hiding from them what the true position is. I should like to make that perfectly clear. These are matters which have been discussed, and the present situation is considered satisfactory by all concerned. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, will feel reassured on this point.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, could I be clear on this point: that in pursuing these possible defence arrangements there will be absolutely no departure from the manner in which we have proceeded in all other previous cases, so as to try to maintain, on the widest possible basis, connections with those to whom we have properly granted independence but who may have very much the same rights to defend themselves as we have, and to whom in the past we have looked for assistance?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I think I can do no more than refer the noble Viscount, with all his knowledge and experience of these things, to the Defence White Paper. I believe the situation is clear there, and I do not think he would expect me to go beyond that.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: I will look at it again.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: It is paragraph 21. I do not think there were any other points that were raised.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: Paragraphs 36 and 37.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Yes, certainly. Paragraph 36 is the question of the appointment of the Leader of the Opposition. As I understand it, the point of this provision is really made fairly clear in this paragraph:
"There will be a Leader of the Opposition appointed by the Governor-General from the House of Representatives who, in the Governor-General's own deliberate judgment, is the leader in the House of the party which
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commands the support of the largest number of members of the House in opposition to the Government."
I understand that the reason for that particular wording is that it was thought that there might be disagreement on this point and that therefore it was necessary to have an outside view to decide who, in fact, was the leader of the largest party in opposition.
Then the noble Viscount asked me about paragraph 37. This is a case in which the deliberate judgment of the Governor-General would have to be exercised.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, is there any precedent for this in a newly granted colonial Constitution? I doubt whether there is. Of course, I quite understand, as, the noble Marquess says, that, having regard to the elections, things have worked out differently; but I have heard nothing but unity this afternoon in regard to the Leader of the Opposition out there. I take it he has not been selected by the Governor-General.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The noble Viscount has asked me a difficult question and I should very much like to be able to give him an absolutely satisfactory answer. I am not certain I am in a position to do so to-day, but I will see to it that the noble Viscount is given a proper answer. I apologise for not being in a position to do so now.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, as this is a matter in which a number of us are interested, I wonder whether the noble Marquess could allow this information to become more widely disseminated than merely conveying it to the noble Viscount?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Certainly, I will take the necessary steps to see that all noble Lords receive this information. I do not think there were any other points that were raised that I have not dealt with; I think I have covered them all.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, perhaps the noble Marquess would be kind enough to include in his circulated information the answer to the question I put on paragraph 37.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think one takes them together. I will deal with paragraphs 36 and 37 together, because they really go together. My Lords, I think that that covers everything. I apologise for not being able to answer those two particular points, and I would now ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

JAMAICA INDEPENDENCE BILL
4.5 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I beg your indulgence for a few moments in order to speak on this Bill. I regret not having been able to speak on Second Reading, for reasons which the noble Marquess kindly gave on that occasion, but I have spoken, I think, on practically every Independence Bill since 1945, so far as I can remember, and have had some connection with Jamaica—in fact, a rather interesting one. The first connection I had with Jamaica was when I became a director of the Jamaica Banana Producers' Company. This was not an office of profit, I regret to say, since there were no fees of any kind connected with it. It was a co-operative society (and still is, so far as I am aware), which was inaugurated by the small producers in an attempt—a successful attempt—to protect what they considered to he the stranglehold of a United States fruit company. This indicates the danger which faces all these small territories which are so dependent on one or two cash crops. There is always the danger of some external powerful organisation getting a stranglehold on their economy. This producers' co-operative society did great work in that respect.
Our last legislative link with Jamaica will be broken to-day—an association which has gone back almost 400 years,
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right through the colourful days of the pirate Henry Morgan, who ended up as a Knight, Lieutenant Governor and in an odour of sanctity—as perhaps is also found with other capitalist adventurers in these days. We in the United Kingdom—this is one reason why I want to speak particularly on this Bill—owe a great debt not only to Jamaica but to the other territories in the West Indies and the Caribbean. I was much distressed recently when so much attention, both in the British Press and in British public life, was paid to what we are supposed to be giving to some of these people who come over from Jamaica, without any regard for the tremendous contribution they themselves have made to our economy over hundreds of years. They have produced great wealth for us in the West Indies and Caribbean, and have given us a highly important strategic position for our Fleet. We perhaps remember in fiction Miss Swartz, the sugar heiress from St. Kitts, who was the object of great attention by the aristocracy, the nobility, the gentry and many of the mercantile families of the City at that time, because in those days colour did not matter, provided the money was good.
During the war, and since, they have helped us in our essential services; they have helped us on our buses, in our trains, with our street-cleaning, in our hospitals, our schools and elsewhere. I know from my own personal experience that the statements that were made during the passage of the Immigration Bill hurt our friends in the West Indies. That is why I feel this Bill should not go from this House without some of us saying how much we owe to the West Indies. I should like to press the Government to repay its debt. Unfortunately, wages and conditions in the West Indies, particularly in Jamaica, are so much worse than they are in this country, and there is a tendency for skilled people to come over here and, if they cannot get skilled work, to do unskilled work. So there is a constant drain of their best people, their most skilled people from Jamaica and the other West Indies, with the possible exception of Trinidad.
I think Members on all sides of the House should ask the Government to do everything they can to support the economy of Jamaica, so that she will

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be able to support her increasing population and enable it to enjoy a higher standard of living. They must do something about the excessive birth rate, and also the high illegitimacy rate which so often stultifies their efforts to achieve that higher standard of living. On independence we are providing £4¾ million for Jamaica, but £2½ million of this is a sort of notional figure; it is a bookkeeping figure. It is the value which we put on Government lands and buildings, particularly the War Office lands and buildings, which we are handing over to them. There is a balance of £1 million of the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund which was already committed. So, in fact, there will be only £1¼ million of new money available to them. When we look into it, the £4¾ million does not look quite so helpful and generous as it does at first sight. We must also remember that this is a loan; it is not, of course, a grant. It has to be repaid and serviced.
I feel that they need far more, and more varied, assistance than we are proposing to give them. It seems to me that all these countries which are in the same state as is Jamaica need markets—not only aid, grants, loans and assistance. Here I am quite certain that all developed countries, including our own—although, perhaps, our own has far less blame in this respect than many others—such as the United States, West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and many other developed countries, have an extraordinarily bad record. As time goes on the under-developed countries, or, as they like to call themselves, the developing countries, are getting comparatively poorer. They are not participants in the wealth of the new era in which technical advance is taking place. They are ever becoming poorer, and one reason is that the developed countries are not playing the game. They are constantly either competing with, or producing artificial substitutes for, the only products that these unfortunate countries can sell overseas. There are a large number of such products: rubber, sugar, sisal, tung, abaca, cotton, pyrethrum and many others.
In other words, all the talk at every City dinner, at every meeting of an international association, about aid for the
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under-developed countries is just humbug, because in fact the developed countries, the Western countries in particular, are not prepared to take the necessary action to buy the goods of these countries at a decent price, at a price which will afford them a livelihood. It makes me sick to hear all the hypocrisy whenever the under-developed territories are mentioned. Throughout the years in time to come, this will be the big problem facing us. Are we going to be sensible? Are we going to be unselfish enough to produce markets for these countries?
One of the great tests will be in the Common Market; and I would say, although I have been, and still am, a supporter of the Common Market on terms, of course—nobody would support it without terms—that it is essential that our negotiators on the Common Market should the whole time draw the attention of their fellow negotiators to the Treaty of Rome itself, and to the Preamble to the Treaty which says that the countries are:
"Anxious to strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and by mitigating the backwardness of the less favoured…
"Intending to confirm the solidarity which binds Europe and overseas countries, and desiring, to ensure the development of their prosperity, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations".
Article 3 (k) says:
"the association of overseas countries and territories with the Community with a view to increasing trade and to pursuing jointly their effort towards economic and social development."
So here is a grand opportunity for the countries of Western Europe which are now in the Common Market, not to look upon it as a sort of "closed shop", but to look upon it as a chance at last to give to these people in the underdeveloped territories of the world, and in particular, of course, those who are our special care, a chance of the same sort of life, with the same sort of standard of living, as we in Western Europe enjoy.
4.14 p.m.
THK MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: My Lords, of course a Bill of this sort would not be completely debated if the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, did not take

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part. It was for that reason that we were disappointed that he was unable to be here on Second Reading. But I am bound to say, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, that if I confine myself to what is contained in the Bill, as indeed I must on Third Reading, I really cannot reply to what he has said this afternoon, interesting though it may be.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (RECORDS) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order) with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
COLONIAL LOANS BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES (HISTORIC BUILDINGS) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
DRAINAGE RATES BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

TRANSPORT BILL
4.19 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I think it would be convenient for the House to indicate the course which it is hoped that we may take this afternoon. I rise formally to move the Third Reading, and in doing so I shall make one or two remarks which I hope will be universally acceptable to the House. But I think the substantial debate on the merits of the Bill will take place on the later Motion, That the Bill do now pass, and the Third Reading, apart from what I am now about to say, will deal solely with the Amendments which are on the Paper.
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My Lords, I thought that the House would not wish me to allow this opportunity to pass without saying how much the House is indebted to my noble friend Lord Mills for the part which he has played in this Bill, and also for the constant courtesy and help which he has given to the House during his period of service in the Cabinet. My Lords, he has endeared himself to all. It is not, I think, revealing a Cabinet secret to say that for some years we sat next to each other in that assembly, and a kind of intimacy inevitably develops between people with contiguous seats. Of course, his friendship and collaboration mean a very great deal more to me than this, as they have done to the House. I had known for a long time that there was an arrangement between him and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister that if and when a reconstruction of the Government took place he would seek to depart into private life, and I am sure that no one would grudge his decision in that respect. But I know that he will take with him the good will of all. His great knowledge of industry, commerce and economics, which he has placed at the service of the House; his great courtesy in dealing with arguments opposed to his own; his personal modesty—possibly the most endearing characteristic in a public man; and his complete disinterestedness could not have failed, I think, to make a profound impression on all those who worked with him.
I, of course, owe him a special debt which, as Leader, I feel bound to acknowledge, as he was for some time Deputy Leader to me. He undertook, often at short notice, and often at great personal inconvenience, every kind of burden that was laid upon him; and he undertook them with skill, generosity and understanding. I know the House will share my feelings when I say that, in him, the Cabinet have lost a most useful Member, and the House a most agreeable Member of the Front Bench, although I am sure the House will also agree with me in saying that we hope not to be deprived of his counsel, from whatever seat he chooses to sit upon, at frequent intervals in the future. My Lords, having said that, I beg to move that the Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
4.23 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I think the action of the noble Viscount the Leader of the House on this Motion is to be approved, in that it gives him an opportunity to give the first explanation about at least one of the Ministers who have disappeared from the Cabinet Room. This is the first I have heard or read of the fact that there was a sort of understanding existing between the Prime Minister and our noble friend, I think we may all say, Lord Mills. Whether any of us could have possibly expected it to happen on Friday the 13th, I do not know. It seemed an extraordinary day. I was never more surprised in my life than to receive a Royal Command Invitation to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace on Friday the 13th. I do not remember such an occasion in my fairly long public experience. Then this experience was crowned with the most thrashing attack that I ever remember in my experience upon the membership of a Cabinet during the course of any Cabinet reconstruction.
However, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Mills, is not distressed in any way about the situation as regards himself. He has been in many respects a very great public servant. Those of us who worked in the various committees and organisations connected with war production will never forget his services in the Ministry of Production, in Committees at the Ministry of Supply and later, during the reconstruction period, as Chairman of the British Chambers of Commerce and also as Chairman of a large industrial firm which was prominent in my youth in Bristol, as well as later on in Birmingham. He proved himself as a business man of considerable experience and achievement, and when he was requested by the Government to become a Minister in this House I felt sure—I said so at the time—that he would give good service. But we had still to learn even more of the courtesy and the kindness and the consideration which, in this atmosphere of political controversy at times and friendliness at others, could hardly have been more perfect.
I should like to pay my tribute to Lord Mills for the patience he has exercised, not only during the long course already pursued by the Bill that we are
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now to discuss at its final amending stage, but also in regard to the Pipelines Bill. I think the speeches that are being made in another place just now are bound to draw attention to the importance of that measure because of the large number of Amendments that we were able to secure through the noble Lord, Lord Mills, and other Ministers who were working with him on that Bill. I have found him at all times approachable, courteous and patient, but never, of course, thinking of letting his own side down. But we were very happy to have him in the position, and we very much regret that he is no longer there. We look forward now with increasing interest to discovering who is likely to succeed to Cabinet status in this House, or whether the Leader is to be left with a reduced first eleven.
4.26 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I agree that this final stage of the Transport Bill seems to be a most appropriate moment to refer, I am sure with friendship and appreciation, to the Minister who chiefly piloted it through so well, and on whom the burden of this type of particularly labourious Bill seems to have fallen on several occasions. He really has laboured like Hercules; and I should like to take the opportunity of denying the popular supposition that your Lordships' House is the rubber stamp of another place. If ever the reverse was proved to be the case, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, certainly proved it.
It has for some time—indeed, of course, ever since the last General Election—been the hope of both Opposition Parties that a change of Government would take place at the very earliest opportunity. To have seen all Her Majesty's present Ministers retiring collectively to other Benches would have given a great but impersonal satisfaction. But to witness just one or two specific individuals leaving the Front Bench cannot, I think, fail to bring, in circumstances like the present, a feeling of real personal regret unconnected with any sort of Party outlook—and it does, I think, underline that pleasant but inconsistent characteristic of your Lordships' House in particular, where personal friendships cut right across political antagonisms.
My Lords, the duties which fell to the noble Lord, Lord Mills, were both

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arduous and detailed; and probably more than any other Minister, I think, he has had to face the insistencies and the frustrations of a persistent Opposition. During the five years of his membership of this Chamber we have, of course, grown to know him as a "sea-green unconvertible": Balbus himself never built such a stone wall. But we also know him as unfailingly courteous and kind, as the noble Viscount has said; always appreciative of the arguments which it was his duty to refute—or, at least, to repel. And outside the walls of this Chamber his approachability and friendliness have endeared him to us all. So we bid farewell to him as a Minister, but we are glad—very glad, indeed—that he remains with us, politically no doubt still an adversary, but personally and communally, I think, a valued friend and colleague, to whom we extend every good wish in an easier and, we hope, a more enjoyable rôle.
4.30 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, it is given to few Members of your Lordships' House to have the enjoyment of reading their political "obituary" notices in the following day's Hansard—and, knowing the noble Lord, Lord Mills, as I do, I am sure that that, at least, will appeal to him. But I venture to express one or two words because during the whole of the noble Lord's tenure of office on the Front Bench of your Lordships' House up to twelve months or so ago I was always engaged in conflict with him from the Opposition Front Bench. I should like to testify to his unfailing courtesy, the soundness of his argument, and his sympathy with the arguments, come they from any quarter of your Lordships' House. I suppose the noble Lord, Lord Mills, would hold the record for accepting Opposition Amendments when he possibly could, and that, I think, is the finest tribute I can pay him. We shall miss him, and we shall miss him even as much as the Government will miss him.
I hope that the noble Lord will decide to give us the benefit of his vast experience. We have far too few industrialists in your Lordships' House. Those who receive the great honour of a peerage, I think, always seem to look
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upon it as an honour for services rendered in the past, instead of for services which this House should expect from them in the future; and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Mills, will prove the exception. I pay my tribute to him, because I learned to respect him, and I have a very great friendship with him in this House, as I had outside. For my part, I shall miss him very much.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
4.31 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD moved, after Clause 6, to insert the following new clause
Station car parks
".—(1) It shall be the duty of the Railways Board to make reasonable provision for the parking of motor vehicles bolonging to railway users and others at railway stations within their control.
(2)The council of a county in England or Wales may contribute towards the cost of any provision made under the foregoing subsection in respect of railway stations within the council's area."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first Amendment on the Marshalled List. This is the fifteenth day in the passage of this Bill, and much water has passed beneath the bridge. The events of the week-end have taken two noble Lords from our midst, and whilst the "big guns" have paid their tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Mills, perhaps I, as one of "the boys" (if I might use the phrase)—one of those who have taken part in the debate on this Bill—might express our own very great appreciation to the noble Lord. The noble Lord has certainly met with dignity and kindness the points which have been made. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, that if the Liberals had token a greater part in the debate they would have known that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, did not stonewall all the time. In fact, one could say that there have been improvements to the Bill. Marginal, they may be, but improvements were made; and I think it is fair to say that these improvements were largely due to the common se4nse of the nolble Lord. My Lords, I hope that we shall have the noble Lord in our midst for many years to come, and that we shall hear a good deal from him. It will be particularly interesting to discover his approach on many matters now that he has left the Front Bench.
My Lords, the Amendment for which I ask your support this afternoon is very similar to that which I moved on the Report stage—an Amendment that I introduced after consultation with the County Councils Association. The Government replied to it in a most unsatisfactory manner. In many respects they conceded the points which I made in support of the Amendment, but they requested that I withdraw it, or that the House should not accept it, largely on what I would call legalistic grounds. In the Amendment that is before your Lordships this afternoon I have tried to deal with those legalistic complaints.
My Lords, we have an existing problem in London, the congestion of our traffic, and it is the undoubted wish of the Minister to see that fewer vehicles are brought into the centre of London than at present. But it is equally true that in our main railway junction areas, such as Guildford, Reigate, Redhill—and many other towns will spring readily to mind—the very evils which we have in the City and in the West End are building up. We are getting very heavy traffic congestion, caused not only by the added numbers of vehicles on the road, but by the number of vehicles which are being left in the streets from very early in the morning to very late at night by the normal commuter. The local authorities are finding that their own car parks which they have provided, instead of being used by the local inhabitants for their normal requirements, such as during shopping and the like, are being filled solid from the very early part of the morning, with the result that those spaces are no longer available to the local community. In fact, these vehicles are being parked upon the roads, creating congestion and dangers to the pedestrian.
It may be said that it is not the duty of the Railways Board to provide car parks. But we must encourage as many people as possible to use the public train services. There are many who, bringing their cars to the railway centres, do so because there is an inadequate bus service from their homes to the station. There was a voluntary survey made some months ago in Tonbridge, and it worked out that approximately 60 per cent. of the persons who were taking their cars
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to their railway station did so because their bus services were inadequate, or because they were so badly timed that the commuters would find considerable delay, either in catching their train, or in returning home in the evening. Therefore, these people were finding it more convenient, and in some cases more necessary, to use their private cars. I think that this tendency, particularly when one considers the railway closures of branch lines, will grow and that the pressure at these railway junctions will increase. The county councils are extremely concerned at the position to-day, and at What it may well be in a few years' time.
It may well be that the railways are not under a duty to provide car parks. They certainly have been given powers—powers which are not being used to any great extent. Very few of the railway car parks are adequate for present-day needs. It is not the duty, I believe, of the county councils themselves, out of their ratepayers' money, to provide car parks for the commuters; because many of these commuters may be persons who do not live in the particular area which would have to provide the finance for these car parks.
Therefore, we shall have this conflict of interests: that the railways, certainly in the next few years, will not wish to indulge in heavy capital expenditure; and, on the other side, the county councils will be reluctant to use ratepayers' money for car parks. The purpose of my Amendment, therefore, as I described it on the Report stage, is to bring about a co-operative effort by the Railway Boards and the county councils to provide adequate car parks adjacent or as close as possible to main railway stations; that this should be a joint effort; that the Railway Boards and the county councils should share together the capital expenditure involved in the development of these car parks; and, if necessary, that the two bodies should bear some of the cost of servicing, and providing facilities in, these car parks. I do not believe that either of these bodies will provide these car parks unless there is a special drive by the Minister, and I believe that it would be right in the first instance to lay the duty upon the Railways Board in this Bill to make

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reasonable provision for car parks. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 6, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Shepherd.)
4.40 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, commuting from the outer commuting belt, I have given some attention to this problem for a number of years, and I agree with the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. Nevertheless, I think that this Amendment is too strong. Though it certainly should be their policy, I do not think it right to put this duty on the railways, because in many places it would be impossible to fulfil the duty—for instance, where land costs were quite prohibitive, or the land was built up and was already occupied in a useful way. Moreover, in some places, large private-enterprise car parks are available. In fact, when you are lucky enough to find one of them, you find that they charge less than the railways.
At the junction of Three Bridges the car park is expanding almost monthly to fit the ever-increasing number of cars parked there every day, the railway land having for years been quite inadequate for the purpose. The same applies, I believe, at Hayward's Heath, another great commuting junction. The situation at Horsham has been very bad for many years, and I believe that not long ago there was a waiting list of several years to get a place in the official station car park. An attempt is being made by the local authorities and the railways to improve conditions, but, of course, it is very late. At Crawley, the position appears to be bad, but a new station is planned in due course.
All this, combined with the fact that trains are overloaded, is naturally tending to make people motor to other stations in order to park their cars and catch the train. But they motor up the line, not down the line; and therefore the railway is going to lose revenue in fares. Even the latest commuting station in that part of Surrey, at Gat-wick Airport station, is filling up rapidly. When that station was being constructed, I asked the Government whether they would ensure that there was plenty of oar space. They assured me that there was. Well, there still is;
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but I do not know for how long it will continue to be adequate. The trouble is that, with accommodation in London being so difficult and expensive, people are scattering all over the Home Counties, and the car park at the station is an essential part of getting to work. No doubt in their own interests the railways are doing their utmost to provide facilities, but I do not think that it is right to put a duty on them. Administrative action is the thing that should be taken. I think the best hope is that Dr. Beeching, who is a businessman (I think I am right in saying that he is the first purely businessman who has run the railways of this country for a long time), will see this in the correct light and will not require too much prodding from the Minister to do his duty.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I find myself in agreement with nearly everything the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said, except when he asked your Lordships to accept this Amendment. Here, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. Surely this is an administrative job. If we are to put into this Bill every administrative act which any part of the transport system should carry out in order to make the system more attractive to their customers, we are going to have a Bill 40 to 50 times larger than this one. Undoubtedly one of the outstanding needs is to attract motor-car commuters to the railways by providing adequate car parks. I am a commuter and have to start for my railway station half-an-hour before train time, not to catch the train, but to get a place in the car park. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that if the new Beeching régime has not the business acumen to see this, it is as qualified for the position as the last régime was. I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, not to press this Amendment, but I think that it should be the duty of Parliament to watch this matter carefully and see that action is taken.
4.47 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, in thinking about this Amendment and the problem it involved, it occurred to me that it might be useful to the House if I were to give some factual information about what is being done. Perhaps this would be particularly useful, in view of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord

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Shepherd, about inactivity. I am not complaining about them. At the moment I should like merely to state the facts without comment.
London Transport now provide car parks at 50 of their stations. In 1954, they had just over 1,400 places for motor cars, but last year the figure had gone up to just over 3,200. They have been increasing capacity during the present year, and by mid-August there will be spaces for nearly 3,400 cars at London Transport stations. They have already approved extensions to provide another 590 spaces and have under consideration plans for a further 1,080. The Southern Region of British Railways have 224 stations within 20 miles of London, of which 121 have car parks. In 1961, their capacity was 4,600 cars, having gone up by 1,200 since 1959. Since then, two new car parks have been provided. Of those 121 car parks, only 30 are at present used to capacity. The Western Region have 21 stations within 20 miles of London, of which eleven have car parks. These car parks increased their capacity from 520, in 1959, to 650, in 1961. Eight of them are fully used. The Midlands Region have 45 stations within 20 miles of London, of which 21 have car parks. The capacity of these increased from 960 to just over 1,000 in 1961. Only eight are fully used. Similar figures apply to the Eastern Region, but I think I have said sufficient to give an indication that at least London Transport and British Railways have not been entirely inactive in this matter, and that there have been improvements.
The fact that I have referred to numbers of car parks that are not fully used must be regarded with a certain moderation when drawing conclusions, because I am well aware, and I admit, that in other centres, such as the places mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, there is definitely a problem. But I do not want it to be thought, as it seemed to be, that we are quite unaware of what are the problems and how they relate to traffic. I do not disagree, any more than did the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, with the principle of the case put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. I do not complain in the least that he has put it forward; I think he was right to do so. My point is that the Amendment which
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the noble Lord has put down does not give the Railways Board any powers that they do not already possess. I might point out that the other three statutory Boards also have the same powers, which are quite adequate, under Clause 14 of the Bill as now drafted.
What causes me difficulty, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and my noble friend Lord Hawke, is not what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, wants to do, but his method of doing it—in fact, the form of his Amendment. I think that to place an express duty, in what we hope is shortly to become an Act of Parliament, on the Railways Board to provide car parks in the terms of the Amendment, without any reference to what may be the cost of the car parks, the revenue they may bring in and their possible profitability might well involve the Railways Board in very heavy expenditure, particularly in the centres of large cities, such as my noble friend Lord Hawke mentioned, where land is very expensive and might have to be acquired at great cost, perhaps by compulsion.
Moreover, the clause, as it would be drafted, does not leave the Railways Board to decide what is reasonable in the circumstances; and it is quite possible that it might turn out to be a matter to be taken before the courts to decide in a particular case if there was dissatisfaction as to whether the Railways Board were or were not discharging their duty under the clause. I am sure that that is not the kind of complication which the noble Lord would wish to follow from his Amendment. I wonder whether it is right to place an express statutory duty on the Railways Board to provide car parks when there is no similar duty on local authorities. They have powers, but no duty is put on them; and they, after all, are the road traffic authorities, who should be concerned with such matters. Because there may be many occasions when there is a pressing need for a car park in the vicinity of the railway station, and yet it might be inappropriate to place on the Railways Board a specific duty to meet that need, which may arise to a considerable degree from the general traffic conditions, which are not all engendered by the presence of the railways. Further, there is no provision in the clause to place on any of

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the other three statutory Boards a similar duty to provide car parks. I think that, certainly as regards the London Board, and, to some extent, the Docks Board, the same kind of argument could be advanced in support of their having some duty in this respect.
I turn now for a moment to the position of local authorities. At the moment, local authorities have full powers to provide car parks under Section 81 of the Road Traffic Act and under the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act. They also have powers, under Section 13 of the Road Traffic Act and under the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act, to arrange with other persons for the provision of car parks on such terms as they think fit. So that, to the extent of local authorities, other than county councils, the point in the second part of the noble Lord's Amendment is more than half met, because there already exists this possibility of the local authority and the Railways Board getting together to share the provision of a car park. This does not apply, as such, to county councils. These powers for local authorities stem from the Road Traffic Act and the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act. County councils, for various reasons I need not go into, are not included, because it has always been thought appropriate for the next tier of council below county council to be the authority in this respect.
If there is to be a power for county councils to join in, then I do not think this is the way to do it. I must say (although I am bound to admit that it is a slightly technical argument), that a new power would be created. In practice, I think I am right in saying that under Section 56 of the Local Government Act county councils in England and Wales have a general power to contribute to the expenditure of a council of a county district in their county for whatever it is they are doing. Therefore, I suppose it can be argued that it would not be impossible for a county council to contribute in this way, although rather by the back door. I think that this perhaps goes a little further to meet the second half of the noble Lord's point.
I do not complain that the noble Lord rather complained at my advancing legalistic arguments, because I think
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that, where an Amendment has an effect such as this Amendment has, it is my clear duty to point it out to your Lordships, however legalistic it may seem in relation to the importance of the problem that we are considering and trying to do something about. This is a point which has come up at rather a late stage in the Bill. I do not complain of that either. I said that I thought the noble Lord was right to raise it, and I still think that, because it is of importance. I am in a slight difficulty to know exactly how to help the noble Lord, as I should like to do, because at this stage of the Bill there is little by way of procedure that is open to me.
The noble Lord said that he thought it desirable that special attention should be paid to this matter by the Minister in particular, and by Parliament. I should like to give him very seriously and firmly an undertaking that when my right honourable friend the Minister, who is very conscious of the strength of the point the noble Lord has raised, comes to discuss the functions and what is to be done under Clause 14, not only by the Railways Board but by the other Boards as well, which he will have to do in due course, he will make a very strong point of bringing home to them the desirability and the reasons for providing car parks in the circumstances the noble Lord described, and he will use—I suppose "his best endeavours" would be the proper phrase, to see that this problem, if not entirely cured, is at least minimised as much as it may be and as quickly as possible. I hope the noble Lord, in particular, and your Lordships, will accept that in the serious manner in which I am putting it forward, and that the noble Lord will not wish to press his Amendment after I have given that undertaking.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his reply? I should be less than generous if I did not respond to his last few words and the assurances that he gave. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 [London Board's road services outside London]:
LORD CHESHAM LORD CHESHAM moved, after subsection (5), to insert:
"(6) Any order under the last foregoing subsection shall be made not later than the vesting date."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will perhaps recall that on Report I gave an undertaking to my noble friend Lord Hawke that I would consider an Amendment in relation to the statutory instrument which the Minister has to make to certify that certain routes were operated by London Transport at a certain time, in order that the powers they assume on vesting day could continue to operate without dislocation to those services. As I recollect, my noble friend was worried that an order might be made, and subsequently another order, and possibly another one if one could think of anything to put in it. I pointed out at the time that these orders were statements of fact and that one was unlikely to discover anything new, but at the same time it seemed reasonable to accede to my noble friend's request that any order made under this provision should be made not later than the vesting date.
That does not entirely meet my noble friend's point, in that it does not entirely preclude there being two orders and not one. But the point of leaving it longer than three months, as he asked, was to enable adequate consultations to take place with the various interests affected to make sure that the order was as near as possible right to start with. I think my Amendment will meet his point that there can be no later orders after the period in which they should appear. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 20, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Chesham.)
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for having met me in this way. I think it is most desirable and important that the London Transport Executive routes, in so far as they go outside their own boundary, should be laid down; and it is desirable that they should be laid down once and for all. I have no doubt that there will be consultations between the interested parties and that the list, as finally promulgated by statutory order, will be the correct one. I am grateful to my noble friend.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.5 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, as I come now to the stage where I move that this Bill do mow pass, I feel your Lordships will wholeheartedly agree that at least I was right when I began to move the Second Reading with words to the effect that this was a long and complex Bill. I think the OFFICIAL REPORT of your Lordships' consideration of the Bill through its various stages alone proves that. But what I think is more important is that it shows the measure of the care and attention your Lordships have given the Bill. If your Lordships read back through the OFFICIAL REPORT, it also shows the wide range of knowledge and experience which the House was able to bring to bear, as is so often the case with your Lordships' House.
Another measure of the consideration your Lordships have given the Bill must surely be that at the moment we are proposing to send it to another place with 170 Amendments. It is perfectly true that 83 of those are the famous ones which had to do with the name of the Waterways Board, but that leaves, as I calculate it, 87 others—I had better say E. & O.E. because I think it must be 88 with the Amendment we have just passed. While no doubt a number of those are minor or drafting Amendments, there were others, on important things like coastal shipping, the police, the development of land, the Transport Users' Consultative Committees, the National Transport Advisory Council, the responsibility of the Holding Company for consultation, and the application of the Bill to Northern Ireland—matters of some importance. In spite of this, I know, because they have voiced complaints about it, that one or two noble Lords felt aggrieved that the Government did not accept a higher proportion of Amendments. As I said at one moment, the Government's duty is to consider their attitude to any Amendment on its merits, and to resist it or otherwise accordingly.
However that may be, there is one thing I should like to say with the greatest sincerity. I should like to pay my humble tribute, if I may, to noble Lords behind me and noble Lords opposite for the most serious and responsible way in which they have set about their

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contributions to getting the Bill right, and the immense amount of time and trouble they have devoted to the task. The fact that there are deep differences of opinion between us, and a fundamentally different mode of approach, does not in the least detract from what I say as regards noble Lords opposite. They clearly have put a great deal of work and energy into this, and I do not think your Lordships generally, and his colleagues an particular, will mind if I say how much we must admire the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, on this Bill. I may not often have agreed with his point of view, but I should like to be the first to recognise how mightily he must have wrought on this Bill.
I should also like to express my personal thanks to my noble and learned Leader, and my noble and learned friend, whose congenial presence, as well as his wise guidance, we shall miss from the Woolsack. Also, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Dundee for his help and, by no means least, my noble friend Lord Mills. It has been much better said, but perhaps I, too, in thanking him for what he has done on this Bill, might accord to him my own gratitude for having had the proud privilege of working in the shadow of his kindliness and his ability and wisdom, not only in the long course of this Bill but on other Bills as well.
The Government have been fortified and encouraged during our debates by the fact that there have been no convincing arguments against the basic purposes of the Bill providing for the British Transport Commission's activities to be reorganised, financially reconstructed, and put on a basis of operation suited to present-day conditions. As I have said, there are differences of opinion on this, and some of them are rooted in differences of political approach. But the Government are convinced that the transport problem As too serious, that transport services are too important to the country, for them to be tackled in any other way than by making a new approach based on the practical needs of the situation. My Lords, I do not underrate, in any way, the difficulties that are ahead. The railways lie, we know, at the heart of them, and I think that the tasks that will fall on the new Boards
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and the Holding Company will be heavy ones. Whatever may be the view of how these tasks should be carried out, I am sure your Lordships will wish to see that the new undertakings get every encouragement and will wish them success in their vitally important endeavours. I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Chesham.)
5.11 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I would express my grateful thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for the tribute he paid to my noble friend Lord Shepherd. As he truly said, my noble friend has worked hard and effectively at the head of an Opposition team which he has seen to it has been a happy one. I feel that the same can be said of the Government team, which has also worked so hard and devotedly on this Bill. I would again say what it was possible to say at an earlier stage of the Bill, that we are grateful to noble Lords on the Government Front Bench and to the noble and learned Earl—as I suppose I must now say—who until recently sat on the Woolsack. They, too, have helped to make our task a happy one, although I will not say a light, and certainly not a short, one. It has all been in what I regard as the best traditions of your Lordships' House and we are very grateful to them for their consideration and care, and for the fact that our arguments have been listened to. I will not say they were answered, but they were certainly dealt with.
I feel that I must say a few personal words of regret at the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, is not here to-day to take part in this debate and at the reason for that. We have heard words eloquently said by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, my own noble Leader and the noble Leader of the Liberal Party. Your Lordships will not want an addition from me, but I would say that when they mentioned his kindness, his courtesy, and his wisdom, they were no mere formal words. Any noble Lord who had anything to do in this House with the noble Lord, Lord Mills, will agree that they were a mere statement of fact. Certainly I very much regret that he is not with us. I can understand how much the noble and learned

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Viscount, Lord Hailsham, regrets that he will no longer be sitting immediately next to him in the Cabinet as he has done for so many years. I can only express my sincere hope that they will be sitting side by side before very long on the Front Opposition Bench.
Although what I have said is very sincere, and we shall not vote against the Motion now before the House, it does not mean that we are not strongly apposed to a great deal that is in this Bill. Indeed, we feel now that the Government have no mandate for it. The recent shattering by-election results show that the Government have lost the confidence of the country. The recent near decimation of the Cabinet shows that the Government have lost confidence in themselves. We feel that the contents of a parcel cannot be changed by altering the labels and neither can the basic faults of this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said that the major differences between us were on the basis of a different political approach. Indeed we have called it differences of ideology, and I think that so far as transport is concerned the ideology that has been put forward by the Government is in fact opposed by the people who are mainly affected and, indeed, so far as my experience goes, by every organisation interested in an efficient and progressive transport service for passengers and freight. I believe that When this Bill comes into operation and its implications are fully understood the people will reject it.
I will make it perfectly clear that we on this side of the House accept that the railway service must be adapted and perhaps to some extent streamlined to meat present needs, but it is quite obvious that for many years the railways must be the backbone of our transport system. The British Railways freight map shows that 95 per cent. of goods traffic is carried by 50 per cent. of the railway network. I do not doubt that when the passenger map is published there will be a similar result. If profitability is to be the sole, or even the overriding, criterion, then there must inevitably be wholesale rail closures, particularly in places like Scotland, Wales, East Anglia and South and South-West England. But I submit—and this is the point of my remarks—that before these closures come into
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effect there are certain basic questions which must be asked and answered.
The first is: which of these lines which it is proposed to close would be economic if the railways were subsidised to the same extent as road users are subsidised? This is not an ideological point. The current edition of Crossbow, which I believe is the organ of the Bow Group of Conservatives, in its leading article, says:
"Market conditions … (which face British Railways and determine what Dr. Beeching decides is an economic policy) … are themselves distorted by the quite unrealistic pricing system on the roads. If road-users had to pay real costs … quite different conditions, pointing to quite different pricing, closure and investment decisions might confront The Doctor. If one part of the system is run according to rigid economic disciplines while the rest is run according to nothing in particular, the result could be to make the chaos worse than at present—if that is possible."
So I am supported in my first point by apparently informed Conservative opinion.
The second point which I submit has to be answered is this. Is there an untapped demand for the line? Has everything been done by publicity and salesmanship to attract passengers and goods traffic? Thirdly, can some lines be run profitably on a seasonal basis with or without the help of local subsidies from local authorities, educational authorities, race courses or holiday camps? I think the Minister should explore all these ideas thoroughly before we allow a great capital asset to be destroyed and the traffic diverted to the already over-burdened and dangerous road systems. Even when those three, and perhaps other, questions have been answered there will still, I am afraid, be many justifiable closures.
About these there are a fresh number of questions that have to be asked. The first and most important is: is alternative public transport available, not only for passengers but for goods? During most of our discussions we have been speaking about alternative available transport for passengers and have not said much about the position for the rural areas, of their parcels and freight traffic. What is going to happen when some of these communities are 50 miles from the nearest station? What is going to happen to the parcels traffic? How is that to get there?

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This is not an idle thought. They are questions that will have to be answered. For example, in March last year the Minister of Housing and Local Government formed a mid-Wales Committee to consider ways in which the economy of mid-Wales might be developed and strengthened. It will be a curious way of developing and strengthening the economy if the Government make a start by withdrawing "he railway facilities from that area. In such areas no sort of service will be economic. Therefore we must have an assurance from the Government—I hope the noble Lord will give it—that they will see that subsidised services are provided; otherwise areas like that will become almost completely depopulated.
I should like to know whether an estimate has been made, or, if not, is going to be made, of the public costs of the roads which will be needed to carry the extra traffic. I think if this were done the Government would have to look again at the criteria used to decide which railway services were uneconomic. The fact is you cannot have a sane and efficient national transport system when every part of it competes blindly for all forms of traffic. You cannot determine whether or not a railway track should be torn up just by asking if it makes a profit or not, because quite apart from commercial principles railways provide in many cases an indispensable social service. Other countries who have closed down railways have found that is true. They are having to rebuild them again at great cost because they cannot provide enough roads to handle the traffic. All these questions should have been asked and answered before we were asked to consider a Transport Bill.
This Bill will soon be an Act of Parliament, but the questions I have asked will remain and will have to be answered, because if they are not answered before major changes are permitted the country, in my view, will suffer a major economic and social disaster. We must have a transport system which, in addition to what is economically necessary, provides services which are socially indispensable. I am afraid that with their past views, which are unlikely to change, it is too much to hope that such a service will come from the pre-
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sent Government. Fortunately, the time is running out, and I think it will not be long before we have a chance to get on with the job.
5.25 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the main object of this Bill has been to cut down these railway losses, and the simplest way to approach it, of course, would be to shut down the railway system. But we must see that Dr. Beeching does not adopt that easy solution, because, though it is not nearly so easy to increase efficiency, it must be done. One cannot really say that the railways are efficient until they can guarantee a time of arrival for goods traffic, coupled, I hope, with a penalty clause for any consignments which do not arrive on time. To my mind, that is far more important to the commercial community than speed, and it has been reflected more than once in letters to the Press. Even for passengers I am not sure that absolute regularity in time-keeping is not more important than the last extremes of speed. I think that Her Majesty's Government should be aware that there is a growing feeling in the country that if only we could manage to put more traffic on to rail and off the roads it would be a much pleasanter land to live in. But until the railways are efficient we cannot expect that solution to be fulfilled.
The railway losses have brought home to the general public with a shock how vast is the proliferation of privately owned transport and, with it, the inevitable losses to the least adaptable and least flexible of public transport—that is, the railways. While we are putting our house in order we have not only to tackle the railway losses but, in the process, to get more rationalisation and streamlining of public transport as a whole. The Conservative philosophy believes that competition makes for the efficiency of those competing. For that reason we have not done much in the past to discourage competition in the field of public passenger transport. We have left it to the traffic commissioners, but of course they must have been influenced by the idea of reasonable competition. To-day, with so much private transport available, it is a luxury to have public road, public rail and public air transport all operating on the same

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routes. Ever-increasing competition is created by private transport that is quite sufficient to keep any form of public transport on its toes, and it may well be that the traffic commissioners through their charter, Section 72 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, may require to have some new interpretation placed on their duties.
Public transport is competing in a shrinking market. Some of us believe that one of the most important things is to got more co-ordination between road and rail over passenger transport. Our Amendment to try to secure that the British Transport Commission bus shares were inherited by the Railways Board was designed to this end. We felt that by giving the railways the whole financial stoke in a substantial part of the bus operators in the country, and a partial stake in a large portion of the rest, there would be much more chance of co-ordination. But the Minister did not agree. However, that is over and done with.
The Minister thinks he has learned that the railways could never have sufficient influence over bus operators to induce them to look after rail interests, because he thinks that the British Transport Commission's representatives on the bus boards in the past may not have done so efficiently. This argument may or may not have been valid in the past, but I believe that for the future it is greatly outweighed by the great advantages of having rail and bus men in from the beginning on the problem of the redeployment of passenger transport which will have to take place in the future. And, quite frankly, under the Minister's scheme, as the Bill stands I do not think this can take place very easily. The proposals for closure of the rail services will be put up unilaterally by the railways. They will not have the preliminary study of what is to take their place and at what cost. It may be found that some services which Dr. Beeching proposes to give up could be made cheaper to run under the Light Railways Act than any bus substitute that could be run. Equally, other services which Dr. Beeching has not proposed to close down, because they break even or run at a little loss, could, quite possibly be replaced at a substantial profit by a bus service.
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The railways are unlikely to take the initiative in change unless they are likely to benefit financially, either by the elimination of losses or by sharing in or taking wholly the profits. Contrariwise, I should have thought that an immediate examination should be made of long-distance bus services which compete most directly with the rail. In passing, I should say that though in debate in the course of this Bill the London-Birmingham services were mentioned, they being a joint Commission and B.E.T. company, yet there are other buses competing with rail for longer distance traffic—for instance, London to Scotland and the Royal Blues to Cornwall, which I understand are carried out by wholly-owned subsidiaries of the British Transport Commission. These long distance services are a relic of the days When we thought we could afford to run more than one form of public transport on the same route.
The Minister has rejected the structure in the Bill under which we believe coordination could be made easily and naturally. But man is not a slave to his tables of organisation, and I hope the Minister will use all his powers to promote co-operation and co-ordination between buses and rail. For instance, in the regional study of passenger transport needs he should encourage the bus companies, whether wholly owned or partially owned by the Holding Company, to be invited in at an early stage. After all, they are best judges of what services the buses can offer, and at what cost. The burden is going to be put on them to do a lot of substituting for rail services, and advanced planning is required. Buses do not grow on gooseberry bushes. Drivers cannot be picked up every day at the Labour Exchange. Where there is a shortage of drivers, it may not in fact be possible to produce the services. Some of these services may have to have specially designed vehicles. For instance, in this country there do not yet appear to be vehicles with a proper luggage compartment in the interior of the bus which can take the place of that on the railway train.
There may be some railway redundancy in places. Will there be any joint scheme of training so that those who are displaced may be trained in road passenger work, either on the road itself or on the maintenance side? In support of

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this general plea the figures are most instructive. Comparing 1958 with the end of last year, private cars on the road have gone up from 4½ million to 6 million; motor cycles from 1½ million to nearly 2 million. The index of vehicle miles for cars indicates an increase of 46 per cent.; scooters, 104 per cent.; mopeds, 37 per cent.; motor cycles are a little down, and buses and coaches are down 8 per cent. In passenger journeys between 1958 and 1961 the railways are down 5 per cent. and buses and coaches down 2 per cent. Air passenger miles, domestic, have nearly doubled. Is it not obvious that road and rail passenger services must get together in face of growing competition from private vehicles and air transport? Dr. Beeching comes from a stable where cooperation between producers is not unknown. I hope that the spirit of cooperation and rationalisation will ultimately prevail. It seems to me that that is the only hope for rural Britain to have any public passenger services at all in the years ahead.
5.35 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before I address myself to the Bill, may I, as one who for all but one of these last sixteen years has been engaged either from the Government Front Bench or the Opposition Front Bench in every scrap of transport legislation with which your Lordships have had to deal, pay my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for what he has done to steer this most complicated Bill through your Lordships' House? If he will permit me to say so, I think he has always been good, but as time goes on he excels himself, and I think that this time his contribution was a Parliamentary performance of the highest order. May I also echo his words and pay a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd? This, I think, has been his first major job, and if he will permit me to say so with respect, I think he acquitted himself in a masterly fashion. I hope he will carry on in this way, because he showed all the adroitness of opposition without being either bad-tempered or fractious.
Is it not ironic, that we have been promised for the last ten years by the Chairman of the British Transport Com-
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mission, and had that promise endorsed every year for ten years by the Government, that 1962 was to be the year in which the British Transport Commission was going to show a profit? This was the year! Yet here we are, in that year moving that this Bill be now passed, when the total deficit has amounted to £1,175 million—that is the total amount that the taxpayer has lost. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, on current account it is running at a deficit of £150 million.
We are now painfully learning the stark truth. The latest bulletin from the Commission, the one that has been referred to, now tells us quite bluntly, in simple language, that the reason for all this is that 95 per cent. of the railway freight of this country is carried on 50 per cent. of the lines; and when the analysis of passenger traffic comes out it will not be very much different. Criticise the present Minister as much as you wish, but you can never criticise his courage in telling the truth. Then there is Dr. Beeching. How differently the stark economics of the position have been put to us, as opposed to the Cloud Cuckoo-land economics that emanated in the past and which were the cause of the colossal loss which the British taxpayer has had to bear!
This is a complicated Bill, and I sometimes think—having taken no part in it, because, after all, new voices and fresh minds, even in opposition, are welcome—that the Opposition have tried to make the Bill do too much. At its best it cannot solve the problems; it can only set up a structure within which, if there is sufficient ability, they can be solved. My Lords, I think that the problems will come, and have to come, and I understand from the latest bulletin issued by the Chairman, Dr. Beeching, that the first edition of the railways' plan will be ready by the end of the year.
The questions have been asked, "What are we going to do if we shut down all these railway lines?", and "What will happen if the only yardstick is profitability?" My Lords, it is not so much a question of what will happen, but of what has happened. The railways' traffic is on the road now. What are you going to do? The point in this Bill about which I am so apprehensive is, what alternative is going to be offered in our rural areas to provide the most

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economic form of transport?—I care not whether it is road or rail. It may not be profitable. That question has been raised continually right the way through this Bill, and it has not yet been answered. I do not blame the Government for not answering it. I think it will have to be answered when the whole transport plan is put before the country.
I hope the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, will not mind my saying that one of the greatest problems which we have to face is a change of heart by the unions connected with railways. You cannot run railways just for the sake of providing employment. You might just as well go and dig holes in the seashore, let the tide fill them up, and then start the process all over again the next day. As a country we face a terrific problem. There is great redundancy on our railways, and much new thinking must be applied to the problem. We cannot just say that so many per cent. of railway employees are redundant, without making adequate provision for their future employment. If we want to have first-class manpower on the railways, we must pay higher wages. One of the troubles with British Railways is that over the last ten years it has never recruited any brains in the mid-levels. Why? Because the railways have never met the wages and salaries of other industry and tirades. I can quite understand the railways saying," We cannot afford these increases." Of course they cannot, until they have solved the question of redundancy. These are some of the problems which we shall have to face. I do not think it is the job of the British Transport Commission to face them, because, as they have said many a time, their job is to make the railways pay. The social and political implications are for the Government, and I hope that the Government will face them.
My Lords, this cannot be done as a clean-cut job. As I think was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, just now, because a railway line does not pay, or because it does not pay even to put on alternative transport, that does not mean that large areas of the country have to be left without transport. The noble Lord touched on a very vulnerable point. It is no good anybody saying that it is not possible to run a rural bus service,
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when they put on a double-decker bus where a very small bus could cope with the traffic adequately. The whole outlook of providing transport in the rural areas has to undergo a lot of thinking, and I hope that the Ministry of Transport will not leave it entirely to the Commission to do. I have great faith in the present Minister in grappling with this problem, and I wish him success.
My Lords, this, I think, will be but the forerunner of many Bills, much legislation and great debate. This has not solved one of the problems of our transport system. All it has done is to set up a machine Which is the best the arguments in your Lordships' House and in the other place can devise. It is for us to see that it now works to the general and economic good of the country.
5.45 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, in making the last contribution from these Benches on this Bill, may I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, on their handling of the Bill during its course through this House? May I, too, in a few words but no less sincerely, add my tribute to the unfailing courtesy and assistance we received from the noble Lord, Lord Mills, and the noble and learned Viscount, the former Lord Chancellor?
Those are congratulations on the handling of the Bill. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, anticipated, there are no congratulations in the final stages of this Bill on the matter of policy. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, this Bill makes no contribution whatever to a solution of the transport problems which face this country. It is a Bill that will facilitate the dismantling of the railway system, but the Government have yet to appreciate (and I have seen no signs of this during the course of this Bill through this House; or in Government speeches in another place) that the railways of this country, like those in every country in the world, cannot on their own be a viable industry. On the basis of the Government's economics as applied in this Bill, not only would the railways in rural areas be dismantled, but there would be no postal service, no telephones, no electricity, no water, in the rural areas. Every one of those ser-

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vices in the rural areas of this country is not viable. In regard to the essential services which are necessary to those members of the community who live in the sparsely populated areas, the cost is borne by the rest of the community in the charges they pay for the service generally. The Government have at some time or other to face the problem of whether they regard transport as a service, or whether they are going to put it on a normal industrial basis. If it is to foe put on a normal industrial basis, it can only be to the disadvantage of the community as a whole.
My Lords, I must repeat this again in the final stages of this Bill. Transport is not a question of railways for railwaymen, or of buses for busmen, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, mildly suggested. Transport is a service to the community; and the only way to look at it is as a form of transport by the vehicle which is most suited to the journey and to the traffic to be carried. It is not a question of a war between road and rail, between rail and air, or between shipping and air. Using the correct vehicle for the traffic and the journey is the only way in which the problem can be tackled, so far as surface transport is concerned. Unless the transport system is integrated, and the costs of all forms are taken together, as was provided for in the 1947 Act, the industry as a whole will never be viable. But taking the industry as a whole there is every reason to believe that it could be viable.
Again, in the closing stages of this Bill I rather welcome the partial conversion of the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. We are getting somewhere when, from those Benches, he rises to plead that road and rail should get together, and for the integration of our passenger services, road and rail. I am sorry, my Lords, I must apologise: I do not think the noble Lord said "integration"; he said "co-ordination". But at least it is a good word coming from him.
I think that one ought to call attention to the completely muddled thinking that there has been on the part of this Government. In their Transport Act, 1953, they started destroying the integrated transport system established by the 1947 Act. Since 1953 there have been no fewer than 22 Acts of Parliament on
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transport. Some of these, it is true, have been the British Transport Commission's Bills to give effect to the various organisations that have had to take place arising from the 1953 Act. We have had ten White Papers and two Special Reports, all trying to remedy the damage that was initially started by the 1953 Act. Those of us who have been associated with the railways have been centralised, regionalised, reorganised, disorganised; and we have also suffered over that period the "Stop and go" on modernisation.
Now those associated with the railways of this country have to face a further period of upheaval. From these Benches I should like to express sympathy with the officers and staff of the railways of this country, who for the lifetime of this Government have been suffering frustration, arising from the fact that their industry has been used for playing politics. Had the officers of British Railways been allowed to get on with their job of modernising the railways, and to spend on getting traffic the time and energy which they have had to spend on preparing schemes of reorganisation for successive Ministers of Transport, answering questionnaires daily and preparing data daily for those same Ministers, then perhaps the railways would have been in a little better state than they are at the present time.
My Lords, we speed this Bill on its way; but, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said, this is not by a long way the last Transport Bill we shall have, because, unless the Government learn their lesson, so far as transport is concerned, we shall have not only another Bill to try to remedy the ills created by this Bill but a succession of Bills, as we have had over the past ten years. I conclude by again congratulating on a personal basis those on the Government Benches who have been associated with the progress of the Bill. Seeing the last of this Bill, no doubt they will be glad of the relief that comes with it, but from our side we are sad, because, as I have said, it makes no contribution to solving the problems which face this country of ours.
5.56 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for more than one

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thing that he said this afternoon. First of all, I am very grateful for what he said to me personally. As I understand, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, he does not propose to speak in this debate. Therefore, perhaps he will not mind if I join him with me in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for a sentiment with which I heartily concur, as your Lordships know, because I have said so. I was very glad, too, that the noble Lord referred to the "stark truth" and "facing reality", because that is entirely what my mind is running on this afternoon; and, in fact, it is the way the Government's mind (if one can use that particular phrase) has been running on the Bill altogether. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, further acknowledged that in his very welcome references to my right honourable friend and to Dr. Beeching.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that noble Lords on the Benches opposite were strongly opposed to the Bill. I had noticed that in the course of our proceedings, and I am not going to waver even as briefly, succinctly and (may I say?) moderately as did the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren. I am not going to address myself to any of the political differences that may exist, because we have been over it before in one way and another, time and again. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that the Government had lost confidence. He may, for all I know, have been generalising on a political basis and having a bit of fun; but so far as this Bill and what we are talking about is concerned, the Government have certainly not lost confidence in the Bill—not in the methods proposed and put forward under the Bill, and not in the new structure with which, as has been repeatedly said, it is the idea of the Bill to provide the new Boards, on which they can build soundly for the future. I think confidence would be lost if nothing were done to stop the present £150 million a year loss, a loss which on the present trends would tend to be a rising one.
The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, said that in certain circumstances no service, particularly in the rural areas, could be viable. I shall be coming back to this point. That may well be so, though I cannot necessarily see why, because such services cannot be viable, they need, in every case, without investigation, to be
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accepted as being as expensive as they are, and contributing to that large and entirely unacceptable loss. That is where confidence would be lost—if the Government were not to take action, and proper action, to stop it.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, asked a number of questions which he said would have to be answered in the future, and one of those was whether any thought had been given to the cost of new roads for extra traffic. My Lords, there cannot be an answer to that particular question at this present moment, because unless and until it is known what services are to be retained, what services are not, and what the pattern of the future and the general picture is going to be, it cannot be precisely said what the necessary, corresponding road pattern will be. But I will tell your Lordships this: that we do realise quite clearly that, in those cases where it is ultimately discovered that road transport can serve the public better than the rail transport, there will have to be consequential adjustments of the roads in many cases. In some cases, probably, the existing roads will be found adequate for the loads they have to carry; in others, particularly in urban areas, they may be found inadequate. I can assure your Lordships that this is one point which has been very far from overlooked, and which is being kept very much in the forefront of considerations for future planning.
The questions the noble Lord said will have to be answered will, of course, be answered—and they will be answered, in fact, in the course of the situation in which we are now finding ourselves. Really, to expect answers to those questions to be provided to-day (not necessarily in your Lordships' House by me; but to be provided at this time) is putting the cart firmly before the horse, because they are questions which can be answered only in the light of having full and accurate information.
Just exactly what is the position, and what is going on at the moment? I should like briefly to make sure that your Lordships know what it is. It falls into four stages. Stage one, in which we are at present engaged, is the traffic studies that Dr. Beeching is at present carrying on, which relate not only to the services on the lines but to the traffic which can best be carried,

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and how; and for those to be carried on to the stage of their analysis and completion—because they are what I might call the further tools of management that are necessary. Then, at the same time, stage two, which can to a certain extent overlap, is the dissemination of information to the public. The map which was published last Friday, showing the freight trains and carryings on the railways, is typical of that. I do not think it can be expected that the public at large will support the reorganisation that is necessary unless it knows in unequivocal terms what the position is and what is going on.
Stage three will come when all the traffic studies and the information to be obtained from them is finally collected and sorted. When that has been done the Transport Commission will place before the Government its broad proposals about the size, shape and pattern of the future railways system. At stage three there will be put forward what the situation demands in the opinion and considered view of those in the commercial position of having to run the railways.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, could the noble Lord (he is so interesting on this point) give us some idea of a timetable? Is that possible?
LORD CHESHAM: I think that I can, in rough terms. I certainly should expect the studies to be completed and well into analysis stage by or before the end of this year Then (though I cannot put any time on this) it will obviously be desirable that the conclusions and suggestions should be put before the Government as quickly as possible after that, because this problem is too urgent to permit of any "hanging about", so to speak. Then stage four, my Lords, will be for the Government to reach their own conclusions and to take into consideration many of the points to which your Lordships have been drawing attention.
A great deal has been said in the course of the discussions on the Bill about the dangers to the individual and to the public. I am not again going
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over all the various measures which have been incorporated into the Bill to protect the public, but I am going to say this to your Lordships—and I should like to make it quite clear what it is that I am talking about. When the Commission have completed their consideration and their plan, and have put it before the Government, if any decision has to be taken to solve passenger problems which is not based on a normal commercial approach—if there are other considerations involved in it—that will be the time for the Government to make such a political decision, and for the Government alone to take the responsibility of making it: in fact only the Government will be able to take it. But that is the time when decisions on the retention or otherwise of lines, routes and so on, on grounds other than commercial ones (on social grounds, or whatever they may be) will have to be taken by the Government.
I want to make that quite clear to your Lordships: that that is the time. It is no good trying to make such decisions in advance, such as now, before all the factors are known. When these are known the "chips will be down", so to speak; and that will be the moment for the Government to take such decisions—which, my Lords, they will take. In the meantime, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, rightly said, there are a lot of hard work and many heavy tasks in front of us. At the moment we are trying to provide no more than the structure and the foundation to enable the new organisation to fulfil their duty to the public, which we believe, with confidence, they will do with success.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

RIVER DART NAVIGATION BILL
Committed to a Select Committee.
REGENT REFINING COMPANY BILL
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.