Lords Sitting of 24 July 1962

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

PROTECTION OF BRITISH TRAVELLERS
2.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the interests of British travellers are adequately protected by existing agreements with other Governments, especially with regard to accusations of theft.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, British travellers abroad are naturally subject to the laws of the countries in which they are travelling. The existing agreements to which the noble Viscount refers are presumably the various bilateral Consular Conventions which have been concluded by Her Majesty's Government since 1949. For example, the Anglo-Norwegian Consular Convention provides that consular officers shall be informed immediately of the detention of British subjects in their districts, and shall be allowed access to them without delay. Similar Conventions with seven other countries, the United States of America, France, Greece, Mexico, Sweden, Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany, are in force, but in none of them is there any especial provision made with regard to accusations of theft.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his Answer, but might I draw his attention to the fact that from time to time we see reports in the British Press that English travellers have been
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had up for stealing cars, for example? The other day in The Times I saw a report that two British hikers had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for stealing a car, which they denied, and they said they had only spent a night in the car to shelter from the rain. Might I, however, ask the noble Earl whether it would be possible, considering the fact that our law is of course different from that on the Continent, for British passports to contain a slip pointing out to travellers that when abroad they do not have the protection of our own law in cases of theft; because I understand that under our law you have to prove——
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order! Order!
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I thought my noble friend very probably had certain specific cases in mind. I should be grateful if he would send them to me, and I will see whether anything can be done about them. Meanwhile, I hope that British travellers abroad, bearing in mind the differences in law, will be careful neither to steal nor to borrow any cars they may see standing about.

SKYBOLT AND CONTRACTORS' PROFITS
2.39 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of recent allegations and exposures of excessive profits in the United States missile industry, what steps they are taking to ensure that the funds appropriated for the purchase of Skybolt do not become the subject of such exposures and allegations.]
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, it is as much in the interests of the United States Air Force, through whom we are purchasing Skybolt, and with whose orders our own are integrated, to ensure that the contractors' prices are fair and reasonable. We are confident that if there were evidence

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that the contractors were making excessive profits on Skybolt, the United States Government would take the necessary stops to curb them; and that by purchasing Skybolt through the United States Air Force we shall be meeting our requirements in the most economical way.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. May the House take it that the likelihood of British funds ending up in the wrong hands may be gauged by the future performance of the United States Air Force in this respect?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, there were two ways in which we could buy this missile: either directly, by our own contract with the firms, or through the United States Air Force. The advantages of doing it through the United States Air Force are really quite considerable. We thought that this was the better way of doing it, and I think the noble Lord would agree that it is as much to the benefit of the United States Air Force to see that they get the missile as cheaply as possible as it is to our-selves.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE KUWAIT OPERATION
2.41 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Carriers "Victorious" and "Centaur" were carrying nuclear bombs when they sailed into the Persian Gulf in support of the Kuwait operation.]
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord asked me this very Question in his speech during the Navy Estimates' debate on July 11. I said then, and I can but repeat it, that it is the kind of question which is never answered.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, does the First Lord accept that if the threatened country in such a case as this does not know whether carriers have nuclear
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bombs on board, it must assume that they have and, to that extent, may be the more tempted to call upon another country to introduce nuclear weapons into the theatre to redress the balance?
LORD CARRINGTON: No, my Lords. I should have thought that the Question which the noble Lord asked me, which was about the Kuwait operation, showed not only that the British forces were very successful in preventing a war but that both Her Majesty's ships "Centaur" and "Victorious" took a notable part in that.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the First Lord, I am sure, appreciates that I do not dispute this at all. It is a question of fact.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord whether it is not a fact that Questioners in another place have been assured, time after time, by the Government that nuclear power would not be used without the House being informed? Therefore, how can it be said that this matter of policy cannot be discussed?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, if the noble Lady will look at the Question the noble Lord has put on the Order Paper, I think she will see it is really rather different from the supplementary that she has raised.

HOUSE PURCHASE AND EXCHEQUER LOANS
2.43 p.m.
LORD PEDDIE: 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 intend to restore the facilities under the House Purchase and Housing Act, 1959, whereby Exchequer loans were made available to approved building societies to enable them to lend more freely to purchasers of certain categories of older houses.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, the noble Lord will doubtless recall that it was made clear in answer to a Question in another place on June 5 that when

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the Government's House Purchase Scheme was suspended last year as part of the measures to reduce the burden of public expenditure, some £92 million out of the £100 manner would therefore require fresh legislation.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply, but I can hardly thank ham for the terms of it. I should be glad if the could indicate whether or not he is aware of the fact that loans granted to purchasers of, I think, 86,000 houses constituted a far more economic method of dealing with the housing question than that of direct subsidy. Would the noble Earl agree?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am of course aware of the advantages which flowed from the Scheme. In fact, it covered not 86,000 houses but, I think, just over 89,000; but that is a point of detail. I would draw the noble Lord's attention to one obvious limitation in schemes of this sort in which funds are made available for the purchase of old houses. The limitation is that this does nothing to increase the total supply of accommodation which is available in this country.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, would not the noble Earl agree that, while it does not increase the total supply available, it certainly improves the amenities of those houses that are purchased by these purchasers and which become habitable?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I would certainly agree with that.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, if the noble Earl agrees with that, in view of the favourable reply now could he give any indication that the Government intend to restore the facilities under these Exchequer grants?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give the noble Lord the reply which he wants, but I would inform him that the Government are keenly aware of the difficulties confronting house purchasers at the present time,
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especially younger couples of limited means, and that they are watching this position very closely indeed.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, could the Government do a little less watching and let us have a little more action? Are the Government determined to commit political suicide? Are they not aware that the people who would benefit, not from subsidies (my noble friend is not asking for subsidies) but from Government credit being extended to building societies are largely, though not entirely, the middle-classes—some are working class as well? And why do the Government go out of their way to offend their traditional supporters? They will get more Orpingtons, the way they are going on. It really is idiotic.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not think I should follow the noble Lord round those particular electioneering paths.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: The noble Earl was told to say that by the Leader of the House, I think; I think it was inspired. The Leader of the House would have taken refuge by not saying anything at all. But is it not clear to the noble Earl, that it is desirable that people should be able to purchase their own homes? Is there any crime in people owning their own homes? Would it not be a good thing that Government credit should assist people to be able to borrow on the most advantageous terms? What is the objection to that? It would be only a short Bill.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, does my noble friend remember the occasion when the Government, of Which the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was a distinguished member, withdrew an advertisement of the National Savings organisation that suggested that people might wish to buy their own homes?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It is not true. Now the noble Bad follows his noble Leader and does not answer.

NORTHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL
2.48 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Merthyr.)
LORD SPENS: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission may I intervene on this Bill for a very few minutes? I am the oldest, and in length of service by far the longest, of the Commonwealth War Graves Commissioners. During these last years the Commission has watched with great anxiety corporations taking and exercising powers to discontinue cemeteries, and to use the sites for other purposes. But until this Bill came before the House there had not been any Bill, we think, which was directed explicitly at cemeteries in which a number of war dead lie. In Northampton there are several cemeteries, one of which is being taken over, most rightly, by the Corporation. In this cemetery, some hundreds of war dead lie. Many of them, of course, were from Dominions, from the Colonies and from overseas.
As many of your Lordships know, under the Charter the Commission is responsible for looking after and maintaining all the Commonwealth war graves, wherever they are, whether in this country, in the Dominions and Colonies or in other places overseas. Therefore we have a duty imposed on us to safeguard to the best of our ability all these war graves which are, or may be, threatened under this Bill. In those circumstances we intervened and we have had inserted in this Bill Clause 28, a special clause designed to protect the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, so that no interference can take place with the war graves without the Commission's being informed, without our having an opportunity of suggesting the best way of dealing with the removal of monuments, headstones, or even of the remains of the dead themselves.
The Corporation, the Home Office and other Departments have co-operated with us in trying to get a really useful protection clause, and one which would
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be an answer to next of kin or relatives coming from overseas to visit the graves of their relatives and finding that the cemetery had ceased to exist and even that a building had been put up over the graves. We on the Commission are most grateful for the assistance we have had, and we hope that when, in the future, other local authorities (as we know they are proposing to do) come to Parliament for similar powers, they will accept the protective clause in this Bill, and that it may become a precedent for inclusion in future legislation of this nature.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments and passed, and returned to the Commons.

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

MAIDSTONE CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (GREAT YARMOUTH NEW BRITANNIA PIER) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (GREAT YARMOUTH PORT AND HAVEN) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (LANGSTONE HARBOUR) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

HERRING SUBSIDY (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME, 1962
2.54 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lands, I beg to move that the Herring Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, copies of which were laid before your Lordships on July 4, 1962, be approved. I hope that it will be convenient to your Lordships if I speak now also about the White Fish Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme and the two Schemes concerning grants for fishing vessels and engines; the White Fish Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) Scheme, 1962, and the Herring Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) Scheme, 1962.
If I may, I will deal first with the two Subsidy Schemes. Operational subsidies of this kind have been paid to the fishing fleet for some years now: but the Sea Fish Industry Act, 1962, which received its Third Reading in your Lordships' House very recently, makes possible certain changes in the methods of payment of subsidy. This is in accordance with the policy envisaged in the White Paper on the Fishing Industry published last August. I think that it would be helpful if I dealt with these changes first. A major change is that the Act provides for a new basic subsidy to be paid to vessels over 80 feet in length. This subsidy will diminish between the fixed limits of 7½ per cent. and 12½ per cent. each year over the next ten years. The Act itself did not prescribe the basic rates Which would be paid at the beginning of the ten-year period, but these were determined after negotiations with the English and Scottish trawler owners last autumn and published in an exchange of letters last November. The Scheme provides for these basic rates of £9, £13, and £15 per day at sea for near, middle, and distant water vessels respectively.
Your Lordships will know that the Scottish trawler owners have repudiated the agreement reached last year and have asked for basic subsidy rates to be fixed at a level very much higher than those contained in the Scheme. The fact that the Scheme contains the rates set out in the agreement indicates that the
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Government have not accepted the case put forward on behalf of the Scottish owners, and I should like to explain why this is so. In the first place, this agreement was reached as recently as last autumn. There would have had to be a very strong case indeed for the Government to tear up a voluntary agreement made so recently. It would have been particularly difficult to do so in this case when the British Trawlers' Federation, which represents the owners of four-fifths of the trawlers in the United Kingdom, wished to stand by the agreement.
Increasing the basic rates to the level suggested by the Scottish owners would have meant that the subsidy would represent about 40 per cent. of the gross earnings of these vessels. To fix the subsidy at such a level would call in question the whole basis of the Government's policy of achieving viability for the trawler industry over the next ten years. Indeed, the Scottish owners have made it clear that they do not think that, in the present state of the industry, viability can be realistically considered. I am sure your Lordships will agree that there can be no justification for giving up the policy set out in the White Paper and incorporated in the Sea Fish Industry Act, solely because of the results of one year's bad fishing. The Scottish vessels—and this is also true of the English vessels—did reasonably well in the two years before last year, and we hope that it will not be long before they are doing well again. This poor fishing may be one of the fluctuations which are a natural feature of fishing, and it would be quite wrong to fix a subsidy rate which would determine subsidies for ten years ahead on the basis of one such fluctuation.
The basic subsidy should cover the long-term needs of the industry, and in the short term the 1962 Act enables us to provide special supplementary subsidies for sections of the fleet which are or may be in special difficulties. The Scheme sets out the proposed special subsidies, and it will be seen that the Scottish ports are getting a good share of this assistance. Several sections of the fleet in England and Wales are also being helped, but there are of course some whose claims for supplementary assistance have not been met.
I would remind your Lordships that the Act places a maximum of £350,000

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on expenditure on these special subsidies in any one year, and a maximum of £2½ million over ten years. The present proposals account for about two-thirds of the £350,000 for the first year, and we have thought it unwise to commit ourselves to more than this at the beginning of the subsidy year. There may well be claims from other sections of the fleet which find themselves in difficulties during the year, and those whose claims have now been refused may, if their difficulties continue, come back to us again and substantiate their case. If either of these things happens we have made sure that there are reasonable funds available to meet the claims.
A further measure of assistance to the middle water fleet will be the removal, as from the end of this year, of the restrictions which have previously been imposed on distant water voyages by grant-aided vessels. The figures we have seen of the results of some of these voyages to distant waters show that the financial improvement this could bring about could well be equal to about £10 a day extra subsidy throughout the year. It may well be asked how this will benefit the smaller vessels which cannot make distant water voyages. If, however, the bigger vessels do go further a field, these vessels could benefit—and this, we think, is a probable consequence—by the easing of some of the fishing effort on the middle water grounds and the chance of correspondingly better catches.
Yet another measure of assistance is the moratorium which the White Fish Authority is prepared to extend to those owners who are in genuine difficulties in meeting their loan repayments and who have a reasonable chance of overcoming those difficulties. The Scottish owners have argued that the right way to deal with these difficulties is to increase the subsidy, but the Government believe that there can be no justification for a large increase in subsidy to all in order to help the relatively few who are in such difficulties. We can deal with these individual cases only on their merits, and this is what the White Fish Authority proposes to do.
My Lords, these are the main changes brought about by the Act. As was stated in the White Paper, the policy for
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inshore and herring vessels will continue as before; that is to say, the subsidy will be assessed each year on a judgment of their needs and circumstances. We have carried out the usual review this year of the circumstances of these sections of the fleet, and, as a result, the stonage rate paid to the smaller white fish vessels has been increased from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 3d. and the vessels between 60 feet and 70 feet in length will now receive a daily rate which should give them the same amount of subsidy as they got in 1961 from the stonage rate. Vessels between 70 feet and 80 feet in length are now classed as inshore vessels, rather than near waiter vessels, and the daily rate they have been receiving is now increased. Seiners making long voyages Will toe paid a daily rate all the year round, instead of for six months, which will give them more subsidy, although the rate itself will be lower. As for herring vessels, the stonage rate fox the smaller vessels has been substantially increased, and the daily rates for the other vessels adjusted one way or another according to their circumstances.
May I turn now to the two Schemes which deal with grants for fishing vessels and engines? The Sea Fish Industry Act, 1962, as well as prolonging the period during which grants for the acquisition of vessels and engines could be paid, made possible certain changes in the arrangements. These Schemes implement some of those provisions.
The Act enabled grants to be made for distant water vessels, and the proviso that grants should be paid only for vessels under 140 feet in length, which appeared in previous Schemes, has therefore been removed from these Schemes. The Act also made it possible to remove the distinction between working owners and non-working owners. In previous Schemes, working owners have been able to get a grant of 30 per cent. for the smaller vessels, but non-working owners have been restricted to 25 per cent. and were not able to get a grant for engines at all. The intention of this was to ensure that the higher rate of grant went only to inshore fishermen working for themselves and was not available fox bigger companies. It has, however, produced some anomalies and difficulties, and we have thought alt right to discard it.

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The Act also made changes in the definition of vessels for which the 30 per cent. grant was available. Previously, these grants at the higher rate were limited to vessels costing less than £20,000, and there was a limit of £5,000 on each grant. Now they can be paid for vessels under 80 feet in length and are subject to a maximum of £13,000 on the grant. Grants can be given for engines for vessels of this size and up to a maximum of £2,500, instead of £1,250. Grants, of 25 per cent. are available for vessels 80 feet and over in length, and subject to a maximum, on any grant of £50,000 instead of £37,500. These increases in the maximum grants have been made to take account of higher building costs since they were originally fixed, and of the extension of the Scheme to include distant water vessels.
One change which is not directly related to the provisions of the Act, but which was discussed during the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House, is that relating to the building of these vessels in foreign yards. No reference has been made in the legislation governing these grants to the question of whether the grants shall be restricted to vessels purchased in this country, but in previous Schemes made under this legislation there has been a requirement that applications will be entertained only in respect of vessels or engines built, or to be built, in the United Kingdom. There is no such condition in this Scheme. Since my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, announced his intention of making this change a few weeks ago, there has been considerable discussion, both here and in another place. I hope that the effect of that discussion has been to convince those among your Lordships who have opposed this intention that the decision was not only right in itself but, in fact, the only one that could be taken.
New schemes had to be made to take into account the changes provided for by the 1962 Act. When we made these Schemes we had to decide whether to continue a provision which, although it existed in the earlier Schemes made since 1953, was clearly contrary to our international obligations. We had to bear in mind that we, as an exporting
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country, could be at a serious disadvantage in drawing the attention of other countries to similar breaches of their obligations which affected our exporters, while we ourselves had such a provision in our own legislation. Clearly, we could not leave ourselves in this position.
Wheal we took this decision we considered carefully the interests of our fishermen, but, of course, such a change can only be to their benefit, since it will enable them to re-equip themselves with the best and cheapest vessels wherever they may be found. We also took into account the builders of fishing vessels, since they would now be put in the same competitive position as the rest of the shipbuilding industry. We thought that it would be right if this change were made to ensure that these people had an equal opportunity to compete, and my right honourable friend, in making his announcement, also made at clear that arrangements would be made to ensure that this would be done.
The shipbuilding and fishing industries are still being consulted about details of these arrangements, but the basis of them is that applicants who wish to build abroad will have to obtain at least three tenders from British yards, and if any of these tenders is lower than that from the foreign yard, grant will be limited to relate to an acceptable British tender. We have also made it clear that grant will not be given if it is proposed to place the order in a foreign yard which is known to be in receipt of a material element of subsidy. With these safeguards, and with the knowledge that it is more than likely that our fishermen will still wish to place their orders where they have traditionally gone before, I can see no need for alarm about the effect of this change. There might well have been cause for alarm, however, to us as a trading nation) if we had continued such an open breach of our international agreements.
My Lords, there are certain other changes in the Schemes which I ought to mention briefly before sitting down. The first is that these vessels will have no restrictions placed on them regarding distant-water voyages. The British Trawlers' Federation' have proposed that the restrictions on all the grant-aided vessels should be lifted as from January 1 next year, and Ministers have directed

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the White Fish Authority, under Section 31 of the 1962 Act, to take the necessary steps to release the owners of vessels built under (previous Schemes from their obligations. No Obligation of this kind is put at all on vessels which will be built in future. Since these restrictions are to go, there is no need to continue the lengthy control period which applied to vessels built under previous Schemes, and it is therefore being reduced from the present twenty years to ten years for vessels built under these Schemes. This change cannot, of course, be made retrospective, and vessels built under previous Schemes will still be subject, in some cases, to a twenty-year control period. The control period on engines is being reduced from ten years to five years to relate it more closely to the life of these engines for inshore vessels.
I hope that, with that explanation of the changes Which have been made, and particularly of the need for the removal of the limitation of grants to vessels built in this country, your Lordships will agree that these Schemes provide the right basis for the industry to continue to re-equip itself with new vessels, and will accordingly approve the Schemes. I beg to move that the Herring Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1962, be approved.
Moved, That the Herring Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1962, be approved.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
3.11 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I take it from the manner in which the debate has been introduced by the Government spokesman that we are going to have a collective debate upon all the Orders concerned.
LORD BOOTHIRY: Except the last one on salmon.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Yes. I think it would save a lot of time if we considered them together, as was done in the House of Commons. First of all, I must say that we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, on his first major appearance on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He is very popular and we hope he will be
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successful. If I may say so, it has been rather difficult to follow him this afternoon in his rapid delivery of a long and fairly technical brief, and I hope that he can adjust this a little in discussing detailed matters afterwards. I would also say that I am glad to see the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave. If I have made any mistake he will forgive me, but I regret that he felt inclined to resign at this time.
We are very much in favour of the continuance of the subsidy to the fishing industry. I do not know anybody in my Party's ranks who would want to Oppose it. Nevertheless, we are very conscious of the manner in which a fundamental change has been made to allow for the paying of grants for the building of ships in foreign ports. Both here and in another place, the Government have resisted the suggestion that there was any breach at all in the proper behaviour of the Government in dealing with this fundamental change. I am bound to say that, after reading the debate on July 16 in another place, I do: not think that the Government have made their case.
It is true that the original Act, its amending enactments and the Act of 1957, refer to the continuance of the administration of the schemes by statutory Orders, but the introduction for the first time of grants to be paid for building ships in foreign shipyards was a fundamental change. There was not the slightest mention made of it in the House of Commons during any stage of the passage of the Bill authorising these changes; and when the Second Reading of the Bill came before your Lordships' House, the Members of this House had not the slightest knowledge, when the principle was being discussed, that there was to be any change of this fundamental character. On the following day, however, in another place, an obviously inspired Written Question was on the Order Paper and was answered by the Government, to the effect that there was going to be this change, which would make grants available for building in foreign shipbuilding yards.
The feeling of my Party in both Houses is exceedingly strong about this matter. It is an abuse of practice, even if it can be said that there are precedents in the actual printing of the matter at

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the same time. In our view, any Government are guilty of a very grave breach if they do not explain in full to the House of Commons, which is responsible for the control of the finances of the country, exactly what changes affecting finance are going to be introduced on the Second Reading of any Bill. No Treasury Order ought to be passed unless the full facts are revealed and are known to the legislative House. It was said over and over again, on the Bill we had before us, that the same drafting formula was followed as in previous Statutes. But the House of Common's has been completely deprived of the right to make any amendment to the authorising Act on this point, because it did not know about it. It was never informed by the Government.
When we come to deal with the Orders before us, two points come up right away. We cannot move an Amendment to either of them. All we can do is either accept them or reject them. But the Government knew and the civil servants knew—and must have advised the Government accordingly that the best way to deal with this matter was to blanket it— that all of us are committed to the policy of subsidising our trawling industry, and therefore would not want to see a Statutory Order of this kind rejected as a whole. Yet we cannot amend it.
I think that this puts the matter as clearly as I possibly can. It is not fair to another House, nor is it fair in our case. From time to time, the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has referred to precedents for the conduct we should pursue in dealing with the increasing number of Affirmative Statutory Orders now required by legislation. Yet I think it has become a firm practice that, so far as possible, there is never a Division against a Statutory Order, especially one which has financial implications, in this House. We cannot, therefore, and we will not, try to throw out either one of these Orders. But I want to make this strong and fundamental protest against the conduct of Her Majesty's Government in the previous passage of the Bills through both Houses, and to say that I still hold the view that there is no real necessity, in the present state of the shipbuilding industry in the small yards, as well as
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the large yards, of this country, for grants being made, and spread abroad.
We hinted on the occasion of the passage of the Bill that perhaps the Government wanted to make a little bit of good feeling in connection with their strong and persistent efforts to get into the Common Market. I think that, judging by Mr. Heath's reported statements yesterday (I agree that they are only reported), the difficulties seem to be increasing in that direction. If, therefore, Mr. Heath now fears that it may never be possible for this country to enter the Common Market, as was reported this morning, perhaps the Government might think again. Let them have their Order to-day, but as soon as possible produce some amendment of the practice hereby authorised in these Orders to pay the taxpayers' money for subsidising foreign shipbuilding yards at the very time when we need all the work and all the employment of labour that we can get in our own yards.
3.22 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I do not honestly think that this has anything to do with the Common Market negotiations; I do not think they enter into it. But, to my mind, nothing can excuse the Government for what they have done. They have, in fact, deceived both Houses of Parliament. You cannot get away from it. The facts outlined by the noble Viscount who has just spoken are absolutely true. The House of Commons was never given the opportunity to authorise the main Bill to do this; we were allowed to have a debate on Second Reading, without being told a word about it, and the announcement was then made the following day.
I do not think there can be any excuse for this. The condition of the boatbuilding yards of this country is really desperate. There is no concrete evidence of their inefficiency. I can say quite truly to your Lordships that about fourteen or fifteen have closed down in Scotland alone during the last two years. Now the Government come forward with a proposal to subsidise foreign boat builders. They say that we have been carrying on in breach of obligations. I can only say that we have been doing it quite happily for ten years, and this is a sudden thought on their part. I simply cannot understand it. I would

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only say to the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, whom I congratulate upon his appointment, that I well know I am on the political shelf (and in view of recent events, I am very happy to be safely there), but my writ still runs, to a certain extent, in the fishing constituencies, and the Government will have a heavy price to pay for this step in those constituencies at the next Election.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that our fishermen should have the best type and most efficient boats available in the market?
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, they should have boats built in the home market which are efficient and well built, and they should not have them from people in Norway, Germany or Holland, and subsidised by the British taxpayer.
3.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, perhaps I could make a practical suggestion to the Government on this matter, about which I think a great many of us are not at all happy. If I may take an old parallel from a long time ago which some of the oldest Members of the House may remember, I created and piloted a measure called the Trade Facilities Bill, which, 40 years ago or more, gave a Government guarantee for exactly this kind of operation. We guaranteed a large amount of shipbuilding and so on; and I think we gave a Government guarantee of about £150 million without ever coming on the taxpayer for a single penny. Nobody suggested at that time that that had to be applied all around the world, on a sort of most-favourednation clause, to the nations which treat us in the least favourable manner. But now, I understand, someone has suddenly realised that there is a thing called G.A.T.T. Nobody ever found it out before. It is really remarkable. I wish the mass of very able civil servants engaged on this business would try to devote their attention to finding out ways in which we can help ourselves, rather than ways in which we can defeat our own objects.
As my noble friend Lord Boothby said, we have been doing this quite happily for ten years. Here, apparently,
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we have been living in sin without knowing anything about it. I honestly do not see why we should not go on living in sin. G.A.T.T. is all very well—at least I do not think it is, but, anyway, it is there. But could we not treat G.A.T.T. like the Athanasian Creed or the Ten Commandments?—"Not more than four need be attempted", as in examination papers. It is what everybody else does. I do not want to create more difficulties with America—they are very sensible in the way they get round these things—but America to-day is, I am certain, in breach of at least nine of the ten commandments of G.A.T.T. But they get away with it all right. I am certain there are ways.
Of course we cannot amend this Order, and it must go through. But perhaps I as an old Minister may say this to my noble friend Lord St. Oswald—and I, too, am quite delighted at his promotion, both as a fellow Yorkshireman and on his own personal merits, and I congratulate him upon it. Quite a lot can be done in administration. And when you come to administer this, nobody can call you before G.A.T.T. because you administer it in a way which happens to help the fishing industry and the British ports. Like my noble friend Lord Boothby, I am on the political shelf, and have probably been there longer than he. I have no intention of coming off it, and am not in the least likely to be invited to come back on it. But perhaps I can still give a little useful advice to the new team, to whom I wish well, and tell them to administer the thing sensibly and nobody will ask any more about it.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I cannot believe that, with the safeguards and the approvals that have to be given before you can order a ship abroad, anyone who wants to build a ship will ever get permission so to do. In view of what my noble friend Lord Swinton has just said about administration, I should have thought that these safeguards went halfway towards the administration that he desires.
3.28 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I have already on another occasion expressed my opinion on the constitutional points raised by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, and I do not propose

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to weary your Lordships with that again. Butt there is a point which has not yet been raised and about which I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government. These Orders are quite obviously directed to helping the fishing industry and fishermen to pursue their avocations with the proper equipment. It is not much use pursuing the occupation of fishing in in river in which there are no fish, and I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have observed the proposals to prospect for oil in the waiters of the North Sea by dropping very heavy depth charges all along our coasts. The dropping and exploding of these charges must necessarily lead to the death of an enormous number of fish and, what is worse, the ruin of a vary large amount of fish spawn.
I should like to ask the Government whether they have taken this into account in spending this money to promote the fishing industry. A lot of it will be carried on in waiters which are apparently going to be entirely deprived of fish. Have they considered this prospect; and, if so, have they made plans for dealing with it? I should like also to ask the noble Lord in Change of these Orders whether he would he kind and allow me to read in Hansard his answer to that point, because I have another very important engagement which I am bound to attend. I only wanted to put this question to the Government because I think we all want to be reassured as to What; is going to happen about these oil prospectors, and what powers the Government have for stopping them.
3.31 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, I should like to say a few words. I do not expect noble Lords would wish me to do other than say how much I regret that the shell-fishermen are not included in these Orders. We have raised that point several times in your Lordships' House, and I think the discrimination against one branch of fishing is to be deplored. The cost to the Government of giving a subsidy to the shellfishermen around our shores would be very small in comparison to the expenditure we have to meet in other directions, which I view with, less approval than the giving of assistance to a small section of the community to enable them to obtain a
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reasonable livelihood. Under the Act, the shellfishermen cannot come to the Government within a matter of ten years. The noble Lord, in introducing these Orders, said that the fishermen who are covered by them can come back to the Government to state a claim if their earnings diminish. That is not the case with the shellfishermen, and I think the Government have been wrong and, perhaps, a little parsimonious, in not bringing into the Act that number fishermen around our coasts who have to struggle on year by year.
3.33 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, so far as the shellfish are concerned, they are wholly outside the ambit of the Orders we are discussing, and I will do no more than say that the matter was fully debated when the Bill was before the House, and the House deliberately took the view that the shellfish should be excluded from the Bill. I must say that, if this country is to survive as a trading nation, it must take a severe view about subsidies in general. I do not think we can look to the State, just because sums are small in the ordinary course, to subsidise economic activities.
As regards the matters which are before the House, I will, of course, ask my right honourable friend, and my noble friend, to look into the question raised by my noble friend Lord Saltoun about the prospecting for oil. I am bound to say that I was not expecting the point to be raised this afternoon, and I will try to let him know what the answer is, if my noble friend could charge himself with that.
I am always glad to hear advice from my noble friend above the gangway about matters of administration, in which he is such a master, but I thought he was effectively answered by my noble friend Lord Derwent, when he said that the safeguards which have been deliberately introduced into the Scheme were introduced precisely for the purpose of administering to our advantage, so far as we may. Although I have not the experience which my noble friend claimed to have about the analogy which he drew between GATT AND the kind of living that we have apparently been

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doing for some ten years, I would frankly say to him that when these things are found out one cannot really get away with it for ever. It is when they are not found out that one can continue the practice to which he was referring.
LORD BOOTHBY: The noble Viscount is doing it. That is my complaint.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Lord has evidently not remembered that we had all this out before, and in fact it was the Swedes under EFTA WHO drew the matter to our attention. The fact of the matter is that it is not, I think, respectable for this country formally to disregard international obligations.
I will say a word about the merits of this matter. I tried to argue, when the matter was before us during the passage of the Bill, that it is very much against the interests of this country to do anything other than we are doling at the moment. We stand to gain by the enforcement of these obligations, and, as several noble Lords pointed out, nations are constantly breaking the obligations against us. If we are once going to admit that that is a reason for disregarding them ourselves, we shall, as an exporting nation, be on a very slippery slope indeed. I should have thought that the true effect of the arguments which were putt both by my noble friend below the gangway and by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, was exactly the opposite of the way they had argued it. If we are to gain as an exporting nation by the enforcement of these obligations, we must at any rate put ourselves beyond reproach in these matters. The truth is that this nation has to pursue a policy of competitive efficiency in matters of this kind, and the policy which is being pressed upon us from the Cross Benches, and the Benches opposite, is a Luddite policy of sticking to protective measures in which there is absolutely no commercial hope for us at all
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, how does Lord Derwent's intervention really help?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My noble friend quite nightly pointed out that our own fishermen must be given a fair competitive chance, tout personally I would
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rather rely upon their competitive efficiency. I must say I think the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has done a very poor service to those Whom he has befriended on many occasions in the past, because the ultimate implication of the whole argument, whatever he may say, however much he may disavow it, however much he would say the contrary, is that the boatbuilders cannot stand up to reasonable foreign competition.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell me how many British boatbuilding yards are at present being subsidised by the Swedes?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think I answered that question before, and I said that it was a Wholly fallacious analogy, as nobody knows batter than the noble Lord, Lord Boothby.
The only reason why I rose to answer this question was to make this one other additional comment. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, referred to the conduct of the Government as inexcusable. To my mind the only inexcusable thing about this debate has been the repeated charges about the constitutional point, which has absolutely no foundation in it at all, and which can only cause trouble between the two Houses. The House of Commons is well able to look after its privileges in this matter. They have not been breached to the smallest degree in this particular dispute. The argument that the Change was not disclosed or debated in the Bill on Second Reading is wholly without foundation; because, as I pointed out before, the only logical consequence of the doctrine which the Leader of the Opposition attempted to bring forward would be that, after the Bill had gone through the Houses of Parliament, a change in the financial administration could not, without a constitutional impropriety, be introduced. The fact is that in all these Bills the contrary has been provided by Act of Parliament. The Bills are designed to last for ten years or more, and it is just as open to the Government to change the financial administration after the Bill has been passed as it is to do it while it is going through Parliament. The fact is that it has never been a principle contained in these Bills that the subsidy should be limited to boats built in British yards. This was a matter of administration which has been contained in the

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Orders. The Orders have been properly debated in both Houses now, and in my submission this is simply an attempt to make mischief between the two Houses of Parliament.
3.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that I strongly object to the last part of the noble and learned Viscount's speech. I have just as much Parliamentary experience as he has, or rather more, and I know what courtsey is usually accorded in another place by the Leader of the House, and the Minister in charge of a Bill, when there is to be a considerable alteration immediately in the policy of the Government in a matter of this kind. I can remember dozens of occasions when we have been informed, although the "blanket" authority given in the Bill to become a Statute, of course did carry on for years afterwards for future Orders. I think, therefore, that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has failed entirely to meet the position Which we have put to the House and which was also argued, and argued very successfully, by my honourable friends in another place. So I resent that very much indeed.
The other thing I would say is this: that the safeguards, which have been read out very hurriedly about this part of the scheme by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, I shall look at very carefully in Hansard; but none of these particular safeguards are in the Orders. The administrative matters that will be issued with the conditions of the grants should have been explained but have not. However, I will look at those safeguards in the morning. We cannot, and do not, wish to oppose this Order, because of the advantages coming to the fishing industry in general, but I hope that the Government will yet live and learn—if they are allowed to stay there long enough to live and learn—and not treat the Houses of Parliament like this in the future.
3.40 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, could I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House this question? I am sure he understands the point that my noble friend and some others have made at an earlier stage:
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namely, that if important departures of policy are going to be made, especially when they concern finance, Parliament ought to be informed before Second Reading, and, at any rate, before the Committee stage of the Bill. May I ask him, therefore, whether in order to prevent these possible frictions between the two Houses which we should all deplore, he will make representations to his colleagues that this procedure should not be followed on future occasions and that it was a pity it was followed on this? He says that we are trying to make mischief between the two Houses, but it is the Government who have made it. And if my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has raised this matter, he has done so in the interests of good relations between the two Houses, which is a change from the actions of Conservatives in years past, who occupied a lot of their time in making difficulties between the two Houses against a Liberal Government. But may I ask him whether, in view of this experience—and he is a considerable enough Parliamentarian to know that we are right—he will make representations that this sort of thing ought not to happen?
I am a former Leader of the House of Commons, and if I had known that a Minister intended to do this I should have jumped down on him pretty quickly and brought it up before my colleagues. The duty of the Leader of the House of Commons is to protect the rights of all sides of the House, and I submit, with great respect to the Leader of the House, that it would be comforting if he would undertake to make representations to his colleagues to prevent a real grievance of this sort from happening again. Perhaps he will be good enough to answer that point and suggestion.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I have only two things to say to the noble Lord. The first is that I sat under him as the Leader of the House of Commons for a number of times and learnt a very great deal by the experience. He certainly would not have answered the question he has now put to me if it had been put to him. That I can tell him, based on very long experience. The second thing is that I answered the substance of the matter at great length in

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the debate on the Bill and I explained exactly how it came about that the announcement was made when it was.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HERRING INDUSTRY (GRANTS FOR FISHING VESSELS AND ENGINES) SCHEME, 1962
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Scheme be approved.
Moved, That the Herring Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) Scheme, 1962, be approved.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WHITE FISH SUBSIDY (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME, 1962
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I beg to move that this White Fish Subsidy Scheme be approved.
Moved, That the White Fish Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1962, be approved.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WHITE FISH INDUSTRY (GRANTS FOR FISHING VESSELS AND ENGINES) SCHEME, 1962
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Scheme be approved.
Moved, That the White Fish Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) Scheme, 1962, he approved.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SALMON AND MIGRATORY TROUT (PROHIBITION OF DRIFT- NET FISHING) ORDER, 1962
3.44 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD CRAIGTON): My Lords, I beg to move that the Salmon and Migratory Trout (Prohibition of Drift-net Fishing) Order, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 4th July, 1962, be approved. This
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Order gives effect to the Government's undertaking to prohibit drift-net fishing for salmon off the coast of Scotland and the Tweed as from September 15, 1962. We have already had full discussions in this House on the difficulties caused in Scotland by the rapid development of drift-net fishing for salmon in the last three years. I must tell your Lordships that the catch taken by drift-net, which had risen from some 9,000 in 1960 to 28,000 in 1961, when we first debated this matter, is this year—and these are the up-to-date figures—already nearly 90,000 salmon and grilse.
The effect of the Order is to prohibit as from September 15, 1962, drift-net fishing for salmon or migratory trout in the specified area off the coast of Scotland and the Tweed. It applies to all fishing boats inside territorial waters; and outside territorial waters to British-owned fishing boats (whether registered or not). The Schedule to the Order defines the area of sea within which the prohibition applies. The Order provides that the prohibition will remain in force until February 15, 1965; that is, for two fishing seasons. We hope that by then we may have the report of the Hunter Committee, which has been appointed to review the whole law on salmon and trout fisheries; at least we might have an Interim Report on the question of drift-net fishing for salmon. We shall then have complete freedom of action, as the Acts under which this Order is made permit it to be varied or revoked at any time. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Salmon and Migratory Trout (Prohibition of Drift-net Fishing) Order, 1962, be approved.—(Lord Craigton.)
3.46 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I should like to welcome this Order, and in doing so I would say how sorry I am personally, as I am sure are other noble Lords in your Lordships' House, that the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, who paid so much attention and trouble to this matter, has felt it necessary, for his own reasons, to leave Her Majesty's Government, and how grateful we are to him for his efforts in this particular direction, as indeed we are to the Minister who has just moved this Order and to his Department. I think your Lordships' House

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can be pleased with this Order, in that it was your Lordships' House that gave, in June, 1961, the first strong public expression in either House of Parliament on the menace of drift-net fishing; and the consumation of your Lordships' opinion is seen in the Order to-day.
The Order, under Section 10 of the Act, applies outside the three-mile (limit of the Tweed area to British ships only. Even if in practice it is not economic for foreign vessels to drift-net and to return to their bases, this is an anomaly which seems to me to add strength to the case for an extension of our territorial fishing limits beyond the three miles. This country is in almost glorious isolation in retaining the three-mile limit. But a most serious gap, to which I must draw your Lordships' attention, seams to me to exist and may very largely nullify the effects of the Order which your Lordships are at present asked to pass. If your Lordships refer to the Sea Fisheries Act, 1962, Section 12 was described by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, on Second Reading of the Bill on May 17, as follows [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 240 (No. 80), col. 793]:
"Clause 12 enables Ministers to make an order banning the landing of salmon and trout which have been caught in any waters by any particular method of fishing."
That clause would apply to foreign as well as British ships.
"This power to ban landings would normally be used in support of a prohibition or a licensing order, and the clause contains the provision that exceptions may be made to a landings ban, so that, for example, boats licensed to fish under a licensing system could land their catch."
There is no Order before your Lordships' House under this Section 12. Therefore, it seems to me to be free to foreign ships to come and drift net just outside the three-mile limit, then to come and land their catches at Eyemouth or at Aberdeen and then go out and do the same and come back and land their catches again. That is a tremendous gap in this protection of salmon and trout, if my reading of the situation is right. If, however, the Minister has the intention of issuing an Order under Section 12 then indeed the Order under Section 12 and the Order under Section 10 will be complementary to each other and the picture will be complete. So my question to the Minister is this: have
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the Government any intention of issuing these Orders complementary to that we are now asked to pass, in order completely to safeguard the position? I trust the answer will be in the affirmative. We thank the Government for going as far as they have gone, but we ask them to go still further in the direction I have indicated to your Lordships.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I apologise for trespassing on your Lordships' time for a second time this afternon, but it will be for only two minutes. I realise very well that on this issue I am a solitary voice crying in the wilderness. I myself am not satisfied that drift-net fishing for salmon is the main danger to the salmon stocks of this country and Scotland. I believe that river pollution and the fearful execution of salmon now carried out in the estuaries of the rivers by means of what can only be described as industrial fishing are far more dangerous than drift net. I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, to give an assurance (indeed he has done so) that the situation will be reconsidered in the light of the Report of the Hunter Committee. In conclusion, I should like to reinforce the argument of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye in which he pleaded for an extension of fishing limits in this country. This Order is not going to operate fairly as between British fishermen and foreign fishermen. The noble Lord well knows that I have been fighting for 40 years in vain for an extension of fishing limits in this country and for the protection of the Moray Firth and the Minch, and why the Government do not respond I do not know.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, I also should like to associate myself with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, because I think that the present tendency is to extract all that can possibly be taken from the sea, to which they do not provide the fish that are being extracted, and to do nothing whatever to protect one of our most valuable assets in the country as a whole. I should like very much to see two things: one, an extension of limits within which fishing may be done; and, secondly, the utmost and most stringent measures being adopted in order to prevent this widespread over-fishing of

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salmon and sea trout. I would go further, too, and associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, said in connection with ensuring that the effluents in our rivers do not poison the fish already swimming around our shores.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, wants drift netting to continue, I can assure the noble Lord he will be doing a great disservice to Scotland. Salmon are one of Scotland's great natural resources. Scotland has not so many natural resources that she is able to throw one of them down the river. Even if this Order comes in, I am quite certain that the salmon stock will not recover for at least another ten years, and it is up to us to see that all of our natural resources are conserved.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, might I just ask my noble friend how far out into the sea around the coasts of Scotland this Order extends, and whether he is satisfied that this includes all the sea which it is technically possible for British boats to drift net? I do welcome this Order, and I am sure he is going to introduce a complementary one under Clause 12.
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, the answer to the noble Duke is that the area covers the whole coast of Scotland; it is, as it were, a box, from the Tweed to the north of Shetland, along the top, and down to about the middle of Northern Ireland; it covers the whole area in which we are advised it is worth while, or possible, to fish for salmon.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and to other noble Lords for the welcome they have given to this Order. I am not very worried about the solitary voice of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, because, of course, I agree that there are other dangers to the salmon stock. But, my word, 90,000 salmon caught up to now this year is, to my mind, by far the greatest danger of any of which we are aware. However, I agree with him and my noble friend behind me in hoping for real, constructive help from the Hunter Committee. This whole matter is thoroughly overdue for examination, I agree with my noble friend Lord Forbes that salmon is one
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of Scotland's greatest natural resources, and we intend to preserve it by every means. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, about the landing ban, of course we are not discussing Chat now, because that Order is subject to the Negative Resolution procedure and would have to be prayed against. The Salmon and Migratory Trout (Drift-Net Fishing) Restrictions on Landing Order was laid before this House on July 4. It is made under Section 12 of the Act and bans landing of fish caught in the area to which the prohibition applies.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I apologise to the noble Lord? I was fishing in Newfoundland on July 4, so I missed it.
LORD CRAIGTON: I thought the noble Lord was very interested in this and there must have been a good reason for him to miss it. On the question of fishery limits, to which noble Lords referred, as your Lordships know, the Government are at present reviewing (and I have said this before) the whole question of fishery limits in the light (and I have said this before, too) of all relevant circumstances. However, this question, as your Lordships know, raises very much wider issues. But a development of drift-net fishing for salmon by foreigners would be an important new factor to be taken into account in any consideration.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO INDEPENDENCE BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

PENALTIES FOR DRUNKENNESS BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

A FIXED EASTER
4.1 p.m.
LORD FERRIER rose LORD FERRIER rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now Jay before both Houses of Parliament for approval a draft Order in Council, in accordance with Section 2 (2) of the Easter Act, 1928. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Unstarred Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper, I would remind your Lordships that Easter, as observed in Western countries, falls roughly on the Sunday after the full moon which follows the Vernal Equinox. I say "roughly" because, to quote from Whitaker's Almanack:
"The moon referred to is not the full moon of the heavens but a hypothetical moon on whose 'full' the date of Easter depends,"
and so on. Easter has been fixed in these terms for nearly 400 years, and the fact is that its date varies over a range of 35 days. The earliest possible Easter is March 22 and the latest is April 25. Whit Sunday therefore varies from May 10 to June 13.
In 1928, Parliament passed the Easter Act. By this it was decided that Easter should be the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April—namely, the second Sunday in April unless, as was the case this year, April 1 was a Sunday, in which case it would be the third, the fact being that, under the Act, Easter would be the Sunday that falls between April 9 and 15. The Act further went on to say—and I quote:
"This Act shall commence and come into operation on such date as may be fixed by Order of His Majesty's Order in Council, provided that, before any such Order in Council is made, a draft thereof shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and the Order shall not be made unless both Houses by resolution approve the draft either without modification or with modifications to which both Houses agree, but upon such approval being given the order may be made in the form in which it has been so approved: Provided further that, before making such draft order, regard shall be had to any opinion officially expressed by any Church or other Christian body."
No such official expression of opinion has been made. Indeed, I think it is safe to say that no such expression of opinion has been officially sought. There the matter has rested for 34 years.
At this stage it might be worth mentioning that the average date for Easter
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over the 19th century lay between April 8 and April 9. Thirty-four years later the world is a smaller place than it was in 1928. The secular reasons which persuaded Parliament to make this decision apply to-day, only more so. There is the increased speed of transport; the increased ability of people, many more people, to travel for their holidays; greater leisure; the consequent growth of the holiday industry—indeed, tourism has become an economic factor to be reckoned with. I will not attempt to expand on this general theme; it is manifest to your Lordships. I mention only one or two special features, though none of them is new.
One odd feature is that, with Easter as at present, there can be two Easters in one fiscal year and none in another. Also worth emphasising is the overlapping of a late Whitsun with June holidays. Further (this is not new, but it is worth remembering) there is a wide difference between the climate in the fourth week of March and that in the last week of April. I will not mention the variations of weather from year to year though much was made of this in the debates in both Houses in 1928, and I am encouraged to keep more or less silent on the subject of the weather because this year, as your Lordships will remember, the "Met." man on Whit Sunday wrongly forecast the Whit Monday weather.
A fixed Easter would also mean a break with the full moon at Easter time. In the days of Shanks's mare this had a value for worshippers returning from midnight service. Indeed, I have a vivid recollection of seeing, in Western India parties of Christians returning from midnight Mass along jungle paths in the bright Easter moon, and of hearing their chants and their cries as they called to one another to keep up their courage and to scare wild beasts and snakes from their path. To-day the motor vehicle and bus have brought an end to any such experiences and to the physical need which existed at one time for a light at night for worshippers at midnight service.
But here, of course, we are referring to the Northern hemisphere and, as such, to the fact that Easter is in the spring, and Whitsun can vary from the beginning of May to high summer. It is well

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to remember that this does not apply in the Southern hemisphere, where Easter is in the autumn. I think that I am right in saying that in South America their seasonal holiday is Mardi Gras, or Carnival, as they call it, and the date of Shrove Tuesday varies from February 3 to March 9. Later dates in the Southern hemisphere can have cold weather. Something of the same conditions apply in Australia. Take, for instance, the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, which I had the delight of visiting two years ago. There, an early Easter means very hot weather for the show. I think I am right in saying that an Easter as fixed under the Act would mean, in Sydney at least, that it could be expected that their great Royal Easter Show would be held in cooler weather than is possible earlier in the year.
My reference to South America indicates my view that a fixed Easter under the Act could not be effective unless it had the sanction of the Holy See. Indeed in 1928, the late Lord Desborough said—and I quote:
"It would be intolerable for Britain to have a different Easter from the rest of Europe."
I am sure that, had be been here to-day, he would have used the more fashionable phrase that "it would not be possible to act unilaterally in this matter". Nevertheless, to-day this view might not apply with the force that it did hitherto. But I will not develop that point.
The Act is silent about the process of consulting the Churches; and it has interested me to find, in studying the debates, that the final wording of the last proviso which I read to your Lordships in respect of the official opinion of the Churches, was in fact the outcome of an Amendment moved in your Lordships' House. In that connection, after the Bill was through, Lord Des-borough said—again I quote:
"The Bill will not come into operation without a due interval of time intervening so that all the opinions can be examined."
Thirty-four years is a long interval to elapse before the examination should begin. Nevertheless, the fact is that the Act does not lay down the quarter in which the initiative should lie. Perhaps that is a defect in the Act as it stands, but that is the position.
My information is that, in 1928 His Holiness the Pope of that day, When approached unofficially on the subject, laid down that before he could give his answer he would have to consult his (Ecumenical Council, which had not been called for many years. Indeed, it is because the first (Ecumenical Council since the Act was passed has been summoned for this year that I have ventured to put down this Question. If the matter is brought to the notice of His Holiness Pope John, as I believe it should be, then this is the right moment of time. So much, my Lords, for the practical side of the matter, the bread and butter of the business. I believe that there is an overwhelming case for taking steps to implement the Act. Lord Parmoor said in 1928:
"… on every ground of convenience it is obviously preferable to have a fixed Easter".
But, my Lords, in the eternal structure of our Faith the words continually ring out:
"Man shall not live by bread only."
I hope and pray that nothing I have said, or will say, will give offence to any of your Lordships to whom, as indeed to me, Holy Week and Eastertide mean more than just a break in the day-today routine of life, a holiday as opposed to a Holy Day, a yardstick for Whit Monday, a week-end some time in spring. To us Easter is the pivot of the Christian year, and it is here, on the spiritual side, that the difficulty lies; it is here that the Government must obviously tread warily. In the debate on 1928 it was repeatedly said that there is no doctrinal objection to the proposed change, and I am most glad to see the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Exeter in the Chamber this afternoon, and I hope that we shall hear him on the subject. There has been a pronouncement by the Holy See which would appear to accept the possibility of Change if such would be (and I quote) "desirable for the good of mankind". This pronouncement was, I think, mentioned, in the debates in the other place in 1928.
My Lords, speaking as a Presbyterian Soot, I am sure that your Lordships know that in Scotland the celebration of Easter is a Church affair. There is no holiday connected with it; there is no recognised pause in

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business, except that the Banks close on Good Friday—they are open on Easter Monday. There are many Christians who feel that the right course would be to separate Holy Days from holidays altogether, and although that would be difficult at Christmastime, there is much in that point of view. Perhaps the noble Earl who is to reply will say that the right course is to overhaul the whole subject of public holidays. I believe that that should be done in any case; but I also believe that, nevertheless (indeed the more so, lest in a shifting Easter we should cut across a fixed secular spring holiday), steps should toe taken to implement the Easter Act now; and that, in any case, the advice of the Holy See should foe sought, through the usual Channels, at this time. It would not toe many years before the old system was forgotten, and perhaps when the right reverend Prelate comes to speak he will mention the aptness of the time, when the Church of England is considering the Prayer Book, though we must admit that if the New Prayer Book is without the "Table to find Easter Day" with its Golden Number and Sunday Letters, many a young person will be robbed of an occupation while not listening to the sermon!
At the same time a fixed Easter in April would mean that the description "Easter term" would no longer properly apply to the spring term. I know that there are many schoolmasters and schoolmistresses who feel that it would be a great loss if never in the school life of a boy or girl would Easter fall in term-time. This might be one of the sacrifices paid to a simpler system. But, against this, I would say, speaking for myself, that I believe that the spiritual gains outweigh such sacrifice.
Now what are these gains, my Lords? As one who has been concerned with the recent contacts which have taken place in Scotland between the Churches, and as one who believes implicitly that the day will come, in God's good time, when all will worship at one shrine, I think it is proper that those who are of the same mind should do what lies to their hand to enhance the position of our Faith as a living faith and to make it a living part of life as it is lived to-day. It is to this end that I have occupied your Lordships' time.
When I asked a Question on this subject in March the reply which I received did not really satisfy—and I quote [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 238, col. 627]:
"Her Majesty's Government would not feel justified in initiating action …"
Further, the noble Lord at the Dispatch Box said, and I quote again:
"I made it quite clear in my Answer that we believe it is up to the Churches …"
Is it, my Lords? With due respect, it can foe maintained that the Act does not say that the approval of any Church must be obtained; only that
"regard shall be had to any opinion officially expressed".
If no such opinion is expressed, it could be said that there is no reason why the Order in Council should not be made. So far as it is known, no Church has opposed the Act. The noble Lord, Lord Fisher of Lambeth, said in March that the Church of England had no objection, so far as he knew; and he quoted Lord Davidson to the same effect. He said that Lord Davidson had made careful inquiries before saying that the Church of England would not wish to raise any Objection. Even if this is only acquiescence, it is not objection.
Another point has been made to me from a very responsible quarter; and it is this: should not Her Majesty's Government carry out the express wishes of Parliament? If it is not the wish of Parliament, Parliament will not approve the Order. It is for that reason I read in detail that particular section in the Act. If Parliament will not pass the Order, there is no danger of Parliament's wishes being overruled.
My Lords, I have detained you long enough, but there is much more that can be said, and perhaps other noble Lords may be able to add points. For instance, I have not mentioned the Synod of Whitby and its bloody sequel. I have not mentioned the position of the Eastern Churches, including the Copts—I think I am right in saying that they observe Easter every Sunday. I have not mentioned the debates of 1752 in connection with the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar; nor the present movement for a revised calendar through and through, such as the Desborough Scheme.
Nor have I mentioned the special position of the U.S.A., made more important

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than ever by the rapidity of transportation to which I have already referred, and the amazing evidence put on last night of the way that distance is shrinking. Nor have I mentioned (I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has gone) the effect on the fishing trade. Your Lordships may be surprised to hear that this is of concern in connection with the supply of fish to market for Good Friday. Perhaps some other noble Lords more knowledgeable than myself will be able to enlighten your Lordships, but I imagine that they much prefer to fish in April than at the time of the Equinox.
I feel that I must end with a disclaimer. I have no technical interest in the transport industry or the holiday trade; nor am I a member of any society for the promotion of anything, unless the Church of Scotland can be so described. If so, I would make it plain that I have no authority even to speak for the Church of Scotland. But I do speak, my Lords, as an ordinary person interested in ordinary people; and I believe that ordinary people are interested in this situation. I accordingly beg your Lordships' leave to ask the Question which stands in my name.
4.22 p.m.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, may I congratulate the noble Lord, both on putting this Question down for us to have a chance of looking at the subject this afternoon, and on the matter which he has presented to your Lordships? He has declared his own religion and his lack of interest in the transport industry, so may I equally say that I have no particular claim in either direction. A member of the Church of England, I am bound to say that I was first interested in this matter by a member of the Roman Catholic faith. Indeed, as a boy at school I had a very great interest in the man who I thought was standing up so much to the tyranny of the Germans at the end of the Great War, Cardinal Mercier. He it was who set up the first committee after the Great War to look into the question of the reform of the calendar in this regard. When I saw the noble Lord's Question, I could not help but go to my files, and I have something that very few of your Lord-
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ships can have these days, an Act of Parliament that cost a penny—the original Act as I bought it in 1928, with its price printed largely upon it.
I support the noble Lord in the desire that we should do something. I am bound to say that I do not, in all honesty, see how the Government could very quickly place anything before both Houses for Affirmative Resolution, in the way that would be desired if this matter were to go to the Council as a fait accompli. But I do see that we can look at the whole question again, in the light of the deadlock that has been reached through the tangle that has taken place, between the question of fixing Easter and the question of changing the calendar. Soon after the Mercier Committee had reported, the League of Nations having by then been established, the matter went to the Communications and Transit section of the League at Geneva. I remember the discussions there in 1923 to 1925, and it was arising out of those that the great fathers of this Bill came to Parliament.
A very great and respected Member of this House, who was a Minister of the Crown at one time, Lord Des-borough, was called the father of the fixed Easter. As a young man in politics, I remember that he collaborated largely with the then Archbishop, Cosmo Gordon Lang, and we got this Act of Parliament, which was to give us a fixed Easter and to help us on many things, always provided that there was some consultation with the Churches. I was never worried about the Holy See or the Church of England in this matter. The Eastern Church has, I believe, kept throughout to the Julian calendar, for fear of being thought to be too much approaching Rome, about which there might have been more difficulty. I was glad to see that in The Times of yesterday there was a picture of the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, standing with Bishop James Virvof of Apameia at the Sunday service of the Armenian Church of St. Sarkis in London, where he went out of his way to talk of his urgent hope to heal the feeling between the East and the West. I think it is between the East and the West that there has to be some healing of opinion about Easter. I am not worried about the Holy See,

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because I think it has been most helpful throughout, just as the Church of England has been.
When Cardinal Mercier's Committee first met, and the first material was put to the League of Nations, it was already clear—and the noble Lord made a passing reference to it—that the Holy See had already made a pronouncement. It made it in 1912, when the International Chambers of Commerce were, for quite different reasons, seeking various changes in the calendar. The Holy See issued a statement that
" it makes no objection. It invites the civil powers to enter into accord. The See would willingly grant its collaboration in so far as the matter affects religious feasts."
I think it is important to emphasise certain words, in view of what the noble Lord said about the Government's wanting to put the responsibility on to religious bodies. There the civil powers were being invited to have a look at this problem. The war came along and then the League of Nations, succeeded as it was by the United Nations, found itself faced with large-scale propaganda for world calendar reform, torn between proposals for two different kinds of 13-month years and three different kinds of 12-month years, with world days and the like.
Finally, in 1954, Ecosoc, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, decided to embark upon an investigation. I remember discussing this subject with Dag Hammarskjoeld at the time when he proceeded to secure the information for examination, during 1955 and 1956. The material came in but it was all about the secular calendar. The Easter question was pushed into the background, the more so by the fact that the people who were sponsoring calendar reform were the Indians. The Indians have more reason than most to want calendar reform, because in addition to the Julian and Gregorian calendars they have 30 of their own, and the sight of the annual calendar published by the Indians, running into about 3,000 pages of calendars, plus timings of stars, moons and so on—as the noble Lord must know, as he has been to that country and I have not—is something well worth examination. Of course, the inevitable happened. Having obtained all this vast quantity of material which had been assembled, Ecosoc in 1956
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considered the subject and then adjourned consideration sine die. There the matter will remain; and in the midst of this great mass of material that has been pushed on one side for ever, unless somebody does something—and the noble Lord is trying to do it to-day— will be the question of Easter.
There is no reason at all why Easter and the reform of the calendar, and where the 365th or 366th days go in a year that has fifty-two and one-seventh weeks in it, should be tangled up. The truth is that we are discussing a calendar which is based on the sun, and mixing it up with considerations of the moon. It has always been, right from the earliest days of calendars, that we have had a solar calendar and have had considerations of the moon inserted in the middle of it. I thought, as many others thought, that this had been solved by the 1928 Act, when we took part in the propaganda which produced the Bill, as it was then, which later became an Act of Parliament.
The noble Lord who has asked the Question has already pointed out some of the benefits that would come to all of us if this change were really brought into effect. Anybody who works in business, and anybody who has to deal with or has responsibilities to the national Boards, as I have, would know that many of the comparisons that one tries to make are completely invalidated over a large part of the year. There is not just invalidation over an odd week or two. Comparisons between the first quarter of one year and the first quarter of the next are wrong, and comparisons between the second quarter of one year and the second quarter of the next year are probably wrong. As the noble Lord said, we can in one financial year get two Easters, and then no Easter at all the year following. Indeed, we are going to get into that very soon, when we run once again into the thing which swings Easter so much (which again is a mixture of the sun and the moon calendars), and that is when we get to Leap Year in 1964. We are going to have Easter Day then on March 29.
If we look at the five-year period from 1961 to 1965, we shall find that Easter has swung from March 29 to April 22, and that that in turn has swung Whitsun from May 17 to June 10. That means

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that in every businessman's examination of statistics the weekly comparisons, apart from the quarterly ones, run into this trouble: that three weeks in March and five weeks in April are affected by Easter swinging between the dates that I have indicated, and four weeks in May and four weeks in June are affected by Whitsun, which depends upon the date of Easter. So there is no proper comparison in sixteen early weeks of the year in any field of business. It is not much good getting up here, as I did last Thursday, and asking your Lordships to pay some regard to National Productivity Year if we do not look at some of the things we could do to try to ease this kind of thing.
The railways, which are trying to put themselves on a paying basis, we understand, are one of the biggest possible sufferers from this shifting date of Easter and lack of comparison. Indeed, one of the men whose name is connected with the subject we are discussing this afternoon was a humble member of the North-Eastern Railway Company, who, while stationed in Yorkshire, first invented the thirteen-month year and, I believe, pioneered many of the changes in the accountancy system, some of which still exist to-day in British Railways and the Ministry of Transport. For my sins, or my pleasure, I deal with the National Dock Labour Board during my everyday life, and I see something of the movement of ships—perhaps more than most people do. You cannot alter the scheduling of ships coming in and out on varying dates when a long voyage is made. Even under the Act, if carried out by an Order in Council, we should admittedly still have a swing of one week, but it would be only the one week instead of the many weeks that we talk about now. We should, in fact, swing Easter from April 9 to April 15—and I would mention that April 9 is, by tradition, the date of Easter Sunday, April 7 being the traditional date of Our Lord's crucifixion and the 9th the Sunday after the Friday. That, in turn, would mean that the new Whitsun would swing between May 28 and June 3.
I have mentioned ships and timetables, but what about the hotel and catering pepole? They are always complaining (in fact, they have a special committee inside this Building which
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keeps large numbers of Members of the other place busy) about the difficulties they are running into. They never know when their season is going to start; and this at least would help them. It is equally true that the schools run into this trouble. We could have a good twelve-week term before and a twelve-week term after Easter, and many of the problems could, I think, be avoided.
Now I have said to your Lordships—I hope I have not kept you too long; I think perhaps I may have done—that I see no difficulty with the Holy See. Nor do I with our own Church. I looked up some of the material I had concerning the discussions, and so on, in 1954, when this subject was rife in Geneva, and I found I had a cutting from L'Osservatore Romano of June 28, 1954, which is normally regarded as expressing the views of the Holy See in its editorials. It said:
"The Church has no reason to oppose in principle a modification of the present calendar. If there were a general desire to reform, motivated by serious requirements of the economic and social life of the peoples of the world, the Catholic Church would not fail to consider the question, provided, naturally, that certain conditions which She Herself cannot overlook, are observed".
Nor have I any reason to believe that there would be any difficulty in my own Church, but I shall not say anything about my own Church since I know my own Bishop is going to follow, and it is far better to leave it to him. I would only say one other thing about the religious aspect, and that is that the Act of 1928, as an Act, was an improvement on the original Bill because of an Amendment which swung it into the Sunday after the second Saturday. That was done in order to meet the views of the Roman Church, which pointed out that in certain periods of history, if that were not the date, it would be possible for the Feast of the Annunciation to coincide with Passion Sunday, which they would not have liked. That point was actually met in this Act; it is there and is clear.
I think the Government can take new action on this matter if they want to, now that there has been the adjournment sine die of the general calendar reform. One of the curious things, I always think, is the difficulties that people place in the way of this subject. Nobody ever worried that, as long ago

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as the fourth century, we fixed the date of the birth of Our Lord, by regard entirely to solar considerations in the calendar, as December 25; but we have always wanted to go on using the moon for completely different reasons—mainly Nicene reasons, we know—for the last 1,700 years. I hope it will be possible for the Government, if they cannot, as asked in the Question, make any pronouncement about immediate steps to put before the House an Order in Council for discussion and for Affirmative Resolution, at least to tell us that they can make some communication before the Œcumenical Council gets down to its work, and that they will try to pick out from the remains of the calendar reform resolutions of the United Nations the one essential feature of Easter which can be dealt with without dealing with the whole of calendar reform.
4.38 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: My Lords, I have been asked to make an intervention in this debate from these Benches. The instructions which I have received are couched in such Delphic and sibylline terms that I am not sure I understand them—indeed, I am not sure that I was meant to understand them. So whatever I slay must be taken as an expression of my own opinion rather than as an official pronouncement on behalf of the Church of England. I think it would toe fair to say that on this matter the Church of England experiences no marked enthusiasm. On the other hand, it has no wish to be in any way obstructive. We recognise that there are indeed great advantages to be had for a fixed Easter. We recognise that there is a widespread desire in England for a fixed Easter, very largely from those members of our population who are not themselves associated with any form of the Christian religion at all, and we recognise that their wishes and convenience have just as much right to he taken into account as have ours. Nor do we consider that there is any theological objection to fixing Easter, but what we do feel very strongly is that we would not be prepared to agree to a fixed Easter in isolation from other Churches of the West.
I do not think that in this matter we need wait for agreement with the Eastern
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Orthodox Churches; they calculate the date of Easter in a different way from ours, in any case. Their Easter in most years is on a different day from ours. But we should feed it essential to obtain unanimity, or at least a very great area of agreement, both among and within the Western Churches. I say "within the Western Churches" because all the major ones have, in one form or another, branches outside this country and all over the world. This is obviously true of the Church of Rome; it is true of the Anglican Communion, it is true of the Methodists; it is true of the Baptists; and it is true, to some extent, of the Presbyterians. And not one of us, I think, would be prepared to observe Easter on one day here in England, while the members of our sister churches beyond the seas were observing Easter on some other date. That is what I mean by saying that agreement would have to be obtained within the Churches.
Or course, agreement would have to be obtained also among the Churches, for it would be indeed unfortunate if here in England some of us Christians observed Easter on one day, and others on another. Indeed, it would be an extraordinary anomaly that just precisely now, when some slight progress towards reunion is beginning to be perceptible, new grounds of division should be introduced. On these grounds, therefore, it seems to me quite certain that the Church of England would still adhere in substance to the Resolution which it passed in the Church Assembly in 1927, which reads as follows
"That nothing should be done in fixing the date of Easter unless Christian people in all countries will generally concur in it; and that the time has not yet arrived for any legislation on that subject."
I do not think that that Church of England would any longer adhere to the last sentence; it would, however, adhere to the necessity for general agreement.
I do not know whether it is for the Churches to take the initiative in this matter and to ask one another what they think, or, rather, whether it is not for Her Majesty's Government, with this Act of Parliament of 1928 behind them, to approach the Churches and to ask what is the opinion of the Churches in this matter. I am quite certain that if the Government were to make such an approach to the Churches, and if it

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appeared, as a result of that approach, that there was the prospect of even a reasonable degree of agreement, then the Church of England in general, and the Archbishop of Canterbury in particular—for this he has instructed me to say—would be ready to give whatever help in this matter should prove acceptable to the country and to the Government.
4.45 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, might I support my noble friend Lord Ferrier from a different point of view, I think a rather more particular point of view, than has so far been put forward? May I say that I do not support him in asking for an order to be made now, but that I do support him in saying that I think the initiative in this question should come from the Government to the Churches; and I rather understood that the right reverend Prelate took the same point of view. I want to urge the Government to take active steps on behalf of all those who are employed in that rapidly growing industry, the holiday industry. I will start by saying that, if you are going to fix Easter, I think from the point of view of that industry the best date is between the 2nd and the 8th of April. Then Whitsun would fall between the 21st and 27th May. Dealing with the date of Easter, my noble friend has suggested that under the present system of fixing Easter you could have two Easters in one fiscal year. We can have that at present, but it is quite easy to avoid, because one has only to change the beginning of the fiscal year to the far more appropriate date of April 1, and one could then have one's Easter period starting April 2.
From the point of view of the holiday industry, what matters is not the date of Easter but the date of Whitsun. In the South of England, in such resorts as Brighton and Bournemouth, there is, of course, to a larger or smaller extent, a season all the year round. But in the Northern resorts the holiday season is in June, July, August, and part of September. If you are going to have Whitsun at the end of May, it will not interfere with the main holiday season, which in fact starts in June. But one of the difficulties in this industry—and it is not only hotels, boardinghouses and restaurants who are concerned, but also those who run ice-cream parlours, those
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who entertain, those who run the donkeys on the beach; all are part of this increasing industry nowadays—is this. At present, if we have an early Easter, and therefore an early Whitsun, or even one that is fairly early, the employees of this rather difficult industry are taken on for Whitsun in these Northern resorts, and are then stood off for a fortnight or three weeks. Anything which can bring order into this industry is to be recommended. If Whitsun were to fall towards the end of May, these employees would be kept on and would be ready for the summer holiday season, which in the North and the Midlands will start immediately afterwards.
This will help the transport problem. Arrangements will be able to be made a long time in advance. It will help the Wakes weeks. Those who live in the South have never heard of them, but in Lancashire they have things called Wakes weeks, when virtually a whole town will shut down for a period. Of course, all the towns in Lancashire do not shut for the same week, because these weeks are timed so as not to clash. If you have a fixed Easter and Whitsun, you will find that the Wakes weeks will be settled a long time in advance, and because of their being settled year after year in advance, virtually on the same dates, we shall not have the position we sometimes have now, in which, owing to a changing Easter and Whitsun, people very often go on their week's holiday in Wakes week after a short week's work and with less money in their pockets than they would have otherwise. That is an important point. Anything that can regularise this holiday industry, and make it easier for the employees in the industry, and for people in taking their holidays, should be encouraged.
4.49 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am sure that the House is very grateful to my noble friend for giving us the opportunity of discussing this complex and not altogether easy problem. I, for one, listened with deep interest and respect to what he had to say. I think the House is also very much indebted to other noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion for the informative and informed speeches they have made on this subject. Perhaps it would be helpful if I were to indicate the present approach of the Government to this matter.

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The background is, of course, familiar to your Lordships, and I think that it has been broadly sketched this afternoon. Under the long-established tradition, going back to the early days of the Western Church, the Feast of Easter has always been a movable one. In this country the rule for calculating Easter in its present wandering form has been given statutory support by the Calendar (New Style) Act, 1750. This means that the date for Easter wanders, as noble Lords have explained, between March 22 and April 22. As has also been made clear, the date so fixed is universally observed by all Christians, except those who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. These, of course, use the Julian Calendar, rather than the Gregorian Calendar, which is favoured in the West and which, as your Lordships will know, was introduced in this country rather late in the day, in 1752, to the accompaniment of some Trafalgar Square-like disturbances, under the slogan of, "Give us back our eleven days." As a side-line, I may remind your Lordships that Russia did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1918.
The movement for stabilising the date of Easter, particularly or primarily with the convenience of the commercial community in mind, got going about 1910, and culminated in 1928 in the passing of the Easter Act of that year. The provisions of this Act are familiar to your Lordships and have been clearly explained by my noble friend Lord Ferrier. I think that it is clear to anyone who reads the debates which took place in both Houses on that Act, that it was not seriously contemplated by anyone that the Act would be brought into operation unless and until the general agreement of all the Christian Churches of Western Europe had first been obtained. Despite much public discussion of this matter in the inter-war years, and despite the active intervention of the League of Nations in this matter, about which the noble Lord, Lord Crook, has informed us, since 1928 the Churches have not reached any such general agreement about varying the traditional custom observed by our predecessors throughout the last sixteen centuries. In these circumstances, I think that at present the short answer to
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my noble friend's request must still be in the negative.
Your Lordships will remember that this matter was fully debated in this House some eleven years ago, on a Motion introduced by my noble friend Lord Merthyr. The then Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (now Lord Fisher of Lambeth) said that the Act should not be brought into force unless two conditions were satisfied: first, that the Christian denominations should agree; and, secondly, that the chief Western nations should agree. I think I am right in (believing that, broadly speaking, the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Exeter has reaffirmed that position this evening. But at present there is no such general agreement.
So far as the Churches are concerned, as I understand it, the position is as follows. I gather from what the right reverend Prelate told us, that the Church of England, whilst it has no objection in principle to stabilising Easter, has apparently no ardent wish to take the initiative in the matter. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, of which my noble friend Lord Ferrier is such a prominent member, resolved, I gather, many years ago, not to express an opinion either way. The Church of Rome, I understand, is also unwilling to move without taking the views of its Bishops at a General Council.
Now, your Lordships know that a Vatican Council, the first since 1870, is due to be held in October of this year in Rome. Informal inquiry of the Roman Catholic authorities in London has disclosed that the Central Preparatory Commission, which is charged with the task of preparing a draft agenda for the Council, has indeed considered the possible inclusion of the liturgical calendar on the agenda, including the question of a more stabilised Easter. As the Commission's recommendation to His Holiness The Pope has not been made public, we do not, of course, know whether the Roman Catholic Church will eventually decide to consider this question at the Vatican Council. As I have said, we have been in informal contact with the Roman Catholic authorities on this matter, but I am myself inclined to doubt whether it would be right, or indeed appropriate, for us to go further, as I think the noble Lord,

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Lord Crook, would like us to, and to take action which I feel could be represented as the Government's seeking to intervene in the conduct of the business of the Roman Catholic Church. So much for the position of some of the Churches, as I understand them.
There would likewise seem no prospect of any early general agreement among what I would term the temporal powers. The question of calendar reform, including the possibility of a non-wandering Easter, was discussed in 1956, as the noble Lord, Lord Crook, mentioned, at a meeting of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Personally, I think that it is significant that a vote was taken, without opposition, to postpone indefinitely further discussion of the more general and more controversial topic, but, of course, I would grant that there was no discussion of a fixed Easter as a separate operation. I think that it is also relevant that public opinion in this country does not appear to be violently exercised about this question at present. For example, I understand that the Board of Trade have encountered no general desire of late in business and commercial circles for a more stabilised Easter. There was, of course, in the inter-war years very considerable pressure for such stabilisation from bodies like the various chambers of commerce.
As regards the tourist industry, and the effect of stabilising Easter and Whit-sun on the tourist industry, to which my noble friend Lord Derwent alluded. I would just say this. Again I understand that the industry has lately tended to lose interest in fixing Easter—and thus Whitsun—and that their current representations are directed to obtaining a fixed June bank holiday, divorced from the Whitsun Festival. But the Board of Trade Committee has been considering what action the Government can take to encourage the extension of the summer holiday season in this country in order to relieve congestion at the peak holiday periods. It has sought the views of interested organisations and will shortly submit a report to the President of the Board of Trade. Until that report has been submitted, I should not wish to comment much further upon the implications of this question in relation to the tourist industry. As regards the schools,
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I understand that the Ministry of Education, for their part, have received no representations of late from the various education authorities in. this country.
It is, of course, true that the issue has been ventilated from time to time in both Houses of Parliament, and not least by my noble friend Lord Ferrier. Yet since 1951 the Home Office have received only eight letters urging the stabilisation of Easter or Whitsun. In the same period we have received two letters from people opposed to stabilisation. This does not betoken keen or violent public interest. I should perhaps add that we recently received a letter from some undergraduates on the linked and distinct issue of the calendar. They advocated a return to the Julian Calendar in order to have eleven more days in which to prepare for their examinations. Nevertheless, and more seriously, whatever the reason may be, it would appear that, right or wrong, opinion as a whole is less exercised about this matter than it was in the inter-war years.
I do not wish to appear unduly discouraging to my noble friend, for whose general viewpoint on this matter I personally have considerable sympathy. I do not dissent from what he has said, or indeed what other noble Lords have said, about the practical benefits which would flow from a stabilised Easter. Nor am I unaware, I hope, of the wider, less secular considerations on which he touched. Yet, in all the circumstances, I seriously suggest to your Lordships that it would be wrong for this country or the Government to act alone in this matter. I agree that one can possibly exaggerate the administrative inconvenience of our celebrating Easter and taking our holidays over the Easter weekend at a different period, for example, from that adopted by our friends across the Channel. But, be that as it may, I suggest that it would be really unwise for us to proceed unilaterally (to use that fashionable phrase) in this matter.
I think it most unlikely—and what the right reverend Prelate said this afternoon has confirmed me in my belief—that the Churches in this country would agree to the fixing of Easter unless the Western Churches, as a whole, agreed. For us to proceed in the teeth of disagreement, or in the absence of agreement, would almost certainly lead to the different Churches in

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this country celebrating Easter on different days. I cannot believe that this would be a desirable situation: indeed, it might serve to reopen old controversies. The Government of the day would, indeed, I feel, be assuming a heavy responsibility if, by precipitate action of this sort, they in any way served to reopen the controversy in the West, which has been virtually closed, or at least adjourned, since the Synod of Whitby in 664.
My short reply, therefore, to my noble friend is that if we cannot proceed together on this matter it would be preferable not to move at all. However, I can assure him—and I do so very willingly—that the Government will give the most careful consideration to any Views which may be expressed on this question at the forthcoming Vatican Council, and also to any views expressed by other Christian bodies in deciding whether any further action on our part could suitably be taken. I, for my part, also gladly undertake to consider most carefully the various views expressed in your Lordships' House this evening.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, before he concludes, whether the Government are prepared to do anything to try to secure agreement on this matter with other principal Governments in the Western hemisphere?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the noble Bad had, in fact, concluded; but in concluding I said that I would give careful consideration to all the views expressed in your Lordships' House this evening. That was one of the views expressed.

SITING OF TALL BUILDINGS
5.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE rose THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what basic principles they consider should sanction high-rise building silhouettes in urban landscapes. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I would ask the noble Earl who is to reply if he will answer another question, which is not printed but which is: Does he not think that certain amending legislation is needed? Exactly a year ago my noble friend Lord Bossom
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asked a similar Question to that which he asked yesterday. The Answer of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, did not please the noble Lord the questioner or myself; or the noble Lords, Lord Am well, Lord Taylor and Lord Shaekloton. I had previously drawn attention to the bulk of the Vickers building acting as a sort of long-stop behind the venerable gate towers of St. James's Palace, and to the intrusive peering battlements then rising over the treetops from the Stag Brewery site to look down into the privacy of Buckingham Palace gardens. In recent days tens of thousands attending the Royal Garden Party will have noted for themselves that object lesson in overlooking, as it is called.
My noble friend Lord Bossom quoted the rule about high buildings in Washington whereby it is sought to perpetuate the supremacy of what is, to United-Staters, beautiful or historical—a justified embargo and perhaps one to copy. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, questioned the wisdom of allowing a 22-storey building in Oxford Circus, that ganglion of traffic. For the same reason I doubt the wisdom of having reared the mammoth Hilton Hotel on the very edge of a rapid rushing torrent of traffic before a comprehensive redevelopment of the area, including a reshaping of the roads plan, had taken place. In 1920 I took great pride in the County Hall, then rising majestically on the South Bank, being then a County Councillor. To-day that same facade is dwarfed by the new Shell House. The noble Lord, Lord Amwell (he was here, but I am sorry to see that he has left) complained that the gigantic Vickers Tower, seen from Waterloo Bridge further down-river, had dwarfed this Palace in which we sit, making even the tower of Big Ben hide its head.
All those mistakes may be going to remain a thing of the past (let us cross our fingers) if the London County Council are as good as their word. For on Tuesday there was presented to the Council a report of their Planning Committee forswearing perpetration of similar misdemeanours or (shall I say?) acts of unwisdom. In this document our desire seems to have been met. Neither skyline nor riverscape is to be marred; palaces and parks are to be respected; and crude modern forms are not to be reared alongside that which is historic

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and well loved, to derogate from the dignity and respect in which we wish them to be held.
But, my Lords, we look to the Government to hold the fort for our treasures where threats by imperfectly instructed planning committees, maybe, arise; for the Minister is overlord of all planners. Planners, it is well understood, act under the compulsion of two main fears: first, that if they delay decision beyond two months they may render themselves liable to claims that they must either purchase sites and properties or face compensation payments. Yet I understand that they can buy time over an application by giving notice to the Housing Minister for the project to be treated under the comprehensive re-development method. In the latter case, the two months can well extend over two years in time. Ratepayers will have to disburse the cost of modernising road plans as a first step in the exercise. One hopes the Treasury will unbend and authorise the Ministry to make grants of interest due on loans, say for the first three years, until rents come in as income.
Does the noble Earl deny that some amending legislation is now due? Can he foreshadow his Minister's intention in that respect? One last word. The Minister has dropped a most encouraging remark that his Ministry is willing to lend technical assistance, seeing that surveyors, highly and fully trained in the new science of town planning and road plan reshaping, are a very scarce commodity at this moment throughout our towns and shires.
5.12 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, before the noble Earl answers this Question, I should like to intervene for a very short time. First, I would thank the noble Earl for having put this Question, which is of great interest to all Londoners particularly, and for trying to elicit a reply from Her Majesty's Government, if they will give one. I think it is particularly opportune to ask this Question, because there is no doubt that high buildings, particularly in London, are on the increase, and it is right that we should try to get some declaration of principle as to what kind of high buildings are in the public interest and what are not.
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We are very much behind other countries in regard to high buildings. Noble Lords will know that in the United States, in South America, and in many other countries, they are prevalent and are growing much faster than they are here. In some of what I may call the twilight countries, countries that are emerging into modern civilisation, the number of high buildings is regarded as a symbol of their prosperity, civilisation, and so on. We are very much behind, but, as I have said, our numbers are increasing. The question about which we have to make up our minds is whether we should encourage this increase in high buildings or resist it. There is no doubt that high buildings offer a considerable number of advantages. It makes it possible, if the building is properly silted, to provide much better lighted accommodation than in buildings of traditional height, and there is no interference from these buildings with views of other buildings. There is less over-shadowing, and it adds interest—I stress that—in areas which are generally comprised of low-lying buildings.
The noble Earl has referred to a report of the London County Council on this question. In that report, the London County Council take the view that it is not desirable to have high buildings in areas which are generally of traditional height. There I absolutely disagree. Having lived in two of the areas that are referred to as areas of traditional low building, I would say that one of the disadvantages of those areas is that they are dull and uninteresting, and that a few high buildings would add considerable interest, certainly for the residents. At one time in Dulwich there was the Crystal Palace, which was a landmark and of great interest to us all. We deplored the day when that building came down. Another advantage is that it is accepted that by putting up a high building you do not increase the volume of the building. I think that would be undesirable. This is not a means of getting more accommodation; it is merely a means of using the space in rather a different way. By putting up a high building of the same cubic content as a traditional building, you have more land available around the building, which could be a very

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desirable thing, especially if the site is sufficiently large.
I have read and considered very carefully the report of the London County Council which sets out the policy they will adopt in the future. I am bound to say that I rather deplore it. The report seems to me, and is indeed, avowedly biased against high buildings, just as are the noble Lord, Lord Bossom, and, I gather, the noble Earl who has just spoken. The London County Council and the noble Lords say that unless there is an advantage in high building it should not be allowed—in other words, putting the onus of proof on those who want to put up high buildings. I think that is an unfair onus to impose upon a developer. We have to recognise that this question of the erection of high buildings, once you have introduced all the necessary safeguards—safeguards against overshadowing, blocking out desirable views, interference with views, particularly of public buildings, and so on—is largely a matter of taste. Some noble Lords may not like high buildings. I personally do, but I should not wish, therefore, to impose high buildings on the noble Lord, Lord Bossom, or on the noble Earl. And I hope they would not impose their views on me.
We are living in an age when individual developers carry out development on their land, and are permitted to do so, subject to their complying with the normal town planning requirements, which, of course, contain in design all the safeguards for the community which can be desired. But I think it is quite wrong that any one generation should wish to impose its particular taste upon the community as a whole; a taste which may be unsatisfactory, which may not even be the taste of the public as a whole and may be based on experience in the past.
Some of the most beautiful buildings in the world to-day are those which, at the time they were built, were regarded as ugly and undesirable; and fashions do change even in taste. I believe there are people to-day who regard the Albert Memorial as a very beautiful building. When I was a boy it was regarded as the last word in ugliness. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Bossom, who is going to follow me in
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addressing your Lordships, thinks about the Albert Memorial. I would say the same about the Central Hall, Westminster. I have heard that praised most highly in the last year or two. Nobody would nave dared to stand up in public and praise the Central Hall, Westminster, fifteen years ago, but to-day there are many people to be found who would regard such buildings as very delightful. I believe that the Houses of Parliament, when they were first built, were not regarded as the last word in beautiful architecture. Indeed, it would have been difficult to justify the design of the Houses of Parliament in that they are mock Gothic and represent no contemporary kind of architecture at all. But to-day we regard the Houses of Parliament as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.
All these things are matters of taste; and I think it is wrong, therefore, solely on the grounds of æsthetics to impose one's ideas of these high buildings. By all means, let us satisfy ourselves on proper requirements of siting, views, ease of fire-fighting and overshadowing, and see that all the necessary protective bylaws, and all the rest of it, are complied with. But I think that when it becomes a matter of taste we must be very sure before we interfere.
Of course, I do not wish to go right to the extreme of my argument—I hope I never shall in any argument—but one has to have regard to the nature of the materials that are used. Obviously, in a building of that kind one has to use the right kind of material, which will harmonise with the area, but I take that for granted. I take it that the real objection, if there is one, regarding high buildings is to the fact that they are high and not in accordance with the tradition of building in this country; and one has to make out a case—as this report says, an extremely powerful case—to establish that a building of traditional height is less desirable than the high building one wants to put up. I think that is a wrong onus and a wrong emphasis, and my own view is that it would be far better to do what this report says has already been done: to let London grow and to develop in a natural way, perhaps somewhat fortuitously and casually, and so long as

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each building is right and good so will the total emerge.
I want to conclude by referring to a conception of Venice. Venice is a city which has grown over many centuries. Buildings of different generations and different styles, by different architects, have all helped to build up Venice; yet the total ensemble of Venice is one of the most beautiful in the world, and the reason is that each building is harmonised with every other. There has been no attempt to suppress any particular design. It has not been suggested that because many buildings are Gothic, therefore only Gothic buildings must be permitted. Every building is a gem of its own. I would submit that if we can put up attractive buildings which are of attractive materials, the right materials, not interfering with the views, prospects or with other buildings, we should allow a great deal of freedom in the erection of high buildings. I hope the Government will not seek to impose any kind of dead level or standard or create a difficult onus on people to make it impossible for them to provide these high buildings.
There is one more thing I want to say, and that is that this report says how many high buildings there are in London; and if the standards that the London County Council lay down today had been approved, I doubt whether any of these buildings would have been put up at all; I doubt whether any one of these high buildings satisfies the standards which the London County Council themselves lay down. And yet they have given planning permission for the erection of every one of them. I think it is time we cleared our minds over the subject, and I am very glad indeed that the noble Earl has put this Question so that we may have an opportunity of discussing it and hearing the views of the Government.
5.26 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I should have been surprised to hear the speech that we have just listened to coming from any Member of the Opposition Front Bench, but my surprise became astonishment when this speech fell from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the father and drafter of the Town and Country Planning Bill, and the Minister who was
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responsible for commending that Bill to the House of Commons, and who successfully put it upon the Statute Book. The logic of his argument is that since taste varies so completely it is impossible to have any criterion, that anything which interferes with the free enterprise of even the most irresponsible developers should be eyed with the greatest distrust. He covered himself by saying that he did not want to push his argument to extremes, but I hardly know how the argument could have been more extreme than the form in which he put it forward.
It is, of course, true that tastes change. It is true that many buildings which were disapproved of at one time have become admired in a later age. But that is not a reason for abandoning all attempts at maintaining certain standards of taste. Even less is it a reason for not seeking, in a city like London, to control the erection of high buildings which could have the most serious effect upon traffic, as well as the most damaging effect upon the general appearance of the city as a whole. I hope that the London County Council will not be discouraged from reviewing again the rules they have laid down simply because one who in the past has been so distinguished a supporter of their general policy in this matter disapproves of what they are now doing.
I feel that the report is a conscientious and enlightened effort to provide a reasonable degree of freedom in building high buildings where it is appropriate to do so. But even if the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is beginning to doubt the wisdom of the Town and Country Planning Act, I feel that nearly everybody else has been convinced by the arguments that he has put forward in the past, and we are very glad indeed to think that the London County Council have these powers and were considering so carefully how to exercise them in a way which will, at the same time, maintain certain standards while enabling new ideas and new techniques to be developed.
5.30 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Albemarle, for asking the Government to give us some information on these lines. I must declare a certain interest in this situation. I believe that I am credited with being the

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first person ever to design a 20-storey building on skyscraper lines, which I did in 1908. Furthermore, I did the tallest building in the world in Washington for the Standard Oil Company of New York. I got a gold medal in New York in 1924. So I do know something about this subject.
I would go on to say that the Town and Country Planning Act, which is so important in the way we have operated it in the past, does not quite meet all the situation. What I think we must do to-day is to take the planning of London as a whole, and decide where tall buildings should go and where they would be inappropriate. Any of your Lordships who went to one of the Royal Garden Parties in the past ten days must have had a shock to see buildings in these positions on either side of this magnificent centre. I do not think that even the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, would consider them appropriate.
Nevertheless, there are certain places where high buildings are appropriate, and that is where they must be placed. If you go anywhere out of London you will see building everywhere. We have got to house these people, and the only way we can do it, without occupying all the land, is by putting them in taller buildings. I would disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin; I am in favour of tall buildings in the right place, but I am not in favour of them in the wrong place. I am only sorry that we have been putting them in the wrong place.
The London County Council promoted a building Act; I happened to be on the committee when it was being worked out. We made certain regulations that buildings should not be more than 80 feet to the cornice and 100 feet high in total. Then some exceptions were made, and the Royal Fine Art Commission were invited to give their views, which they did. Than the County Council gave their advice, and in certain circumstances rather condemned certain tall buildings. But what happened? The Minister, who had the final "say-so" about it, overruled the objections of the London County Council and of the Royal Fine Art Commission, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, knows. I do not think it is proper that people who are not better informed than the Minister on that subject should
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have the power of overriding the Royal Fine Art Commission. They are put there as a guardian for London; yet they are overridden.
I think that we have to preserve certain areas of London; for example the square mile—we will call it the Whitehall square mile. There are certain parts of London which are precious, and we shall certainly lose that quality if we stick up all sorts of buildings all over the place. Lot us say that certain places can have them and that certain other places cannot. We should start, as they have done in other countries, by putting them in groups (that is exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, was suggesting), and not have them isolated all over the place. That has been done in other places, and it has worked out very well indeed. That was originally done in New York. They indicated certain places where high buildings should be put up. I was in New York at the time, and we left gaps intentionally. That principle has worked very well, and has proved to be correct.
Then they started putting up tall buildings in Washington. The matter was taken up by the architects of America, and we decided (I was an architect in practice in America in those days) that it would be better to limit the height to about 100 feet anywhere in that city; and that has worked perfectly well. If you were to go to Washington to-day you would make charming remarks, as is done about Venice. If you go to Paris, you find that the same thing has been done by perfectly simple planning. We must do the planning carefully and decide beforehand, and not do it in a rush because somebody decides that he wants to put up a building in a particular place, in order to make some more money. That is not the way to plan a great city. It should be looked at carefully, as a whole, and should be divided up. Then the authority should say, "There you can put what you like, so long as it complies with the regulations; but not here". I am sure that if it were put to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, he, with his own knowledge of and pride in town planning, would be the first to agree. I think that, when he looks at what he has said, he will agree that he spoke a little more out of turn than he appreciated.

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My Lords, we have entered into a new era, and the size of buildings has grown. We nave put up very big buildings. I have designed 50 of them; I know all about that. I know that in certain towns, like Buffalo, for instance, they said, "No more tall buildings"; and they stopped. They did that in a great many other cities, and it was of great benefit. Why cannot we do that in London and other cities: decide the whole picture; make the picture as a whole? We can secure all the variety we want, and let them all have their full chance of building upwards, but only in certain limited areas, while preserving the beauty that we undoubtedly have in this city. This city is to my mind—and I know most of the big cities of the world—one of the most beautiful and attractive cities there is. Let us keep it so. When we look back through history we think of the type of people who lived in any time by the type of buildings they left behind them. How will future generations think of the people of this generation if we allow the beauty of London to be lost because a few speculators desire to make a dot of money? I think we have an opportunity now. If we Jet it go too far we shall have lost the opportunity. If we take advantage of the opportunity now, we shall be doing something worth while for ourselves and future generations. I think we owe a great debt to the noble Earl, Lord Albemarle, for bringing this matter up this afternoon.
5.38 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I apologise for, in the words of my noble friend, Lord Albemarle, rearing my crude modern form yet again at this Box. If high buildings were human, I feel that some of them, including perhaps a few fairly close to your Lordships' House, would have been pained at some of the things said about them in our short discussion this afternoon. But nothing, I suppose, is worse in life than being ignored, and high buildings, at least in London, cannot complain that your Lordships have shown indifference to their varied charms. You debated their merits at considerable length last February on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, and since then few weeks have gone by without my noble friend Lord Bossom giving them,
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and sometimes the Government into the bargain, a pretty sharp dig in the ribs. May I say straight away that I, for one, welcome the solicitude which your Lordships have shown and are showing in this matter. That is why I, too, very much welcome the opportunity which my noble friend Lord Albemarle has given us of having a further look at this difficult and lofty problem.
I suppose that one of the greatest tasks facing this nation, and one of the most exciting and challenging, is that of urban renewal. As the Civic Trust, for example, have pointed out in their interesting report, in the preparation of which my noble friend Lord Mancroft has played a very prominent part, too many of our towns and cities are tired and drab and very few of their centres are really adapted to the requirements of the 20th century. That being so, I welcome all the signs which confirm that we are embarking, have embarked, upon a great era of rebuilding our towns and cities. At no time in our history, I suppose, have our townscapes been Changing so fast, and there are signs which we see all around us that this process is indeed accelerating. I, personally, am sure that this problem Of high building must be treated as an integral part, indeed a vastly important part, of this whole process.
However, that said, I should be the first to agree that it is vitally important to get the answers here as right as possible; that we get the right sort of high buildings in the right places, designed in the right way by the right people. That is what we have to aim at. But since the skyline of Britain is changing so fast, I, for one, welcome the fact that this House should so often show itself a watchdog of amenity in this matter. I do not think it unfair to claim that, to some extent at least, the growing national awareness of the importance of this problem owes something to the constant attention which this House has focused on it. Accordingly, I hope that my noble friends will continue to bark whenever they see a high building which displeases them, even though a Government spokesman may get bitten in the process.
LORD SILKIN: Would they purr if they see one that they like?
EARL JELLICOE: I do not think we shall hear a great many purrs from my noble friends immediately behind me—at least, if these buildings go up in the immediate vicinity of where my noble friend is sitting at the present time. In our discussion last February I tried, at perhaps undue length, to explain the general approach of the Government to this problem, at least so far as London was concerned. I do not wish to drag your Lordships over the same old ground again, but perhaps I could remind you of the basic principles, to borrow my noble friend's phrase, which underlie our approach. The first is our feeling that, for a whole variety of reasons, high buildings have come to stay, and that any Government in this post-Canute era would be wise to recognise that fact. The second principle is our belief, reached after considerable thought, that in essence each high building has to be judged on its own merits, in its own context. That means, parenthetically, that we see, as indeed I think the L.C.C. see, great difficulties over any rather rigid type of zoning of heights as has been suggested by my noble friend Lord Bossom in his most interesting intervention.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, if I gave the impression that I want to limit height I must say I did not give the right impression, because I do not want to limit height at all What I want to do is to put the building in the right place. It is the place that counts, not the height.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think I understood what my noble friend had in mind. Whilst I fully appreciate his point, I myself am inclined also to appreciate the difficulties to which the L.C.C. have alluded in their most recent report in this particular respect. Thirdly, however, this does not mean that we are prepared to let high buildings sprout promiscuously from the soil of our towns and cities, wherever a developer sees fit to plant them.
I pointed out, taking London as an example, that any proposal for any high building has to run a number of gauntlets. It has to satisfy the requirements of the London building Acts to which my noble friend Lord Bossom alluded. If it is near a Royal Park or Palace consultation with my right
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honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works is required. In almost all important cases the Royal Fine Art Commission is also consulted. Finally, and perhaps most important, each individual application is assessed by the planning authority, the London County Council, against eight specific criteria—or has been up till now.
I then went on to make it clear that the London County Council were having a fresh look at their eight points in order to see whether they could not graft some more flesh on them; and I added that I was certain that they, in considering this subject, would wish to consult with the Royal Fine Art Commission. As your Lordships have learned, the London County Council have lately re-examined their whole policy on this matter, and they approved, I think on July 17 last, a report from their Town Planning Committee. I hope that all Members of your Lordships' House who are interested in this matter will read that report with care. I think, whether or not one agrees with its conclusions, there is a great deal of value in that report.
It would take much too long to go over the report in any detail, but I should like to touch on those points in it which I consider most relevant to your Lordships' brief discussion this evening. As the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has mentioned, it starts with the general proposition that the Council do not recognise any inherent right to build high, and that it is up to the developers themselves to make their case, with the support of written and visual evidence, for any building susbtantially above the average height of buildings in the surrounding neighbourhood. The Council, again most wisely, urged developers to consult the Council officers at an early stage, to discuss in a preliminary way the effect any proposed high building is likely to have, not only on its immediate environment but also on the general skyline of London as well. I think this question of early preliminary consultation is one of great importance. The statement then goes on to make it crystal clear that the Council will give permission to build high only if they are satisfied on five points. Since those are important, and since each one consists only of one sentence, I hope that your Lordships will not mind if I spell them

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out in full. In each case I quote the words of the report.
The first point is
"that a development conforming with the general high level of surrounding buildings will have serious disadvantages and that substantial advantages to the public interest will be gained by a high building."
The second is that
"the building, from wherever it is seen, will not seriously mar the skyline nor spoil traditionally pleasing and well loved views, such as those of the Palace of Westminster and of London squares or views from the Royal Parks and the River Thames."
The third is that
"the proposed high building would look well with its immediate surroundings, both existing and proposed."
The fourth is that
"amenities of surrounding sites will not be harmed, nor their development possibility unreasonably affected."
And the fifth is that
"in view of the prominence of high buildings developers have been successful in securing a high quality of architectural and external finishes for their high building."
As the report explains, it was the intention of the London County Council to restate their existing policy in more definite and more forceful terms. I would suggest to your Lordships that, whether or not you agree with their revised policy, they have been successful in so doing. For example, the first of the new principles makes it clear that the potential developer will not be able to put up a high building "just for the heck of it." He must satisfy the planning authority that substantial advantages will flow from the building in question being a tall one. Parenthetically, I would entirely agree with what the noble Lord said about the great practical advantages which can flow from a high building, and, indeed, I would also add, in some cases, æsthetic advantages as well.
Then, I should have thought that, by emphasising in forceful language the importance of fine and famous views, the London County Council have gone a considerable way on one of the issues about which at least many of your Lordships have been much exercised. I think your Lordships may also welcome, as I do, the general preference which the London County Council have shown for the high tower block as opposed to the
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high slab block; although I hope I may also be able to express the personal view that all slabs are not necessarily bad.
Finally, and most important of all, is the great emphasis which the London County Council have laid on the quality of the individual design. Again, I wish to quote, if I may, a passage from their report:
"The Council wishes to emphasise that even if a high building were to be satisfactory on all previous points, such approval is likely to be provided only if the design and quality of the building is considered to be of exceptionally high standard."
Of course, a lot depends on the individual interpretation of what constitutes a high standard, but, that admitted, I trust your Lordships will welcome, as I do, this fierce emphasis on quality and design.
This new statement of London County Council policy was worked out in close consultation with the Royal Fine Art Commission. I find it very encouraging to see the Council sitting down side by side, as it were, with them and addressing themselves in this way to what is indeed a very difficult problem. I could perhaps mention that while the Commission have stated that they generally approve of the Council's new policy, they have noted their reservations on certain points in regard to it. Whilst, for example, they share the London County Council's penchant for blocks or towers as opposed to slabs, they have expressed the fear that the present daylighting code may work in favour of slabs. They ask that this should be looked into, and the Council are, I am glad to say, arranging to do so as far as they can.
The Council are also proposing to give more general and detailed guidance in a brochure they hope to get out later this year—a guide for potential developers. I know that in preparing this they will be very walling to consider any observations which have been made on their policy statement, and, indeed, to modify the statement if that seems to be called for. I am sure that they will also wish to take close account of what has been said, and doubtless will be said, in your Lordships' House on this general question.
My noble friend Lord Albemarle asked me two specific questions. I am

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not certain that I have them correctly, but I will try to answer them. As I understood it, the first concerned planning grant. I think the position here is that there is now no planning grant for areas of comprehensive development unless these areas are defined for the purpose of dealing with war damage. I cannot, I fear, promise my noble friend amending legislation here. The mere fact that a high building is being erected in a particular area is not necessarily justification for the comprehensive development of the area as a whole, although it may be. The second question he asked concerned the buying of time by applicants. I think the brief answer is that time cannot be bought unless the applicant himself agrees.
My Lords, at the end of the London County Council statement I find the words:
"The problem of high buildings is one of the most difficult in the whole field of London planning and we consider that a satisfactory policy can be evolved gradually, in the light of experience and of the views of all who share with us the desire to see that London's high buildings make a worthy contribution to its beauty and character."
On behalf of the Government I should like to echo those words. This is certainly a very intricate problem indeed. Clearly, as we see, the increasingly restless skyline of our provincial towns and cities is not a problem which concerns London alone, although I think it is true to say that the problem is most acute in London. In any event, it is clear that the importance of high-rise building in London in relation to London's landscape is increasingly appreciated, and I am sure that much of the experience which is being gained here in dealing with this problem will have its application in what must, of course, be different circumstances in towns and cities outside London.
My Lords, in conclusion, of one thing I am quite certain; that is that we should be wise to avoid a too doctrinaire approach to this matter. Our policy in this field should be free to evolve in the light of experience since, in this high-rise game, we are all to some extent beginners. I am convinced also that, While both public opinion and the Government must be increasingly vigilant on this point, we should at the same time be at least reasonably flexible. For
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example, I should not wish to suggest that London County Council's new criteria are necessarily the last word in wisdom; but I would suggest that the new rules for high building in London have been evolved by the London County Council after a great deal of careful thought and study, in the light of much experience. They have the backing of the Royal Fine Art Commission, and they may well strike many people, including many Members of your Lordships' House, as being roughly along the right lines—not as rigid as some people would like, but not as loose and laissez faire as others would like. In any event, my Lords, the Government note this new departure with keen interest, and will watch the further operation of these principles with very close attention.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I have no right of reply, but, before the noble Earl sits down, might I ask him a question about Sir Keith Joseph's welcome offer of the technical assistance of his best planners to help those cities which are not perhaps suitably provided with highly-trained staff?
EARL JELLICOE: I am afraid I am rather imperfectly informed here. An offer on those lines was made by Sir Keith Joseph's predecessor to certain of the Northern towns and cities to help them in their slum clearance programme. It may be that my noble friend has possibly confused that with Sir Keith Joseph's alleged statement. If I may, I will look into the question and write to my noble friend about it.

REGENT REFINING COMPANY BILL
The Queen's Consent signified, and Bill reported with Amendments.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
DARTFORD TUNNEL BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
LETCHWORTH GARDEN CITY CORPORATION BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

ORPINGTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments; the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
House adjourned at two minutes before six o'clock.