Lords Sitting of 3 April 1963

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

MEAT SUPPLIES AND PRICES
2.35 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there have been any further exchanges of view between the National Farmers' Union and the Ministry of Agriculture concerning meat supplies and the availability, to the Union, of more detailed information on the retail prices of meat than already supplied.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, there have been no further exchanges. The request made by the National Farmers' Union related to information on meat prices that would be comparable as between farm and shop. The Union were informed in mid-February that the individual price quotations collected by the Ministry of Labour were not sufficiently representative and reliable to enable comparisons of this kind to be made, nor proof against misleading inferences. Though naturally disappointed at the outcome, I am sure the unions now appreciate the considerable technical difficulties involved.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, am I to understand from that Answer that the National Farmers' Union realise that we are not going to get any further on this matter with the Ministry of Agriculture?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am not sure whether that observation was in the form of a supplementary question. I did not hear the first words.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I am sorry. I did say, I think, "Am I to understand from that…".
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, what I hope was clear from my reply was that the National Farmers' Union understand the difficulties of producing the figures they have requested.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that it would be a good idea if my noble friend were to suggest that the magazine Which? should consider this matter and provide the information that Her Majesty's Government obviously are not prepared to give?
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that it would be a good idea if, to allay public anxiety on the price of meat, Her Majesty's Government published the weekly or monthly prices of meat which are collected by the Ministry of Labour in order to compile the cost-of-living index figure?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, those are the figures which I said were not sufficiently representative, or proof against misleading inferences, for us to publish them with that end in view.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if the noble Lord says that those figures are not representative and are misleading, how can they possibly be incorporated in the cost-of-living index, which guides the salaries and wages of millions of people in this country? That is exactly what he said. Is that what he means?
LORD ST. OSWALD: They are collected, as the noble Lord himself has pointed out, for a different purpose.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as I understand that a special cost-of-living index is being compiled for the old-age pensioners, could the noble Lord tell us which cuts of meat are to be related to that cost-of-living index?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Not without notice, I am afraid.
LORD STONHAM: Is the noble Lord aware that his noble friend Lord Jellicoe said in the House on Monday that food, including meat, which cost 13s. wholesale was sold retail at 30s. 9d. Can the noble Lord say whether on meat that is the average on-cost from wholesale to retail?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, considers that that arises from the original Question.

COST OF ROADWORKS TO REPLACE RAIL
2.40 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: 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 what will be the capital cost of the provision of new roads and improvements to existing roads, which will be necessary for the safe transit of the additional public service road vehicles and goods vehicles which will be using the roads, if the recommendations in the report The Reshaping of British Railways are fully implemented.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, the Ministry of Transport's divisional road engineers are considering what improvements to roads may be necessary if the Railways Board's full proposals are put into effect. Not until that is done will it be possible to make a first tentative estimate of the possible capital cost.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful for that Answer. May I then ask the noble Lord whether his right honourable friend will give an assurance that he will give no decision with regard to any branch line closure until the cost of necessary road improvements is known, so that they can be balanced against the prospective saving on the line closure?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, my right honourable friend has already said certain things to that effect.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, is it not a fact that in certain parts of the country, notably Sussex and Suffolk, Wales and the North of England, the cost of road improvements will be so prohibitive as to make it quite impossible to withdraw railway services in favour of buses?
LORD CHESHAM: That is a matter to be ascertained and, as my right honourable friend has said, taken into consideration.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind that the Transport Users' Consultative Committees, to whom within two months proposals may be submitted, can judge on grounds of hardship only? In regard to one case in Dr. Beeching's Report on the saving by a line closure of £8,000, local people say that the road proposals will cost a quarter of a million pounds. They are the kinds of consideration which the T.U.C.C. cannot know of and they must be disclosed to the public first.
LORD CHESHAM: That is right. That, again, is the reason why my right honourable friend said that the final decision lay with him in the light of all such matters.

CLYWEDOG RESERVOIR JOINT AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
2.43 p.m.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD AIREDALE): My Lords, on behalf of the Lord Chairman, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I wish to say just a few words on this Bill—I shall not keep your Lordships long—as a certain point of principle arises on it. On February 28 I raised a question by way of an Instruction to the Committee. This Instruction was not accepted, but we had a lively and interesting debate and, I think, one which was well worth while. The point at issue arises over Clause 33 of the Bill, which provided for permission to the authority to pay ex gratia any person a sum of money
"as they think fit towards any loss, or in respect of any personal hardship, which, in their opinion, he sustains, or is put to, by reason of his having to quit the land."
The Select Committee considered this matter, and after hearing evidence, and argument of counsel on both sides, came to a decision on the lines requested in my Instruction. The new Clause 33 now reads as follows:
"(1) The Authority shall pay to any person displaced from any land acquired under this Act such sum as will be equal to the loss or expense which such person sustains or is put to by reason of his having to quit the land and by reason of any personal hardship which he sustains.

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"(2) Any difference as to any sum payable tinder the foregoing subsection shall be determined by a single arbitrator to be agreed upon between the parties to the difference or in default of such agreement appointed by the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors."
I rise to-day to thank the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of the Committee, and the noble Lords who were members of the Committee, for the action which they took. It would have been a considerable hardship if they had not substituted this clause which has now been inserted in the Bill. This provision constitutes a considerable precedent, and in regard to both this particular Bill and any future Bill which affects land compulsorily acquired for any purpose, such as the one in this Bill, will be of great benefit to those who are to be dispossessed. Once more, on behalf of the farmers of Montgomeryshire who are to be affected, I thank the noble Lords.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for those kind words, and I will see that they are drawn to the attention of the Lord Chairman of Committees and also to the Chairman and members of the Select Committee.
On Question, Bill read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.

LONDON GOVERNMENT BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and to be printed.
House adjourned during pleasure, and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.

LOCATION OF OFFICES BUREAU ORDER 1963
2.46 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, the purpose of this Order in Council is to set up the Location of Offices Bureau in accordance with the intentions expressed in paragraphs 28 to 31 of the White Paper on London, that is to say, Cmnd. 1952, entitled London: Employment: Housing: Land. The activities of the Bureau will take two main forms. It will use every possible means to bring to the notice of firms which are already established in Central London, or which
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are thinking of opening offices there, the advantages of decentralising office employment. Secondly, it will act as an information centre for firms thinking of moving out of London. It will collect information about possible destinations, and conditions there—the availability of office space and staff, communications, housing, costs, and so on. The aim will be to give employers easy access to all the information they need to reach a decision about a move and to enable them to plan it. In order to collect this information and keep it up to date, the Bureau will, of course, keep in the closest touch with Government Departments, local authorities, New Towns, and transport authorities.
The Bureau will have no success if advice it gives to firms is unrealistic and out of touch with the practical problems of business. That is why, subject to approval of the Order, my right honourable friend is inviting Mr. E. J. Sturgess, C.B.E., to be the first Chairman of the Bureau. Mr. Sturgess has recently retired after a long career in business; he was the Chief Engineer of Shell, and subsequently Resident Manager of their Training College. My right honourable friend also proposes shortly to appoint two other members of the Bureau, who also will bring commercial experience to the body. The Bureau will have a small administrative and publicity staff, mostly seconded from the Civil Service. It will also have an office in Central London. This is essential because one of its most important tasks will be to maintain close and continuing contacts with firms in the central area. That, briefly, outlines the purposes and shape of the Location and Offices Bureau. If noble Lords wish any further information, I shall be glad to give it in so far as possible. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Location of Offices Bureau Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 21st March last.—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, this Order has been before the Special Orders Committee, who have warned us
"That in their opinion the provisions of the Order raise important questions of policy and principle:
"That the Order is not founded on precedent:

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"That, in the opinion of the Committee, the Order cannot be passed by the House without special attention.…"
For this reason I do not think it necessary to apologise to the House for acceding to the advice given by the Special Orders Committee and giving this Order the attention and scrutiny which they recommend.
My first point is that this Order is made in pursuance of Section 8 (2) of the Minister of Town and Country Planning Act, 1943. This was a war-time Act, the main purpose of which was to set up the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and to appoint a Minister, and Section 8 gives one of the powers that were conferred upon this Minister. We have to bear in mind that to-day there is no Minister of Town and Country Planning, and the Act of 1943 has gone completely into disuse. It has not in terms been repealed, but in practice it has been superseded by various other Acts of Parliament relating to town and country planning, leading up to the Consolidation Act of 1962. In fact there is no Minister of Town and Country Planning; even the name has disappeared. The functions are being carried out by the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
Therefore, I think it is a little slick of the Government to use the powers conferred in this Act, which was passed for a totally different purpose—for the purpose of establishing the Minister—to set up this Committee. I do not want to make too much of it. The Government are entitled to be a little slick if they want to be, I suppose. And I am not challenging their legal right to make this Order. I do not know whether, as a result of the history of the 1943 Act which has gone completely out of use, they are still entitled to make use of this particular section. It is not on that ground that I am primarily raising the matter.
I have grave doubts as to the merits of this Order. In the first place, there is the proliferation of committees. All of us in this House and in another place have challenged from time to time the need for the creation of additional committees for functions which it is the duty of the various Government Departments and the local authorities to carry out. In this particular case it is clearly
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the duty of the local authorities, the local planning authorities, to advise applicants for permission to use offices, or people who want to build new offices where they can go if they are not permitted to go to the particular area to which they desire to go. That is clearly their function, and it has been emphasised over and over again by various Ministers. It is also the duty of the Ministry itself to advise people which are the areas to which they can go. There is really no doubt as to which are those areas. I should not have thought that it needed the advice of a specially created committee to advise people where they can go if they cannot go to London.
I doubt very much whether such a committee can serve any purpose at all. For one thing, it will have the effect of establishing one new office in Central London, which is the very thing it is the purpose of the Government to avoid. It is also going to employ, according to the Minister, between 10 and 20 people. It will be a fairly substantial office with four directors—the Chairman, the Deputy Chairman and two others. I imagine that that office itself will be of a substantial order. But if this committee is going to carry out the functions which the noble Lord said it would, it could not possibly do it with the staff that the Minister in another place mentioned; that is, between 10 and 20. It will need a far bigger staff. Apart from the clerical staff there will be a staff which will carry out research and investigations. They will have to go round the country looking at areas, I imagine, and seeing where offices would be available. In effect they would have the job of estate agents. I can visualise this office, if it is going to do anything, increasing and increasing according to Parkinson's Law, until it has not 10 or 20 staff but something three or four times that size.
The whole of it, in my view, is quite unnecessary. It is a job which the local authorities, local planning authorities, can do quite well, and are doing. Certainly, the London County Council are very willing to give advice, and we are dealing with London. The whole purpose of this is to decentralise office accommodation in London. The London County Council are fully equipped to give this advice and in fact do so. They

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are well informed as to what is going on in the New Towns and in other places, and it seems to me wholly unnecessary to create a special body to carry out research which is within the knowledge of the London County Council themselves.
Secondly, I very much fear that it might get in the way of the planning functions of the planning authority. It might feel that it has itself to advise on planning applications. That would be wholly wrong because each application must be considered on its merits. The Minister has ample power to call in important applications, which in fact he exercises from time to time, and there is a right of appeal to the Minister which is freely exercised, too. There is a danger that this committee may get in the way of this well-established machinery, and jeopardise the right of the individual to have his case considered on its merits and to have the right of appeal.
The noble Lord has said nothing about the remuneration of these people. Obviously an office in Central London is going to be a fairly costly thing, if he can find one. Also, the remuneration of four individuals of the kind he has described will be quite considerable. It does seem to me that it is a wholly unjustifiable expense and, as I said at the outset, a proliferation of machinery which is quite unnecessary. It is not the practice in this House to vote against Orders, and I realise that in another place this Order was given a rather cool acquiescence. But I do feel, with the knowledge I have of this subject and following the thought I have been able to give to it, that the Minister might be well advised to give this matter further thought before he asks the House to approve it.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, I am sure the Minister is well aware that this service is already being handled, and being handled very well, entirely voluntarily, by the Industry Location Service run by Humphreys and Glasgow. Further, I hope that before the Minister advises firms to move out of London he will come to some very definite arrangement with the telephone authorities, because strangely enough, the very evening after the Special Orders Committee reviewed this Order, there was a long article by an insurance company secretary who moved out to Croydon. He
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said that they had had the most tremendous difficulty and spent most of their time dialling 100 without getting any answer, and that STD was not expected in Croydon for another two or three years.
Furthermore, I have the privilege to be associated with a firm which has many factories outside London, and the costs of telephones are of a colossal order; the last rise was in the neighbourhood of £30,000. Finally, before the Minister considers putting this into practice, will he remember that our telephone costs are rising? In the United States the telephone costs, for some reason, are reducing all the time. I believe that in the United States a trans-continental call costs only one dollar for three minutes. Will the Minister also bear in mind the question of road communications?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am not surprised that the noble Lord opposite should have paid special attention to this Order in Council, which the Report of the Special Orders Committee in fact asked the House to do, but I hope I can explain satisfactorily most of the points he brought up. In the first place, on the question of powers, although not disputing the legality of the proposal, the noble Lord somewhat doubts how these powers devolve upon my right honourable friend and how he can reasonably use them since they were originally part of the Minister of Town and Country Planning Act, 1943. As he pointed out, this is in consequence of the Orders in Council made under the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act, 1946, when the Minister of Town and Country Planning took the style and title of Minister of Housing and Local Government, and also the powers. That is the purely legal aspect of the matter.
As for being somewhat "slick", to use the noble Lord's word, in so far as we are using that old Act for purposes for which, according to the noble Lord, it was not intended, I do not think I can accept that statement as a matter of fact, because the purpose for which the original Act was intended was to help the Minister in the exercise of his functions in relation to the use and development of land in England and Wales. We claim that this is precisely what the setting up of a Location of Offices Bureau is doing. It is true that there is no precedent for such an Order; and that this is the first

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exercise of this power to set up a Commission, but I do not think that the only purpose of the original Act was, as the noble Lord suggested, to set up a new Ministry of Town and Country Planning. I believe that at that time there were other ideas in mind which have in fact been implemented since—for example, the setting up of the National Parks Commission and the Central Land Board. But instead of using that Act for bringing that Commission and Board into existence, special legislation was introduced; because, of course, the parks themselves were established at the same time, and there was a whole series of financial arrangements, including grants in aid, which made special legislation necessary.
The same position occurred with the Central Land Board, which was set up under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. To take a more recent example, I might refer to the New Towns Commission. There again, special legislation was desirable, in view of the transfer of assets from the New Town Corporation. So it is a purely fortuitous circumstance that this is the first occasion on which this particular power, contained in the 1943 Act, has been used.
Turning now to the merits of the Order, the noble Lord suggested that this was an unnecessary proliferation of committees. In respect of the cost, I can tell him at once that there is authorisation for £50,000 for this Bureau, a sum which, in the circumstances, is not excessive.
LORD SILKIN: Is £50,000 the initial capital expenditure or the annual expenditure, or what is it?
LORD HASTINGS: It is £50,000 for the first year, for the administrative expenses and also for publicity, because one of its chief objects, of course, is to bring about as much publicity as possible. I think I must now draw the noble Lord's attention to the White Paper on London. Of course, we have not debated this White Paper since it was published in February, less than two months ago, but there is set out quite clearly the very difficult problem of offices in London. This is really only one part of a three-legged policy which the Government are pursing. One is to get Government offices themselves, and head-
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quarters staff of civil servants, moved out of London in so far as it is possible—and I might remind noble Lords that Sir Gilbert Flemming has been appointed to look into that matter and report as soon as possible.
The second, and most important, is the Bill which is now going through, and has nearly gone through, another place, the Town and Country Planning Bill, to modify the Third Schedule to the 1947 Act; and in respect of compensation to limit the allowance for development to 10 per cent. of floor space so as to make for more effective control. The third part of the policy is to do everything in our power to persuade people who already have offices in London to leave, in order to get a better distribution of offices on the periphery of London; and to prevent, if possible, people coming in to take up office space in central London when it is not absolutely necessary. Therefore, it should be seen, and must be seen, I think, in that light as part of the general policy, and as only one part which reinforces the other objectives.
I think it is made quite clear in the White Paper the extent to which office accommodation is increasing, and the congestion which this has already brought about, and is likely to bring about, if nothing is done to check it; and it is certainly the Government's contention that if this Order and the other parts of the Government's policy are not pushed forward vigorously, the cost will be far in excess of the £50,000 which we are proposing to spend in order to help to put things right: it will add up, probably, to several millions of pounds a year. When you think of traffic congestion, the road improvements that would have to be made and the expensive capital cost of transport and of all sorts of suburban railways, not to mention the man-hours lost in travelling, we feel that the expenditure of £50,000 a year far outweighs any slight disadvantage there may seem to be in setting up this Bureau in the centre of London itself. We feel that, if we do not do that, the effects will cost us millions, and not a few thousands.
As for the argument that there is no need to advise, because the local authorities are performing this job, I would suggest that their advice is given only on a very small scale, and that there is need for some sort of central information

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bureau, and that the staff proposed will be quite adequate to carry out the work. The Bureau will collect and collate information from local authorities, including the London County Council—although, of course, this policy is not related to London alone: we hope that offices will go well outside London and not merely on the periphery. In some exceptional cases, perhaps we may get them to go to the North-East, or to Scotland—certainly far out of London. In most cases, it will probably be within reach of London; but it could well be into expanding towns and New Towns, and beyond the periphery. We feel that there must be a liaison between all the local authorities and the people required to move. It is difficult for them to discover exactly where to go; and that is a task with which we feel this staff could perfectly well and very efficiently cope.
There is another point of importance here. The noble Lord spoke about the necessity for research. It is necessary to know why people will not move out of London and why, among firms of the same category and nature, some will move and some will not. There is a great need for further detailed information of this nature, especially as to the sort of requirements that they insist upon in return for moving. I can believe that one of the reasons would relate to the telephone service available in the area. That is a point I will bring to the attention of my right honourable friend and to the Department concerned; and information can be gathered at the Location of Offices Bureau about that. Such research would probably be done, not by increasing or overworking the staff of twenty or thirty, but by requesting some specialised research unit to do it on behalf of the Bureau.
There is no question of this Bureau's getting in the way (to use the noble Lord's own words) of the planning authorities. It will have nothing to do with planning, planning permission or planning appeals; and nothing to do, either, with estate agents. The Bureau will not act as estate agents. Once advice has been given, it is up to the firm in question to get in touch with the areas which seem to them most hopeful and which fulfil their demands most adequately and they will be given fullest details to plan the move. I do not think my noble friend Lord Willingdon's
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comparison with the private office called, I think, the Industrial Locations Office in Glasgow is at all comparable.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: It is not in Glasgow: it is a very famous organisation with the name "Glasgow."
LORD HASTINGS: I am sorry. It operates—I do not know where.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, it has a head office in London and many offices all over the world.
LORD HASTINGS: It is a private information bureau but it is for industrial information and its job is quite different from that to be carried out by this Offices Bureau. I hope now, with that explanation, that noble Lords will feel that this is part of a coherent Government policy which is necessary. It is not a waste of money, and we shall, in fact, save a great deal of money and time by setting up this office.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the policy of this body is highly laudable and commends itself to every quarter, but whether the right medium has been used and whether the name of the body, as a Bureau, is slightly ominous, I do not know. Can the noble Lord promise that it will at least lay before the House quarterly reports as to whether it has success in its task?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, there is a clause about annual accounts. It must produce annual accounts and my right honourable friend will call for an annual report. There are no arrangements for laying quarterly reports before the House, but I will bring the point to my right honourable friend's attention. I do not say it could be done.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, can it be arranged by Question and Answer once a quarter?
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, would the noble Lord say whether an enquirer at the Bureau would be told that the principal cause of difficulty in London is the successive repeals by former Tory Governments of the provisions of the Act of 1947?
LORD HASTINGS: I think the firms would be more interested in finding suitable offices than in inquiring into past policy.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, my noble friend said the initial cost for the first year was £50,000. Later on he talked about an annual cost of £50,000.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It starts at that figure and will go up. My Lords, it gets worse and worse. The noble Lord has referred to the White Paper published by the Ministry, London: Employment: Housing: Land. This shows that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, even that not very competent Department, can publish a White Paper about the South-Eastern Region, Greater London, on its own. Hitherto it had held it was incompetent to do so because there were so many local authorities; therefore, it wanted a Greater London local authority. Well, they have published it; and the noble Lord says we have not yet discussed it. I suggest to him that before we come to this Order we ought to have, in Government time, a debate about this White Paper. Let us have that debate and consider afterwards whether this Order is necessary. Let the Government fix a time. If they publish an important White Paper, then they must expect to give us a day for a debate upon it.
This is a wasteful, bureaucratic, idiotic proposal. This is an extraordinary Department, this Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The planning authority for this business in the first instance, not the second, is the London County Council. The London County Council understand about distribution in London and beyond. Indeed, in so far as they have gone in for an expanding towns policy—which not quite the same as, but something of a similar nature to, New Towns—the London County Council has to know what London industries can be encouraged to do in the expanding towns so as to provide employment for the Londoners who are going to these expanding towns. They call them "exports", which is not a good term for people who move. The London County Council know about it; they know about the problem of offices in central London, which, I agree, is a real problem. The offices in central London are being added to too much. As my noble friend the Deputy Leader of the Opposition here said, this will be another office, established in the name of checking offices in central London. This Government are
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capable of anything; even of that. That is the first thing.
The London County Council know pretty well all about this; and what they do not know the Ministry of Housing and Local Government do know, or ought to know. They have the staff, and they have produced this White Paper. I have only just started reading it. So far as I have gone it is not a bad White Paper, though when I have finished reading it I may have other views! They have the staff who are studying this problem. I have always said that the duty of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is to have ideas of their own about a regional plan; to check on the planning submitted by the planning authorities the county councils and the county boroughs; to suggest and, if necessary impose, modifications to fit them in with ministerial ideas of what ought to be regional planning. That is their job.
But they have said, in relation to the London Government Bill, that the last thing in the world they want to do is to interfere with local authorities; that they would prefer them to act without ministerial interference. But in the first place, this order is ministerial interference. It is putting a Committee between the Minister and the local authorities, who could have done the co-ordination and ultimately imposed a plan on the South-Eastern region.
What ought the Ministry to be doing? They have their experts and specialists, backed by an extraordinarily powerful higher Civil Service, which is probably the author of this particular proposal. The Minister ought to be competent enough to do this himself, but the Minister—Sir Keith Joseph—by bringing forward this Order, confesses that he is incompetent to do the job himself. And I would not be disposed to argue with him about it, because I do not think that he is particularly competent. He proposes to pass the buck, not to a Committee, but to a Bureau—let us give these things their right names. This is a Continental term, imported into our Anglo-Saxon dictionary at the behest of a patriotic Tory Government—if they are patriotic. So they are going to have a Bureau. And who will advise the Bureau?
LORD SHEPHERD: Shell.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Very good. I must say that it is a startling thing that Shell has been brought into the chairmanship, and I suppose that all the others will be capitalist persons of some sort or another. This is an extraordinary committee, with a chairman and deputy and only two members of the rank and file. There is no mention of local government and no mention of labour, so far. Who will service the Bureau? Who will advise the Bureau?—the very same higher civil servants who advise the Minister. Oh!, it is a lovely thing.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Jobs for the boys!
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I agree with my noble friend entirely, but these are Civil Service "boys", who have got jobs anyway. I will come to the other jobs later. I never like criticising civil servants, but I am getting increasingly fed up with the higher civil servants of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. They will advise this Bureau, and if the Bureau did not exist, they would advise the Minister. So, at the end of the day, things come to much the same conclusion—except that, if the Minister gives an unpopular decision he can say, "Well, I was advised by the Bureau to do it, and having appointed these very able people, men"—I nearly said "and women" but I doubt if there will be a woman—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: There will not be one.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I agree with the noble Baroness—"I could not easily sot aside their advice." And if their decision is popular, the Minister will say, "What a fine chap am I! "The truth is that the decision will be much the same, whether it has been reached by the Minister, on the advice of these able, higher, bureaucratically-minded civil servants, or whether it was given, on the same advice, by the Bureau itself. A first application goes to the local authority—in this case almost certainly the London County Council. If the Council say that they do not want so many offices and turn it down, there is an appeal to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Then, I suppose the Minister will obtain the advice of
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the Bureau. So there is this Bureau interposing itself between local self-government and a Minister of the Crown. And when it comes to Parliamentary accountability, and the Minister comes to answer, God knows who is going to be responsible!
This is an illogical, bureaucratic, pantomime proposition, and it ought to be stopped. But we have the tradition in this House that we do not interfere with delegated legislation, and as one who has been the author of delegated legislation I agree with your Lordships that we ought not to do so. But why the House of Commons, as the guardian of the public purse, did not interfere with this, I am at a complete loss to understand. Because these four persons on the Bureau can be paid. I thought that we had enough public spirit in our country for people to serve on a Government Committee for nothing. This week there was a discussion, on the merits of which I will not enter, about the Consumers' Council, the Chairman of which is to be paid. The members of the Council are not to be paid at all.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: They have changed their minds.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I had better drop that. But in this case, the Goverment propose to pay the whole four remuneration, and if this is not a case of "jobs for the boys", I should like to know what is. There is no case for paying this Bureau anything at all. The Government are providing jobs probably for their friends or tools, whatever the case may be. This is a disgraceful business. It is a possible interference with local self-government, which the Government have sworn they do not want to do, and that is why they have brought in the London Government Bill. It is a possible obscuring of ministerial responsibility to Parliament. I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Hastings. He is a nice, inoffensive Minister. I am sorry to knock him about, but I am really knocking not him but this fellow above him. I sympathise with the noble Lord, and I suggest to him that he takes the Order away, holds it up until we have had a debate on the White Paper, and, having done that, resigns from office in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
3.27 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies to that charming speech from the noble Lord opposite, may I point out that paragraph 3 of this Order says:
"…including without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing the provision of information and publicity and the promotion of research."
So far as I can make out, this Order applies only to England and Wales—in fact, it says so at the top. Does this mean that the Bureau will be unable to give anyone any information or publicity of or promote research in Scotland? Because that would appear to militate against Scotland most unfairly, always presuming that this Bureau is going to do any good at all—which I strongly doubt.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, my noble friend has referred to this as a disgraceful business, and it really is extraordinary. There is an aspect of it which I do not think noble Lords have quite realised. This, in fact, is a piece of socialisation by Affirmative Order. I am not opposed to socialisation by Affirmative Order. This is the socialisation of the functions of estate agents—competitive socialisation.
Let me explain how it will work. A New Town which has built a block of offices at present goes to an estate agent and hires him to publicise its office block. This has happened in the case of numerous New Towns. I do not say that this is at all improper; it is just what happens. Under this Order, the New Town will simply have to inform the Bureau that it has built new office premises and will be delighted to have some tenants. Meanwhile, tenants will be applying to the Bureau and they will be allocated or offered the New Town premises which are available. The estate agents will have lost that business and lost the fees for their work. I do not object to this at all. I think it is an interesting and very useful precedent, which we shall certainly bear in mind in due course. I am not at all sure that noble Lords opposite ought not to be the ones who should be pressing the Government hardest to drop this ridiculous Order.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, I listened with the greatest interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth,
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and was delighted to hear him in such good form. It reminded me of many speeches that I heard him make in another place in years gone by. I pondered for a little as to what the cause of his being in this good form to-day might be, and I came to the conclusion that he could only be exhilarated by the thought of a good Conservative Budget.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I never dreamt of it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If I may come to the particular points about this Order, it is an occasion on which one could make comparatively heavy weather of a quite simple proposal. There are, I think, advantages, if an institution or bureau of this kind is going to be set up, in doing it under the exercise of statutory powers. The powers to constitute a body of this kind—and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, will not deny this—are given by the Minister of Town and Country Planning Act, 1943.
Then the attack rather turned upon whether it was really any advantage to have a bureau of this kind. I would say to your Lordships, with great respect, that I should have thought it was a considerable advantage. It is really no argument to say that if someone goes to the London County Council he might get the same answer as, or possibly a different answer from, that which he would get if he went to this Bureau. It is really no answer to say that the individual company concerned might get the information desired by going to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The result of the constitution of this Bureau will be that there will be one organisation which will help people who desire advice on the location of their industry. I feel that this body can, and will, serve a useful purpose, in a more limited field, it is true, as do the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, which, after all, provide information which people can obtain elsewhere, if they know where to get it, whether it be from the L.C.C. or any Government Department. I would respectfully suggest to your Lordships that this proposal is a sound one, which will provide considerable assistance to those who are concerned with this problem, and, in particular, in the decentralisation of office accommodation. I am sure your Lordships all agree that everything that

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can be done should be done to assist to that end, and I am sure that the creation of a Bureau of this kind will help in that direction.
The question was raised whether this Bureau would have any advantages so far as Scotland is concerned. Well, I am not at all sure that any industry which is thinking of making its headquarters in London will be diverted by this body, or indeed by any other body, into making its headquarters north of the Border; but I certainly would not say it was ultra vires of this particular body to recommend such a course, if it thought it was desirable. We have had an entertaining, interesting and, up to this moment, if I may say so, enjoyable debate, and I, for my part, greatly enjoyed listening to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth. But if one leaves joking on one side, I think it will be useful to have a body of this kind; and it is desirable, if you are going to have such a body, that it should be set up under some statutory powers. That is all that this Order does.
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

AGRICULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
3.35 p.m.
Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
Clause 14 [Protection of farm animals exposed for sale]:
LORD ST. OSWALD LORD ST. OSWALD moved to add to the clause:
"or awaiting removal after being exposed for sale".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment to Clause 14 standing in my name on the Marshalled List. During our Second Reading debate last month the noble Lord, Lord Champion, welcomed the introduction of Clause 14 of the Bill, which, as I then explained, will enable my right honourable friend to ensure some minimum standard of comfort and treatment of farm animals while they are exposed for sale. When this clause was debated in another place some doubts were expressed about the adequacy of its wording, since it covers only the period while the animals
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are exposed for sale, and there may be occasions when, due to lack of transport or for other reasons, animals remain in the market for some time after sale. In general, we should not expect calves, dairy cows or pigs, the animals most likely to suffer from exposure, to be moved from the sale pens while awaiting collection. Normally, therefore, we believe they will be adequately protected for the whole of the time they are in the market by any regulation made for their physical protection before sale.
However, my right honourable friend agreed to have another look at this point. The further inquiries we have made confirm that the clause, as drafted, would be sufficient in the great majority of cases; but clearly it might happen that animals needing protection might after sale be moved to other accommodation of lower standard to await collection. We are anxious that by such movements inside market premises animals should not lose the protection of the regulations we aim to make, and we do not wish the purpose of the clause to be in any way weakened. I therefore submit this Amendment for your Lordships' approval, so that the clause will clearly and specifically give the Minister power to make market regulations covering the whole of the time that animals are exposed for sale and while they are in a market awaiting collection. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 47, at end insert the said words.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am sure noble Lords on this side wholly welcome this tightening up of the provisions of the Bill in this respect, and I should like to thank the noble Lord for looking at the matter and bringing forward this Amendment. I support it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 16 [Fees]:
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved to add to subsection (4):
"Notwithstanding the above, the maximum fee which shall be charged under section 2 (1) or section 3 (1) of the Horse Breeding Act, 1958, for such licence or permit to keep a stallion of a recognised native breed of pony shall be three guineas.
For the purposes of this section a pony of any of the following breeds shall be deemed

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to be of a recognised native breed:—Connemara, Dale, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Highland, New Forest, Shetland, Welsh."
The noble Duke said: My Lords, on the Committee stage of the Bill I moved a general Amendment to Clause 16 to limit the fees set out at the bottom of the table, and in particular to limit the fees chargeable on all pony stallions. This Amendment is slightly more limiting still, in that it includes only pony stallions of the native breeds of this country, because, on reconsidering the matter, I feel that the owners of stallions such as Arabs and small thoroughbreds can probably well afford to pay the full economic fee which the Ministry of Agriculture propose to charge.
In this clause the Government are trying to enable future Ministers to vary the fees more or less according to the actual cost of inspections and of issuing the licences or permits. At the moment, these fees are fixed under the Horse Breeding Act, 1958, and produce, I believe, about 5 per cent. of the actual cost of the inspections and of issuing the licences or permits. I agree with my noble friend that this means that there is far too big a subsidy, and the cost of the licences or permits should be raised. However, I am exceedingly nervous about the amount proposed to bring it on to a fully or almost fully economic basis.
My noble friend said in the Committee stage that the Government were considering making certain alterations in the procedure which would reduce costs. I should like to know what these alterations are. One of them, I imagine, is that once a stallion has reached the age of say, 10 or 12, it would no longer be subject to the periodic inspection, under the theory that any hereditary disease it was going to show it would have shown already by that age. I think there is a great deal to be said for that idea, although there are people who feel one should go on inspecting stallions so long as they are serving mares.
Secondly, presumably the Government propose reducing the number of inspections. I am slightly nervous about this, as I feel that a stallion could easily develop hereditary disease during the course of a year, and it would be a pity if an economy were made in this way and risks taken by doing this. I should therefore be interested to know exactly what
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simplifications in procedure the Government are proposing to make, and how much of the present cost, which is in the neighbourhood of £20 to £22 per licence, they expect to be able to save. I have worked out some figures, and for the purposes of this argument I am going to presume that the Government will be able to save 50 per cent. of that cost, and that therefore it is likely that they will charge a fee somewhere in the region of 10 guineas. This may be too high, in which case, of course, the figures will be more in favour of their argument than in my favour. If, on the other hand, it is too low, they will be even more in my favour. I must remind your Lordships that we shall have no control at all over what the final fee will be, because it is going to be controlled by Order in Council subject to a Negative Resolution in another place.
First, I should like to point out that the Horse Breeding Act was passed only in 1958. I believe it is a Consolidation Act, but it does not say so in the Title, and I think many people feel, or have felt in the past, that the one guinea fixed by the Act of 1958 was likely to last for some time. I personally think it was a pity that this sum was not reviewed when that Act was passed, and it might have been raised gradually then, as I am sure it will come as a shock to many people to find out the amount it is likely to be raised by in this Bill. So far my arguments have applied to all classes of horse breeders who I feel may be aggrieved by the radical raising of the cost of a licence or permit by this Bill.
I should like to produce my particular arguments why I think the owners of native pony breeds should be subject to this rather low maximum. It is partly a question of geography, and partly one of mathematics. Native pony stallions very often stand in remote areas, and serve an extremely limited number of mares each year. The cost of transporting these mares any further would be justified neither by the value of the service, nor by the value of the subsequent foal. These stallions are also comparatively cheap to keep, and in these rural areas the cost of transport is high, and the difficulties of transport often quite considerable. It is, therefore, a convenience for a large number of

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farmers and people interested in pony breeding to have a stallion which they can use available reasonably locally. The fact that it is a stallion which has been licensed makes sure, of course, that they are using a suitable stallion and one which is likely to improve the breed.
Many of these stallions serve as few as seven mares a year and their owners, in some cases, charge as little as two guineas. But let us take a slightly less extreme example and consider the stallion who serves ten mares a year, and whose owner charges five guineas for each service. A rise in its licensing fee of ten guineas would reduce its income, or would increase its cost as related to the total income that it fetches to its owner, by 20 per cent.; that is to say, ten guineas on 50 guineas; and a would mean raising its fee equally by 20 per cent. in order to recoup its costs. If we take the case of a moderate thoroughbred who serves 40 mares or so each year at 48 guineas—and this, I can assure your Lordships, is a very low fee for a thoroughbred—this would have the effect of increasing the cost of this particular animal by one half of 1 per cent., or five shillings per mare, a sum hardly worth recouping. Even if we take the travelling premium stallion, whose fee is usually in the neighbourhood of 10 guineas, he at least serves 40 to 50 mares a year and, therefore, the cost of the extra fee would be spread over a far greater number of mares, and his increase would work out at about only 2 per cent. That, I think, is the mathematical case for keeping the fees of the native pony stallions at a low figure of three guineas.
I should also think, from my own experience, and from facts which have been collected by the Highland Pony Society, that if the fee were increased beyond three guineas many stallions which at the moment were licensed would be either unlicensed or castrated. This would be a great pity. We want to improve the breed, and to do this we want to have every stallion licensed, and try to encourage every owner to have his stallion licensed. At the moment, you are allowed to keep a stallion in its own native area without a licence, provided that you do not show it or do not advertise it in any way at all. I am not quite sure whether
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this means that it may serve only mares who belong to the same owner, or that if you came along with your mare and said, "Please may I make use of your stallion?" its owner would be permitted to allow it to serve outside mares. But he certainly would not be allowed to show it at the local shows, or to parade it around the country, which I think everyone will agree is one of the attractions of these shows.
I should also like to know the answer to two or three questions. How often will these stallions be inspected? Will a fee be charged each time the stallion is inspected, or every year; or only when the original licence or permit is issued? I believe that these questions are important. I should also like to ask by whom the stallions will be inspected. Most people are against having the livestock officer present at inspections. They feel that it is unreasonable to expect any man to be able to judge stallions, bulls and boars of all the many breeds. Some think that it might be left to the veterinary surgeon, in which case you would get an animal which was at least fit—no one would say how high class it was, but at least it would be fit and have no hereditary diseases. Others think that members of the judges' panel of the particular breed should accompany the veterinary surgeon, in order to give their opinion of the class of the animal concerned. I should therefore like to know by whom these inspections are going to take place. I also wonder whom the Ministry of Agriculture have consulted in drawing up this clause, and whom they will consult when they fix the fees. So far, the National Pony Society, which represents the vast majority of the owners of pony stallions in this country have not been consulted; and that seems very strange.
Finally, at the Committee stage of this Bill my noble friend said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 247 (No. 57), col. 1046.]:
"I understand that the service fees for pony stallions range from 5 to 50 guineas, set against values between 50 and 600 guineas, which compares with service fees for thoroughbreds ranging from 20 to 200 guineas. set against values between 200 and 2,000 guineas."
I find it difficult to believe that he means that; for, except for his minimum figure for pony stallions, I think that there is no correct figure there. On his minimum

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figure, he might have said 2 guineas, but I am quite prepared to go with him in saying that the serious breeders all charge 5 guineas.
I have taken figures of the ponies advertised in the National Pony Society Review and the Horse and Hound (which, for obvious reasons, tend to be the best ponies in the country), and the maximum at which any of them is advertised is 20 guineas. There are three, all told, at that figure, and there are four more advertised at 15 guineas; otherwise they are all advertised at a lesser figure. If you take the average fee over all the native pony breeds, it works out at 10 guineas; and if you exclude the elite of the native pony breeds, which are the Welsh and the Dartmoor ponies, the average fee charged by the stallion owners, works out as low as 7½ guineas. If the fee for a licence or a permit is to be increased by from 5 to 10 guineas, this will be a severe inroad into their income (or, perhaps a better way of putting it, a severe extra piece of expenditure) and I feel that they will not be able to afford it.
He also said that the value of the ponies was between 50 and 600 guineas. I think that 600 guineas is on the high side. I should be very pleased to know of any pony other than a fully-trained polo pony, which is worth 600 guineas. However, I will not argue that point. But when he says that the service fee for thoroughbreds ranged from 20 to 200 guineas, that I simply will not accept at all. There are very few thoroughbreds below 48 guineas and quite a number between 500 and 600 guineas; and set against values of between 200 and 2,000 guineas, I doubt whether there is any thoroughbred stallion worth as little as 200 guineas. If there is, its owner certainly ought not to be allowed to keep it. Two thousand guineas seems to me an extraordinarily low maximum when we read of horses being syndicated for a quarter-of-a-million pounds. In my view, these figures were most misleading, and I should like the noble Lord to explain where he got them, or from whom he understood them. If this is the sort of standard of advice that his officers are giving him, I have no confidence in their setting a fair figure for pony stallions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 50, at end insert the said paragraphs.4—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON:My Lords, all pony breeders obviously are very deeply grateful to the noble Duke for the great trouble he has taken with this Amendment. I support it up to the hilt. There is only one rather small correction which I think it would be wise to make; that is, that an Arab is a horse and not a pony. It would only be a small Arab or thoroughbred which could serve a pony.
3.55 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I recognise that the purpose of this Amendment is to safeguard the owners of pony stallions from the prospect of a heavy increase in licensing fees. At the Committee stage my noble friend suggested that this might be as great as 20 guineas, compared to the present 1 guinea. He has now brought down his estimate to a rise of 10 guineas. Though I cannot accept his Amendment—because this would prevent us from covering the costs we incur—I think I can reassure him upon the order of the increase which is in prospect.
If we were to maintain our present stallion licensing procedures, and to set out to cover their full cost in the initial fee for a licensing application, we should certainly have to make a very substantial increase in the fee. But our present costs are high because it has been our practice to reinspect licensed stallions annually. This is more than we are obliged to do under the Horse Breeding Act, and we find that the re-inspections lead to revocation of a licence only once in every 200 cases. In view of this we propose to discontinue the routine reinspections and to reinspect in only two classes of case: first, where a permit has been issued in place of a licence because of doubt about a stallion's suitability at the time of the first inspection, we shall reinspect for a licence upon expiry of the permit; and, secondly, we shall continue to reinspect wherever doubts arise about the fitness of a licensed stallion. These changes are a good deal more far-reaching than my noble friend had supposed we might have in mind. We shall be prepared to receive representations

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from responsible organisations or individuals, such as horse and pony societies or veterinary surgeons, upon the desirability of reinspecting in any particular cases where doubts exist about such a stallion.
We are not reducing the number of stallions inspected in the first place and thus incurring the risks that my noble friend feared. All the same, this simplification in procedures, to which I referred briefly at the Committee stage, will effect a substantial saving in costs. While I cannot give a firm undertaking at this stage, we are hoping that it will enable us to cover our costs through a fee, for each first inspection of any stallion, of 5 guineas; that is to say, a rise of 4 guineas, and not of 10 as he had supposed. In answer to another question he put, we have no power to charge separately for the reinspections, and the only way in which we could cover our stallion licensing costs, while charging less than our costs for pony stallions, would be (and I should like him to bear this in mind) by charging more than our costs for other stallions. This is something we have undertaken not to do in fixing the sire licensing fees.
In regard to another point raised by my noble friend I would remind him that many pony stallions—including, I think, those he had in mind, such as mountain and moorland ponies, which are not travelled—are already exempt from licensing in their native districts, and they will remain exempt. To the best of my belief they are not restricted to servicing mares of the same owner. I had never supposed that they were, but I should not like to lay down the law on this point.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend a question? I think I am right in saying that these ponies may not be advertised; and, so far as I can gather from the Act, one of the conditions is that they should be virtually running wild—I agree that that is an exaggeration: they can be running in a field. But surely this is going to make it very difficult for people with a mare to choose a suitable stallion.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not able to answer my noble friend on those finer points. My understanding is that, so far as horses are concerned, the more expensive thoroughbreds are not travelled, and are thus not
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subject, and will not be subject, to licensing; but, as regards the advertising aspect of it and how they are to be kept, I am afraid that I am not informed on that. He asked how the stallions would be inspected. The answer is that they will be inspected by experienced veterinary surgeons.
During the Committee stage my noble friend Lord Willingdon and my noble friend who has moved this Amendment doubted whether the figure of 50 guineas I mentioned in the debate was a realistic figure as a service fee for a pony stallion. Both my noble friends were fully justified in calling this into question, and I am grateful that they did so, for it gives me an opportunity of correcting my earlier figure and of confirming that the figures I gave were very much on the high side. In fact, my information now is that one stallion is standing at 25 guineas, some more at 20 and the remainder at lower figures. In order to arrive at these conclusions and figures the Ministry has consulted the principal horse societies, including the British Horse Society, who speak for the pony societies as well as others. So far as I am aware, the figure of 50 guineas was the only inaccurate figure I gave, and I apologise to my noble friend and the House for misleading them.
I think I have gone quite a long way to settle the doubts and anxieties of my noble friend and I hope he will find what I have said reassuring. Since he referred on Committee stage and again on this occasion to the relatively short lapse of time since the 1958 Horse Breeding Act, in which the fee of one guinea is set, I ought perhaps to stress that the 1958 Act only consolidated earlier legislation, so that its details did not come under review. The licensing fee for a pony stallion has in fact been one guinea ever since 1921, as has that for other licensed stallions, so that we have not five but over 40 years of change in money values to contend with. The licensing fee is paid only once in a stallion's career; our purpose is only to meet the costs of the services provided; and even in the case of pony stallions the first one or two stud fees will more than cover it. I trust that in the light of these explanations and assurances my noble friend will be prepared to withdraw his Amendment.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I am still not at all happy about this. I

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am, of course, delighted to hear my noble friend thinks the maximum will be five guineas, but I do not like the way he is doing it at all. I think it is exceedingly dangerous to have only one inspection of a stallion, early on in its life, which is, I gather, the intention. I myself once owned a stallion which was quite rightly failed at a subsequent inspection for ring-bone, which apparently had not materialised at the first inspection. I think this is a most dangerous procedure. I also do not like the idea of encouraging more people to have non-inspected stallions because they run in their own particular country and are not travelled. I could never make out what the technical definition of travelling a stallion is. It seems to me that we should aim, as in all our livestock, to have more, and not less, inspection, and I seriously wonder whether the Government are pursuing the right policy here. It seems to me they are saving very little money by pursuing this policy, and they might land themselves in quite a lot of trouble in the long run.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, if I might speak again with the leave of the House, I think my noble friend has overlooked the point I made earlier, that the only way in which we could cover the costs on pony stallions, which we have undertaken to do, without charging a reasonable fee, would be to charge more than the costs for other stallions, which we have in turn undertaken not to do
On Question, Amendment negatived.
4.5 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved, after Clause 19 to insert the following new clause:
Notices to quit
". In Section twenty-five of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1948 (which relates to the giving and withholding of consents by the Agricultural Land Tribunal to the operation of notices to quit agricultural holdings) there shall be inserted after the words 'notice to quit' in the proviso to subsection (1), the following words—'(not being a notice to quit as to which the landlord has specified in his application for their consent that the carrying out of the purpose for which he proposes to terminate the tenancy is desirable for the purposes of the enactments relating to smallholdings)'".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am moving this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lindgren. Unfortunately, he cannot be present here
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to-day so it falls to me to do it in his stead. The desirability of this Amendment was brought to his attention by the County Councils Association. The facts, as I understand them, are these: county councils are charged under the 1947 Agriculture Act with the duty of providing smallholdings for letting to persons with the idea of enabling them to become farmers on their own account. Those county councils are also charged with the task of managing their smallholdings in accordance with the rules of good estate management. In carrying out these duties, clearly it is necessary from time to time for the county councils to dispossess the tenants to whom they have let their smallholdings. The procedure for such dispossession is set out in the 1948 Agricultural Holdings Act, as amended by Section 3 of the Act of 1958.
The procedure provides that where a tenant objects to the notice to quit, the notice shall not be effective until the Agricultural Land Tribunal are, among other things, satisfied that the purpose for which possession is required by the landlord is desirable for the purposes of the enactments relating to smallholdings or allotments. But there is an overriding proviso, and that is that the Tribunal shall withhold consent to operation of the notice if, in all the circumstances, it would appear to them that a fair and reasonable landlord would not insist upon possession. It is to this proviso that the County Councils Association objects, because they say that a "fair and reasonable landlord", referred to in the proviso, might not be the same hypothetical individual as a fair and reasonable smallholding authority, principally, of course, because their interests in the land and its use are not the same.
On the one hand there is the private landlord, who might reasonably be supposed to be concerned with securing an adequate financial return from his land. On the other hand there are the county councils, the smallholdings authorities, who are obliged, in addition to having in mind the private landlord's considerations to ensure good husbandry, to consider their duty under the Act of 1947 and the underlying purpose for which that Act provided. The clash, as I see it, between what a private landlord might fairly and reasonably do and what a smallholdings authority is expected to do under the 1947 Act is set out in a

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statement on a recent case. It is as follows:
"A case occurred in West Suffolk where although the county council convinced the Agricultural Land Tribunal that the operation of the notice to quirt was desirable for the purposes of the enactments relating to small holdings, the Tribunal refused their consent under the proviso. In this case the tenant ran a haulage business in addition to farming the holding, and while the county council recognised that there was nothing improper or unusual in this, it was clearly a matter of degree, and in their view the tenant's haulage business had increased to such an extent that it could no longer be said that his possession of the land was for the purpose of enabling him to become a farmer on his own account. His chief livelihood was derived not from the land but from the haulage business. The Tribunal agreed, but nevertheless held that a fair and reasonable landlord would not in all the circumstances have insisted upon possession."
These smallholdings are provided out of public money for the express purpose of enabling persons with farming experience to become farmers on their own account. I am sure it was never the intention of Parliament to provide public money for a base for a haulage business, or any business other than farming. I have said this many times in going about the country and talking about agriculture: these smallholdings were intended to be the first step on the ladder of promotion from being a farm worker to becoming a farmer. For that express purpose they were set up under the Act of 1947 and carried on by subsequent Acts, and I think the intention was a good and sound one.
These considerations ought always to be borne in mind by the smallholdings authorities. They are not. Many Members of this House are members of such county councils and discharge their duties under this Act responsibly. I would say that, in the main, county councils never do anything other than carry out their duties in relation to the tenant, and of course to the nation—they never do other than act responsibly. It seems to me that the county councils ought to be given this Amendment to enable them properly to discharge the functions that have been laid upon them by Parliament, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give me a favourable reply. I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of Lord Lindgren.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 19, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Champion.)
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, the noble Lord has put forward a proposition that county councils should be enabled to treat smallholdings more severely than any good private landlord could, or would, seek to do. Surely the whole question at issue would be this: in this particular case, was the smallholding being neglected as the result of the ancillary occupation of the occupant? If it was, then the county council have a case. But as has been shown so often in crofts in Scotland, it is extremely difficult for the landholder to get a decent living unless he has some ancillary occupation. I should loathe for the principle to be accepted in your Lordships' House that simply because a person has a smallholding or a croft and has some other occupation which enables him to make a better livelihood but which, at the same time, does not impair his capabilities as a farmer, he should be ejected from his smallholding.
4.13 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has presented his case as cogently as it could be presented—the case for the smallholdings authority who wish to regain possession of a smallholding because the existing occupier is, in their opinion, insufficiently capable of managing it or, as I understand, because he has used the farming ladder—I think this was the implication of the noble Lord—has managed it to such advantage that he is now able to step on to better things. I would always far rather meet the wishes of the noble Lord, Lord Champion, than refuse them. On this occasion I am not going to be able to do so.
It is not a new suggestion that we should give to smallholdings authorities in these circumstances special powers going beyond those available to private landlords (as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Mansfield) while removing safeguards from smallholders which are enjoyed by tenants of other landlords. We have heard this argument before, and I am afraid we still do not find it necessary to carry out what is suggested. Section 25 (1) of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1948, as amended, requires the Agricultural Land Tribunal to consent to the operation of a notice to quit if they are satisfied, inter alia, that the land is required for smallholdings purposes. The proviso

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to this clause—it is this proviso which the noble Lord and his colleague seek to amend—requires the Tribunal to withhold consent if it appears to them that a fair and reasonable landlord would not insist on possession. The opposite case was presented also by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, most fairly, and the proposed Amendment would exclude from the scope of this proviso those cases where a notice to quit has been served because the land is required for statutory smallholdings purposes but not for all the other purposes for which the Agricultural Land Tribunal may give its consent. In effect, it seeks to put smallholdings authorities outside the scope of the moral principles which are laid down in this proviso. The noble Lord recognised this, and gave reasons why he thought this should be done.
When the Agriculture Bill, 1958, was under consideration, we gave special thought to this point and concluded that there was really no need to give this special dispensation in favour of smallholdings authorities. We felt then, and we still feel, that in taking into account all the circumstances of the case, as they are required to do by the proviso, the Tribunal, in deciding what a fair and reasonable landlord would do, would give due weight to the smallholdings authority's statutory duties.
Noble Lords will appreciate that a smallholdings authority, like any other landlord, can avail itself of the other provisions of Section 25 (1) of the Act. They can apply for the Tribunal's consent to terminate a tenancy in the interests of good husbandry or sound estate management. This should deal with the cases where the tenant is inefficient or where it is desired to remodel any smallholding in the interests of sound estate management. It is true that the Act does not provide specifically for the case where a tenant is too successful and where the authority may wish to take advantage of paragraph (c) to obtain possession of the smallholding for someone who needs it more. However, as I have said, I am sure that in those circumstances the Tribunal would take account of the fact that they were not dealing with the ordinary landlord but with a statutory smallholdings authority whose responsibilities to their tenants have to be
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balanced with their statutory duty to provide smallholdings.
It would, I suggest, be contrary to the spirit of the Act, and to the spirit of Section 25 in particular, if we differentiated against one class of tenant in this way. In practice, we should be completely depriving him, and him alone, of the safeguard which is contained in this proviso. The safeguard is simply that in the view of the Agricultural Land Tribunal any action taken in terminating his tenancy is such as a fair and reasonable landlord would take, having regard to all the circumstances.
In asking me to reply to one section of his speech the noble Lord will appreciate that it would be quite wrong for me to enter into discussion on the merits of specific cases, or of a specific case. My right honourable friend has no authority over the Tribunal, which is a judicial body appointed by the Lord Chancellor. We have, however, been keeping records of the cases in which smallholdings authorities have applied to the Tribunal for consent to give notices to quit. Only eight cases have been heard since the 1958 Act came into force, and in five of those cases consent was given—five out of eight. That is not an unfavourable ratio. As I say, I am sorry not to meet the noble Lord's wishes; but we have given a great deal of thought to this matter, and I would ask him to withdraw his Amendment, in view of the fact that we cannot accept it.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am bound to admit that I did not personally strongly support this Amendment, but, coming from the County Councils' Association, I thought that it might have a short run. I accept completely the noble Lord's answer, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 22 [Allowances to persons displaced from agricultural land]:
4.20 p.m.
LORD GRENFELL LORD GRENFELL moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "may pay to him such" and insert "shall pay to him a". The noble Lord said: My Lords, I fully realise, first of all, that this Amendment, with Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7, are far-reaching, in that they would be an extension of the law as it

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now stands, but I am convinced that there is a really good case for them. A short time ago I was a member of the Select Committee on the Clywedog Reservoir Joint Authority Bill, of which Committee the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, spoke so generously earlier this afternoon. Evidence put before us convinced us that there was a real case for an Amendment such as this in that Bill, and it was duly inserted.
The purpose of the Bill was to give sanction to inundate the Clywedog Valley for the purposes of making a reservoir. I would suggest to your Lordships that such will be the demand for water in the future that this may not be an isolated case; furthermore, the taking of agricultural land for different reasons will also he necessary. The inhabitants of that Valley are, in most cases, hill farmers who will lose, in part or in whole, their livelihood by inundation. It is not my object to-day to argue the value of bottom land and hill land in the context of farming, because, not being a farmer, I am in no position to do so. My argument rests on the individuals concerned, whoever they may be, who are about to be dispossessed, and those who in future may be in similar circumstances for any reason.
In the case I have quoted the people concerned had for the most part lived a community life in the Valley for many years. In many cases this disruption of their life comes to them yin later years when it is hard to start up in new surroundings. In one case family circumstances made a move a really tragic event. I believe it will be understood in this House that any move not only costs money, but also causes a considerable amount of inconvenience. This is accepted if the move is voluntary, but surely if the move is compulsory those concerned are entitled to reasonable compensation for their move. I stress the word "reasonable", for, naturally, one would not expect extravagant demands, such as a move beyond these shores, to be considered.
The Bill states that the local authority may pay to him such allowance
"as they think fit towards his removal expenses and the loss which, in their opinion, he will sustain by reason of the resulting disturbance of his trade or business."
I cannot help feeling that this is a very one-sided proposition. Apart from the
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exceedingly permissive factors, I would ask your Lordships to decide what is reasonable. Again, it would appear that a local authority has this right to decide. In the reservoir case which I mentioned it appeared to me that even if they had had the chance many of the people concerned have been unable adequately to plead their case. In fact, I have a shrewd suspicion that some of them talked little but Welsh. It is for this reason I have put in the arbitration clause.
Surely dispossessed people who have not the means to brief counsel should have someone who is an independent arbitrator to whom they can tell their story. It is always pleaded by local councils that they intend to act generously, but do not let us forget that there is always the excuse of "the ratepayers' money". I hope I have said enough to show that this rather one-sided interpretation of equity in the Bill is not in the interests of justice to the displaced person, and that my Amendment is reasonable and should appeal to your Lordships. I understand that the "big guns" of the law are going to be turned on to me by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack. I look forward to hearing what he has to say, and I trust he may see fit to agree to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 30, leave out ("may pay to him such") and insert ("shall pay to him a").—(Lord Grenfell).
4.25 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I reply straight away to the speech made by the noble Lord. This will not curtail the debate, but may assist your Lordships, and I hope you will permit me to take this course. The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, has made a powerful plea in support of his Amendment. He described it as presenting a really good case. I am afraid I cannot agree with him about that. Indeed, I rather suspect that when the noble Lord moved this Amendment he did not do so with much hope that the Government would find it possible to accept it, and I trust he will not be greatly disappointed when I say the Government cannot accept it.
What is proposed is a major amendment of the law, and an amendment of

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the law which, if made, would benefit only the farming community. The National Farmers' Union, in their circular which they distributed to certain Members of your Lordships' House, including myself, in reference to this clause and the proposal put forward by the noble Lord, said:
"It is recognised that the present Bill is not a suitable medium for a major amendment of the law, and that any such amendment of the law must take account of the interests of other sections of the community, especially of small shopkeepers, who are also seriously affected by compulsory acquisition."
I submit that this Bill is indeed not a suitable medium for the proposed major amendment of the law, and I am glad to be able to pray in aid the support of the National Farmers' Union when I say that.
But I do not propose to rest on that alone, strong ground though it may be. I propose to submit to your Lordships that it would be wrong in principle to make this provision in the Bill mandatory, and I should like to put before your Lordships the present position in regard to the law. When the Town and Country Planning Bill of 1959 was before your Lordships it contained a clause, Clause 13, which gave an acquiring authority, acquiring on compulsory acquisition or by agreement in circumstances corresponding to such an acquisition, discretionary power to pay a person displaced from a house or other building on the land a reasonable allowance towards his expenses in moving therefrom; and to pay any person carrying on a trade or business in the house or building a reasonable allowance towards the loss which, in their opinion, he would sustain by reason of the disturbance. So your Lordships will see that that clause in the 1959 Bill proposed that the acquiring authority should have a discretionary power in relation to displacement from a house or other building and for payment of a reasonable amount.
When that Bill came before your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, moved an Amendment to make it mandatory and not discretionary to make such payments; an Amendment which is in line with the Amendment now so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. My noble friend the then Lord
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Chancellor, in replying to Lord Coleraine's Amendment, pointed out that an occupier of a house or business premises who has an interest for one year or more is entitled to notice to treat; that those who are entitled to notice to treat are, of course, entitled to compensation for the value of their interest in the land; that payment for the value of their interest in the land includes compensation for disturbance; and that compensation for disturbance, payable after notice to treat has been given, will include the removal expenses and any losses directly attributable to the disturbance by compulsory purchase. I am still talking about Section 13 of the 1959 Act, which, as I say, gave a discretionary power in addition to what was a compulsory obligation where notice to treat had to be served for the acquisition of an interest. This Section 13, as my noble friend pointed out, was intended to cover those who had no sufficient legal interest to entitle them to notice to treat.
My noble friend went on to say that in such cases the local authorities do not acquire the interest but merely serve notice to quit as landlords; and that to place a statutory obligation upon local authorities to pay compensation for removal expenses and for loss of business would be making an arbitrary distinction between private landlords, who can serve notice to quit without any such obligation, and local authorities in serving notice to quit. It would, of course, put a special burden on local authorities. I am reminding the House of the speech made by my noble friend the then Lord Chancellor. He then said that he did not see how such a distinction could be justified. My Lords, I must say that I find it difficult to see any justification for any such distinction. My noble friend also pointed out that discretionary powers, similar to those contained in Section 13 of the 1959 Act, also existed in the Housing and Town and Country Planning Acts and had been operated for many years, and that all that Section 13 proposed to give was a similar discretionary power when property was bought under powers other than those contained in these Acts. My Lords, in the light of this explanation the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, withdrew his Amendment, a precedent which I hope I can commend to the noble Lord who moved this Amendment to-day.

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Section 13 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, is now Section 30 of the Land Compensation Act, 1961. The House will appreciate that this section applies only in relation to houses and other buildings, and the object of the clause in this Bill is to give the acquiring authorities similar discretionary powers in relation to land used for agriculture, if it is used for agriculture by way of a trade or business, and the person so using it is displaced. I hope that what I have said has made it clear that compensation is already paid under the existing law for the acquisition of an interest in land. The acquirer has to pay what the person being dispossessed is legally entitled to.
There may, however, be occasions when the occupier suffers, or thinks he has suffered, financial losses which do not flow from the possession of any legal interest which the occupier has, but flow from the fact that he has to leave the land. The law has recognised this possibility of additional loss in relation to houses or buildings in the Act passed in 1959. What we now propose is to extend this provision to land used for agriculture in the circumstances I have mentioned. At the present time the acquiring authority, where it has power to make such payments, has discretion to decide whether a payment should be made at all and, if a payment is made, what is a reasonable amount to pay.
I entirely agree that farmers are deserving of every sympathy, particularly at the present time after this hard winter. But it would not be right to put farmers in a special and unique position in this respect. If the power to pay is to remain discretionary, as I think it should—and the National Farmers' Union does not ask that it should be made otherwise in this Bill—then there is no room for arbitration. For, after all, you cannot arbitrate as to the extent of the discretionary payment. I would just say this, too, about the last of the Amendments that we are discussing. That proposes arbitration, but only if a difference arises in estimating the loss or expenses. It does not suggest arbitration on the question whether the loss or expenses alleged are the result of the disturbance. They may be only partly due to the disturbance, or not due to it at all, and
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in any event there may be very great difficulty in quantifying the loss.
My Lords, I hope that your Lordships do not mind my intervening at this stage to try to put the present proposal against the background of the existing law, which is, of course, that, on compulsory acquisition of an interest, payment for disturbance must be paid. This provision and the provision of the 1959 Act give the acquiring authority power, in the circumstances contemplated in this Bill where there is no legal interest acquired, and therefore where the provisions of the Lands Clauses Act do not bite, to pay compensation over and above that payable on the acquisition of a legal interest. I must say that I think it not only right but a good thing that the acquiring authority should have power to make discretionary payments over and above what they are legally obliged to pay in circumstances such as these. I do not myself believe that it would be right to make it mandatory to make such payments, and I certainly do not think that it would be right to make such payments mandatory in the particular field of agricultural land, when it is not and cannot be made mandatory (and I put this forward as an alternative argument) in relation to the compulsory acquisition of houses or buildings.
I do not think this is the occasion on which to debate the major issue—namely, whether the discretionary powers which acquiring authorities have had for so long should now be made mandatory; nor, my Lords, do I think that the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, can pray in aid in support of his argument on this Bill what happened with regard to the Clywedog Reservoir Joint Authority Bill. What may happen on a Private Bill, between the Promoters of a Private Bill and the objectors, is one thing. But so far as the Government are concerned, we certainly, having considered this matter sympathetically and, as your Lordships will see, more than once—because it was considered in 1959—do not consider that this is the proper vehicle for making this particular change in the law. I myself see considerable valid objections to making a general change in relation to this discretionary power. What is in issue here, however, is the question whether the powers of the acquiring authorities in relation to farmers

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should be made mandatory when they remain discretionary in relation to all other classes of occupiers whose land is compulsorily acquired but where the compulsory acquisition takes place without the acquisition of any interest in the land occupied by those people. I think that that differential would be wrong, and I accordingly invite your Lordships not to accept these Amendments.
4.42 p.m.
EARL COWLEY: My Lords, I am delighted to be able to support the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. This is the type of Amendment which has been resisted by successive Governments—Labour, Liberal, Whig and Tory—because it nibbles away at bureaucratic power and asserts the right of the citizen. The Petition of Right was resisted by the King, and before the Crown Proceedings Act if one was knocked down by a Post Office van one had to go with cap in hand, and relief was given as a matter of grace. Now, of course, it is a matter of right.
This particular Amendment has an interesting history, and to date it has succeeded in appearing in only one Private Bill—that is, the Liverpool Corporation Act, 1957. This Amendment has been fully argued in another place, and on behalf of the Government it was argued by my right honourable and learned friend Mr. Peter Rawlinson. I should like to state that I consider his arguments—and they have been repeated here to-day—without foundation. I would take them point by point—and this appears in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, Tuesday, January 29, 1963, col. 344. The Solicitor General said:
"The Committee will recollect that the law of compensation which affects land other than agricultural land is at present contained in Section 30 of the Land Compensation Act, 1961, which followed Section 13 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959."
What my learned friend is saying is. "Please do not alter the law because it is something new". He went on to say:
"That provides, over and above the general principle of compensation, which I will turn to in a moment, that ex-gratia payments for disturbances can be made by authorities who are acquiring compulsorily, and because that permissive power was given that put the compulsorily acquiring authority into the same position as a private landlord who might in certain circumstances desire to make an eex-gratia payment as a result of a disturbance.
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I consider that this is a red herring. What my learned friend is suggesting is that there is a similar clause in the Landlord and Tenant Act. Of course, there is not.
My learned friend went on to say:
"The principle of this compensation is that a tenant who is displaced should receive full compensation due to him arising from the displacement which he has suffered and arising out of his legal interests in the land from which he has been displaced ".
This, my Lords, is a very fine, legal point. Do removal expenses and loss by disturbance flow from his legal interest in the land? It flows from his legal interest, but, of course, it is not part of the legal interest. It is a personal interest which does not pass with or form part of that interest. But that is not an argument why it should not be compensated.
My learned friend goes on:
"The effect of the Amendment would be to introduce an entirely new principle into our law with regard to compensation".
My Lords, that is not true. The law of special and general damages has been part of our law for many years, and we have been able, by right, to recover damages from a fellow citizen. What my learned friend is saying is that it is a new principle to recover, by right, special damages from a local or Government Department. The other argument put forward was:
"It creates a new principle and puts agricultural tenants into a better position than other tenants of other kinds of land …".
But agricultural tenants have been in a worse position since 1961, when the Land Compensation Act came into force, a period of two years. Will it now take two years to pass a further Act to bring the shopkeepers into line with the farmers?
Your Lordships might like to know that the President of the National Farmers' Union has, within the last few days, written again to the Minister of Agriculture to seek a meeting at high level to discuss a long memorandum which they submitted to the Minister, and to the Minister of Housing and Local Government, last June, stating the case for amending legislation on compensation on compulsory acquisition, the effect of which would be similar to that achieved by making Clause 22 mandatory.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has produced a series of arguments which are doubtless sound in law

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but which, I submit to your Lordships, are deplorable in equity. In the first place, the series of Amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, does not make it mandatory that any payment should be made. What they do is to make it mandatory that the dispossessed farmer should have a right of appeal; and, in the event of his and the local authority's failure to agree upon an arbiter, one is to be provided by the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Surely we can trust a member of that august body to give a judgment which would be fair to the local authority as well as to the farmer.
I submit, too, that the position of a farmer is entirely different from that of a mere householder inasmuch as, by his compulsory removal, he may suffer from considerable loss beyond that which is apparent from the start. He may well have to dispose of his sheep stock. Should a private landlord desire and be able to dispossess a tenant, it is nearly always for the purpose of resuming the land for agricultural purposes, either by himself or by a new tenant, in which case the incoming occupier, be he landlord or new tenant, would have to take over the sheep stock, paying a fair price for it. But should it be a local authority which is going to take over the land for the purpose of making a reservoir, there is every chance that the whole of his sheep stock would have to be removed. This would mean, in the one case, an outgoing tenant taking them with him to his new home, if he has obtained one, at very considerable expense; or, more probably, he would be obliged to put them on the market in circumstances of a forced sale, in which case, again, he might lose very considerably by so doing. A farmer's position, therefore, is quite different from that of a householder.
I cannot see any reason why this unfortunate outgoing tenant should not at least have the opportunity of having his case reviewed; and if his claim proves to be justifiable, then adequate payment should be allotted to him by an independent arbitrator. The position of the Government here is completely contradictory to the stand taken by them on the last Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Champion. There it was accepted that local authorities should not be put into a position different from
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that of private landowners. Here apparently the principle is accepted that the local authority is to be put into this preferred position; and, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said, I would submit that the local authorities are a very mixed body, and while some would be only too willing to pay reasonable compensation others would, and will, stand on the letter of the law and say, "As we are not forced to pay a penny we are not going to pay". For that reason—though obviously this Amendment cannot be forced through in your Lordships' House to-day—I hope the Government will have second thoughts up to the point that they will consider whether some amendment of the law should not be made in some future Bill—it may be that it would be undesirable to make a major change in this one—so that what I can only regard as not only a possible but a probable cause of injustice to dispossessed farmers may be put right in the future.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, on the very persuasive speech he made in support of the Amendment, and I would also thank the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, for the consideration he has given to this very important problem. Both noble Lords referred to the Clywedog Reservoir Bill, in which this particular case was argued in this House at some length. Nearly all speakers, all except the speaker for the Government and one other, were in favour of the proposed Amendment, or an Amendment on the lines of this one which would have a similar effect.
The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, said that no doubt we should be getting other cases, and indeed there will be many other cases. In the newspapers to-day there is an account of a stormy meeting yesterday lasting three hours in Carmarthenshire in the Valley of the Gwendraeth. That is the next one that it is proposed to flood. In this case, it is not for a great English conurbation; it happens to be for the benefit of my own county next to it, Glamorgan. But the principle is the same, and we shall get many of these cases I am sure. The point is this: are people to be dispossessed being treated with justice?
In most of these cases, obviously, where land is taken for purposes of a reservoir,

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and also in other cases such as those for road widening, it means a great deal of dislocation to the farmer. It affects not only his life, his home, but his business. If any noble Lord goes along these new roads he will see farm houses on one side and arterial roads built right through the farmyards. It is an enormous interference with the farmer and with the work of the farm. In the case of a reservoir the whole of the farm goes, although it was occupied by a man and his family whose forbears may have been there for generations. He and his family must be uprooted and must look for somewhere else to go. In these days when farm land is so expensive, it is very often impossible. They then drift into the towns and it is the old story, on a small scale, of what happened about 150 years ago when the common lands were enclosed. You get landless people drifting into the towns. It is particularly unjust to the tenant farmer because he gets very little compensation at all: he gets little more than a year's rent. The freeholder at least gets the value of the land; but the tenant farmer gets very little and is in no way compensated for the removal.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the tenant farmer is entitled to notice to treat, he is entitled to full compensation for disturbance; and I think the noble Lord should recognise that the farmer who is in occupation of the land, if he is entitled to notice to treat, will get compensation for disturbance of the kind indicated, without reliance on this clause.
LORD OGMORE: I will tell the noble and learned Lord what the farmer's entitlement is. His entitlement, under Section 34 of the Agricultural Holdings Act, is usually, as I said, one year's rent. In some cases it is possible for it to be greater; but in no case is it more than two years' rent. That is what we are talking about. He is entitled to compensation for disturbance under the Agricultural Holdings Act. I do not think it is enough; neither do the Government, because they have put in this clause in this Bill in order to permit the local authority, if it thinks fit, to give him more. They agree with me. I do not know why we are arguing. The Government and I agree that this is not sufficient.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the noble Lord will give way I think I might
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make it clear. Under existing law, if the occupier is entitled to notice to treat he will get compensation for disturbance and that is more than one year's rent, or even two years' rent; and that applies to tenants. Some tenants will be entitled to notice to treat and some will not. Those entitled to notice to treat and having an interest in the land will get compensation for disturbance. This provision in this clause makes it possible to pay similar compensation for disturbance to those who have no interest in the land.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord would greatly enlighten some of us if he could say that the tenant farmer by reason of his entitlement to notice to quit and compensation will always be put in precisely the same position financially as he would have been if he had not been turned out; in other words, that the entire cost of getting a new farm, and so on, is met.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the tenant farmer is entitled to notice to treat he will get full compensation for disturbance, including the costs of removal and the rest. It is full compensatory payment. This particular clause does not touch on the position of those entitled to notice to treat. It gives power to extend the same thing to those who have no interest, or entitlement to an interest, in the land.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord help some of the uneducated by telling us what "treat" means.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: When you are in possession of a particular interest under the Lands Clauses Act (and speaking from memory, I think it is an interest for more than one year), the acquiring authority must give notice to treat. When you get notice to treat that invokes the whole of the Lands Clauses Act provisions, and you are entitled, as of right, to payment of compensation for what is acquired. The case law shows beyond doubt that the value of the interest is the value to the occupier; and in assessing that value the acquiring authority must take into account disturbance and expense that he will be put to by removing. That is covered. All this Bill seeks to cover in the case where there is no notice to

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treat is covered under the existing law where there is notice to treat. Of course I was speaking about notice to treat and not notice to quit. They are different things.
LORD CROOK: I thank the noble and learned Lord.
5.0 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: I do not know where we are now. As I understand it, notice can be given under the Agricultural Holdings Act (in which case there is usually a year's rent by way of compensation) or, if the authorities want the land earlier than the time allowed by that Act, they proceed under the Lands Clauses Act. The value then, as the noble and learned Lord said, is the truncated legal interest in the land. Here, again, it is usually no more than a year's rent, so that it does not matter whether the noble and learned Lord is right or I am about which Act it is. So far as the tenant farmer is concerned, it is no more than a year's rent.
To get back to the main issue, we want to see justice done. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has objected to the Amendment for two reasons. First, he says that this is a major amendment of the law and one which applies only to the farming community; therefore, this Bill is not a suitable medium for an Amendment of that kind. He opposes it on the odd ground that if we amend this clause in an agricultural Act, it will not apply to shopkeepers. I take it that the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, never thought it would apply to shopkeepers. The best thing the Government can do is to make it apply to shopkeepers by the same sort of provision we now suggest should be made for farmers. Why should farmers fail to have justice done to them because justice to shopkeepers cannot be done in this Bill? I suggest that it is the Government's duty in another Bill to deal with shopkeepers.
The noble and learned Lord also says it is wrong to make it mandatory in this Bill, on the odd ground that private landlords are not bound to make compensation of this type if they give notice to their tenants. This has nothing to do with private landlords or with giving notice to tenants. This is a case where a local authority want to acquire land. It is not a question of landlord and tenant
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at all, but of compulsory purchase, and the argument about private landlords does not seem to me to apply. In fact, the local authorities concerned may not be those in the district. That is one of the main points. In the case of both the Liverpool Bill and the Clywedog Reservoir Bill, with one or two exceptions, they are not local authorities in the area, but are miles and miles away from it. If we take authorities like Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, or smaller councils for that matter, they will feel, as one of the noble Earls opposite pointed out, that their first duty is to their own ratepayers.
As the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, quite rightly said, not all local authorities are particularly generously minded. I never heard such a tribute as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, paid to them. Not all local authorities have haloes around their heads. Indeed, some of them are not particulary good authorities. If there is any kind of hardship, the terms of this Amendment will take care of it. The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, made a very strong point when he said that under this Amendment the tenants are not going to get anything tangible; all they will have is the right, if they do not agree with the authority which is compulsorily acquiring their property, to go to arbitration, and what they get under arbitration is not more than they are entitled to, but just what they are entitled to. I think this is a very reasonable Amendment, in spite of what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has said, and if it comes to a Division I ask your Lordships to support it.
LORD GRENFELL: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lords who have spoken. I realise that the justice we are trying here to give to the farmers would place them ahead of the shopkeepers, but I do not think that what has been done is enough. Evidence has proved this conclusively. I think that we have talked this question out this afternoon, and that it would be wrong on my part to force this Amendment through the House to-day. Hence, I would ask my noble and learned friend to think carefully on this subject. Naturally, if we had got this Amendment, I should have looked forward to legislation for the shopkeepers as well. But I do not feel that it would be politic to put this through

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the House this afternoon, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment. May I also say that I shall not move Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7?
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 25:
Purchases of sugar from Republic of Ireland
25. The Sugar Board shall purchase such sugar, at such prices, as the Minister may from time to time direct for the purpose of fulfilling any agreement made by him after the passing of this Act for the purchase of sugar to be used as an ingredient of goods to be exported from the Republic of Ireland.
5.6 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved, after "Minister" to insert:
"after consultation with such persons as in his opinion represent the interests of producers and refiners of sugar in the Commonwealth ".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have put down this Amendment in view of the lack of consultation by Her Majesty's Government with interested parties in this country—the sugar industry—when the question of an agreement between the Minister of Agriculture of Southern Ireland and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was first mooted. When one considers the Sugar Act, 1956, which provided for the establishment of a Sugar Board and made other provisions—for instance, in regard to the effects on the sugar industry of the importation of sugar and related goods—one sees that full and detailed discussions took place between the Ministry of Food and the refiners during the long gestation period of that Act.
But in regard to the draft Irish Sugar Agreement, which is also concerned with the importation of sugar and related goods, curiously enough, there was no prior consultation whatever. On the Third Reading of this Bill in another place, on February 19, the Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Scott-Hopkins, made the rather puzzling remark [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 672 (No. 61); cols. 389–390]:
"As far as consultation is concerned, we do not in the normal way consult with the trade interests before agreements are made. We consult with them after the agreements have been made. This is what happened in this case."
I must say that I find this a rather strange procedure and certainly not one which
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is conducive to encouraging the co-operation of the sugar industry with Her Majesty's Government.
In the case we are considering to-day, the industry was contacted on October 8, 1962, and, I understand, shown the draft Agreement. They raised objections as to its terms. On October 29—that is, only three weeks later—the British chargé d'Affaires, in Dublin was writing to the Irish Minister for Agriculture referring to the proposed arrangements for the purchase of sugar by our Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Then only three days later—on November 1 last year—the Bill we are now considering was published, with the enabling clause, Clause 25. I therefore feel it is hardly surprising that Sir Ian Lyle, in his wisdom, with the knowledge that he has acquired over the years working in the industry, and as chairman of one of the largest firms in this country, Tate and Lyle, at the company's sixtieth annual general meeting this year, should have expressed disquiet at this lack of prior consultation.
Surely it is a little ludicrous to consult with trade interests after an agreement has been made, when, as is apparent in this case, it is quite impossible to alter any of the terms or provisions of the Agreement. Had prior consultation taken place, the industry would have been in a position—and would certainly have taken advantage of it—to point out the various disadvantages in the Agreement that are apparent to them. In this way, time and trouble would have been saved, and possibly, also, the arrangements could have been brought in more smoothly; a great deal of discussion to which your Lordships have been subjected might not have been necessary; and, what is probably much more important, the Government would have been assured of the full and complete co-operation of the industry.
But, as things are at the moment, after the passage of this Bill through another place and in this House up to to-day, there are still five main points in the Agreement against which the industry feels strongly. I do not propose to refer to them now, because they have already been mentioned on Second Reading and discussed on the Committee stage, and I am sure my noble friend Lord St. Oswald is well aware of these five main points where disagreement still exists. I

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feel that there are strong arguments in favour of prior consultation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 35, after ("Minister'") insert the said words.—(Lord Merrivale.)
5.13 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, in rising to support this Amendment there are one or two things that I should like to say to supplement what has already been put before your Lordships by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale. I was much impressed, as everybody must have been, by the powerful protest made by the chairman of Tate and Lyle at the annual general meeting last week against the methods which the Government have used. What he said was:
"The weight that refiners' interests carry with the Government is clearly indicated by the ruthless bulldozing of the Irish Agreement and the refusal of the Board of Trade to deal with flagrantly subsidised imports of foreign refiners."
I should like to supplement that comment by referring to the reply of the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill in this House to some of the questions which remain still unanswered or not cleared up.
Referring, on March 25, to the alleged hurt to the Irish resulting from "the regime", as the pricing arrangements were called, he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 248 (No. 60), col. 24]:
"As I think I have explained, all foreign countries were placed at this trading disadvantage—in fact all countries, all suppliers, were placed at this disadvantage—but compensation was made for Commonwealth suppliers. The similar compensation was not made for the Irish Republic."
That is only half a truth, and, as we all know, a half truth is sometimes worse than an untruth. The complete truth is this. Only signatories of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement received compensation. Countries such as India and Canada, both of whom have sent sugar to this country, received no compensation. The Irish Republic, therefore, are not merely being treated as though they were any Commonwealth country; not merely as though they were any Commonwealth exporting country, such as India or Canada, but as though they were an exporting member of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. They are not exporters of sugar; they are not members of the Commonwealth; and they are not mem-
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bers of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement.
One could comment also on what the noble Lord said in column 26. He there said:
"The plain truth is that sugar produced from Irish beet can seldom be competitive with that purchased in the world market."
Surely this supports our contention that in order to send sugar into Northern Ireland the Irish require a subsidy, and that they would not have been able to develop this trade in Northern Ireland without the "hole in the tariff", as the unfair advantage was called, which they enjoyed prior to 1962, and that they require the subsidy being arranged in the Irish Sugar Agreement in order to be able to maintain their successful competition with British refiners in Northern Ireland. Again, in column 27, the noble Lord said:
"In response to representations of the refiners, an Amendment was introduced by the Government so that the Minister could only direct the Board to buy sugar from the parties to the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. We did not say then that there would never be circumstances in which Parliament would think it justifiable to extend by legislation the powers of the Sugar Board."
Surely that is a very weak (if "weak" is the right adjective) argument. It is very nearly equivalent to saying that the Minister at that time, Mr. Amory, I believe (as he then was), enticed the refiners into giving their undertakings and co-operating generally when the Amendment was introduced to limit the powers of the Board, while saying, at the same time, to himself, under his breath, "But I reserve the right, without consulting you, again to extend the powers of the Board when I want to." That is just what it amounted to.
This also, of course, omits the point that any such radical change of policy should have been openly acknowledged in separate legislation, and not submerged in a clause of this Miscellaneous Bill. No wonder that in another place the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food seems to have taken no part in the discussion over Clause 25. Indeed, he must have felt it embarrassing to have to acknowledge this foundling which was left on his doorstep where it had no right to be. I support the Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I should also

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like to support the Amendment. As my noble friend Lord Milverton has said, it is a matter of extreme surprise that this clause came to be inserted in this Bill. I should have thought that separate legislation should have been enacted on this, because Her Majesty's Government are surely setting a dangerous precedent here by extending the power of the Sugar Board into an entirely new sphere. They are trading in a country which is not in the Commonwealth, and a country, therefore, over which the Ministry of Food has no control. I understand that in framing the 1957 Act—my noble friend Lord Merrivale called it the 1956 Act—the Government had the opinion of the sugar refiners; I understand they had long consultations with them, and the sugar refiners co-operated extremely well with the Government and went out of their way to bring the Sugar Act into being.
The Irish Agreement appears to cut completely across this. I think it is monstrous that United Kingdom sugar refiners cannot compete in the British Isles on equal terms with Ireland as regards sugar. I could perhaps understand this if Her Majesty's Government had a quid pro quo with the Eire Government to allow Northern Irish goods into the South of Ireland without import duty. But even if they had that quid pro quo they would have to compensate the British sugar refiners accordingly. This seems extremely unfair, and it means that we are handing the Eire Government a subsidy, at the expense of the British taxpayer, to compete in the North of Ireland. I really cannot stomach this, and I wholeheartedly support my noble friend's Amendment.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, on studying Hansard I am appalled to find how many columns are taken up by my dissertations on this clause, mainly in an attempt to answer my noble friends Lord Merrivale and Lord Milverton. To-day, we have a total of another seven Amendments, one of which raises a new point, set down by my two noble friends. I do not think the House would lightly forgive me if I were to make a speech upon each of them. I therefore propose to make yet one more principal speech promoting the clause as it stands, and then to answer any points of detail
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which may be raised by my noble friends on each individual Amendment, repeating myself as little as possible.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I make a suggestion to my noble friend? If, instead of reading out his brief word for word, he could précis it into about six principal points, I think we could grasp it so much better.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I have taken a certain amount of trouble to précis the points I want to make on the clause as a whole, and I do not think I can do better for my noble friend, or shorten it, while keeping it distinct, by departing from the brief which I have composed rather carefully myself. As I have said before, we regard this Agreement as beneficial to both countries—that is to say, our own country and the Irish Republic—and to the Commonwealth. It will provide, as I have shown, a new outlet which has been welcomed by Commonwealth sugar producers—I am still at a loss to understand why my noble friend Lord Milverton does not appreciate that. It is as a direct result of the discussions which led to the presentation of this draft Agreement that the Irish Sugar Company have purchased 15,000 tons of sugar from the West Indies, and this replaces foreign exports to the Irish Republic this year for the first time. The Irish Republic will purchase at least 5,000 tons from Commonwealth producers each year, and in many years they will buy much more—possibly as much as 25,000 tons.
This is also of value to British refiners, because the Agreement will remove their grievance that the export of refined sugar to Britain was covered by foreign imports. It is worth noting that the Irish Republic, like any other country which operates within a preference system for sugar, or any other commodity, is perfectly entitled to carry on trade in the way she has since the end of State trading in sugar in 1956, and for a very much longer period so far as the composite goods which are the subject of this clause are concerned.
As I have said in one of our earlier debates, if my noble friend is right and the trade cannot be maintained if based upon Commonwealth supplies of raw sugar or sugar beet grown in the Irish Republic, it is that much more difficult to understand why the Sugar Refiners

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Association take such a poor view of the draft Agreement. If my noble friend was wrong (as I suspect he was), and the export trade in refined sugar to Northern Ireland continues, it will be restricted by this Agreement to the significantly lower level of 10,500 tons. This is a restriction written into the Agreement to which he is objecting. It is difficult to see how the British refiners could fail to benefit from such a reduction which has been agreed to by the Irish Government. As I said when we last discussed this matter, it is difficult to see anyone who is better placed to benefit from a reduction in sugar exports from the Irish Republic.
I think perhaps, in view of Lord Merrivale's references to objections, the time has come to say that, in complaining of the disadvantages, none of the speakers has specified or described what disadvantage this Agreement will have for the refiners in this country. My noble friend has not done so to-day. He mentioned five points of disagreement, but he did not say how he expected British refiners in this country to suffer—
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but would he like me to mention again the five points? I thought he knew them by heart. If he wishes me to outline the five points which the refiners have against the Agreement, I shall be only too pleased to do so. Is the noble Lord aware of them?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, what I have said is that we have not yet heard from either of the noble Lords how the British sugar refiners expect to suffer from this Agreement.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, they are suffering—shall we say?—from the point of view that they are not keen that the British consumer should be asked to pay a subsidy to Ireland. They also believe that the Irish will be able to compete in areas which, up to 1956, had been served only by Greenock and Liverpool. They also feel that the Agreement does not make available an additional outlet to Commonwealth producers that could not be provided by other means. They also feel that it does nothing to alleviate the unemployment situation in the two areas which I have just mentioned, where the figures are above the national average. Also, they feel, as has been mentioned
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by my noble friend Lord Milverton, that the Agreement extends the powers of the Sugar Board absolutely in contravention of the spirit which was prevalent at the time of the passing of the Sugar Act.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I, at the same time, ask the noble Lord, whether we are going to consider the benefits that may or may not accrue to the British refiners—and he has given a figure of the limit which is going to be placed on Eire exports to Northern Ireland. Could he give the figures over the last five or six years, so that we could then understand?
LORD ST. OSWALD: In answer to the last question, imports into Northern Ireland last year were 13,000 tons; and noble Lords already in a previous stage of the Bill had drawn attention to the fact that this does not appear to them to be a very great reduction though it might be thought a noticeable one. But a point I made in an earlier stage of the Bill and which I dislike repeating is that there was virtually no reason why 13,000 tons should be the limit of imports from Southern Ireland into Northern Ireland. We have now restricted imports to 10,500 tons from the previous 13,000 tons, but also from a potentially far higher figure.
I listened with great care to my noble friend Lord Merrivale enumerating his five objections. It was not the five objections which I wanted him to catalogue again. I wished him to say which of those five objections entailed any sort of suffering for the sugar refiners of this country, and he has not done so.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, may I add one thing to Lord Merrivale's points? One of the main objections which I, among others in this House, have made was the price which the noble Lord contemplates paying to the Irish under this Agreement. If the British refiners were given a similar sum they could find room for far more Commonwealth sugar than would be produced by the Irish under this arrangement. What is more, they would not ask for any special arrangements in connection with it. What we have tried to find out, and what the noble Lord, if I may say so with respect, has not yet told us, is what this compensation is being paid for.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I fear very much that my noble friend has not done me the honour of reading my

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speeches. I can very well understand that, because I do not like reading them myself. I have explained what this compensation is for. What it is intended to compensate is the £150,000 which the Irish Republic forfeited last year as a result of the arrangement made for which Commonwealth sugar exporting countries were compensated and they were not. This added up to about £150,000 in the course of last year, and looks like continuing at the same rate. The idea was that this compensation would approximate to that in future years, and so balance the loss which the Irish sugar refiners would suffer.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, may I be allowed to interrupt the noble Lord once more? That is what puzzles me. I think the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, summed it up in a sentence in a question in our last debate. He asked the noble Lord whether he understood him correctly that £150,000, or whatever the sum amounts to, is being paid as compensation to the Irish for the loss of a previous advantage to which they were not entitled.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I really am not going on with this point. I am quite prepared to debate with the noble Lord on whether or not they were entitled, but not at this moment. I have lost count of the number of times I have repeated this. The £150,000 was lost by the Irish in the course of last year's trading. The £150,000 which we estimated would accrue but which, in fact, will not accrue to the Irish Republic in the next year's trading was intended to compensate them, to balance out, next year's trading disadvantage, leaving behind on the books the £150,000 loss sustained in the course of last year's trading. I really hope I have made that clear.
I return now to the point I was discussing with my noble friend. He has certainly listed and catalogued the objections which the British sugar refiners have voiced to these arrangements, but he has not said how the British sugar refiners expect to suffer. We certainly do not consider that the Agreement will do anything but improve their circumstances, and I have been at pains to describe how we think those circumstances will improve. There is, in fact, no lack of proof that in the past we paid a proper regard
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to the need to protect the refiners' interests. The figures speak for themselves. Imports of refined sugar fell from about 200,000 tons in 1961 to about 100,000 tons in 1962, as a result of the changes in the sugar régime and import quotas, and this was brought about intentionally on behalf of the refining industry by the Government at that time.
Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 proposed by my noble friend Lord Merrivale deal with consultation about directions given under this clause, and further Parliamentary approval of the Irish Sugar Agreement. Of those two my noble friend has so far moved only Amendment No. 8, so it is that with which I am dealing now.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, No. 9 does not deal with consultation; it deals with an Affirmative Resolution.
LORD ST. OSWALD: One refers to consultation, the other to Parliamentary approval. I gave an assurance on Committee stage that the House would be informed of any proposal to amend or extend the Agreement. My right honourable friend would naturally give the principal undertakings in the sugar industry in this country an opportunity to comment on any new proposals. I can also give my noble friend an assurance that before giving directions my right honourable friend would consult the Sugar Board and the representative organisations of the sugar industry in the United Kingdom. The interests of Commonwealth industries are the concern of the Governments of their countries and territories. They are, of course, interested in the sugar Agreement with the Irish Republic, and were informed of its terms at the end of the negotiations in the same way as the principal sugar undertakings in the United Kingdom were advised of the outcome of the discussions. I think that is as far as we are, or were, required to go, and I hope that my noble friend will not press his Amendment.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I must say that I find that a most unsatisfactory reply—and I say that in as humble and respectful way as possible. When the noble Lord says simply that an industry will be given opportunity to comment, that is about as vague a statement, I should have thought, as it could be. All we are asking by this Amendment is

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that Her Majesty's Government should be prepared to enter into consultation with members representing the interests of producers and refiners; and those members would be chosen by the Minister himself. Therefore, I find the last words of my noble friend most disappointing. He spent most of the time outlining what Her Majesty's Government saw as the advantages of the draft Agreement. It seems a shame that much of those advantages which are seen by Her Majesty's Government which should accrue to both countries cannot be appreciated by the sugar refiners in this country. I can only think that the advantages cannot be as great as Her Majesty's Government believe. I must say that I am most dissatisfied and disappointed with the reply of my noble friend.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
5.47 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved to add to the clause:
"Provided that no agreement made after the passing of this Act and no modification or extension of such agreement shall have validity for the purposes of this section unless approved by Resolution of each House of Parliament."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 9 standing in my name on the Marshalled List. Apart from the fact that this Amendment is, I feel, fairly clear, I trust that it will also commend itself as being fairly reasonable; and I sincerely hope that it will commend itself to the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, for it would give him the opportunity for another charming speech such as we heard earlier on this afternoon.
As your Lordships are well aware, it is the duty of the Special Orders Committee to examine certain Orders which require an Affirmative Resolution or an Address to Her Majesty. The Committee do not report on the expediency of an Order, but give an opinion as to whether the Order raises questions of policy or principle; also whether it is founded on precedent. This point was mentioned this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, when we were considering the Location of Offices Bureau Order, 1963.
I think that your Lordships would agree that the draft Agreement does involve questions of policy and principle.
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On this question of precedent, might I suggest that there are certain common factors?
Consider, for instance, the Protocol for the prolongation of the international Agreement of May 6, 1937, regarding the regulation of production and marketing of sugar; that is, Command Paper 8437. Chapter 6 refers to the establishment of an International Sugar Council for the general administration of that agreement. On December 15, 1958, my noble friend Lord Lansdowne moved:
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the International Sugar Council (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1958, be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on November 26."
After debate that Motion was agreed to, and I feel that there is a certain similarity between that Motion and what the present Amendment is seeking to do regarding the present draft Agreement. Therefore, I feel that it is opportune that, before any Agreement such as we are considering to-day can be brought into operation, Parliament should be given an opportunity to discuss certain of its details. I think that your Lordships were told earlier this afternoon of the advantages of such a procedure. The fact, too, that such an Order as we had earlier to-day was not based on precedent did not stop your Lordships passing it. Therefore, feel that this method whereby Parliament has an opportunity of considering such Resolutions should commend itself to your Lordships with regard to such a draft Agreement. I beg leave to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 38, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Merrivale.)
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I should like to support this Amendment. There is nothing that I have to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, has already said, except that the course of this Bill through this House has sufficiently illustrated how grave is the need, when this sort of thing happens, to have some provision which would allow Parliament the opportunity of a proper discussion of a new principle, isolated from a mass of irrelevant other clauses.
5.53 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, the Irish Sugar Agreement, and not just the extension of the powers of the Sugar

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Board, has been the subject of debate at every stage on the passage of this Bill through both Houses of Parliament. Amendment No. 9 would provide for further debate. I should have thought it was clear that we consider that the Agreement will be a useful development to both countries and to the Commonwealth. It will not damage any United Kingdom interest and offers advantages which I have already described. We have already satisfied Parliament up to this late stage of the Bill as to these things, even if we have not satisfied my two noble friends. We see no reason why the Irish Sugar Agreement should be put under closer scrutiny than the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement itself or other subsidiary Agreements. Indeed, when the South Africa Bill was before the House last year with provision for the extension of the powers of the Sugar Board to purchase South African sugar, no change was made to provide for such a close scrutiny, and, in fact, no change was called for.
I cannot agree (if this is what my noble friend thinks) that there has been, or can be, any question of adding to the scope of directions to the Sugar Board without coming back to Parliament. We came back to Parliament for the South African adjustment last year, and we have come back to Parliament again now for powers to direct the Sugar Board to buy from Ireland. We think that this is all the scrutiny which Parliament should wish to have, and that it provides full safeguards for the matter in hand.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I do not propose to press this point. If the noble Lord, Her Majesty's Government and Parliament feel that sufficient scrutiny can be given, I am, of course, satisfied to leave it there. The only thing that I should like to say is that I am pleased that my noble friend has referred again to the South Africa Act, for I propose to mention it later. I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to add to the clause:
"Provided that any such agreement made before 31st December 1963 shall cease to be binding after three months (notwithstanding any provision to the contrary) if any losses of the Sugar Board under that agreement exceed the sum of £150,000 in any period of two successive accounting years."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. Clause 12 of the Anglo-Irish Sugar Agreement provides as follows:
"Period of Agreement. This Agreement shall commence on the date hereto and shall expire on the 31st January 1967, subject to the right of either of the parties hereto to request a review of the provisions of this Agreement and to give to the other, not later than 31st March in any year notice in writing of intention to terminate this Agreement on the 20th June next following the date of such notice."
The effect of the Agreement would be that if the working of the Agreement cost the Sugar Board more than £150,000 in any two successive years they would be obliged to give notice of its termination, since they would no longer have powers to implement it under Clause 25 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Unless Her Majesty's Government contemplate unlimited liability, I suggest that this would be a reasonable Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 38, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Milverton.)
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Milverton has suggested that an Amendment is necessary to ensure that the Sugar Board's loss is kept within limits. We estimated that the loss on the refined sugar transaction under the Agreement would be £150,000 when the world price of raw sugar for the year was likely to be £25 per ton. This loss, as I explained rather earlier in this debate, would do no more than balance the additional surcharge which is accruing to the Sugar Board following the effect of our régime change on Irish exports. Raw sugar prices have not, in fact, been below about £20 per ton since the early days of the war; and even if this low price were to rule for a whole year the loss would not exceed £200,000. Thus, we feel that an effective limit is actually provided by the quantity of sugar purchased at a fixed price, and I do not feel that my noble friend's Amendment is in any way necessary.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, but I regard it as quite unsatisfactory, and I do not share his confidence that when the present boom in sugar prices has

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ended the losses may not exceed the amount. But I do not wish to press this matter any further, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to add to the clause:
"Provided that any such agreement made after 31st December, 1963, shall cease to be binding (notwithstanding any provision to the contrary) if and as soon as any losses of the Sugar Board under that agreement exceed the sum of £100,000 in any period of two successive accounting years."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the next Amendment standing in my name. Its effect would be to prevent Clause 25 from being used by a future Government to enable them to implement any kind of an Anglo-Irish Sugar Agreement in the future, whatever its cost to this country. When the Bill was presented to Parliament the Government's estimate was that the clause would cost, perhaps, £150,000 per year, but as has been pointed out, everything depends upon the price of sugar. The effect of the Amendment would be that if any subsequent Agreement were made which involved expenditure by this country of more than £100,000 in any two successive years, the Agreement would become null and void or, if not, that new legislation would have to be introduced to cover it.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 38, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Milverton.)
6.1 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, the second Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Milverton would prejudice any modification of the Agreement after the end of this year, even if that change were to be to our advantage. In fact, damage was done to the Irish sugar trade to the tune of £150,000 a year at the beginning of 1962, and it is not possible to estimate what will be the cost of the assurance of a fixed price of £50 a ton for 10,000 tons of their beet sugar to Irish producers. It would be £150,000 if the world price of sugar averaged £25 in any year; £200,000 if it fell to the very low price of £20; £100,000 if the price were £30; and nothing if the price were £40. In fact, the price is now £62 per ton, and it is unlikely that anything will have to be paid this year. The cost to the Sugar Board will, in all likelihood, be nothing whatever this year, and the unfavourable
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balance to the Irish Republic will remain as it was, uncompensated. In view of these financial facts, we think that my noble friend's Amendment is not necessary and would be prejudicial to the intention behind this clause.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I cannot express any satisfaction with the noble Lord's reply, because I do not believe in this myth of the £150,000 loss to the Irish company; but as the Government take this attitude I do not wish to press this Amendment any further, and beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved to add to the clause:
"( ) This section shall be of no effect after 30th June 1967."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, during the Committee stage of this Bill, my noble friend Lord St. Oswald said that the powers of the Sugar Board were extended last year by legislation when dealing with the position which arose out of the withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth. During the Second Reading of the South Africa Bill on April 12 your Lordships rightly expressed concern that the interests of Swaziland should be safeguarded. I would remind your Lordships that paragraph 5 of the Second Schedule to the South Africa Act empowers the Minister to implement the Agreement which was signed on May 29, 1962, between the United Kingdom Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the South African Sugar Association.
Details of this Agreement may be seen in the Sugar Board's Annual Report up to the month of June, 1962. I should particularly like to draw the attention of my noble friend Lord St. Oswald to paragraph 2 of this Agreement, which is headed "Period of Contract". I should also like to draw his attention to the words of the noble and learned Viscount, the then Lord Chancellor, when on April 12 last year he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 239, col. 637]:
"The Sugar Agreement is a bilateral trading agreement which is contractual, with a fixed term."
It was a fixed term of five years. What I am asking to-day is that this draft Agreement which we are now considering should also have a fixed term. Thus,

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if Her Majesty's Government feel that there is a certain similarity—and I believe there is, from what the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, said—between a country which was once part of the Commonwealth and another country not technically in the Commonwealth but which benefits from a certain Commonwealth preference, I would hope that my noble friend will concede that there are certain grounds for a similar type of agreement or contract to be made.
Finally, I would ask him very seriously to bear in mind the words of the then Lord Chancellor, again on April 12 last year, during the passage of the South Africa Bill, when he said in regard to the Sugar Agreement [col. 637]:
"It is obviously the sort of thing on which we ought to clear the ground, and I am only anxious to help."
I feel that in this case the ground has certainly not been cleared, and I only wish that my noble friend and his right honourable friend were more anxious to help. Therefore I beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 38, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Merrivale.)
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, this third Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Merrivale would end the Agreement in 1967. What I have to say is, I fear, inevitably repetitive, and it was also challenged by my noble friend. The Agreement arises from a feature of the sugar régime, introduced in 1962, which damages Irish exporters to the tune of about £150,000 a year. This damage, which was not present under the conditions which governed the South African arrangement, will continue indefinitely and may well still be there in five years' time. It is not possible to say, therefore, how long the arrangements with the Irish should continue; nor is it fruitful to speculate about the circumstances obtaining when this Agreement expires. It may be appropriate then to extend the Agreement but that is not a matter which we feel should be settled now. I would therefore ask my noble friend to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, the only interpretation I can put on my noble friend's words, which I find a little dis-
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quieting, is that it is expected by Her Majesty's Government that it might well be that the present damage to the Irish will go on indefinitely. It seems a very curious form of legislation that allows a draft Agreement to be provided which would enable the damage to go on for ever. I should have thought that the purpose of this draft Agreement was to alleviate any damage to the Irish company, if there was any damage. But I do not see at this stage any purpose in pressing this Amendment. I am very sorry that my noble friend would not agree that there was a certain similarity between this Agreement and the Agreement with South Africa. I should have thought that if in that case it could be for a fixed period, then if this draft Agreement had been satisfactorily drafted it also could have been for a fixed period. With those few remarks, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.10 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, this Amendment is surely one which the Government will at last accept. The international sugar agreement is not at present in force, but it can be renegotiated this year. In the past the United Kingdom Government and the Governments of members of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement have been in favour of participating in this Agreement, by the terms of which producers undertake to limit their exports of sugar. If the United Kingdom follows past practice it will sign, perhaps this year, an international sugar agreement again. It will then not be possible as a signatory to the international agreement—to quote the phrase which has been used in relation to the Anglo-Irish Agreement—"to find new outlets for Commonwealth sugar", because the total outlets will be limited. The clause in the Irish Agreement, therefore, by which Ireland undertakes to import a minimum of 5.000 tons of Commonwealth sugar, will be of no benefit to producers. My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 38, at end insert—
("( ) If under any international sugar agreement a limit is imposed upon the total exports of Commonwealth sugar, then this section shall cease to have effect from the time when that limitation begins to operate.") —(Lord Milverton.)
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, this Amendment moved by my noble friend contains the new point to which I referred at an earler stage, in that it calls attention to the effect of any new international sugar agreement. But the sugar consumed in this country comes almost entirely from the Commonwealth and from domestic producers. It is very hard for me to visualise, as my noble friend would like me to do, our acceptance of a new international agreement which would require us to cut back our imports from the Commonwealth. However, having followed my noble friend with some difficulty into these realms of imagination, I come up against one hard fact which I do not think he has taken into account: that the practice internationally in establishing quotas has always been to take account of firm existing outlets as one of the principal factors.
What this clause is doing is to enlarge the export performance of the Commonwealth sugar-producing countries, so that, even if such an international agreement as my noble friend visualises were to be negotiated, the Commonwealth would still be in a better position by this clause than without it. As my noble friend knows, the export quota provisions of the International Sugar Agreement of 1958 have been inoperative since the beginning of 1962. The increased outlet for Commonwealth supplies is therefore of real value, but there is no purpose in speculating about the outcome of any future negotiating conference to establish export quotas to apply for future years. I can only repeat to my noble friend that firm outlets as well as past performances are taken into account at negotiating conferences, so that in fact this clause will aid rather than place an obstacle in the path of his own wishes on this matter.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I have listened to the noble Lord's replies on this sugar question with increasing amazement. I cannot accept the idea that these new outlets for Commonwealth sugar and so forth, which are going to be created under the Irish agreement, as has been said, would be taken as firmly established trade and so on. But it is no use for me to continue this argument. I do not accept any of the prophecies or the statements which the noble Lord has just made, and I think it would be difficult to
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get those who are experienced in the trade to accept them, either. But with those few comments, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, there is nothing more for me to do about this, than to invite somebody to read through the debates in this House on the Second Reading, the Committee stage and the Report stage, to realise that we are dealing with a Government who are quite impenitent and uncommunicative on the subject of Amendments. With those few unsolicited comments, I would say that I do not propose to move the final Amendment to leave out Clause 25.

OFFICES, SHOPS AND RAILWAY PREMISES BILL
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, in view of the fact that we are to have another debate, which was due to start at six o'clock, I think it would probably be for the convenience of your Lordships if we continued the Committee stage to-morrow.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we on this side of the House agree with the proposal that has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. But, in the circumstances, may I ask the Government Chief Whip whether he can give us any statement on the Government's intentions as to the progress of this Bill?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, it has been agreed through the usual channels that we should continue with the Committee stage of this Bill to-morrow after the Second Reading of the Protection of Depositors Bill; and that there should be a Dinner Adjournment and the Committee stage should be continued after Dinner. It will almost certainly be necessary to continue further on Monday, April 8, after the Second Reading of the Weights and Measures Bill; and, again, it will almost certainly be necessary to have a Dinner Adjournment and to continue after Dinner. I do not feel that it is desirable that I should go beyond those two dates at the present time. But I would impress upon your Lordships that

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it is important that we should make progress with this Bill and conclude this stage of it before Easter.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it is true that the proposals made by the Government Chief Whip have been agreed through the usual channels. I think it is also true, however—and perhaps I should say this on behalf of my friends who are going to take part in the remaining stages—that we agree under protest. For many of us—I am speaking for those who are taking part and who are not included in "the usual channels" —this is an onerous job. It is a very technical Bill, and to be called upon to sit late night after night, as we are going to be called upon to do, imposes severe hardship on those taking part. I would ask the Government when they make their programmes of business in future to consider the position not only of Ministers but also of those who come here voluntarily to give service to this House. There is a limit to the length we can go. Some of us sometimes think we are near the limit. But I would ask the noble Earl to consider that position carefully.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I appreciate a great deal of what the noble Lord has said. I think it would be not unfair to say that the Government have done their best to meet the Opposition on various stages of practically every Bill that has been through this House for a good many years now. I think the noble Lord would agree that, when the programme was discussed with the Opposition at an earlier stage, it was anticipated on both sides that the Committee stage would be a comparatively short one. It has become a long one through the desire of the Opposition to see that certain points are discussed—and it is very right and proper that they should be. But, with due respect, they must realise that if they wish to discuss them it does take time, and they really must be prepared to use the time that is available.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I wish to add to the protest of my noble friend. The Government Chief Whip has quite rightly said that if we as an Opposition want to discuss this, then we should be prepared to take the necessary time to do it. But, after all, we have to make arrangements. Some of us have made
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arrangements—I speak personally—especially to travel some considerable distance to-day in order to be here for the Committee stage of the Bill. Now we are not going to have it. That is no fault of the Opposition: that is the fault of the Government in organising their Business. I am very glad to see a little revolt on the Government side of the House. I am all for this "fun and games" and for making it a little difficult for Ministers occasionally, whether it comes from that side or this; but, after all, the Opposition should not suffer because there has been a revolt on the Government side in regard to a preceding measure. The timetable ought to have been prepared a little better than it has been.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, did I understand the noble Earl to say in his original statement that the Government are very anxious to "make good progress" with this Committee stage before Easter? I think he did not go further than to say "make good progress".
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, I said "to conclude".
Order of the Day discharged.

NORTHERN FRONTIER DISTRICT OF KENYA
6.22 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON THE EARL OF LYTTON rose to call attention to that part of the statement on Kenya which relates to the Northern Frontier District, made by Her Majesty's Government on March 12 last; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name. I am very grateful to the Government for giving me time, and on this day which, as it is Budget Day, is obviously a good day. The time of day is not so convenient; but, as the Daily Telegraph said to-day, I am in a difficult position as a Cross-Bencher representing a very little-known portion of our Commonwealth. I have to thank, in particular, the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, for the help he has given me, notwithstanding the fact that when I went to him I made it plain that it was for the purpose of sharpening my spears to plunge into him.
My Lords, what is this all about? I should like to start with a summary. In

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a large portion of Kenya, which is approaching independence, having been our colony, the inhabitants have expressed a wish, after a period of separate autonomy, not under the Kenya Government, to secede to the Republic of Somalia, two parts of which were formerly colonies of ours and with the whole of which we have had intimate connections during the past twenty years.
In detail, the story starts with the Report of the Kenya Constitutional Conference of 1962, where this part of Kenya, called the Northern Frontier District, made known its views; where the leading political Parties, under Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ngala, in Nairobi declared their firm opposition to the secession of any part; and there was the undertaking by Her Majesty's Government to carry out an investigation in order to ascertain public opinion in the area. They said that this Commission would be appointed as soon as practicable so that its Report could be available and a decision on its findings taken by Her Majesty's Government before the Constitution for Kenya was brought into operation—I quote from paragraph 26 of the White Paper, Cmnd. 1700.
How, then, do I come into this, people may rightly ask? Am I representing the Somali Republic, the N.F.D. or what? Why do I come from my farm at the top of Porlock Hill in order to speak about this remote part of the Commonwealth? I should like to read to your Lordships a telegram I have received:
"Best wishes for your debate on April 3. B.B.C. television programme 'Panorama' Monday night will provide latest view from here. The leader in Scotsman dated March 13 sets out our position accurately".
That telegram is signed "Prime Minister". I need hardly say that he is not the right honourable Harold Macmillan, but the Prime Minister of the Somali Republic. Your Lordships will see that he has not asked me to do anything on his behalf. He has chosen a much greater man than myself—Mr. Richard Dimbleby, who has already made appropriate representations: he is merely wishing me good luck.
Why do I happen to be in touch with the Prime Minister of the Somali Republic at all? I should like to quote a letter, which is also from him, dated May 24 last year. He wrote:
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"Dear Lord Lytton,
"The admirable speech that you made in the House of Lords on May 15 during the debate on Kenya has been brought to my attention, and I hope you will not think it improper if I say that this is the first time, so far as I am aware, that the House of Lords has been given a lucid anti accurate account of Somali problems from one of its distinguished Members with practical experience of Somali needs and aspirations.
"I have also been touched and gratified to read the sympathetic comments about the N.F.D. which were made during the debate by the Lord Chancellor, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Earl of Listowel and by Lord Walston. I, too, share the hope that this will not be the last time that you speak in Parliament, and should you again contemplate a visit to East Africa will you please let me know and I shall be happy to invite you to our country as a guest of the Government so that you can see for yourself how democracy can be made to work in Africa."
That letter is signed by Dr. Shermarke. I shall be flying from Aden to Mogadishu, I hope, on May 13, when I hope that relations may have improved. I have also received a letter from a representative of the 20,000 Somalis in Aden thanking me for what I said in this House last May.
The idea of a Greater Somalia has been put forward by four eminent people at various times. First, there was Sir Charles Elliot, one of our greatest administrators in Kenya, about 1904. Then there was Mohammed Abdilla Hassan, commonly known as "The Mad Mullah", between 1899 and 1920. He is one of the greatest of the Somali poets. Then, the idea has been put forward by the Emperor of Ethiopia on a number of occasions, always with the intention of incorporating the entire Horn of Africa within the Ethiopian Empire. Finally, there was Mr. Ernest Bevin in 1946, and what he said is on record in Hansard. This idea, therefore, is not new.
Why is it mooted? I am producing a map. I know there were a few in the Office, but for the benefit of those without a map I want to describe what we are talking about. The Northern Frontier district is half Kenya. It is twice the size of England. It is virtually a desert. It is inhabited by one-thirtieth of the population. One-thirtieth of the population inhabit half the country, and nine-tenths of the population occupy one-fifth. That is not a sign of maldistribution, because one is desert and the other is well-watered Highlands. This desert is so poor and so unimportant that it is called a District only.

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It is not even a Province. The Province of which it is a part is so unimportant that it is not given a separate map in the Kenya atlas. The whole population is regarded as of such small account that it is not summarised in the main tribes in the Kenya Statistical Abstract of 1960. It is one of the poorest places that people have ever quarrelled about. There is the possibility of oil but I am certain that the quarrel is not about oil, in the sense that if there were no prospects of oil the quarrel would be there.
As regards the divisions of the people, the reports are all extremely confusing. The divisions which are most easily intelligible throughout Kenya are the non-negro, who occupy the Northern Frontier District almost exclusively and to the exclusion of almost everybody else. There are the Negroes, who are described in the map as either Bantu or (one tribe), Nilotic. There are then the classified mixtures between Negro and non-Negro. By the term "non-Negro" I am not suggesting anything whatever with any white in it at all. It is a means of getting away from these very confusing terms which are still very fluid. I think most people of my age when they were very young were told that all Negroes were descended from Ham, the son of Noah. Nowadays, the word "Hamitic" among experts excludes specifically all Negroes. Therefore, what can I do? I describe them as non-Negroes, but black and African. They are not Arabs, either. They are just non-Negro types who occupy the whole of the area of the horn of Ethiopia and the right bank of the Nile. How they got there and whether they are of European stock or came from the Caucasus, we do not yet know. But they are non-Negro and that is the principal characteristic; and the dividing line in East Africa between non-Negroes and others is the Northern Frontier District which is a most convenient boundary.
In this particular map, the non-Negro areas are shown in light blue and the others in different colours. I want to dismiss all the others, but I want to summarise the tribes. There are 36 Negro tribes shown on this map, 18 classified mixtures and 8 non-Negro or Hamitic tribes. May I say that of the classified mixtures, the Masai are the most famous of Negroes, people
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like the Luo, the Kikuyu and the Kamba. When we come to the non-Negroes, their two great divisions in Kenya, N.F.D., are the Somali and the Galla. Those two names are quite sufficient. A good deal of confusion in these Reports would have been eliminated if we could have had classifications better described. The majority of the people in the N.F.D. are Somali and a small proportion are Galla. Both Somali and Galla extend into Ethiopia.
The Sunday before last the Sunday Times described Ethiopia as an ancient Empire. That is totally incorrect. Ethiopia, within to-day's political boundaries, is, in a small part, the ancient Abyssinian Kingdoms of history, and, in a much larger part, the colonies conquered by the Emperor Melinek II, who was more or less a contemporary of Gladstone. The colonies are approximately the same age as our own. They are Somali and Galla. The only difference is that whereas we label our places as "colonies", the Ethiopians have described them as one Ethiopian people, and from time to time they say they are historically part of Ethiopia. That is not true. The Galla extend into Ethiopia, right up North of the capital (which is built on conquered territory after Melinek II acquired it) to Harrar. They number millions, of whom the few N.F.D. Galla are a part. There may be three-quarters of a million Somali within the Ethiopian boundaries to-day. Therefore, there is this international problem. I do not want to say anything about the aspirations of the Galla. My information is that they would be very happy with good government. But you will notice in the Report on the Northern Frontier District that nobody has suggested joining his cousins over the Ethiopian border.
I must apologise, my Lords, for a little hesitation from time to time because although everything has been provided for my convenience, a table has not. I appreciate that in this House a table is a status symbol and I have never been one to advance my status by one inch; but I find it a little difficult to handle my papers.
I have searched very hard for a really authoritative and responsible account of what a Somali is, and I have it in a reasonably brief space, published in

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New Society on 21st March, 1963. It is part of the editorial comment, and I have obtained the permission of the editor and the contributor whom I know and regard as a very knowledgeable person, who knows the Somali language and the Galla language, to quote it:
"The Somali people who live in the N.F.D. hardly differ at all, in any respect from their brothers in the Somali Republic or in Ethiopia. They speak the same language, and even the dialect variations do not correspond to the artificial frontiers imposed on them. The Ogaden people of the N.F.D. belong to the same clan as the Ogaden people in the Somali Republic and in the Ogaden region in Ethiopia
"The Somalis are all united further by the bond of Islam, which in spite of its Sunni orthodoxy has a characteristic national flavour and is dominated by the Sufi movement represented by religious fraternities which place particular emphasis on a mystic union with God through pious exercises, contemplation and good life.
"The Somali Sufis like other members of this movement venerate saints, some of whom are Arab and some Somali. These saints they share all over the Somali territories, and people make long journeys in pious pilgrimages. Some Somalis may travel hundreds of miles from different regions, across the political boundaries, to give homage to those whose supernatural intercession they may seek, at the sacred tombs."
In addition to that description by an expert, they have one name. Everywhere else, if you ask a man who he is he does not say, "I am a Kenyan" or, "I am a Galla"; he says, "I am an Orma" or, "I am a Turkana" or some such tribal name. The Somalis have one name for all their clans. And one language is broadcast to the whole of these people from this country, from Moscow and from Cairo.
The Galla, about whom I believe we know even less, are part of the Northern Frontier District, and as the District have addressed their memorandum to me and asked me to represent them, I must say what they are. This report continues:
"Among the inhabitants of the Northern Frontier District there is also a large group of Galla people—who are very much akin to Somalis both linguistically and ethnically. The structure of their language bears striking resemblance to Somali and shares with it some 25 per cent. of the vocabulary. In a similar position is the Rendille language.
"A large proportion of the Galla people, like the Somalis, are Muslims and thus have with them the common link of religion. Their pastoral way of life differs little from that of the Somalis and in fact much inter-marriage
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has taken place in some Somali clans, such as the Ajuran. Somali-Galla bilingualism is a very frequent phenomenon. The Somalis and the Galla taken together differ very sharply from the population of Kenya proper—both in language and customs.
"While Somali and Galla are closely related, and both belong to the so-called Cushitic branch of the Semitic-Hamitic family, they differ from such languages as Kikuyu or Luo as much as English does from Chinese; their values and ways of life differ so much that any integration could hardly seem possible."
In spite of the attempts at the Common Market, we still have our different races in Europe. We are far from putting the Chinese and the English into the same political compartment. We cannot even get the French in the same compartment. This non-negro limit is a very natural dividing line.
They are people who have, throughout their seventy centuries of recorded history, always dominated other Africans. I am sorry that so much of our Press says that they despise the Negro. In this country, have we not heard people talking of Dagoes, Wogs, Frogs, Wops and Bosche and in suchlike language of contempt for other races? Of course the same thing occurs in Africa. But when we want to know what is the attitude of a country, surely we look towards its responsible people. The Head of the Government of the Somali Republic has received as guests and given virtually a royal red-carpet reception to Mr. Jomo Kenyatta and Mr. Ronald Ngala, and until this unfortunate development occurred there was a desire on the part of the Somalis for federation, not with their Moslem kin but with Uganda and Kenya. That is off. Nevertheless, the authorities in Somalia have shown no disposition to display that contempt for the Negro of which they are continually accused in our Press.
How long have the Somalis been in the Northern Frontier District? I raise this matter because I am informed that Mr. Tom Mboya is saying that they have been there a very short time. So I have consulted the experts, including Sir Richard Turnbull, whose admirable little study of the Darod invasion he has lent me, and the more extended studies of Dr. I. M. Lewis, of Glasgow University, who has an article in the Guardian to-day. The first thing one can say about the Northern Frontier District is that, so far as

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one knows, no Negroes of Kenya have ever occupied it at all except for those who are there at present, and even those, a small tribe of Pokomo along the Tana River, were probably invaders themselves after the Somalis were there. There is a long and tangled history of Somali fighting Somali and Somali fighting Galla, with nevertheless alliances between Galla and Somali against other Galla and Somali.
Professor Lewis considers that Somalis were in the Northern Frontier District in full occupation three centuries ago and that the Darod, about whom Sir Richard Turnbull has written in such a scholarly way, are not the first arrivals but the last in a series of fluctuating situations in a struggle for water. These struggles over that primitive area were of a respectable kind, by which I mean that they were not raiding parties for women or slaves or just to kill, as many tribes did, but because unless the tribes had water they died, and that is the situation which has been fought out for centuries in this part of Africa. It would seem that no Ethiopians and no Negroes from the Highlands of Kenya could live in this desert country, nor do they want to. In the Ethiopian Army, especially to-day when such a large part of the army is there, it is regarded as very unpleasant to be stationed in the low desert countries. It is a curious thing that the Somalis have been frustrated from the Highlands of Kenya by us and from the Highlands of Ethiopia by the Portuguese in the 16th century. It seems that they have a kind of vocation for living in desert country with their camels, and in these conditions they are at their best. I do not think anybody wants this country. The quarrel is due to megalomania and one or two other things.
I should now like to refer to a letter sent me by the Colonial Office. I use it simply because it is so very conveniently expressed, telling me of the Commission having been appointed and of the persons appointed, and it says:
"Although considerable interest is shown by the people in the area in the work of the Commission, no untoward incidents have been reported and the security situation is satisfactory."
I do think that those people who have managed the desert for so long over an area twice the size of England, with just
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a handful of British administrators, deserve a word of thanks, when we decide to excite the desires of the people by talking of secession. They may come out and threaten what they will do, if their wishes are not granted, but with only a few administrators around, their discipline is complete. It has been a country where, as Sir Richard Turnbull said, we have not really governed; it has been run by half-a-dozen fellows with a particular look in their eyes.
At the end of this letter the Colonial Office say that the N.F.D. report would be received at the end of the year, and the decision whether it would be published would be given when it was received. That was November 20. On November 16 The Times published news from Nairobi dated the 15th—that is, five days before this letter from the Colonial Office—giving a summary of the Commission's findings, which subsequently proved to be quite accurate. I do not say this in any taunting sense to the Colonial Office. All I mean to indicate is that the Commission's work was done in the full light of day, with everybody saying what he thought, and I think this is a great tribute to the administrators out there that this could be possible. It could not happen in a great many countries. There are countries where people who expressed desires to secede would have been shot or disappeared afterwards. They would not have dared to do it. It is a wonderful thing that this could have been done, and I understand that the Press was there, reporting daily on the results of the barazas.
Now the Report of the Commission. The Commission received 40,000 people at their barazas, interviewed 134 delegations and received 106 written submissions. They did their work in extremely good time. They expressed themselves as satisfied, with one exception, that they had got the views of the people, and it reads like an honest and sincere document. Mr. Mboya contended that Somali opinion is divided (that is on page 17, paragraph 73 of this N.F.D. Commission Report). The Commission say:
"We did not in fact find any evidence of this in the N.F.D."
Here is their principal finding:
"The areas in which we found the people supporting Somali opinion are the biggest in total population and size and are in fact one.

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They extend from the Somali frontier to the Somali-Galla Line and beyond, to include the grazing lands of the Adjuran. We found that the people there almost unanimously favoured the secession from Kenya of the N.F.D., when Kenya attains independence, with the object of ultimately joining the Somali Republic, but they want the N.F.D. to have a period under British authority in which to build up its machinery of government so that it can join the Somali Republic as a self-governing unit."
I think that 86 per cent. of the whole N.F.D. area wants secession—and if it is not 86 per cent., will the Government say what it is? There are areas larger than the whole of England where you cannot find a single family that does not want it. The degree of unanimity is tremendous. It would be almost impossible to think of any other part of the world where there is such unanimity.
Incidentally, to go back a little, it is the contention of quite a number of people (you will have seen it in "Panorama", if you had been looking, and in the Scotsman) that Mr. Maudling, as Colonial Secretary, not only promised that there would be a decision on the findings, but gave it to be understood that it would be, as far as possible, in accordance with the findings, and that there would be a plebiscite in those areas where there is doubt. When he is available, and when he has rested after the Budget, perhaps he can be asked what he did say. I am not attacking Mr. Maudling. When I was out in Kenya, at the same time as he was, I noticed everywhere an instant and refreshing pleasure taken in his meetings with people. At once he was felt to be a helpful man. But what did he say?
It seems to me, from reading what is in these official statements about taking a decision on the findings of the Committee, that it was not intended that a decision should be "off"; it should be "on"; and it should be in accordance with, and not contrary to. That is what I think every single person everywhere thought. I thought it; it was thought in Kenya, and it was thought by the Somali Republic. I am talking here of those who get their news over the wireless. I should very much like to know what Mr. Maudling admits to having said; but as I presume that the Government will never tell me, I shall go on establishing what they have said, and that they have said "off" instead of "on".
In this connection, I should like to refer briefly to two other Reports, where they are relevant. There is, first, the Report, of the Regional Boundaries Commission [Cmnd. 1899], which says:
"Many delegations expressed the view "—
this is in other parts of Kenya and it shows the line on which they worked—
"that in fixing the regional boundaries it was of paramount importance that we should adhere to the existing provincial boundaries in preference to attempting to relate them to what might be said to be the wishes of the people."
That was the view expressed by some African delegations.
The Commission go on later to say:
"In many areas the wishes of the people bore no relation whatever to the existing provincial boundaries. In these cases we have done what we consider is reasonably practicable, treating the wishes of the people as the primary consideration, but at the same time adhering to existing boundaries wherever possible."
Surely that is the right and sensible thing to do, whether you are associating people together within a particular community or considering their desire to secede. That is what that Commission said. That Report has one defect: it does not tell you whether the Masai ever said they found it agreeable to be divided between two sovereign states, 60,000 in one and 40,000 in another. However, that is a small point.
The third Report is the Kenya Coastal Strip Report by the Commissioner—and he is referring to the African majority in the quotation:
"They insist upon the aspirations of the majority of the people in the strip being the decisive influence as to its future."
There, again, the wishes of the people determine what the African politicians of Kenya say they want. They make a claim to the Coastal Strip on the grounds of the wishes of the people. The Coastal Strip is the property of the Sultan of Zanzibar; no one has questioned it, and there are many people who would be willing that it should go on as such. Nevertheless, that is what the Commissioner said.
He sums up his conclusions and his findings as follows:
"…the only practical alternative is for the Coastal Strip to be integrated fully with the rest of Kenya. There are sound and cogent reasons why this should be so. (a) It meets the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants in the Coastal Strip…"

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That means that three Commissions have ascertained the wishes of the people, and it is implied that decisions will be taken on and in accordance with those wishes and not contrary to them.
The Government have implied that they have some duty to consult the Africans of Kenya on the question of whether the N.F.D. should secede or not. However, I will read what they say. When they are not concerned with the N.F.D. their expressions are quite different. Paragraph 4 of the Report to the Kenya Coastal Strip Conference, 1962, says:
"Sir James Robertson's recommendations are, of course, primarily a matter for the Sultan of Zanzibar"—
the owner—
"and the British Government"—
the tenant as it were; I speak in farming language.
"Nevertheless, any consideration of this matter must take account of the views of the inhabitants of the Coastal Strip"—
in other words, the inhabitants, plus those with legal title.
Nobody else has any duty to consult the African Ministers when they are going to receive something, but only when something is going to be taken away. Why were these two things not balanced together: the valuable Coastal Strip, with its port, its railway and its harbour, against this desert? One they are receiving and the other they should be willing to relinquish. No effort at all has been made to persuade them of the advantages of what is not theirs, and of the disadvantages of paying £300,000 a year to maintain a desert of unwilling subjects.
Somalis read all these reports. They are everywhere. They are intelligent people. There are 20,000 in Aden, and 1,500 or so in this country. They take a part in civilised life, and they know exactly what is going on. They have read all these things and the man in the street—or, in this case, in the desert—listening on his transistor set knows what it is all about. His hopes are raised that the wishes of the people are going to be granted. May I read in full a statement handed to me by the noble Marquess?—and I thank him for it. It was a statement given by the Colonial Secretary, in the wrong place, I submit, in Nairobi.
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To whom? I am not entirely sure. But it differs so radically from the statement made to Parliament that I think your Lordships should hear every word of it, in spite of its being half a page. Here it is:
"The Report of the Kenya Constitutional Conference of 1962 envisaged the appointment of a Commission to ascertain public opinion in the N.F.D. regarding the future of this area. in the light of likely course of the constitutional development of Kenya. It was stated that the decision on the Commission's findings would be taken by Her Majesty's Government before the introduction of the new Constitution to Kenya.—"
"would be" was the expression used—
"2.
The Commission presented its Report last December, and Her Majesty's Government have considered its conclusions. They have also noted the statement in the report of the Kenya Regional Boundaries Commission that. according to their terms of reference not restricting them to providing six regions, they would have considered it right to create an additional region, of the general Eastern part of the N.F.D., which is almost exclusively occupied by Somali and kindred peoples.
"3.
The Colonial Secretary has discussed this matter fully with the Governor of Kenya and with Ministers in Nairobi. He has also received two delegations, one representing those elements of the Kenya N.F.D. who advocate secession to the Somali Republic and others representing those who wish to remain part of Kenya."
Then comes Paragraph 4—and this is the vital paragraph. Here is the decision in six lines which differs from what is said in Parliament:
"Her Majesty's Government have now decided that as part of the constitutional arrangements for internal self-government in Kenya, the predominantly Somali areas referred to in the report of the Regional Boundaries Commission (comprising constituencies 20 to 24 inclusive (see footnote below)) should be formed into a separate seventh Region enjoying a status equal to that of the other Regions in Kenya ".
That is the decision. There is no qualifying remark attached to it whatsoever. It has the appearance of finality. You do not impose upon an internal Government an expensive and burdensome Region which you intend to remove from them before independence. It looks final.
Before I comment further I must read the last paragraph, paragraph (5).
"The creation of the new region will give to its inhabitants greater freedom in the management of their own affairs and more effective means of safeguarding their interests and maintaining their way of life."

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There is nothing else in the statement; other than the footnote. Imagine the inhabitants of Mogadishu, having been keyed up for months about this Commission, and the inhabitants of the N.F.D., all with their transistor sets and so on, and those who have not sets clamouring round those who have. How does this come out over the wireless? Surely this is a decision which was accepted by Mr. Kenyatta, Mr. Ngala, the Ethiopian Government, the N.F.D., the Somali public—not the Republic—as brutally final. That is the thing that is most objectionable about this whole proceeding—that the wrong decision was given by the wrong Minister in the wrong place. A decision of this importance should surely be made by the Foreign Secretary to Parliament, and not by the Colonial Secretary in Nairobi.
There is more to come. The next day, or the same day (I do not know which), there was a Press conference. Here I must again thank the noble Marquess for having handed me these papers: I should have had great trouble in obtaining them if he had not willingly let me have them, and they are his copies. Here is a report of the Press conference on the Colonial Secretary's statement—an extract from the East African Standard of March 19, 1963, a copy of which was made for me by the staff of the noble Marquess:
"One of the most difficult problems was that of the N.F.D., said Mr. Sandys.
"The report of the N.F.D. Commission showed there was an important clement which wanted to secede and unite with the Somali Republic. It showed equally that there was another important element which equally strongly wanted to remain part of Kenya.
"The British and Kenya Governments understood the Somali people's desire to express their own identity.
"But Kenya is a country which depends for its future on being able to show it is capable of providing a home in which people of different races can live honourably and amicably together, the Colonial Secretary added."
Under the heading "Own Identity", the paper goes on—and this is all a quotation of the Colonial Secretary's words:
"'It was because we recognised the desire of these people to express their own identity that we decided it would be right to create a seventh region which would embrace those elements in the N.F.D. which felt most strongly on these issues—those areas inhabited predominantly by Somali people.
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"'We are not so foolish as to imagine that the creation of the seventh region will be hailed by these people as providing complete satisfaction for all their hopes and wishes.
"' But I do trust it will be received and recognised by them as a sign of genuine and sincere good will on the part of not only the British Government but also the Kenya Government.'"
My Lords, there are some dreadful things about this statement. Why is it necessary to have all those 62 tribes? Would they be more difficult to assimilate with one less? Why are the Rendille omitted? I am not representing the Somali Government. I have been asked to represent the N.F.D. The Rendille are a substantial tribe of about 25,000. Why have their views been disregarded? It is true that the Commission and the Regional Boundaries Commission said that the Chiefs firmly wished to secede. But the N.F.D. Commission said that they were dressed more like Samburu or Masai; that they did not speak the Somali language; that they were not Moslems, and that they did not believe them. Why did not they believe them? If there is doubt about this, could it not be referred for further consideration? Surely what a man dresses like has nothing to do with the Commission's terms of reference. This has had to do with what people want to do; how they want to dispose of their future. Their religion has nothing to do with it; nor has their clothing.
Let me repeat what the Colonial Secretary said:
"We are not so foolish as to imagine that the creation of the seventh region will be hailed by these people as providing complete satisfaction for all their hopes and wishes…"
My Lords, it dashes every hope and wish. It is not a question of foolishness; it is sheer madness. It talks as if the creation of the seventh region were something of the order of an act described in Genesis. It is nothing of the kind. It is just drawing a line around people who are already there and have been there for donkey's years pursuing their way of life. There is nothing in it to indicate that any of the wishes they have expressed will be met. This N.F.D. Commission did not go to ascertain whether they wanted women's institutes; they went to discuss whether they wanted to secede or not. That was the problem. As the Commission might reasonably have been in doubt whether,

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notwithstanding the fact that secession was the primary issue, the Government would allow them to talk about it, they specifically asked and were told that they could. The noble Marquess, in a letter to me, has described the action of the Somali Government as "ill-advised", and I should like your Lordships to agree with me that it was not ill-advised but absolutely unavoidable.
Here is a letter from the Prime Minister at Mogadishu dated March 17. I should not think he had been to bed since the announcement was made.
"Dear Lord Lytton,
"You will have heard by now that my Government, with the support of Parliament, has been forced into breaking off diplomatic relations with Britain following Mr. Sandys' totally unacceptable and uncompromising policy statement about the N.F.D. on March 8".
March 8 is the date of the Nairobi statement.
"Spontaneous demonstrations of protest broke out in Mogadishu as soon as his announcement was heard over the radio. A week later a break of diplomatic relations between our two countries was sanctioned by Parliament. I regret the necessity for having to take this drastic step, but no other course was open to us in the circumstances. The assurance that we would be able to express our views at some later stage is of no value. Our views are well known to the British Government and were expressed formally in a Note on January 6 when we proposed a Conference".
Surely, that is a quite dignified and proper letter describing an absolutely unavoidable act. The whole of Mogadishu burst out in indignation when they heard this brutal statement of the Colonial Secretary coming over the radio.
Now I come to the statement made in Parliament, which again the noble Marquess has very kindly sent me, and I do appreciate it. I am a farmer; I have no clerk, no secretary and no typist, and the help I have had has been very useful to me, and I say it in all sincerity. The noble Marquess, knowing I was going to attack the Government, has, nevertheless, behaved to me like a friend.
"The other international problem"—
this is an extract from Hansard of March 12, and it is the Colonial Secretary speaking. He handles international problems like any Pooh Bah. It is not his business, and he has not done it well. He goes on [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 673, col. 1177]:
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"I discussed the whole problem very frankly with Kenya Ministers. They felt strongly that, in the absence of a fully representative Government which could speak with authority for the people of Kenya, it would not be right, for the British Government on its own, to take an irrevocable step."
My Lords, I ask you to consider that they are delighted at an irrevocable step so long as it is a step in the direction which they desire. It is not irrevocability which they are indignant about; they are indignant about something which they do not want. They are delighted, and they think it is irrevocable, and Mr. Kenyatta has stated flatly that Mr. Sandys' statement in Nairobi
"is what goes with me not an inch."
In his statement made to Parliament there are two mingy qualifying clauses.
"In any case, it seemed reasonable to ask the Kenya Somalis to give a fair trial to the new Constitution."
Where is there any sign of a fair trial? A fair trial of what in the statement made in Nairobi?—that is the statement which he made, face to face with the Africans. He has given them a pledge, without qualification, which looks as if it was intended to be permanent and final.
Then in the statement to Parliament there is another safeguarding clause:
"We did not, of course, imagine that this would fully satisfy Somali aspirations, but, while not wishing to exclude future consideration of any methods of settling this problem, we did not think that at this juncture a more radical solution would be justified."
"While not wishing to exclude future consideration of any methods of settling this problem"—where is there any sign of that in the Press Conference of his decision at Nairobi? Was this forced on him by events which occurred later, or is there some division in the Cabinet with some opposing a Greater Somalia and others anxious for it to come about? I do not know. But I do suggest that the three statements taken together are responsible for the deplorable muddle and for the withdrawal of an Ambassador by a friend.
I have a copy—and this is one of the things which, if I press for Papers, I should wish to have—of a memorandum submitted to the Colonial Secretary in Nairobi by people who claim to represent the secessionists of the N.F.D., the three major Parties, who are all enumerated in the Commission's Report,

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and who comment, no doubt with a certain partisan tinge but with intelligence and responsibility, on the Report of the Commission, which in great part they praise, and question very intelligently why they are excluded. This is why I am here, as a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, believing that you would wish to know what the people of the Northern Frontier District of Kenya have said. That is why I am here. I am here also because of the other people in Kenya, riot excluding the negroes. I have had a letter from Mr. Tom Mboya, which I have read out in this House. I am not anti-Negro. I am in favour of uhuru for Kenya Africans, but not a trampling down of other people's uhuru.
I should like to draw your attention to the fact that among the signatories is the Vice-President of the Northern Provinces People's Progressive Party, Alex Kholkholle. I understand that he is a young man, aged perhaps 30, who was chosen as a boy by the Administration to be specially educated with several others in Nairobi. He came back and has plied the profession of teacher. He is a mild man who has never been associated with any Communist Youth League or violence of any sort. He is held in respect by the Administration, by the Somalis themselves and by the Rendille. He is a spokesman in particular for the Rendille, a tribe which is not Somali but which wishes to secede with the Somalis—and which the Commission have said they did not believe.
I have had handed to me scripts and other evidence which show that this gentleman has been banished from the N.F.D. and has been required to take up residence in Mombasa. Is it true? Is the result of presenting a memorandum to the Colonial Secretary in Nairobi when it is unpalatable, going to be the removal of people who have presented it? I do not know whether it is true. I am assured that it is so. I should like to ask the Government to tell us about Mr. Kholkholle and whether he has been removed. Perhaps he lost his temper and threw a spear at somebody. I do not know, and I should like to ask for this information, which I believe should be with noble Lords.
In The Times of March 23, noble Lords will see a report of the call to the Somalis to boycott the elections—the Somalis in
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the N.F.D., of course, and not the Somalis anywhere else. No doubt the Government have much more information about that than I have.
I now look at the Kenya Constitution —not the 300 pages but the smaller version, Cmnd. 1970.
"No person shall be qualified to be elected a member of the National Assembly if he is under any acknowledgement of allegiance to any foreign power or State."
Do you think that having found out what these people want, that they want to secede, having frustrated their desires, it is possible to get their co-operation in an Administration which requires at least an oath of loyalty to a Government from which they wish to secede? The noble Marquess suggested that people who wished for Scottish Home Rule have been electing Members of Parliament in this country. I cannot see the smallest analogy between those two things. But this is a legal matter. I heard the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, once say that you cannot communicate with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack except by Telstar. I should like to address my communication to Telstar. Is this not a bar constitutionally to their taking any part, and if they do take part will they not be perjurers? It seems to me that overnight 200,000 have been made traitors.
I should like to conclude these remarks by saying that this seems to me a shabby arrangement which has been made, which arises from this paragraph in the statement of the Colonial Secretary in another place. This is the significant paragraph:
"Even if we had wanted to do so"—
he does not seem to want it—
"it was clear that in these circumstances a decision by the British Government to secede this territory without the consent of Kenya Ministers would have provoked violent reactions throughout the country and would certainly have led both KANU and KADU to leave the Government."
I deplore this open admission that, of the two techniques which are employed against us by our subject peoples when they want freedom—the technique of Gandhi, on the one side, and the technique of Michael Collins, on the other—we should have publicly declared that, when threatened by both to repress freedom, we are unable to do what we know to be just. Justice, it seems to me, comes before peace, and unless peace is founded on justice it will not work. This is peace

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bought at too high a price, the price of throwing the children to the wolves. I beg to move for Papers.
7.23 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Earl has drawn the attention of the Government this evening to the serious situation in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya, and that he was undeterred by the competition of a more popular subject in another place and the lateness of the hour at which the debate started here. Although I think, if I may say so, he put the Somali case with great clearness and competence, and that he spoke with much more first-hand experience of local conditions than Mr. Richard Dimbleby, at the same time I do not think he was altogether fair to Kenya. He spoke about the megalomania of Kenya and its attitude to the Northern Frontier District. Surely it is not megalomania to be somewhat reluctant to part with an area that amounts to about one-third of the total land area of one's country. This is very excusable, because the noble Earl was not making the Kenya case but the Somali case, and I dare say he felt he could leave the Kenya case quite safely to the noble Marquess who will reply to the debate.
There was one other point—perhaps it was mainly a matter of emphasis—on which I think I differed from him. He was mainly concerned about justice, and of course we are all concerned about justice. But I do not think he emphasised sufficiently the dangers of the present situation in this part of Kenya. To my mind, this is the most serious threat to peace in any part of Africa at the present time. As a Conservative Member of another place said after the Secretary of State made his statement there in March, a statement which was reiterated by the noble Marquess here, if we abandon Kenya without a settlement we shall be leaving a built-in cause of war between Kenya and Somalia. That was roughly what he said; I do not quote his precise words because it would not be proper Parliamentary procedure to do so.
It is surely the Government's responsibility to remove this cause of war before Kenya becomes independent. I hope that the Government will be able to assure
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us, in the reply which the noble Marquess will give to the debate, that they fully accept this responsibility. I cannot believe that the present Government, or any other British Government, would allow Kenya to be involved in an armed conflict with one of its neighbours after it becomes independent, especially when it will not even have the protection of British troops. But such is most likely to be the position, unless, of course, a settlement is reached in the meantime, when this country will no longer be responsible for the defence of Kenya.
I think we all want to be absolutely fair, and I would be the last person to underestimate the very great difficulties that confront the Government in dealing with the situation, because whatever they decide will be deeply resented by one of the two parties, and possibly by both. The Secretary of State's decision to make the Northern Frontier District an administrative region of Kenya, with considerable autonomy, like the other regions, resulted, of course, in the breaking off by the Republic of Somalia of diplomatic relations with this country. This is another point on which I differ from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. For my part, I do not think that the British Government could have decided otherwise at that time, because the political future of Kenya was in the balance. I feel that this risk of bad relations with Somalia was a risk that had to be taken, and that the consequences of taking that risk had to be accepted.
I believe, too, that the Somalis have made a mistake in breaking off diplomatic relations with this country; and for the same reason as we were mistaken in breaking off diplomatic relations with the Yemen. Such diplomatic gestures injure both countries concerned. They are an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Just look at what has happened in the case of Somalia. Somalia has lost a subsidy of over £1 million a year from this country. Somalia is a very poor country indeed, as the noble Earl told us, and needs every penny of assistance it can get from outside. And we, the British, have lost the use of a most important broadcasting station that happens to be located in Somali territory. Both sides have suffered from

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this interruption of diplomatic relations. I hope that normal relations will be resumed as soon as possible, although I do not imagine that it will be possible until this dispute has been settled.
On the merits of the dispute I will say only this, and I will say what I have to say very briefly. It can hardly be denied, I think, that the noble Earl is absolutely right in claiming that the Somalis are a single people, with a common religion, common language, common way of life, who are racially distinct, being Hamitic, from their Bantu and Nilotic neighbours. These traditional characteristics of the Somalis give them a much stronger claim to self-determination than the many African tribes that are divided by boundaries between different African countries. I do not think that their claim can be refuted on the ground that they are making the same sort of claim as divided tribes in other parts of Africa.
May I remind your Lordships for a moment of an important matter to which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton referred?—the fact that it was Mr. Ernest Bevin, when he was Foreign Secretary, who put forward the idea of a Greater Somalia in the Horn of Africa as the best possible solution of the Somali problem after the war. This solution, unfortunately, was not accepted by other countries, and we are still facing the same problem to-day. If it had been possible to get agreement at that time, when we were administering the greater part of the Somali area, that would have been a happy settlement and it would have saved all the serious trouble which has arisen later on.
But this idea of a Greater Somalia was initially a recognition of the important fact that it is certainly not unreasonable of the Somalis, wherever they form a majority, to wish to live together as a single people in a national homeland. So long as this patriotic aim is tempered with self-restraint and is not marked by resort to violence or brute force, then I think no one who loves his own country can fail to respect others who cherish that thought. At the same time, it would be hard for anyone to imagine that it would be possible for the Government of Kenya to acknowledge the claim of the Somalis in the Northern Frontier District to secede. After all, the unity of their own country is at stake. It is a country that is
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in the making. How can they, with a stroke of the pen, sign away almost one-third of their territory?
There is another consideration which I think must be kept in mind when making an assessment of the point of view of the people of Kenya. Kenya is deeply divided, as we all realise, by tribal loyalties. That has been one of the greatest difficulties in forming a united nation of Kenya; and of course these tribal rivalries are bound to be sharpened by independence. That is one of the things that invariably happens in every African country. No Government of Kenya could risk the dismemberment of its own country by allowing the inhabitants of one part of that country to secede.
This fact surely places the responsibility fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Her Majesty's Government here. It is for the British Government to decide—and to decide while we still have the constitutional right to do so. And this right will, of course, cease when Kenya becomes independent. It must, therefore, be exercised in the near future, during the short period between self-government which begins after the approaching elections in Kenya, and the attainment of complete independence for which, of course, a date has not at present been fixed. I am quite certain that Parliament would not forgive any British Government for evading a decision of this immense importance for the future of Kenya and for the peace of Africa, by any strategy of delay. I am not suggesting that the Government will adopt a strategy of delay; but we all know from past experience how easy it is for a Government to burke a difficult position by finding excuses for procrastination.
A Commission has already been sent to the area. It is a Commission (from whose Report the noble Earl has quoted) to ascertain the facts and the state of public opinion in the Northern Frontier District; and I have no doubt that the noble Marquess will say a good deal more than the noble Earl said about the conclusions of this Commission, because it occurred to me that the noble Earl quoted most conveniently those parts of it which supported his point of view. But it seems fairly clear to the ordinary man who looks at this Report that the Eastern part of this area is predominantly

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Somali and wants to secede and go to Somaliland, whereas the more sparsely populated Western part would either be willing to stay in Kenya or has a divided opinion about its political future and political allegiance. Thus, the facts have been established, and there is no excuse at all for calling in the United Nations or the other African countries to examine them. That would be a delaying tactic.
Another delaying tactic would be to wait for acceptance of Her Majesty's Government's proposals by either or both Governments concerned. We could wait, I feel quite certain, until the end of time, and still the proposals would not be entirely satisfactory, either to the Government of Somalia or to the Government of Kenya. But I feel that there is some hope in the attitude that has been already adopted by the British Government in this matter. The Secretary of State has carefully left the door open by saying that the decision about making the Northern Frontier District an administrative Region, the seventh Region of Kenya, does not prejudge a final decision. It is, as it were, an interim decision. That, of course, gave great concern to the Government of Kenya, but it seems to me to have been a most reasonable thing to do.
We are not asking for a final decision from the noble Marquess this evening; that would be a little unreasonable. Nor are we asking for it before the elections have taken place in Kenya. But we are asking the Government to make up their mind before Kenya becomes independent, because that is the only possible moment for a decision to be taken. A policy of drift would be the most disastrous policy of all. Undoubtedly it would lead Kenya into bloodshed and violence, and would mar the really wonderful record of success we have had so far in starting off the British territories in Africa which have achieved independence, in harmony, both internally and with their neighbours. I am glad indeed that the noble Earl has given us an opportunity of discussing a matter of grave public importance, especially because I feel that we must urge the Government, before it is too late, to take a decision that will avoid strife in Kenya when the time comes.
7.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, I should like to say how grateful
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I think we all ought to be to the noble Earl who opened the debate and proposed this Motion for giving us a chance of discussing what is a most important, and, I think, possibly a menacing problem. We all appreciate that Her Majesty's Government are in a difficult situation, but I suggest to your Lordships that unless we see a policy change and some new steps taken, the results may be highly disastrous, not only for that part of Africa but for ourselves and for other parts of the world.
I have been in Kenya, although I have never had the good fortune to go into these districts of Somalia. However, I have known people well who are acquainted with them, and who know them thoroughly; and I have had many descriptions and details of the people who live there, of their habits, their customs and of the issue involved. It seems to me that fundamentally the issue is very simple, as has been pointed out by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. It is that these Somalis, who are a different race from the rest in Kenya, a Hamitic nomadic race to whom the camel is all important, who live in a wild desert country and who are culturally, religiously and in every other way completely different from the other tribes in Kenya, do not want to be put under the Central Kenya Government. Rightly or wrongly, they do not like that Government; they have not a very high opinion of them—that is my information. They do not see why, because this district was originally, for administrative convenience, governed from Nairobi, when the great moment for freedom comes they should be put under people from whom they are completely different, whom they dislike and by whom they do not wish to be governed. That is really their case.
I think the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that Sir Charles Eliot, the first Governor of Kenya round about 1904–05, believed in a united Somalia. I should like to quote an extract from what Sir Charles Eliot said, which appeared in a letter to The Times quite recently. This was the opinion of our first Governor of Kenya in 1905. He said:
"If it were possible to detach the districts inhabited by Somalis it would be an excellent thing to form them into a separate government, as they are different in population, economic and physical conditions from the other provinces: but unfortunately they are too small to form a separate administration,

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and the adjoining Somali territories are not British."
In other words, his whole conception would have been a united Somaliland, but the fact that we did not have power in regard to the further territories made this impossible.
Now, of course, that particular drawback no longer exists, and there is nothing to stop Somalis in this district from being incorporated with the Somalia Republic. This is the position in which we find ourselves. The Republic of Somalia now has its own flag of five stars, one star of which, I am told. represents the North Frontier District. I do not know if this is so, but the fact which we ought to keep in mind, the important fact, quite apart from the rights and wrongs of this issue is that—and this is one thing that is quite certain—the Somalis will not accept and will not tolerate being under the Kenya Government. This may be regretted, it may be unfortunate, but it is a fact which we must recognise. We should also recognise that the Somalis are very fine people indeed. They are extremely good fighters and warriors, probably the best in Africa; they live in a wild desert country, which would be extremely difficult to subdue, and they are experts in guerrilla warfare.
I suggest that if the Government really agree to put the Somalis under the Kenya Administration we shall be leaving a terrible legacy to Kenya. There will be dragons' teeth that will rise up and produce warriors against the Kenya Government. It will put that Government in an impossible position. They almost certainly will not be able to subdue this very proud, gallant people. If they did, it would lead to their slaughter on a gigantic scale. Some people might think that Her Majesty's Government take the rather cynical view: "After all, we shall be out of it. The Africans have asked for this; let them have it and see what happens." I think, and hope, that that is not the view, but in any case until independence we are responsible, and if we stir up this wild, warlike people there will be infinite trouble. Already there has been a report in The Times of April 1 of trouble in Somalia in this district, in which a policeman was killed. That is probably only the beginning if we persist in what seems to them to be a betrayal of their rights and interests and the worst kind of provocation.
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What are we to do? Are we going to mount an expedition against these people? Are we going to kill these wretched people, people who have always been friendly to the British and respected us? I think that would be most unwise. Once fighting really started there there would be nothing to stop its spreading. I cannot believe that the Republic of Somalia would not come to the help of the Somali people. I am strongly of the opinion that Ethiopia would be fishing in troubled waters. I understand Ethiopia has never really accepted the frontier as being the best frontier between her and this province. Once this is allowed to get out of hand Egypt will probably come into it, possible backed by Russia, who are already very interested in Somalia and carrying out quite a lot of propaganda among the Somalis. If we do not look out—this may sound exaggerated, but I do not believe it is—we shall start another Korea there, with America, ourselves and perhaps the Kenya Government on the one side, and with Russia, Egypt and the Somalis on the other. I am sure that is the last thing any of us on any side of the House, or anywhere for that matter, would want to see. It is not an intangible danger, but a real menace which might happen at any time.
It is difficult to appreciate why Mr. Kenyatta and the other politicians in Kenya are so keen to have this province, because economically it is absolutely valueless. We have heard several times to-day that it consists of 30 per cent. of the territory, but it is just desert country. One has a very different situation in the Congo in relation to the small breakaway province of Katanga. Katanga is the richest province and the whole wealth of the Congo lies there; without it it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a Congolese Government to manage at all. It is strange, in a way, that the British Government sympathise with Katanga on the one side, and yet sympathise with the Kenya Government against the unfortunate Somalis on the other. It does not seem quite to carry out a consistent principle. In fact, the only reason these politicians of Kenya can want Somaliland is purely, as has been said, for prestige, and wanting to make a big show with this extra territory. I appreciate that Her Majesty's Government may think that it may make

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negotiations easier if they hand over these Somalis and that we shall get some sort of arrangement in Kenya, but I do not think it will make it much better, and there are too many dangers on the other side.
The only other consideration is the question of the settlers, who are in a difficult position. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, we must all sympathise with the white settlers in Kenya, who are facing the change in government and are wondering what the relations will be and what their future will be. Nationalism, unfortunately, is a very heady wine, and I am afraid that some of the African leaders do not appreciate that never before have they needed the skill and knowledge which they will not have when they are independent; and that there are a great many white people, very well-wishing, who would place that skill at their disposal. The only thing any of us can hope for is that, once the great enthusiasm for freedom is satisfied, the Africans will begin to appreciate and to build up a society in which all races can exist happily side by side; and that the future of these settlers will not be quite as black as some of them fear it will be.
However, in any case, my Lords, I cannot believe that this bargain of handing over these Somalis will really affect these settlers or help them out. That is a question which will have to be decided historically. It will have to be worked out between the new Government of Kenya and the people living there. I hope that friendship will develop, and that a new kind of feeling will arise in Africa when she is free. But, my Lords, I do suggest that, even for those considerations of peace or of appeasement, we cannot hand over these unfortunate and proud people, the Somalis, to be under a Government they so much dislike.
7.52 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who moved this Motion, was good enough to say that I had helped him in supplying him with material. I was going to say that I thought he had made a well-documented speech. It is true that I did supply him with material and, of course, I was happy to do so, hoping that the noble Earl,
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through reading everything that I had available to give him, would draw the right conclusion. I must confess that I was a little disappointed that, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out, the noble Earl tended to use only such parts of the documents as fitted neatly into his own thesis. But perhaps that was not altogether to be unexpected. But I remember that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said that he considered that the primary concern of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, was a concern for justice. Of course, one would not expect the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to have any other concern. But I do put it to him, as indeed to the two noble Lords who have just sat down on the opposite Benches, that there were, and are, many, many difficult problems involved in this situation.
I think your Lordships will understand that it would be very unwise for me, and unhelpful for me, to enter into a detailed discussion of this matter; and I hope you will forgive me if I stick very rigidly to the words which I have written down in a speech which I prepared. The reason for this is that, despite the relative intimacy of the debate this evening, what I shall say will be scanned, of course, by people in the countries concerned, and it would be very distressing if, by some slip of the tongue, I were to give an impression which was incorrect; if I were to say something that might perhaps exacerbate a situation which is already in itself difficult. I am happy to be able to tell your Lordships that at the present time I think there is in Kenya far less tension than we have had for many months, and I hope that this is a situation which will continue and in fact progressively improve.
For the record—I hope I shall not be wearying your Lordships—I wish just to describe the situation as it is, and to give your Lordships a factual account of the situation. Many of your Lordships are already fully familiar with the situation, but I should like, for the record, in case it should go out from this House that perhaps there are some misunderstandings, to give the situation quite clearly, as I see it.
I must remind your Lordships that at the 1962 Constitutional Conference here in London, there were meetings between a representative group of the Conference and a Delegation from the

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Northern Frontier District. The Delegation asked that, before any further constitutional changes affecting Kenya were made, autonomy should be granted to the Northern Frontier District as a territory wholly independent of Kenya, in order that it might join in an act of union with the Somali Republic when Kenya became fully independent. By the Northern Frontier District, the Delegation meant all six sub-districts—namely, Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Moyale, Marsabit and Isiolo. The Northern Frontier District Delegation was unanimous on this question. The representatives of KADU and KANU, however, were equally unanimous in their opposition to any measures which would lead to secession of any part of the Northern Frontier District; and they also claimed that the Somali delegation at the Lancaster House Conference was not truly representative of the inhabitants of the area.
The Secretary of State told the Conference that Her Majesty's Government had given very careful consideration to the views which had been put forward by the Delegation, and by KADU and KANU, and had come to the conclusion that an investigation should be undertaken in order to ascertain public opinion in the area regarding its future. The Secretary of State accordingly proposed to arrange for an independent Commission to be appointed with appropriate terms of reference, to investigate the matter and report to him. An assurance was given that the Commission would be appointed as soon as practicable so that its report could be available, and a decision on its findings taken by Her Majesty's Government, before the new Constitution for Kenya was brought into operation. Meanwhile, there would be no change in the status of the Northern Frontier District or in the arrangements for its administration.
There has been some misunderstanding about the assurance that a decision on the findings of the Commission would be taken before the new Constitution was introduced. The Somalis in Kenya and the Somali Government itself have claimed that Her Majesty's Government have failed to honour the undertakings given at the Lancaster House Conference. Their view is that, by incorporating the N.F.D. into the framework of that Con-
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stitution, Her Majesty's Government are guilty of a breach of the undertakings given at the Conference, and have prejudiced the final decision. The Somali view is based, I repeat, on a misunderstanding of what was decided at the Conference. This was that there would be a decision on the findings of the N.F.D. Commission; and no more than that. A further undertaking was given that until that decision had been taken no changes would be made in the status of the N.F.D., or in the arrangements for its administration. The decision in question is that which the Secretary of State announced in Nairobi on March 8, and which was referred to in the statement which I read in your Lordships' House on March 12. No changes in the arrangements for administering the area have been made.
As your Lordships will remember, we secured for this Northern Frontier District Commission the services of Major-General Bogert, a Canadian, and Mr. Onyiuke, Q.C., a Nigerian. We deliberately looked outside the British field so that the impartiality of the Commission could not be challenged. Their terms of reference were:
"To ascertain, and report on, public opinion in the Northern Frontier District (comprising the district's of Isiolo, Garissa, Mandera, Marsabit, Moyale and Wajir) regarding arrangements to be made for the future of the area in the light of the likely course of constitutional development in Kenya."
The Commission visited Kenya between October 13 and November 28 last, and they submitted their Report to the Secretary of State on December 7. Their Report, as your Lordships will remember, was published as a Command Paper, from which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has quoted.
In their Report, the Commissioners stated that they found that there were areas in the Northern Frontier District supporting Somali opinion, areas supporting Kenya opinion and areas where opinion was mixed or uncertain. The areas in which the Commission found the people supporting the Somali opinion extend from the Kenya-Somali Frontier to the Adjuran-Galla line, and embrace the three sub-districts of Mandera, Wajir and Garissa, less the area occupied by the Riverine people, who are Bantu, and the Orma, together with the Adjuran area of the Moyale sub-district. In this area the

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Commission found that the people almost unanimously favoured the secession from Kenya of the Northern Frontier District when Kenya attains independence, with the object of ultimately joining the Somali Republic. Further, the Commission also reported that the people in this area wanted the N.F.D. to have a period under British authority in which to build up its machinery of government, so that it could join the Somali Republic as a self-governing unit. Elsewhere in the Northern Frontier District the people either wished to remain in Kenya or opinion was divided or uncertain.
The Commission expressed the view that they had obtained a true picture of public opinion as to the future Government of the Northern Frontier District with the exception of the Rendille tribe, to which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred. Now the Commission were careful to point out that they did not wish to imply that the Rendille necessarily supported a view opposite to the one they had put forward. The Commission wished to go on record as stating their honest view that they could not believe that these people, who have no direct contact with the Somalis, generally wished to join Somalia. I think I should add, my Lords, that I have asked for further information about this from the Governor, and he has reported to me that from his own knowledge and from his own inquiries his view now fully corroborates the view of the two gentlemen on the N.F.D. Commission. The findings of the N.F.D. Commission were substantiated, as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said, by the Regional Boundaries Commission which visited the area after the N.F.D. Commission. The Boundaries Commission made it clear in their Report that had their terms of reference allowed they would have considered it right to create a Region consisting of the areas almost exclusively occupied by the Somali and kindred people—namely, the areas which now actually comprise the seventh Region.
I agree with noble Lords who have spoken that the Somalis are a homogeneous people, people sharing a common culture, a common language, a common religion and a common way of life. It is natural that they should
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aspire to be joined together in one nation. The British Government nevertheless understand the arguments used by African political leaders in Kenya to justify their opposition to the cession of any territory within Kenya's present boundaries. They point out that the present boundaries of Kenya, as of many other countries in Africa, are purely artificial, and that it is not only along the boundary with the Somali Republic that peoples of the same stock are divided from one another by national boundaries. They consider that it is not for the Colonial Power to attempt to adjust, in the final phase before independence, the boundaries which were its own artificial creation, for they argue that once this process is begun there can be no telling where it might end. They go on to argue that this difficulty is particularly acute in Kenya, where centrifugal forces are already strong. There is, of course, much force in this argument, particularly where it is applied to nomadic peoples who seek grazing and water for their cattle over vast areas of land, and who have traditionally crossed and recrossed national boundaries in their search for the means of existence.
A further argument is that for various reasons the Northern Frontier District has always been administered differently from the rest of Kenya. This, of course, has been necessarily imposed by nature and geography, and for this reason the Somalis have never really been able to experience the benefits of being part of Kenya, and the Africans, for their part, have never been in a position to demonstrate this to them. African Ministers have gone to great lengths in the agreed Constitution to make provision to let the different parts of Kenya run their own affairs. As my right honourable friend has said, we have thought it only fair to give the Kenya Africans an opportunity to demonstrate their goodwill towards the inhabitants of the Somali districts—as, indeed, elsewhere in Kenya.
The Somalis do not appear to have appreciated the degree of autonomy which they will enjoy in their own Region. In the first place they will have their own Regional Assembly, with its President. The Regional Assembly will consist of members freely elected by the

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inhabitants of the area, and the President will be elected by the Regional Assembly members from among persons who are members or who are qualified to be members. This Assembly will be responsible for police and the maintenance of law and order in its Region, for day-to-day administration and for such matters as education and health. The Somalis, therefore, will have the direction of most of their own affairs. They will also he guaranteed under the Constitution their own sources of revenue as a matter of right and not as the Central Government may decide from time to time. They will also have direct responsibility for those matters which most closely affect the way of life of their own people—for example, the control of grazing areas and access to water. Their right to practise the Moslem religion will be safeguarded by the Bill of Rights and by the courts.
The British Government acknowledge the strength of the arguments on both sides, and cannot disregard the fact that they are deeply and, indeed, passionately held. British interests do not lie in exploiting them. In the long run, the interests of Great Britain, of Kenya and of the Somali Republic are the same—namely, that there should be peace, stability and prosperity throughout the area. My Lords, it would be a tragedy if anything were said or done in the heat of the moment, or from considerations of merely short-term advantage, to prejudice that ultimate objective.
I should like the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to pay particular attention to what I am about to say. Of course, the British Government is directly responsible for trying to find a generally acceptable solution to this problem before Kenya becomes independent, when our direct responsibility will cease. We cannot seek solutions in a vacuum, and it is for this reason that we very much regret that the Somali Republic has broken off diplomatic relations with us. Present difficulties will be aggravated if any of those who are directly involved in this matter, including the British Government take up intransigent or uncompromising positions. There is a great need for a period of calm and reflection in which all concerned can let their emotions subside and consider coolly what course of action really is in
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their long-term interests. I told your Lordships at the outset that I thought it only right I should speak with the greatest care on this subject. I am sorry that I cannot have satisfied the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I have not entered into detailed discussions with him and have not been able to reply to the one question he desired to make about the restriction of Mr. Kholkholle, but I will endeavour to ascertain the information for which he asked.
8.12 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the care with which my protests have been received. This is a late hour, but, before I finish, I should just like to dwell on what may be one or two misunderstandings. I think the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, believed, perhaps from my excessive volubility, that I was attempting to say that the responsibility for decisions rested with the Kenya African Government; whereas he said that it rests fairly and squarely on Her Majesty's Government. I entirely agree, and if anything I said, when I was referring to megalomania, gave rise to a different impression, I would only say that I join with him in agreeing entirely that it is a matter for Her Majesty's Government to decide.
I also agree, in part, with what he said about never being able to get anything generally acceptable; but I agree with that with one proviso. I am pretty certain that the N.F.D. and the Kenya Ministers will never accept anything generally. Their attitude is intransigent. I believe that the attitude of the Somali Republic, whose interests I have not been arguing, is that they claim nothing; N.F.D. Somalis have claimed Somalia and others than Somali have wished to join them. So far as the people are Somalis, and only to that extent, Somalia supports their claim. I do not think Somalia is willing to say "No" to those who wish to come with them if it is certain that there is a solid and permanent desire. I am sure Somalia does not want a single man in the country who is hostile to it. They have no such aspirations. They are not imperialistic.
Why do Kenya politicians, the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, asked, want this barren country? True, it is half the land;

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but it is a tremendous liability. In ale other part of the country there are 4,080 primary schools; in this part there are eight. Welfare has not started. The Negroes will be the slaves of the non-Negroes if they assume responsibility in this part, as they have been for the best part of 70 centuries. They will perpetuate their slavery, working to provide welfare for people in the desert, who will demand it as a right.
One of the main reasons, apart from the personal relationships between Kenyatta and the Emperor of Ethiopia, are the doctrines of the Pan-African high command, which regards liberation of all Africa as its primary aim—liberation such as that of Algeria, South Africa and Rhodesia. Anything that detracts from that or imposes the slightest delay is, for the time being, a deviation from the doctrine of the Pan-African high command. That is why the Somalis for the present do not get a great deal of support hum other Africans in other territories, because the whole Pan-African picture depicts the enemy as the white man. Anything which distracts from that is regarded as faulty tactics in dealing with the European imperialists. Therefore, for the time being, Africans tolerate the black imperialists.
I was disappointed in the sense that I might have dimly hoped for a little more from the noble Marquess; but it is not really unexpected and in that sense not disappointing. He came with a speech prepared and, apart from about three words, it could have been delivered whether I had spoken or not. He has given his reasons and has almost apologised for having to do so, but that is what he has done. He has not gone into matters of detail with me nor joined issue in any one single instance. He read large passages of the kind which I quoted myself, without any sort of tying-up
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between the two, and, to that extent, I am disappointed. But it is late and very few people are here. I am grateful because I have been able to put my views, and I would end by saying this in regard to a remark by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I will quote an Indian proverb in connection with the Somalis:
"He who finds himself in the mouth of the lion will appeal for help even to the tiger."
My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.