Lords Sitting of 20 June 1963

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield

TRADE WITH SOUTH AFRICA
3.4 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make as to their attitude towards the proposed boycotting of trade with the Republic of South Africa.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD DERWENT): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do not support the proposal for a boycott. They have frequently condemned the racial policy of the South African Government, against which the proposal is directed, but they do not believe that a boycott of trade would help.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the territory of Basutoland, which is a most cherished British Protectorate, is an enclave in the heart of South Africa; that this territory has nearly a million Africans in it; that it is almost wholly dependent on the trade and prosperity of South Africa itself, and, therefore, that all men of moderate mind and good will in South Africa will welcome the plain, straightforward and unambiguous statement which he has made?
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I add just one word regarding that supplementary question? We are, of course, directly responsible for the High Commission territory many of whose citizens work in the Republic and would be directly affected by the economic consequences of sanctions.

RAILWAY CLOSURES
3.6 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 whether they are aware that on May 27, 1963, the British Railways Board informed their staffs that, on September 8 next, the Taunton-Barnstaple and Taunton-Yeovil branch lines would be closed to passengers; that this decision was made prior to the advertisement of proposed closures; the lodging of objections and their consideration by the transport users' consultative committee; and the final decision of the Minister of Transport: and whether it is with their approval that the British Railways Board disregards, in this way, the provisions and safeguards of the Transport Act, 1962, and the assurances given by Ministers.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, the noble Lord is under a complete misapprehension. It is the railways' normal practice to inform staff representatives of proposals for closures in advance of formal public notice of them being given. This is in accordance with the agreed arrangements for consultation between management and staff about changes in the undertaking, particularly changes which may have staff implications. I should have thought that the need for such consultation would have been generally recognised and that it would have been welcomed on all sides. The supply of information to staff representatives in no way affects the Board's statutory duty to give public notice of passenger closures in accordance with Section 56 of the Transport Act. This statutory notice must include the date of the proposed closure. As is well known to your Lordships, a passenger closure can take place only if and when the procedure in Section 56 has been complied with.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, while everyone supports staff consultation, is the Minister aware that the practice referred to in my Question has caused grave misunderstanding among members

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of the public all over the country? They do not read Acts of Parliament, but they do read their newspapers, and when they see a closure published like that of September 8 naming their branch railways they believe that it is true, and this is the general opinion. Can the matter not be rearranged so that, despite the staff consultations which are very necessary, British Railways do not say, as they do in this particular instance, that closures will take effect from September 8, having regard to the fact that few of these closures will take place on the date named, and some not at all?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I can see what the noble Lord is driving at, and I certainly did not mean to imply that he alone was under a misapprehension in this matter, but it is very difficult to see how one can put forward proposals for a closure, which proposals must include the date, without giving rise to some misapprehension about how the date has been put in. While we may know that the closure may not happen on that occasion, the date still has to be put in.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is it necessary at the same time to announce scores or hundreds of redundancies, particularly when the line may not close at all, added to which it leaves the impression in the mind of the public that the line is certainly going to close, thus accentuating a run-down? And in all these proposals I have never heard any suggestion from the British Railways that they are going to provide an alternative service in places where no such service exists.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, before he rises, why it is so essential that a date, which can mislead people, should be announced? We are most anxious for the noble Lord to preserve this consultation with staff representatives, but surely the general principle can be discussed without the announcement of a date which can be misunderstood.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, for one reason alone: because Section 56 says that the date shall be put in. I do not think that the noble Lord will find that alternative services are never mentioned in these things. They may not be in all
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cases but where it is appropriate they will be.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I am sorry to ask the noble Lord another question, but with all due respect to what he said about Section 56, surely when he says that, he is referring to the fact that under Section 56 there must be a statement to the public at large that a closure will take effect; but in consultations with staff representatives and the unions concerned, surely there is no more need to put a date in there than there is to say, when the management send for the staff, we are going to offer you 4½d. an hour increase, when, in fact, what they do is send for them and discuss, and the agreement may be for 3d., 4½d., or 6d.? But there is no need, surely, for this precision in public announcements.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Crook, is also getting a little under this misapprehension, because what is being done is, so to speak, to give the staff representatives advance notice of the proposal which is to be made to the public. Not to give them full details of that proposal would scarcely be in the best interests of the staff.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, would the noble Lord not regard it as appropriate to mention that there is no alternative service in the case where there is none? Would that not be an appropriate occasion? Does he not think it undesirable that an ordinary newspaper should accuse the Minister of rushing his fences, acting in indecent haste, and with the result a foregone conclusion? Is it not wholly undesirable that such a situation should be created in the minds of the public?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is rather over-emphasising this state of affairs, because he must remember that, whether or not future alternative services are mentioned, they are still going to be considered when the matter reaches the T.U.C.C.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I know that, but most people do not, and the point is that I was actually quoting the information expressed in a very run-of-the-mill newspaper which the public believe and which they fear events will prove, whatever the Minister says.

PERSONAL STATEMENT BY VISCOUNT HAILSHAM
3.8 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, may I crave the indulgence of the House to make a personal statement?
Last Thursday, in the course of a television interview, I stated that a Party Whip was not a direction as to how to vote, but a summons to attend. I have been a Member of one House of Parliament or another now for 25 years and this has not only been my own understanding of the position but has accorded with my actual practice. A direction how to vote would be, I conceive, a direct contempt of either House, and certainly the Party I belong to has always taken that view. Monday's vote in another place confirmed my opinion since it is reported in the Press that a number of my own Party who attended did not vote. However that may be, I am not concerned to justify my opinion as correct so much as to vindicate it as sincere.
I have always understood that it was the accepted practice in each House, as a matter of reciprocal comity, to accord to the Members of another place the same protection from abuse, un-Parliamentary expressions and imputations of motive as they accorded to their own Members. May I say I regard this as a right and proper practice? But its value and validity depend largely upon its reciprocity.
I noticed therefore with distress in the reports of the debate in another place on Monday that it appeared that an individual Member of the Commons House was reported as describing myself in terms which, if they had been used in relation to a Member of that House, would, I think, without doubt, have been considered a gross breach of Parliamentary order, and that he said that he proposed to make use of these words whether they were in order or not. This particular phrase was merely the culmination of a sustained personal attack in which several similar phrases were used, and the phrase together with other and even more offensive matter was again employed by another Member later in the debate. It will be noticed
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that these attacks were not attacks upon my broadcast, but upon me personally. To use of a man the language applied to me is not to attack a particular utterance, but an attack upon the man himself in all his capacities, and to traduce his personal integrity in all of them, as a man, a Minister, or a Member of Parliament.
My Lords, I would not complain only for myself, although I frankly resent this unjustifiable attack, but I consider that the implications to the comity of both Houses of Parliament are so serious that I feel I must draw it to the attention of your Lordships. Accordingly I have thought it was my duty to make this protest to your Lordships against a breach of what I have always felt to be a long-standing Parliamentary tradition.
My Lords, I would be the last to seek to do anything which might impair the relationship between the two Houses. Despite my own feelings in the matter, therefore, I do not propose to take it further. I think, however, that your Lordships would consider it in this House proper to intervene if such an expression were used here in relation to a Member of another place.
3.10 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I want to say in the first place, as we are dealing with the Rules of debate and Rules of Order, that it might have been quite within my competence at the outset to have quoted the Rules of Order of this House, because under paragraph 2 of the Rules of Order in debate it is not in order to quote from the speech of an honourable Member in another place in the same session.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: He did not.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I did not interrupt the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House when he was making his statement, and perhaps I might have the same courtesy. However, his statement was made by courtesy of the House, and we felt in all the circumstances that we should have no objection to his making it. But, with regard to the Rules of Order, I do not think that this should be regarded as a precedent.

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In the second place, as was indicated at the outset of the noble and learned Viscount's statement, this matter arose from criticisms which were concerned with a broadcast last Thursday in which the noble and learned Viscount was associated. This afternoon he has stated his position, reiterating the view he expressed and which was complained of, saying that this was his sincere view. When he says that to the House of Lords we accept it. But that does not mean that there are not many views other than his. The fact is that some of us on these Benches have even longer Parliamentary experience than the noble and learned Viscount has. Moreover, we have made a study of past usage over a long period, and I myself would say that, while it would probably be easy to give a ruling that it would be a breach of privilege for Members of Parliament to be summoned on a three-line Whip as if it were an order to vote—directed to vote, I think was the term used by the noble Viscount—nevertheless, a breach of the desires of a Government in relation to a three-line Whip sometimes leads to strange circumstances and happenings. They work out in different ways perhaps.
We noticed that last Monday in the important debate in another place there were 27 abstentions, and from one point of view that supports the noble and learned Viscount's view. But none of the 27 voted against. Evidently a three-line Whip had some effect in that direction. And there is always the system of Whips of areas and places within the general direction of a Chief Whip, in which inquiries are made as to why a vote is not given on a three-line Whip; and if there were repetition of some of these circumstances no doubt any Party in the representative House would say, "We shall have to report the facts to your constituency Party". In fact they are carrying out the kind of thing which was indicated years ago in one of his novels by the famous Conservative leader Disraeli, when he made one of his characters ask the question, "An Independent? What is an Independent? An Independent is one upon whom no dependence can be placed". That is very often the manner in which action has to be taken by Parties for discipline. I am not going to say it is only one, or some other, Party in the State that knows how to exercise discipline over
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its members; I would say the practice is quite common.
The other point I have to make is this. We on these Benches are concerned above everything else that good relations should be maintained between the two Houses. That is what is fundamental. That is why I raised the first point. The statement that was made by the noble and learned Viscount in the broadcast was made outside the House; but the other statement complained of was made inside another place; and even in the very last sentence the noble and learned Viscount used, when he said what would have been our action, there was an implication against the manner in which the Rules of Order were conducted in another place. It is a very serious position for us to be in. I regret, therefore, that perhaps some other means could not have been obtained by the noble and learned Viscount, as Leader of the House, in maintaining the good relations between the two Houses. I wish some other means had been found to make his views known, and perhaps, with their permission, those of many of his colleagues, to make a repetition of the kind of thing that he complains of not likely to happen.
I do not wish to say any more. This is the first time I have said a word in public since the matter about which it all arose and which is still the subject of legal inquiries has been under discussion. I think some things have been said that might well have been left unsaid. Some things perhaps have not yet been said which ought to be said, but from my point of view I do not wish, and I am sure my colleagues do not wish, this to become a continuing battledore and shuttlecock affair. We must get it cleared up. I hope we shall all do our best to see that the proper thing, and only the proper thing, is done.
3.16 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I think your Lordships will all have heard with interest and sympathy, and without surprise, the statement the noble and learned Viscount has made in respect of his own position. It seems to me that the matter on which he touched divides itself quite distinctly into two separate parts. In the first place he wished to explain his views on the meaning and import of the three-line

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Whip. He had given those views on television. Those views have not been queried or debated or discussed in your Lordships' House, and, with great respect to the noble and learned Viscount, I am not quite sure whom he is answering when he addresses your Lordships in reply to an unexpressed criticism of his views.
The second point concerns the behaviour of the two Houses and their relationship to each other. There is no actual written law, but we can call Erskine May a very sound and useful guidance to both Houses about their relations to each other. I am quite sure that if in this House those guidances for good behaviour were ignored by any Member of this House, the matter would be taken up in this House, and, no doubt, under the leadership of the noble and learned Viscount. It is only convention. If something should go wrong, or appear to go wrong, or be said to have gone wrong, in another place, it does not seem to me quite appropriate that we in this House should draw attention to this matter. We should let it go. I am not convinced that we have advanced further in this small debate, but I hope that the matter may now be dropped.
3.18 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, may I say, first of all, that I entirely agree with what my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has said. If I rise now to make some short observations, it is really on the point raised by the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party; namely, the question of precedent, which I think is a little dangerous from the point of view of good relationships between the two Houses. It must be remembered that the argument started consequentially on the television broadcast given by the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House. I saw it, so I know about it. But then the comment which was made in another place was made by a private Member, and the question now arises whether somebody in this House, even the Leader of the House, should publicly comment here in this House on the observations made in the other House of Parliament. And I think that is rather doubtful, especially as the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House has thereby set a precedent.
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I remember that a few weeks ago a noble Lord opposite was about to quote a speech made by a private Member in another place. I lifted my eyebrows, and the noble Viscount the Leader of the House was also quick, and promptly rose and advised the noble Lord not to pursue that, because it was not in accordance with practice—and I thought he was right. So the doctrine is established. Moreover, it will be necessary for me to quote a certain number of things—they will not take a long time, but it is important that they should be quoted for the purposes of the Record. Let me say right away that one or two of the quotations may, on the face of them be helpful to the Leader of the House rather than to the argument that I am putting basically before noble Lords.
On June 18 of this year the Lord Chancellor said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 250, (No. 95); col. 1177]:
" My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to make the following statement. My noble friend Lord Hailsham was referred to in the House of Commons yesterday and had wished to make a statement on that to-day. Unfortunately, he has had to go into hospital for some treatment; but he has asked me to say that he will make a statement at the earliest possible moment."
It would have been possible for us to raise the question of Order at that time, but as the noble Viscount was going to hospital for minor treatment it was thought better to wait until he was here. Now I come to the series of quotations, which are fairly short—I am sorry that they are so long and as numerous as they are, but it is important to get all this on the Record, because here is the way in which history is made on these matters of procedure.
It is perfectly true that there is no Standing Order about it, but, as I shall show, there is well established practice. Erskine May is accepted by all of us as a high authority that cannot be questioned on these matters of Parliamentary procedure. It is, I suppose, the nearest thing we have to a written Constitution, if I may put it that way. Dealing with personal statements, Erskine May says, at page 343:
" A personal statement may be made by the leave of the House, which is granted as a matter of courtesy, and may give rise to a debate. Such statements may be explanatory of passages in a previous speech which have given rise to misconception, or may be in

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justification of conduct which has been criticised or, if made by a Minister who has resigned his office, may be a means of enabling him to set forth the motives which prompted his resignation."
At page 458 Erskine May says:
" The same right to claim courteous treatment in debate is due alike between both Houses of Parliament; and abusive language, and imputations of falsehood, uttered by members of the House of Commons against members of the House of Lords have been met by the immediate intervention of the Chair to compel the withdrawal of the offensive words, or in default by the punishment of suspension."
Then, at page 454, Erskine May has this to say about allusions between the two Houses to each other:
" The rule that allusions to debates in the other House of the current Session are out of order "—
and that, of course, applies to what the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has done; because he has referred to a Parliamentary debate, whereas his original observations were on television—
" prevents fruitless argument's between members of two distinct bodies who are unable to reply to each other, and guards against recrimination and offensive language in the absence of the party assailed: but it is mainly founded upon the understanding that the debates of the other House are not known, and that the House can take no notice of them. The daily publication of debates in Parliament offers a strong temptation to disregard this rule. The same questions are discussed by persons belonging to the same parties in both Houses, and speeches are constantly referred to by Members, which this rule would exclude from their notice. In view of the fact that the Government often find it convenient for Ministers to make in the House of Lords official statements of their policy, it is now permissible for Members to refer to and criticise such Government announcements."
Therefore, the rule is clearly established that statements by Ministers in another place may be referred to and quoted here, and statements of Ministers in this place may be referred to and quoted in the House of Commons. But statements of private Members cannot be quoted in either House in the current Session of Parliament.
There is a useful publication in regard to the practice of your Lordships' House entitled The Companion to Standing Orders. It is a valuable book. The existing edition is out of date, but a new one is in course of being printed, which will say, under the heading, "Questions of speeches made in the House of Commons":
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" There is a restriction on the quotation by Lords of speeches made in the House of Commons. The restriction applies only to the current Session, and is as follows:

(a) It is out of order to quote from a speech of a Member of the House of Commons unless it be the speech of a Minister in relation to Government policy;

(b) The content of a speech of the House of Commons may be summarised, but no private Member of the House of Commons may be mentioned by name by way of criticism."

That all applies, I think, to the previous Session; that is my impression:
" This practice has been established for the purpose of avoiding anything which might bring the two Houses into conflict, and for preventing a debate in the House of Lords becoming a continuation of a debate in the House of Commons."
That is a quotation from the Report of the Procedure Committee on July 15, 1959.
There was another fairly modern statement made by the then Leader of the House of Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Home, who is now Foreign Secretary. This was on May 5, 1959, when he was asked by my noble friend Lord Silkin to give some guidance on this particular point. He kindly did so, at some length, but I will quote only part of what he said. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 216, col. 66]:
" Perhaps, if the House agrees, I might summarise the present practice as follows. The limit on quoting applies only to the current Session, and, as to this, it is out of order to quote from a speech of a Member of the House of Commons unless it be a ministerial statement of Government policy; and the content of a speech in the House of Commons may be summarised, but no private Member of the House of Commons may be mentioned by name by way of criticism."
It is said that this is by way of convenience and practice.
I agree that the Leader of the House this afternoon did not refer to anybody by name; but all of us know the names—there were two of them. It is rather evasive to have made the statement he has made, on the assumption that it will be a complete mystery as to which honourable Members of another place made these statements. Therefore, I think it is an evasion of the Rule. What I am concerned about is that, somehow or other, these two Houses of Parliament, which could be persistently quarrelling and having cross-debates with each other continue, as in recent years they have done, to live at peace together. In

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earlier years it was another matter, especially in the days of the Liberal Government of 1906.
I think it is a matter of national and constitutional importance that the relations between the two Houses should be good. And I come back again to the point that the original statement of the Leader of the House—which he had a perfect right td make—was on television; that these other observations, which I personally would not have made, were made in the House of Commons. It seems to me that at that point, in order to keep up tradition, it would have been wise for the Leader of the House not to follow the example of the two honourable Members in another place, but instead—a course in regard to which he would have got, equally effectively the publicity to which he is entitled—he could have issued a Press statement. That would have met the case without breaking the traditions of the two Houses in this respect, which I think it is a pity the Leader of the House of Lords should do. For those reasons I share entirely the views that have been expressed by my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough; and I hope that an undesirable precedent will not have been set by what has happened.
3.31 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, perhaps as a former Leader of the House I might say a word or two on the particular point that has been raised by the statement of the Leader of the House. The point arises, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has said, from a definition of the purpose and function of a Whip sent out to Members of either House by their Party. The Leader of the House has described it as a summons to attend and not as a direction as to how to vote. Well, I have always understood it to be a summons to attend. Of course, we all know that when the Leader of a Party sends out a summons to attend he hopes very much that those who do attend will support the Government, but it does not always happen. That occurred very often during the period when I was leading the House. I hopefully sent out a Whip, and Members of my Party came down and voted the opposite way, and I had no complaint at all.
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I think that it would be a thousand pities if it were allowed to go out from either House of Parliament that a Whip was a direction as to how to vote. The vote under our Parliamentary system is a matter for the conscience of each individual Member of either House. But, in any case, I realise that a different view can be held. Of course different views can be held on all these questions, and I think that the cause for complaint, if there is any, was not as to what was said, but the manner in which the view was expressed—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: —"It wasn't what he says; it was the nasty way he says it". That was the essence of the difficulty in this case.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has quoted from Erskine May and other great authorities. I did not find him entirely convincing. It is perfectly true that members of the Government can be quoted verbatim in either House, Ministers in either House can be quoted in the other House, and private Members cannot be quoted. But I have never heard that speeches by private Members cannot be referred to, and I do not believe that to be the case. I think I have often heard it done in this House.
The Leader of the House very carefully did not mention the name of the Member in question, nor did he quote his words, and I am certainly not going to do so myself; but I think there is no doubt that words were probably used which he would not have been allowed to use if he had been referring to a Member of his own House.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If that is true, I do not say that it is constitutionally impossible or anything of that kind, but I think that is a very undesirable precedent. If we once all of us began to use language about Members of another place which we should not be able with any propriety to use of Members in our own House, I think that it would exacerbate the relationship between the two Houses. I do not care if the whole of this thing arises from something that was said originally outside. The point is that something was said in one of the Houses about a Member of the other House which he would not

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have been allowed to say about a Member of his own House. I think that is a great pity, and I think we should all agree that the less that happens in this respect the better for Parliament.
3.33 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, perhaps your Lordships will allow a humble but very ancient Back-Bencher to register his profound regret and real dismay that certain intemperate and really outrageous remarks by two Members of another place, in virulent criticism of my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House, were allowed to pass last Monday unchallenged. The grossness of the language used constituted, in my view, a flagrant impropriety, and I can recall no more deplorable episode touching the decencies of relations between the two Houses in all the twenty-seven years that I have been privileged to sit in your Lordships' House.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, there is one word I should like to say arising out of the speech of the noble Earl, the Leader of the Opposition. He quoted with apparent approval a particularly ridiculous assertion of Disraeli's that no Member of Parliament could be relied upon who did not take the orders of a Party Whip and acted according to his own convictions. I should like to express my strong dissent from that view, and I think I shall carry the House with me.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am still entitled to my opinion.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not propose to reply to the remarks that have been made, except to thank both my noble friend Lord Salisbury for what he said, and my noble friend Lord Ailwyn for what he said. The only precedent, so far as I know, that has been created has been that which was made in another place, and I think it was a bad one. If the noble Lord will look at Hansard of this House for 19th July, 1922, he will find ample precedent for what I did.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It was a long time ago.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that at a suitable moment my noble friend Lord Chesham will be making a statement on the recent visit of the Minister of Aviation to the Soviet Union.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to signify to the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Town and Country Planning Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's interest, as far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, at the disposal of Parliament for the purpose of the Bill.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

PUBLIC ORDER BILL [H.L.]
3.35 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, this is a short and straightforward measure, and I need not detain your Lordships-very long with my opening remarks. I should like, however, first to remind your Lordships of the circumstances leading to its introduction; second, to say a few words about the Bill itself; and, finally, to deal with one or two matters that arise in connection with it.
The problem with which we are dealing is, in its current form, a comparatively recent one. There has been so much discussion of the question during the last twelve months that it is worth recalling that it was less than a year ago that much public attention became

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drawn to it. For a number of years Fascist groups have been in the habit of holding meetings in the streets and on open ground. They no doubt caused a good deal of annoyance, but in general these meetings attracted small attendances and practically no publicity, caused little public reaction and had minimal influence.
It is still the case that none of these groups has a substantial membership: their subscribed membership runs into hundreds only, and their active membership is probably a good deal less. Nor is there any evidence that any of them has, or could obtain, wide support in the country. Where they have put forward candidates for local council or Parliamentary elections they have almost invariably found themselves at the bottom of the poll. But last summer a special effort was made by one of these groups, split off from the others, which it regarded as too moderate, to attract public attention, and on 1st July last year a meeting was held by the National Socialist Movement, led by Colin Jordan, in Trafalgar Square.
It was advertised beforehand that the theme of the meeting would be anti-Semitic; representations were made that it should not be allowed to be held, and, in fact, the question of stopping the meeting was raised in this House on 14th May, 1962, by the noble Earl, Lord Longford; but it was then thought that, in the light of experience of previous meetings held in the Square by extremist organisations, there was no justification for banning this one. It was pretty clear that the object of the advance publicity was to ensure that at any rate on this occasion they would not be ignored. The meeting was held, and well attended. The speeches were strongly anti-Semitic in tone, disorder ensued and the police had to close the meeting.
Not unnaturally, a great deal of publicity was given to this incident, which led to representations in Parliament and elsewhere. Partly, I feel sure, as a result of the publicity created, disturbances took place at a number of other meetings held by Fascist organisations (including the less extreme ones) during the summer and early autumn of last year, and the police had to close them,
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in some cases almost as soon as the speeches began, whether or not anything outrageous was said. Their opponents were determined not to give the Fascists the chance of spreading their doctrines.
However, the various authorities concerned with law and order, took appropriate steps to deal with the situation. As a temporary measure, to allow feelings to cool, my right honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works refused various applications from Fascist and anti-Fascist organisations to hold meetings in Trafalgar Square during September. Mr. Colin Jordan and some of his associates were arrested and charged under the Public Order Act, 1936. And my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in a statement in another place on November 8, promised that the penalties at present available to the courts in respect of offences under Section 5 of the Public Order Act and the Public Meeting Act, 1908, would be increased as soon as a suitable opportunity occurred. He added that this was without prejudice to any further steps which might be considered necessary in the light of the decisions reached by the courts in the case of Jordan and his associates, which at the time were sub judice. He promised that the Government would review the situation in the light of these decisions and that, if the law were then shown to be inadequate, would give that immediate attention.
Your Lordships will recall that there were two cases involved. In one, Colin Jordan, John Tyndall and two other members of the National Socialist Movement were charged, under Section 2 of the Public Order Act, with running a quasi-military organisation. They were found guilty at the Central Criminal Court on October 15 and sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment. Jordan and Tyndall sought leave to appeal against their convictions and sentences, but this was refused by the Court of Criminal Appeal on November 9. They have since been serving their sentences but have now been released, Jordan as recently as May 31.
In the other case Jordan and Tyndall had been convicted by the Magistrate at Bow Street on August 20 last of using, in Trafalgar Square on July 1, insulting words whereby a breach of the peace was

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likely to be occasioned, contrary to section 5 of the Public Order Act. Both appealed to quarter sessions against conviction and sentence. Jordan's appeal against conviction was allowed, Tyndall's appeal against conviction was dismissed, but a fine of £10 was substituted for the sentence of imprisonment. The chairman of quarter sessions was asked to state a case for consideration by the Divisional Court, which decided on March 19 this year that the appeal should not have been allowed and that Jordan had been rightly convicted by the Magistrate. The Lord Chief Justice said in the course of his judgment that:
" a man was entitled to express his views as strongly as he liked…but he muse not threaten, abuse or insult by hitting with words ".
My Lords, an application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords was subsequently refused, and the case was sent back to quarter sessions where a sentence of one month's imprisonment was imposed.
It was in the light of these decisions that the Government reached its conclusions, which were announced on May 30 by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place and by me to your Lordships' House. Having deferred a decision on the question of the need for legislation until these cases were no longer sub judice, the Government not unnaturally concluded that since the eventual results showed that the courts took the view that infringements of the Public Order Act had taken place, the adequacy of the law to deal with the activities of this the most extreme of the fascist or quasi-Fascist bodies had been demonstrated. I will not go so far as to say that they show finally and conclusively that no substantive legislation will ever be necessary (I shall return to this point later), but certainly there is now no justification for holding up any longer the implementation of the Government's promise to increase the existing penalties.
This, my Lords, is the purpose of the present Bill, which is, as I said, a short and straightforward one. The operative part is subsection (1) of Clause 1. This increases the penalties for two existing offences. Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936, provides as follows:
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"Any person who in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned shall be guilty of an offence".
The present maximum penalty is a fine of £50 or three months' imprisonment or both. Section 1 of the Public Meeting Act, 1908, reads as follows:
"Any person who at a lawful public meeting acts in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was called together shall be guilty of an offence".
The present maximum penalty for that offence is a fine of £50 or one month's imprisonment. Thus the Public Order Act deals with the speaker of provocative words, while the Public Meeting Act deals with the wilful breaker-up of meetings. The new maximum penalties for both offences proposed by this Bill are first, that on summary conviction there should be a fine of up to £100 or three months' imprisonment or both; and, secondly, on conviction on indictment a fine of up to £500 or twelve months' imprisonment or both.
I do not propose on Second Reading to discuss the details of the penalties now proposed, but I think that your Lordships will agree that they show a very significant increase over the existing penalties. Quite apart from providing a more substantial punishment for convicted offenders, it is the Government's hope that they will afford an effective deterrent for any who may be tempted to "go and do likewise".
I should now like to say a word or two in advance about two criticisms which may be levelled at the Bill. First, when I announced on May 30 that I should he introducing this Bill in the House later that day, the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition, and the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, suggested that, since the Bill was concerned with freedom of speech, it was a Bill of a constitutional character and should have been introduced in another place. At that time the noble Lords were at a disadvantage since they had not had an opportunity of seeing the Bill. Now that they have done so, they will, I hope, agree that it is so framed that it does not alter the limits of freedom of speech at all. It does no more than increase the penalties that may be imposed on those

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who infringe the existing law. No constitutional question is involved. There is therefore no need to start the Bill, and no argument for starting the Bill, in another place, and indeed the Government's view, which I do not think your Lordships will require me to elaborate, is that, if the Bill is to have an expeditious passage, the balance of advantage lies in introducing it here.
Secondly, it will be said that the Bill does not go far enough to deal with extremists who provoke violence by stirring up racial hatred. I do not want to anticipate what will be said in the debate, but I should like to make it clear at the outset that the Government share to the full the loathing of Fascism which is felt by nearly everyone in this country. We are firm and united in our determination not to allow abuse of free speech by extremists leading to breaches of the peace. The action so far taken under the existing law has been effective. The prison sentences imposed on Jordan and his associates have clearly had a sobering effect on the National Socialist Movement, whose activities have been much reduced of late. And there has been no disorder at any of the meetings held this year by the other Fascist organisations. The police welcome the court decisions, which clarify the law and make easier their task of enforcing it. This they can be relied upon to do with vigour.
We in the Government, for our part, will watch the situation closely, and, to quote the the words of the Government statement made on May 30:
"If further legislative action be found necessary we shall not hesitate to take it, for we are determined that the law shall be fully adequate to deal with any persons or groups whose words or actions give rise to breaches of the peace."
But on the facts as they now appear the Government feel that it would not be right to substitute, for the plain, objective test of provocation of a breach of the peace, any wider and vaguer prohibition of incitement to racial hatred, which would make a prosecution depend on the subjective test of the view taken by the police officer on the spot of the content of the words used. I must confess that I am sometimes surprised that this particular amendment is often advocated by those who, in the ordinary way, are strong supporters of free speech and very conscious of the danger of putting
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too much discretion in the hands of the police officer as to the content of the words used, irrespective of the effect on the audience.
I do not want to attempt a polemical speech on this issue. To some extent individual views cut across Party lines. But I think it is true to say that we are all determined to see that effective steps are taken to maintain public order. I think—at least, I hope—that we are all agreed that any legislative action should carry with it a very minimum of restriction on free speech. The Government feel that the additional penalties for which it is now proposed to make provision should add substantially to the armoury available to deal with incitement to racial hatred, and that we should not be justified, on the facts in front of us all, in going further now. My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

AVIATION DELEGATION'S VISIT TO SOVIET UNION
3.53 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, it might be convenient for me to make a statement about the visit of the delegation which my right honourable friend the Minister of Aviation recently led to the Soviet Union. The statement, which my right honourable friend is making in another place, is as follows:
"The visit was made at the invitation issued on behalf of the Soviet Government by Mr. Dementiev, the Chairman of the Soviet Committee of the Aviation Industry. I was accompanied by Sir Arnold Hall, Managing Director of the Hawker Siddeley Group, by Sir Denning Pearson, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce, by Mr. Russell, Technical Director of the British Aircraft Corporation, by the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff and by senior members of my own Ministry.
"In the course of the tour we visited factories making civil aircraft engines and equipment. We were also shown a number of civil aircraft and helicopters now in service or in a late stage of development: these included the

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IL.18, IL.62, TU.104, TU.114, TU.124, AN.24, MIL.2, MIL.6, V.8. We flew in some of them. We also visited TSAGI, the Russian equivalent of the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
"The visit provided opportunity for useful exchanges with the Soviet authorities. I paid a courtesy call on Mr. Khrushchev. We were received by Mr. Rudinev, a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Chairman of the State Committee for the Co-ordination of Scientific Research. We had a number of talks with Mr. Dementiev, his senior staff, the leading chiefs of the Russian design bureaux, and some of those in charge of production. In these talks we examined many questions of mutual interest and explored the possibilities of co-operation in some of them. We identified a number of technical fields in which it may be desirable and possible to co-operate. These include civil airline traffic rights, the environment in which supersonic transports will operate and problems that will be common to all countries engaged upon the establishment of space telecommunications. No proposals were made by either side and no agreements were sought. I hope, however, that our talks will ultimately prove fruitful. I look forward to welcoming Mr. Dementiev in this country for further exchanges."
My Lords, that is the statement.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, whilst thanking the Minister for that interesting report, may I ask whether an indication was given by the Soviet Government that they would be prepared to look at the possibility of a B.O.A.C. regular flight across Russia to the Far East, which would, of course, cut down the time very materially, and is desirable if it can be obtained on a mutual basis? Secondly, did the Minister take the opportunity of congratulating the Russian Government on the outstanding achievement of putting a woman into space and bringing her back again?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, on the first half of the noble Lord's question, I may say that that was one of the matters discussed, and I referred to it in the statement under "civil airline traffic rights". As I have said, no
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proposals were put forward, or even sought, but I can tell the noble Lord that at any rate a good foundation, so to speak, has been laid for further discussions. So far as the second part of the noble Lord's question is concerned, this event, of course, had not happened at the time that my right honourable friend was there. Whether or not he subsequently sent a message, I do not know.

PUBLIC ORDER BILL [H.L.]
3.57 p.m.
Debate on Second Reading resumed.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I rise to support, subject to certain reservations and apprehensions which I shall indicate, the Second Reading of this Bill, which has been moved in very clear language by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. On the point of the constitutional aspects which we raised at an earlier stage, when the Lord Chancellor made his original statement, I still think we had a case. Indeed, our view was supported by the Leader of the Opposition in another place. I agree that the Bill does not directly change what may or may not be said in public, and to that extent it does not affect free speech. But, my Lords, it makes it much more expensive if the person is prosecuted and if the court takes a severe view of the offence; and to that extent it will possibly diminish the likelihood that people will say what they believe. I admit it is desirable that they should be more careful what they say.
Nevertheless, if the effect of a Bill is to diminish the degree of free speech as exercised by a British citizen, it is a Bill in the nature of a constitutional Bill, and it does affect civil liberty, whoever may be affected. I am not now challenging the principle of the Bill—not at all; far from it—but I still think it would have been constitutionally more correct if this Bill had started in another place. Nevertheless, it is comforting to know that the Government as a whole have come to the conclusion that this House is the most expeditious House of Parliament. I take it as a compliment to us all, including myself. It is a very delicate compliment to this place, and I think it is well merited.

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This Bill arises out of two things, and the first is the practice of some people, in this case the National Socialist Movement—there have been some others, but these, possibly, have been the most extreme of the lot so far—to hold gatherings in certain public places and to say things which in themselves are brutal, unkind and provocative of disorder. It is right that the penalties should be increased. Of course, it is the case that these people do not believe at all in Parliamentary, or any, democracy. That is a cardinal, fundamental principle of Fascism as it is equally a fundamental and cardinal principle of Communism. Neither of them believes in democracy or Parliamentary democracy.
If they were bigger, if they were nearer to the possibility of power, there would be a strong case for Parliament, in the interests of democracy and civil liberty, to take steps to suppress both Fascist and Communist organisations because they are both conspicuously against freedom, probably of all kinds, and the supremacy of Parliament. But, fortunately, neither of them is a serious challenger to Parliamentary power. Therefore we have as yet no need to worry. But we must remember that in any totalitarian country—whether it be a former Fascist country, or one of the existing Fascist countries or a totalitarian, Communist country—even to criticise the Government, itself established by revolution and by force, is described as a crime against the State. It is treason, however mild the criticism may be. Therefore, whoever else has the right to criticise the Bill on the grounds of liberty and free speech, it is not the Fascist and it is not the Communist.
The Bill has two legs to it. One is the Public Order Act and the other, the earlier Act, is the Public Meetings Act. The increased penalties apply to a person who uses language which is liable gravely to wound people's feelings and to provoke disorder. That is the leg upon which it rests—the provocation of disorder. It is right that the penalties should be stiff. On the other hand—and this is more arguable—the penalties for interrupting a public meeting and causing disturbances with a view to making it impossible for the meeting to go on, have been increased much more substantially than in the case of provocative speech
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which is the cause of the disorder. It is arguable whether that should have been so.
I must say that when these National Socialist meetings take place the best thing that could happen would be for the critics and opponents to stay away. But just as the National Socialists want to provoke disorder, so the Communist Party itself wishes to play at that game by publicising their intentions and asking the masses to come—presumably by a three-line whip—with the deliberate intention of causing disorders and breaking up the meeting. Coloured people and members of the Jewish community, understandably but, as I and many of the leaders of Jewry think, unfortunately, are usually also encouraged to come to those meetings for the same purpose. It is understandable; but I wish they would stay away, because then the number of people who freely go to listen to these speakers would be limited and the meeting would become an anti-climax.
However, it is one thing to hope and another to understand the instinct of human nature causing people to go to these meetings. What I do not sympathise with is a deliberate attempt in certain political quarters to organise the presence of others with a view to disorders taking place at the meetings. I am never happy to read of students in other countries causing disorders. It is extraordinary what power students in other countries have; even to changing fundamental political policies of government from time to time. Thank God we have not quite reached that stage here, and I hope we never shall. Although students here do express their opinions, sometimes curious ones, and they have a right to do so, we are not at the stage reached in Cairo and elsewhere. These people are incited to go to the meetings and to break them up whatever the speakers may say—although the National Socialist men can usually be relied upon to say something cruel and provocative—and the result is disturbances.
Apart from the effect on our own country—I do not like to read of riots in London or in other cities of our country—the people I am always sorry for are the police; perhaps because I am a policeman's son, and also I was once the Home Secretary. I have a great general affection for the police and I am very sorry

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for them when they have to be turned out in great numbers over the week-end to deal with these meetings. They are reasonable people themselves, but they get knocked about and run the risk of somebody accusing the police on Monday morning of having been brutal. Usually it is not true or grossly exaggerated. It is really rough on the police. They do not like the job. They do not want to have to push British people of any sort about, and it is very rough on those people that these disturbances should take place. Nevertheless, there is this question whether the penalties ought to have been so much more increased in percentage in the case of interrupters breaking up a meeting, who may have been very much provoked, as compared with those who are engaged in the provocation. I only say it is arguable. I wish both things would stop because they are not good.
The other point raised in the discussions on this proposal is whether there ought not to be legislation to make it an offence to have any racial discrimination at all; or to utter words of a character which reflect adversely upon particular races. I have a great deal of sympathy with that. I think it is natural that the point should be raised and pressed. But, as a practical man who has had some hand in the drafting of Parliamentary legislation and in approving and altering it before reaching Parliament, I must confess that I think it is an exceedingly difficult thing to draft without doing the very thing that these people would not want to do—namely, impinging on civil liberties.
There are many sorts of things said by Irishmen about Englishmen, especially in Southern Ireland. But they are not part of the United Kingdom—that is, not by legislation—but they are in every practical sense British citizens if they come here. The English sometimes say rough things about the Scots; and the Scots say rough things about the English. The English often say terrible things about the Welsh. I would not say the Welsh say terrible things about us; I have always found them charming and hospitable, and I love them all. They are all God's creatures; but I wish they would always behave themselves.
Then, there is of course the more clear-cut and difficult issue of criticisms of the Jewish community, of coloured people,
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and so on. The problem is where to distinguish between the kind of thing that these National Socialists men are saying and the kind of thing which men and women say in the course of innocent conversation in which they might be quite critical about certain nationalities and certain races. Whilst I sympathise with the demand for legislation, I should not like our going so far that we thereby imperil a reasonable degree of freedom of speech within a proper sphere. I should not like to imperil civil liberty. In the end, these things are largely determined by the common sense of the public as a whole, by public opinion, which has its own ways of making itself felt. But I do not say that the attempt should not be made. I only say that I hope that the drafting of it will not fall to me, because I confess that I am a little appprehensive about whether I should make a successful job of it.
There is no doubt that there is a strong feeling about this, and it will be heard in another place, when this Bill gets there, and on other occasions. However, so far as it goes, this Bill deserves a Second Reading. We agree that the sooner it is passed, the better, and I share the hope of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that it will result in good. We take note, with approval, that he has undertaken, on behalf of the Government, as the Secretary of State for the Home Department did in another place when the announcement was made, that the Government will watch the situation and will not hesitate, if necessary, to bring in further legislation to deal with this very unpleasant and horrible business. In these circumstances, we acquiesce in the Second Reading of the Bill.
4.12 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for allowing me to precede him in this debate, because I did not think it right that the Liberal Party, which has taken such a keen interest in these matters, should be unheard in the course of the Second Reading of this Bill. I feel that normally it is undesirable to place restrictions upon freedom of speech. In my view, there are far too many restrictions already, and, with more and more powerful Governments in the world, the danger is that freedom of speech will become far less common than it is at present.

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In fact, that is the case in many countries in the world. I think that an abuse of the present law of libel in this country may also be some danger to freedom of speech. But there is one area in which it is obviously necessary to have restriction—that is, the area covered by this Bill.
Those who abuse freedom and who exist because of their abuse of freedom should themselves be restrained. They should have no right to come to this court or any other to ask for exceptional privileges in this respect. After all, that is the Fascist mentality and, I regret to say, the Communist mentality, and all other totalitarian mentalities. It is the opposite of Liberalism. They have no right to be able to pursue their vicious creeds, undeterred by any action on the part of the police and the courts.
This Bill applies to those who intend to stimulate hatred against people on account of their race, colour or religion. So far as the great metropolis of London is concerned, this means speeches inciting people against coloured folk or against Jews. It might be said, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has said, that coloured people and Jews should not go to hear such speeches. Why do they not stay away, and there will be no incitement? It is really asking too much of people who have not forgotten—and who know better than the Jews?—what happened under Hitler. Many people used to say in Parliament and elsewhere, "Why do the Jews bother? Why don't they say nothing and take it for granted?" I can remember things being said on these lines. That did not help the 6 million Jews who were immolated in the gas chambers, burned or destroyed in other ways. This was a terrible blot on humanity. It passes my comprehension how any body of men, however depraved, could take little Jewish children and immolate them in gas chambers. It passes belief that any men—Germans or whoever they were—should have been such brutes and beasts as to commit horrors of that kind. But while men are brutes and beasts, and there are some in this country, as there are in all countries, we have to deal with them.
The fact is that we can prevent that sort of thing only if we have the means
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of dealing with such people. I would have no mercy on people in this country who have the sort of bestiality we have seen in foreign countries. Let us not be mealy-mouthed about this. This is not an infringement of democratic practice at all. This is the way in which democracy protects and defends itself against the Devil, the Evil One, and his servants—the people who do that sort of thing.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, did not give it a name, but I think he referred in an oblique way to Mr. Fenner Brockway's Bill, which has had the support of both Labour and Liberal Parties. Unlike the noble Lord, I am fully in favour of Mr. Fenner Brock-way's Bill. I think it was quite time that this Bill was put on the Statute Book. It provides that people who discriminate against coloured people, or others on account of their race or religion, commit an offence and can be punished. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth—and this was the view of the Labour Government, of which he was so distinguished an ornament—
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Not an ornament.
LORD OGMORE: I was using the word in the complimentary sense; I did not mean it in the sense of bijou or objet d'art. At all events, the Government of which the noble Lord was a most distinguished member took the view that this was impossible to carry out in practice and would not be much use anyway. I had the same opinion at that time, but I have changed it since, because the position is not getting better. Since the Labour Party has now also changed its opinion, I do not think the noble Lord is likely to blame me for changing mine. The fact is that there has not been any improvement in this sphere. We hear continually about coloured people being refused rooms in houses and hotels.
I believe it is very important to have a declaration. In many ways, it would be impossible to carry out the Declaration of Human Rights, but it is important to have this Declaration, and in this instance, I think it would be important to have a declaration that the law believes that this discrimination is wrong, and if it can be proved in court that the law has been broken, offenders can be dealt with. I am grateful to the noble and learned

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Lord the Lord Chancellor for explaining this Bill so succinctly to us, and I hope it will have the effect we all desire.
4.19 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am very happy that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, felt constrained to speak on this Bill, because I feel that support from the Liberal Benches on a matter of this sort is of the greatest value and it would have been a grave omission if there had been no voice raised from those Benches. Like my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the moderate way in which he introduced this Bill. Perhaps that is not surprising, because it is a moderate Bill, which goes some small way to catching up with inflation. What it does is to increase certain penalties for certain existing offences, so that those penalties now approximate in real values to the size of the penalties which legislators had in mind when they were first introduced.
That, so far as it goes, is good enough, and we are quite happy that the Government have seen fit to do this. It will, I believe, satisfy a considerable number of people. It will satisfy all those people who feel that they have done a good job when they have put a new coat of whitewash over the sepulchre, and who pay no attention to the putrifying corpse inside the sepulchre. But we should look inside the sepulchre: we should not be satisfied by saying, "This is all white, and all that is inside is no concern of ours." We should concern ourselves with what is inside, because it is what is inside that is the cause of the troubles we are discussing to-day. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said, to a large extent it is the feelings of racial intolerance and racial hatred that give rise to the type of meetings with which the Public Order Act and the new Public Order Bill are designed to deal.
This is a matter which, as the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has said, again very moderately—over-moderately—has not improved over the years. In my view, it has grown steadily worse. It has grown worse in this country; but it has also grown worse throughout the whole world. It has grown worse in the United States and in South Africa. And, in
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fairness, let us admit that it has grown worse in many of the newly independent countries of Africa itself, where you find discrimination and incitement to hatred, not of the whites against the blacks, of the so-called Christians against the Jews, but of the blacks against the whites. That is a matter of the utmost seriousness, but it is one for which we must hold ourselves to a large extent responsible.
My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth said that while he was in general sympathy with the ideas of legislation to combat this problem, he would not like to have the job of drafting any such legislation. There is no doubt that it is difficult. But I should like to remind my noble friend, and other noble Lords, that this country, this Government, in writing the Constitutions of some of the newly independent countries which were formerly colonial territories have actually written into those Constitutions that there shall be no discrimination on grounds of race, colour or creed; and I do not believe that Her Majesty's Government would insist that such stipulations were written into new Constitutions if they themselves did not think it was possible to legislate to see that those stipulations and conditions were enforced. For that reason alone, I believe that it is quite possible to introduce legislation if—and it is a big "if "—the will is there.
To-day we have even additional evidence that such legislation is, in fact, possible. My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth mentioned at one point in his speech an Irishman giving advice to this country. A man of Irish descent could, I think, give at any rate an example to this country, in the form of the President of the United States. In The Times of to-day there is a long article headed: "President's Call to Congress on Negro Rights". With your Lordships' permission, I should like to quote two short extracts from what the President of the United States says in this matter. I am not suggesting for one moment that the situation which we find in this country is in any way comparable in extent to that which is found in the United States, but I suggest to your Lordships that in quality the situation basically has some disquieting similarities.

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The President, at one point in his message, says this:
" The result of continued federal legislative inaction will be continued, if not increased, racial strife—causing the leadership on both sides to pass from the hands of reasonable and responsible men to the purveyors of hate and violence, endangering domestic tranquillity, retarding our nations' economic and social progress and "—
and this is important—
"weakening the respect with which the rest of the world regard us."
He goes on to say—and in this he might almost have already heard the queries raised by my right honourable friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth:
"Such legislation is clearly consistent with the Constitution and with our concepts of both human rights and property rights. The argument that such measures constitute an unconstitutional interference with property rights has consistently been rejected by the courts in upholding laws on zoning, collective bargaining, minimum wages, smoke control and countless other measures designed to make certain that the use of private property is consistent' with the public interest."
President Kennedy goes on to remind Congress of this:
"While the legal situations are not parallel, it is interesting to note that Abraham Lincoln, in issuing the Emancipation proclamation 108 years ago, was also accused of violating the property rights of slave owners."
So I think it must be admitted that if there is the will to have legislation of a kind which will in one form or another outlaw racial discrimination and the incitement to racial hatred, it is possible that such legislation can be drafted and can be enforced.
The question is: is it desirable to have such legislation? Of course, we do not want to proliferate legislation simply for the fun of it. But in this country (I will not weary your Lordships by going through a long list of the occasions on which these things have happened) we know full well that over the past years there has been an increasing amount of racial tension, and, among even the most respectable and decent-minded people, of actual racial hatred. We have only to remember two recent examples to see what happens, among the bus employees of Bristol and Walsall, where they have now, I believe, fortunately, fairly satisfactorily settled the acts of complete discrimination against people solely on the grounds of their colour. In regard to housing it was only to-day that I saw a lease for a flat which was about to be taken by
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somebody I know (not the printed lease, but typed in as a later insertion), in which there was a condition that, "The tenant undertakes not to sublet to any person who is coloured or Negro." That, as I say, is something which has been added to an existing stereotyped lease; and it is going on in this country.
Have we any need, or any right, to interfere in this matter? There are some who say, "No"; that this has nothing to do with legislation, and the law should not concern itself with these moral issues—because it is a moral issue. But, after all, the law does concern itself with moral issues. The law concerns itself very definitely with the Sixth Commandment: "Thou shalt not murder"; with the Seventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery"; and with the Eighth Commandment, concerning the rights of private property. We are moral in this country when it comes to looking after the bodies of people, their wellbeing and protection; we are moral when it comes to sexual affairs—at least, our laws try to support morality in that respect; and we are moral when it comes to safeguarding the property of individuals. But when it comes to dealing with the happiness and wellbeing of people; when it comes to the Christian injunction of loving your neighbour as yourself; and when it comes to the question of charity, in the Christian sense, then we say that the law should wash its hands of this; that it has nothing to do with us whatsoever.
There is the most curious dichotomy in people's minds over this question. That great organ of public opinion and morality, The Times, published on June 11 a leading article, which most of your Lordships will have read, in which it said "It is a moral issue". But the article was not referring to charity; it was not referring to the happiness of individuals; it was referring to something entirely different. When it is referring to this matter of racial hatred, encouraging one human being to rise in hatred against another fellow man. The Times takes a very different attitude indeed. Because on August 25 of last year it had a leader on this subject, and it finished up by saying, having given a long disquisition on the duties of the criminal law and its responsibilities, and on similar matters, that the comportment of the people has as well justified this

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course of freedom and that might be expected to be a cause of legitimate pride. Yet, not much more than six months later, it indicts this country for falling away from moral standards and for living entirely by materialism. I think it is right in doing that, but I believe that here we have a test in front of us.
Is The Times, in its leading article of June 11, right when it says that we have turned our backs on ethical principles and on morals, and that we are concerned purely with personal welfare, personal safety, personal property, sexual morality and nothing else? Or are those, including the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, right when they say that we are as moral a country as we have ever been? I believe that this is not only a test for our own consciences in this country, which perhaps is the most important test of all, but a test before the eyes of the whole world. Are we this smug, self-seeking, materialistic, affluent civilisation which is prepared to use the whole force of the law if it is going to protect the material things of life, or are we a civilisation, a country, a society, which not only believes in higher things but is prepared to use the force of the law and the weight of the Government and legislative attitudes and beliefs in this matter by saying, not only as the noble and learned Lord has said—and I was grateful that he said it—that we abhorred Fascism, but more than that; to say that we, as a civilised and moral country, will not tolerate the abuse of liberty and speech when it means that one man is encouraging another man to hatred and enabling one man to increase the tensions and mistrust which already in any human society exist? For these reasons I am full of concern and unhappiness that this Bill goes no further than it does, but I am in a very modest way grateful for the small step forward it does take.
4.33 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I had not thought of speaking but I feel it would be desirable if we all said just what we think about this Bill, and I propose to do it very shortly. Like my noble friend who has just spoken, I am disappointed that the Bill goes no further than it does and it is so framed that it seems impossible to produce any Amendments to it except in the direction of increasing the
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punishments; but it does not, to my mind, really touch the problem we are faced with to-day.
There are two things we have to face. One is racial discrimination, which, with the question of leases, entry into clubs and so on, is a little difficult. The other is the actual use of language which is calculated to stir up racial hatred and prejudice. This Bill deals with it only up to a point, where those words are likely to result in breaches of the peace. But the real danger of the use by people of language which is calculated to stir up hatred and prejudice is not merely because it results in breaches of the peace; the real evil is that it produces a canker in the body politic of our people and causes this body to become demoralised and to deteriorate. Those of us who studied the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire will remember that one of the causes was this very thing: racial hatred. At one time the Roman Empire was famed for its liberty and freedom, and when they began to decline the Roman Empire began to fall.
I fear that a nation which is gradually permeated with feelings of racial hatred and prejudice is in danger of reaching the same position. Whether or not, in fact, words are likely to cause a breach of the peace, as the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said, it is possible for people who would be affected by statements of this kind to stay away from meetings where they would be used and in that way breaches of the peace would be avoided. But this would not avoid the evil I have in mind. This language would still be poisoning the minds of the population, and it is just that which I should like to avoid.
My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth. I suppose not too seriously, compared it with the statements that we make about Scotland, Wales and Ireland; but these, of course, are matters of good humour. We all have our jokes about Scotland and they have theirs about us; and nobody enjoys our jokes about Scotland more than the Scots do themselves. In fact, they repeat them and treat them as good jokes. But these jokes are not made in the same spirit as the statements that are made, say, about Jews or coloured people. These are deliberately calculated to inspire hatred and prejudice. Nobody suggests that anything we say about the Scots is with the desire to make us

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hate them, although they may, if you like, be figures of fun. So I think this is a subject that has to be dealt with from the viewpoint of discrimination. I realise that it is impossible to do very much with the Bill as it stands, unless we widen the Long Title, but I do not think that this is a suitable medium.
I hope that the Government will give this matter very serious consideration, because it is an evil which is growing and is likely to imperil the whole future of this country. After all, we are a Commonwealth in which we have people of all colours, and we like to feel that they are our brothers and are human beings like ourselves. If we are to permit expressions of hatred or prejudicial remarks against them, it is the beginning of the end of our Commonwealth; and the same applies in regard to a very substantial number of, I hope, respected members of the community who belong to the Jewish race. This evil ought not to be tolerated and I would ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to give full weight to this problem. I do not feel that I can carry the matter any further to-day, but he should not hesitate to introduce legislation to ensure that any attempt to stir up racial hatred and prejudice, whether it is liable to cause a breach of the peace or not, should be dealt with, and to see whether at the same time we cannot in some way deal with racial discrimination. My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth appreciated, as a former Home Secretary, the difficulties in drafting such legislation, and I should not wish to minimise them; but I am sure that we can frame legislation, if we so desire, as my noble friend Lord Walston pointed out; and I hope that we shall do so.
Finally, I want to make one point which I think has not been referred to, and that is on the position of the police. The police have a tremendous difficulty. They are likely to be "shot at" by those who provoke and those who are provoked. I believe that, on the whole, the police are an unbiased and fine body of people who take their task seriously and who have the sole desire to maintain the peace on these difficult occasions. But we must make it not too difficult for them. I do not know whether the penalties that are proposed are, in the view
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of the Government, sufficient to make the task of the police easier and to make the offences such that people will be deterred from committing them. If the Government have second thoughts about it and wish to increase the penalties, I should have no desire to prevent that. I should like the Government to think seriously about that. All they are doing, as my noble friend said, is dealing with the question of inflation. The penalties today, in real money, are no more severe than they were in 1936 when the Public Order Act was passed. I should have thought that conditions to-day would justify an even greater penalty in the interests of the preservation of peace. But, as I have said, while we want to preserve the peace, I do not think that that is the main question. The main question is the stirring up of hatred and racial and other prejudice, and I hope that at an early date that matter will be dealt with.
4.42 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I reply rather briefly to the points raised by your Lordships in this debate. I am grateful to your Lordships for the way in which this Bill has been received for its content. The main criticism that has been made has been that it does not deal with a number of other matters. It has been described by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, as a very moderate Bill. Moderate it certainly is in length, but I think myself that its contents will have a very considerable effect. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked that we should consider whether the penalties should be further increased. I do not share the view that the increase of penalties here is just to make up the difference due to inflation. I will certainly look at that, but I will not go further than that, because I have had at the back of my mind that we are trying to get the sort of range of limit of fines which can be imposed in the magistrates' courts and again at assizes or quarter sessions.
May I turn to the various points raised in the debate? The noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, still tried, rather to my surprise, to assert that this was a constitutional Bill. His argument in respect of that was entertaining, and not only entertaining but, I thought, extremely curious, because he based it

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on the ground that the increased penalties imposed by the Bill would act as a more adequate deterrent to stop people from breaking the existing law. He said, if I followed his argument correctly, that it followed from that that anything to discourage them from breaking the existing law involved restriction of the freedom of speech, which seemed to me not to flow very well.
May I come to the next point he made? He referred to being expeditious. I am glad he made that observation in regard to himself, and during the course of the London Government Bill I hope he will continue to justify it. I was glad that he and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred to the particular position of the police. I am sure everybody in this House knows what a burden these matters cast upon them, and I am sure we all think they discharge that burden wonderfully. May I just deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, as to the penalty under the Public Meeting Act? He criticised that penalty on the ground that it had been increased too much. I do not share that view. The penalty imposed is, of course, the maximum, but an organised breaking up of a meeting can be a serious restriction of freedom of speech, no matter by whom that breaking up may be done, and if we value freedom of speech it is important, I think, that real "teeth" should be put behind that particular provision.
As I expected, in the course of this debate a considerable amount has been said about incitement to racial hatred and racial discrimination. This Bill does not deal at all with racial discrimination, and I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, that it is one thing to make a reference to racial discrimination in the Constitution and quite a different thing to draft an effective provision for our criminal law dealing with the same matter; because if you are going to have the criminal law operated and effected as everyone wishes, it is absolutely essential that the criminal offence should be defined in the most clear and positive terms. I put this question of racial discrimination—this is really not within this
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debate—such as the noble Lord referred to in the lease he mentioned, on one side.
But what there has been concern about in this debate is incitement to racial discrimination. I want shortly to deal with that. When Mr. Colin Jordan had his appeal allowed at London Sessions there was, if that appeal was rightly allowed, certainly ground for supposing that an incitement to racial hatred would not come within the Public Order Act. At that time, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, while one knew there was going to be an appeal, a great many of us devoted a great many hours to seeing what would be the best way of strengthening the law in that particular provision if the appeal failed. We dislike incitement to racial hatred just as much as anyone else. But the position now is this. As a result of the appeal which held that the conviction was wrongly quashed it is, I think, as clear as it can be made under the law of to-day that anyone who incites racial hatred is using threatening, abusive or insulting words; and, indeed, I myself find it impossible to envisage words used at a public meeting which really incite hatred of any racial group which are not also at the same time threatening, abusive or insulting. But, as I have said before, we shall watch the situation. I think there is no division of view as to what we seek to achieve. In my belief, the law at the present moment is adequate.
I do not myself share the view—I may be wrong and I am expressing a personal opinion—which has been expressed rather pessimistically from the Liberal Benches that this situation is continually getting worse. I am not at all sure that that is right. At any rate, we are keeping an eye upon it. If that view does tend to be right, the step put forward in this short Bill will do something, and I think an important something, to maintain both the liberty of speech which we all think should continue to be enjoyed and, at the same time, and just as important, to deter abuse of that right in our country. I thank your Lordships for the way in which this Bill has been received.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES BILL
4.50 p.m.
Further considered on Report (according to Order).
Cause 41 [Inspectors of weights and measures]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved to add to subsection (2):
"Provided that any such person who is aggrieved by dismissal from office may appeal to the Board against such dismissal and the Board after considering representations from the parties concerned may either confirm such dismissal or direct reinstatement as appears to the Board to be appropriate".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment provides that any inspector who felt himself aggrieved by dismissal from office could appeal to the Board of Trade against that dismissal, and after considering representations from all the parties concerned the Board could, if they thought it appropriate, direct reinstatement. Although the Amendment is rather more ample, and contains other points which were not included in the Amendment I raised on Committee, I am raising this matter again because I hope to persuade the Government to think again on this matter and have regard to the fact that we are dealing with responsible, trained professional men, who are wholly entitled to full justice in connection with their employment and to proper security.
These inspectors are a comparatively small body of trained people—fewer than 1,000. Each inspector has to qualify; he has his number. It is a completely organised and regulated professional body, each member having the highest responsibilities on his shoulders. Therefore, I think they are on a par with, and in the same category as, other officers of local authorities who already have rights of appeal, including, for example, public health officers, medical officers of health, directors of education, town and county clerks and senior police officers. Each of these has the same right of appeal, though to different Government Departments—as it were to different Ministers. In my view inspectors of weights and measures are entitled to similar protection against possible malicious dismissal.
I suggest that this question is particularly in point now that the Bill proposes to make a larger number of weights and measures authorities, many of which will have a population of only 60,000—or, indeed, if the President of the Board of Trade so agrees, less than that. Therefore, you must have regard to the fact that the weights and measures inspectors employed by those authorities will, in large measure, come under the voluntary jurisdiction of people in industry—tradesmen, in fact—who, in their businesses, will come under the authority of the weights and measures inspectors in so far as the fulfilment of their vocations is concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, appears to be looking at me in some doubt.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD DERWENT): I am sorry: I was just paying attention.
LORD STONHAM: I put a case in point. We might have in a town an extremely worthy grocer, a man of great repute and honour, who would be an alderman of the borough, or even chairman of the urban or rural district council. Maybe through no fault of his own, he might incur heavy fines, or indeed some social disfavour, because of some fault which the weights and measures inspector, in the course of his duty, was obliged to find with the conduct of his business in so far as it infringed the regulations. That could create a difficulty with men not quite big enough. Such a situation might arise, in which the Board of Trade, or the President of the Board, ought to have the responsibility of deciding.
During the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said that the few cases of dismissal of which he had knowledge were due to character defects; and he then argued that the Board of Trade was not competent to judge character defects, but that the local authority were. I am paraphrasing, and not precisely quoting the noble Lord, but I think I am not misrepresenting what he said. I thought that this was a startling confession of alleged Government incompetence, because I should have thought that a Minister, sitting in Whitehall, advised by civil servants, is surely as competent to judge as an alderman and members of

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NALGO sitting, say, at Wolverhampton. But I do not think there is any doubt that the Board is competent to judge in a case of this kind, as indeed is any Government Department. There is no right of appeal in the Bill, and I would submit that with this class of officer there should be. Their status and responsibilities are equal to those of other local government officers I have mentioned, and they should be given equal rights of appeal and equal security in their employment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 33, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Stonham.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am in complete sympathy with the noble Lord in wanting to give the inspectors as much protection as possible. But perhaps I may re-state the Government view, because evidently I did not make myself quite clear last time. The essence of this matter, in our view, is that the employer of the inspector (this appears at intervals throughout the Bill) is the local authority, and we hold that it is for the employer to decide whether or not it wishes to terminate the employment of one of its inspectors. It is unlikely, I think, though not impossible, that a local authority would dismiss an officer on the grounds of technical incompetence; but if it did so and this Amendment were included in the Bill, the Board would be placed in a singularly awkward position, to say the least of it; and it would put the inspector, as a professional man, in a position that would not apply in any other profession.
Before he can be appointed, an inspector of weights and measures has to possess a certificate of qualification, granted by the Board, to the effect that he has sufficient skill and knowledge for the proper performance of the functions of an inspector. The proposed appeal to the Board against dismissal in the case of technical incompetence therefore could be judged only by re-examination of the inspector; and it would surely be a most unusual step to require a professional man, who may well have been in practice for some years, to re-sit his examination at a later period of his professional life. Moreover, I do not believe that this is a practical problem at all—and I am now talking about dismissal
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for technical reasons. The few cases of dismissal—and they are very few—of which the Board are aware have all been due to character defects and had nothing to do with the man's competence.
As for dismissal on grounds of defects of character, in the Government's opinion this is a matter solely for the local authority to decide. I do not think that the risk of an inspector's being dismissed improperly—and this is what we are really talking about—is likely to arise, and, if it does, I cannot conceive any circumstance in which the inspector would not get adequate compensation. He has the legal right of redress possessed by any employee in a case of wrongful dismissal, which is apt to be heavy in the case of a professional man. The weights and measures inspectors also have their own organisation, and I think they also come under NALGO, who will stand up for their rights. I have little doubt that the practice has grown up—and it will probably be firmer in the future—that the local authority associations and the employee associations have a code, written or otherwise, of what ought to be done in circumstances where a man appeals; but I cannot see NALGO or any other employee association leaving the matter where it is where there is any possibility that the man will be dismissed. I repeat that we do not need to consider this question of incompetence; we know of no case. As regards character defects, I think that we must, as in other problems, leave that to the employers, the local authorities. Therefore I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I realise the practical difficulties, but it so often seems to me that the noble Lord is answering the case I made last time in Committee and not the case I am making on Report.
LORD DERWENT: It is the same case.
LORD STONHAM: With respect, I did not say a single word this afternoon about professional competence. There is not a single word in the Amendment about whether the man is fit to be a weights and measures inspector. All it says is that anyone who is aggrieved by dismissal may appeal to the Board. If he had been dismissed because he was

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incompetent he would have to qualify all over again, and if he did not think he would qualify then he would not appeal. As the noble Lord has said, he does not know of a case where a man has been dismissed for professional or technical incompetence.
The one case that may—and I think will, unfortunately—arise is that which the noble Lord described as a character defect, which is probably non-existent and as to which the inspector feels he must have a right of appeal, because if his whole career is not ruined his personal standing among his fellows and his self-esteem is indeed ruined. So the noble Lord did not answer the case at all. He knocked down an "Aunt Sally" which I did not put up and which certainly is not in the Amendment. I consider it was a disappointing reply, and I would assure the noble Lord that the inspectors, who ought to know, badly want this right of appeal. Over and again they have spoken to us about it; and if the snags exist, as the noble Lord says, or if the danger were absolutely non-existent—
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but may I ask the indulgence of the House to say something further on this matter? I do it at this stage because this is a case involving rights of employees, and if a noble Lord tells me there is a certain doubt in their minds I think it ought to be set at rest, if I can do so—although I am not going to depart from the stand I have taken up. The point which I think is new is the possibility of scandalous dismissal—I will not say "wrongful"—because the chairman of one of the committees has been fined, or something of that kind. I think it is unlikely to arise, but I should like to say this. If there were that sort of scandal and the inspector referred it to the inspector's association, it is quite inconceivable that the association would not bring the case to the attention of the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade have power, under Clause 39, to cause an inquiry to be held, the report of which inquiry has to be published. If the inquiry found that there was a scandalous dismissal—and this is really the only new point that has been raised by the noble Lord—it would go a long way in court on behalf of the inspector who was claiming damages, as
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he would undoubtedly do, to find that there had been such an inquiry and that it had been upheld by the Board of Trade. That would not be in the case of an ordinary appeal, but only in the case of something in the nature of a scandal which would fall to inquiry under Clause 39.
LORD STONHAM: In a case such as that, could the inspector, through his professional association, refer the matter to the Board of Trade for investigation and a report by them, without taking the case to court?
LORD DERWENT: I am just thinking a second about that. Indeed yes, because taking it to court would be the man's own action, using the ordinary law, in a claim for damages as an employee.
LORD STONHAM: I am most grateful for both those replies. I put the second question because I was thinking of a case where a man would not want the whole thing brought out in court—even though he was in the right, and even if he was proved in the right. I knew about the powers of the Board under Clause 39, and I think that, at least, is some part of the answer which I had hoped to get from the noble Lord and which, in certain circumstances, could be of considerable value. Although I regret he has not accepted the Amendment. I am grateful for what we have obtained. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 [Performance by inspectors of additional functions]:
5.8 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, in subsection (1), to omit paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: I hope that this Amendment will meet the point raised in Amendment No. 25 tabled by noble Lords opposite, so I shall speak to both Amendments together. The practical effect of deleting paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of the clause, as is proposed in my Amendment, will be that where a local authority provide a service for the adjusting of traders' weights and measures and put this service under the supervision of the chief inspector, there will be nothing to prevent his delegating his supervisory powers in this respect to any one of the other inspectors in his office—which, I think, was

1413
asked for on Committee stage. It deals, in particular, with the difficulty—or at least doubt about the effect of the present clause—which might otherwise arise for those weights and measures authorities which physically separate the workshops where the testing and adjustment is done from the administrative offices of the weights and measures service—and this also was raised in Committee by noble Lords opposite; or in cases where the adjusting work in outlying rural areas is done periodically in temporary centres set up for that purpose. In such circumstances the chief inspector would normally work in the administrative part of the offices and personal supervision by him of adjusting would therefore be both inconvenient and wasteful. I hope that noble Lords opposite will find that my Amendment deals with the Amendment which they have put down, and also with the arguments which they produced on the Committee stage. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 46, line 24, leave out from ("Board") to end of line 26.—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord's Amendment does indeed meet the point which we put in Committee. I must confess that, when I first read his Amendment—and I read it two or three times—I still was not absolutely convinced. But my advisers have convinced me completely that it entirely meets the point. This is quite an important point, because in many parts of the country there is this valuable service, which costs a lot of money, by the weights and measures authorities. It is an extremely valuable service, particularly in rural areas; and, as I explained earlier, the clause as it previously stood might well eventually have brought that service to an end. So we are extremely grateful to the noble Lord that he has been able to meet this point which will be very much appreciated.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, this is on exactly the same point. I formally move this Amendment, and merely say that for a person like myself, if there was any doubt at all about the matter, this would remove it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 46, line 32, at end insert—
("Provided that nothing in this section shall prevent any inspector from acting on behalf and under the direction of a chief inspector in the supervision of such a service as aforesaid").—(Lord Stonham.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I think that if we have both these Amendments it will not quite make sense. So either I shall ask the noble Lord to withdraw the Amendment or I shall negative.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in view of that, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Claust 48 [General powers of inspection and entry]:
5.12 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY moved to add to subsection (1):
"(d) stop at all reasonable times any vehicle carrying solid fuel for sale or delivery to a purchaser for the purpose of carrying out his duties under this Act."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I do hope that, in this mood of accommodation and help which seems to be prevalent on both sides of the Chamber, we might make some progress on this particular Amendment this afternoon. I am sure the noble Lord the Minister of State will not take it amiss if I say that I rather think he has got the answer to what I am going to say already written down or typed out in his brief. I am wondering whether I am going to get the same answer quite independent of what I may say.
Having made that remark, may I say first of all that I do not know whether the noble Lord quite realises that, not only in this House but outside this House, among all particular interests and not just political ones, there is a feeling that the Board of Trade has become quite obsessed with regard to this particular matter that I am now going to raise. We cannot find anyone who agrees with their action, and neither, as I hope to show to-day, have we been able to obtain from the noble Lord any factual evidence which has been submitted to his Department on this particular matter. I think the British people are a reasonable people and, although we may not always agree with what is done, if we are given reasons

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for it, at least we can see why some particular action has been taken.
It does seem, not only to my noble friends and myself, but, I think, to a great many people, that over the past twelve months in another place, and in Committee in another place, and during the stages here and during discussion on recent Questions that I have put to the Government, we have not got any further at all on this matter. I am only emboldened to hope that the fact that the noble Lord is now writing something down means that I may, at least, get some reply in connection with what I am saying to-day.
This is the third attempt that I have made to deal with this particular matter, and in view of the Government's attitude, anyway in the past—one always hopes that this may be changed—I have no option but to spell out the background once again. I am wondering whether the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, really and truly will try to answer the points that I am putting forward, because they are not my points; this is not me being tiresome; this is practically everybody uniting against the Government, and I do not take the viewpoint that everybody is wrong and the Government are right, although I am willing to listen. I hope that the noble Lord—and he nods his head—will really and truly give us the facts on this particular matter.
On Report stage in another place an exactly similar Amendment was discussed. As the Minister will know, the position is that, if this Amendment is not agreed to to-day, the Government will have removed from weights and measures inspectors a right which they have held for the past 70 years. As the House knows, in so far as I was concerned when this particular matter arose here, I took it to the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council, of which I am Chairman. I had no idea what they would say, but I felt that here we had represented all the sectional interests in connection with this matter, and it would be useful to know their opinions. As your Lordships know—and certainly as the Minister of State knows, because I have told him before—on this Council we have representatives of the consumers of solid fuel; we have representatives of distributors, both private and co-operative traders; we have representatives of the National
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Coal Board, and representatives of the Gas Council. Among the consumer representatives on that Council are included a chief inspector of weights and measures and a number of local authority representatives several of whom are in close touch with their authorities' weights and measures inspectorates.
When this matter was put to the Council—without going into any details—there was not one member of that Council of any particular interest who agreed with the step which the Government are proposing to take; that is, withdrawing from weights and measures inspectors the power to stop vehicles. The only qualification made was that it was desirable that an inspector, authorised to stop coal lorries in this way, should have some means of identifying himself readily to the driver of a lorry travelling at normal speed. The point was made that, if a weights and measures inspector in plain clothes could legally stop a lorry merely by holding up his hand, then the driver of a lorry would feel bound to stop for anyone. We accepted that criticism. But the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council thought that lorry drivers should be compelled to stop for a duly authorised and clearly identified inspector, although they should have as much right as any other driver to decide for themselves whether they would stop for anyone else in plain clothes.
Two means of achieving this identification were mentioned. If I go back to the last time we had a discussion on this, I do not know whether I was being stupid or the Minister of State was being stupid, but I thought we got into a muddle on this, and I should like to put the suggestion forward again and find out what he thinks. The Domestic Coal Consumers' Council put forward these two methods of identification for an inspector stopping lorries. In the first place, there is the procedure authorised by Section 224 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, under which a person authorised by a highway authority, not necessarily a policeman in uniform, may stop a vehicle for the purpose of having it weighed. For this purpose he uses a sign which is authorised by the Minister of Transport and, as I am sure the Minister knows, this measures 20 inches by 30 inches and has the word "Stop" in red letters on it 4½ inches high. I think we are agreed

1417
on that. These powers were given for the purpose of checking overloaded vehicles, rather than short weight deliveries. But the point we are making is that this does not affect the principle of inspectors stopping lorries.
The other method relies on the fact that a weights and measures department's patrol vans, which may carry the crest of the local authority, are well known by appearance to coal dealers and their employees. Before going any further, I would merely say to the Minister what I am sure he knows: that these suggestions were put forward by those members of this Domestic Coal Consumers' Council whose own particular authorities already make use of them. Now when a coal vehicle is on the move the inspector, in one of these patrol vans carrying the crest of the local authority, giving full regard to the safety of other road users, draws his vehicle alongside, sounds his horn to attract the attention of the driver of the coal vehicle and signals for him to pull into the side of the road for checking. I have gone into considerable detail on this point, because I do not think we have yet had an answer to it. Members of the Council paid full regard to the objections which had been made by the Government to this Amendment to Clause 48 at other times, but they were unable to accept the reasons put forward.
The chief inspector of weights and measures in one of our largest cities has written to me in some detail on this particular matter, and I think that the House will be interested in what he has to say, because, if the Government are going to turn down this Amendment, I think that the Minister of State must answer these points. They are not points thought up by me, or even by consumers: these are points made by the chief weights and measures inspector of one of our largest cities on this particular matter. This is the first point that he makes:
"Normally, we operate two patrol vans, on the doors of which appear the corporation's crest, and during the months December to March we find it necessary to augment supervision by means of another van. These vans are well known by appearance to coal dealers and their employees. If the coal vehicle is stationary, the weights and measures van pulls in behind or in front and the inspector selects such number of bags as he requires for check weighing on the weighing machine carried in his van."
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The second point he makes is:
"When a coal vehicle is on the move, the inspector, giving full regard to the safety of other road users, draws his vehicle alongside, sounds his horn to attract the attention of the driver of the coal vehicle and signals for him to pull into the side of the road for checking."
His third point is:
"By and large, the Weights and Measures Bill has improved commodity control (perhaps not, in many instances, to the extent which the inspectorate and/or the consumer would have liked), but in the matter of coal supervision the clock has been put back 50 years so far as the ratepayers of this city are concerned—and I would say of any large industrial city. The protection which they expect from a weights and measures department is being seriously weakened."
On his fourth point, the chief inspector says that page 7 of his Annual Report, to May, 1962, shows the number of coal offences for the year to be double the normal average. Going on to his fifth point, the inspector puts forward something which I think we should all accept:
"Unfortunately, the coal delivery trade lends itself to malpractices, as coal is easily stolen, easily disposed of, and evidence disappears by burning or by mixing with other stocks, so that investigations cannot be prolonged and necessitate on-the-spot decision".
He goes on to say that the suggestion of the Parliamentary Secretary for Science contained on page 536 of the Report of Standing Committee B (I have it here, and he has quoted correctly), that
"…the weights and measures inspector can show his credentials to the police, who then have the duty in all cases of seeing the law is complied with",
shows a shocking lack of knowledge of the practical enforcement of coal delivery supervision.
I am nearly at the end, my Lords, but I think these points will have to be answered. The chief inspector goes on to say:
"It may interest you to know that the local coal merchants' association have become so worried about the rascality in the trade that they have asked the corporation to introduce a scheme for licensing all coal merchants and their employees, so that the trade may be rid of those giving it a bad name".
Lastly, he says:
"At the moment, I foresee that during the bad months of the year, from December to March, I shall have to ask for uniformed police to be seconded for duty in each of our patrol vans, and I am of opinion that Parliament never intended that such action should be necessary to implement the housewives' charter."
Before I leave that matter I should like to say something which I know all parts of the House will share in, and it is this: that, although we are talking of those sections of the coal trade which give it a bad name, we all know that those sections are a minority, and it is that minority with which we are trying to deal. I should be sorry for it to go out from this House—and I am sure every Member would agree with me—that we thought that the coal trade was (what shall I say?) an association of rascals. It is the minority with which we are concerned. I think that such factual evidence from a chief inspector—and the Minister is welcome to see the letter afterwards, so that he knows where it has come from—is much stronger than anything I could say, and I think it must be answered.
Having put that forward to the Minister, and trying to be really systematic, I think we must try to find out why the Government have so persistently, over many months, refused to accept such evidence. I think the logical deduction is that there must be some argument to the effect that this power which inspectors have had all this time has been wrongly used, or, alternatively, that it has been abused. So, to try and get this quite clear, I asked the Government two Questions on this. The first was on May 16 of this year, when I asked the Government—and I quote [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 249 (No. 85), col. 1422]:
"…whether they have any knowledge of any accidents caused by the exercise by weights and measures inspectors of their power to stop coal lorries on the highway and, if so, whether they will give statistics of all such accidents within the last five years".
As the Minister will know, although he himself did not give me the reply, the Answer I received was that the available accident statistics do not show that any accidents have been caused in this way. In other words, my Lords, the answer was, "No".
The Second Question that I put was on May 20, when I asked the Government [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 250, col. 1]:
"…whether they have any knowledge of any occasion within the last five years on which highway authorities have found it necessary to ask weights and measures authorities to instruct their inspector to pay mare regard to the needs of traffic movement when stopping coal lorries on the highway".
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If I may paraphrase the Answer, it was, "No". I will not weary the House by reading it all: it is here if it is wanted. So we found, trying to pursue the matter as to why the Government were withdrawing this right held by inspectors for over 70 years, that they had no evidence that this right had been misused or that it had caused any accidents.
Then, my Lords, looking at the Committee stage in another place, I noted—and I am sure the Minister knows this—that the Parliamentary Secretary stated that strong representations had been made to the Board of Trade on this matter by the Ministry of Transport and members of the Road Federation. I can give the noble Lord the reference numbers if he wants them. One would expect that, if it is stated that such representations were made, facts must have been given to support those representations. So we thought it would be helpful, in building up our own case, if we could find out from the Minister what these facts and what these representations were. I am sorry I have to weary the House with May 20 again, but on that day I asked the Government (col. 2):
" …what evidence was supplied to the Board of Trade by the Minister of Transport concerning the suggested withdrawal of the right, held by inspectors of weights and measures for seventy years of stopping vehicles on the highway."
I do not wish to be discourteous, particularly in his absence, to the Minister who replies, but we had several columns of Hansard on this and got nowhere. My question, as I said, asked for evidence and the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in replying said that he did not refer to evidence and he gave me none. No evidence was given to the Board of Trade by the Ministry of Transport on this particular matter, according to the Answer, and it would seem that either the Parliamentary Secretary in another place was referring to representations with no evidence, or he made a mistake. If he did not make a mistake, and he did give evidence then I think the House is entitled to ask what that evidence was.
I come to the Road Federation who also made strong representations, according to the Parliamentary Secretary. This time we had the Minister of State to

1421
reply, and, as he knows, on May 21 I asked him (col. 138):
"…what representations have been received by the Board of Trade from the British Road Federation concerning the suggested withdrawal of the right, held by inspectors of weights and measures for seventy years, of stopping vehicles on the highway; and if any representations to the contrary have been received."
I am going to make a confession. If I did not like the noble Lord, I would have said that he was very pompous when he answered, and that he really thought he had "slapped me down". I always think that one "slaps people down" only when there is no justification for the answer. I hope that he is going to be especially charming in his reply to-day and give me the details.
To come back to what the Minister did say, he stated that the Board of Trade had received no formal representations from the British Road Federation. He went on later to say (I think I am quoting him correctly) that the British Road Federation were in sympathy with what the Government were doing. But we got no representations, and no facts at all. The only fact we got was that various representations to the contrary had been lodged with the Board of Trade.
One is nothing if not persistent, and I hope that one is also always reasonable. So, after not getting very far on this, I pursued the Minister outside this Chamber to see if we could get a little further. I tried to sort out with him where we were on this question of the power of persons authorised under Section 224 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, to stop vehicles by means of the road sign described in Section 51 of the Act. The Minister said—and I would agree with him here—that snap-checks are important in detecting the kind of offences we are discussing. But he went on to say (I have his letter here; and no doubt he has a copy) that "surprise is precisely what we cannot tolerate in stopping a moving vehicle in modern conditions". But, my Lords, this really will not do. It is absurd to suggest that the need for snap-checks necessarily involves surprise, in the sense that the inspector jumps out from behind a hedge and brandishes the sign in front of a lorry. Is he really thinking that the inspector jumps out on to the M.1 and
1422
holds up a lorry going at a good rate? This is just not intelligent.
LORD DERWENT: If he is not to do it suddenly, then how is he to use it?
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: This will not do. If he was on foot, an inspector would stop a lorry that he wanted to check while it was 100 yards or so away. He could hold up his sign so as to give the lorry ample time to stop safely.
The Minister has not been able to quote me one example of any accidents or malpractice arising from an inspector exercising his rights. But if, as is more likely, the inspector was in his van he could overtake the lorry and display the sign at the back of the van, so giving ample time for the lorry to stop. Obviously everything depends on whether the power is used sensibly. On that we all agree. But the Government have admitted that they possess no evidence that the inspectors' powers, as used at present, have ever caused either an accident or trouble in impeding the flow of traffic. Not one example has been given by the Government in answering four Questions tabled for that purpose. The noble Lord says that surprise is something we cannot tolerate in stopping a moving vehicle in modern conditions. But such an attitude overlooks the power of the police who do exactly what it is proposed the inspector should do. For example, if the police see a car displaying "L" plates and there is no passenger then no trouble arises because they use their powers sensibly; but they stop that car suddenly to find out why the driver is there with nobody else in the car with him.
I would stress that the powers asked for in this Amendment would be mainly needed and used in residential areas, and not on roads with fast-moving traffic. I am so anxious that the noble Lord should have a chance of being helpful that I am wondering whether he would be prepared to look at this Amendment, but with the imposition of conditions to prevent inspectors from exercising their powers on trunk roads, or even on all "A "-class roads. I do not know what my noble friends will feel about that, but we want to get somewhere on this matter, and I hope that when the noble Lord replies he will deal with what I have put forward to-day and see if he can meet us on this matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 48, line 47, at end insert—
("(d) stop at all reasonable times any vehicle carrying solid fuel for sale or delivery to a purchaser for the purpose of carrying out his duties under this Act.").—(Baroness Burton of Coventry.)
5.37 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I start by agreeing with the noble Baroness that this is not a political question. Before I start the main part of my argument, I plead "Not guilty" to not having had this matter debated between the noble Baroness and myself on previous occasions; because, so far as I am concerned, the opportunity was not offered. May I also say, with a great deal of respect to the noble Baroness, that if she got the wrong answers to her questions, I think, having looked at the questions again, that she put down the wrong questions to get the answers she required. But I am not sure that the answers were, in fact, then available. The noble Baroness also said to-day that she had not seen any evidence in favour of the Government's case. Of course, that may be because she has not looked in the right places, but there is plenty of it if she went in search, although I am not suggesting that she should go in search; but I intend to say something about that. I intend to reply at some considerable length, as we have not debated this matter before, and I will try to answer, if I can, all the points raised by the noble Baroness. I hope when I have finished, although I am not going to give way, she will not think it is because—as she does at this moment—I am being purely pig-headed about it. There is a strong case the other way.
This is really, in so far as we at the Board of Trade are concerned, a battle of opinion between the consumer protection experts, such as the noble Baroness, and the Council, who have a very strong case—I agree with that—and the traffic experts, who also, in our view, have a very strong case. This has been more worry to me than any other part of the Bill, and we have had endless discussions with other Ministers. I am afraid that, on balance, we remain convinced that it would be wrong to allow inspectors to stop moving vehicles.
Powers to stop vehicles are very carefully circumscribed by road traffic legislation,
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for reasons of road safety and of security from theft. We have had a series of Road Traffic Bills of various kinds, but all have agreed on this question of stopping. On the danger of the theft of lorries and loads, a Member of Parliament told me recently of a case in a London district of the driver of a lorry who thought that an inspector was stopping him, when in fact it was a thief, who knocked him on the head and stole the lorry. As your Lordships know, the stealing of lorries—I do not mean just coal lorries—is becoming what one might call "big business
".
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, on the same argument, would the noble Lord suggest that the police should be restricted in their right of stopping vehicles?
LORD DERWENT: I shall come to the police in a minute. I think all noble Lords would agree that controlling traffic without causing accidents or traffic jams, with the present congestion of our roads, is a highly skilled job. The only people trained to do that are the police, and only uniformed police have power to stop vehicles.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, has the noble Lord forgotten the school-crossing patrols?
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I wish noble Lords would allow me to get on with my argument, because otherwise we shall be here all night. I am trying to answer the noble Baroness's points. The Road Traffic Act, 1960, gives general power to stop vehicles on the highway only to a police constable in uniform and a limited power to a school-crossing patrol. A school-crossing patrol is not allowed to stop an individual lorry, but to stop the traffic—and that is quite a different thing. It would be inconsistent to give a power to weights and measures inspectors which is denied to other officials more closely concerned with road traffic—for instance, the Ministry of Transport's enforcement staff who supervise the safey of buses and goods vehicles. These officials cannot stop moving vehicles; they can address them only when halted or get a policeman to halt them.
We hold, further, that the power in existing legislation which allows inspectors to stop vehicles carrying coal is out of date. In 1889, when this power was

1425
granted, problems of traffic and traffic control were quite different. Coals were carried by horses and carts, and the inspectors were on foot. Now they are nearly always in cars. In practice, it has been found that enforcement by inspectors can often be carried out either at the point of despatch or at the destination. Coal lorries operating along streets in residential districts are frequently stationary and the driver would be contravening Clause 49 if he drove away after an inspector had asked to look at his delivery notes or check his load.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, told the House than in two cities this system is used, fairly often in Glasgow and almost every day in London. I now discover that, as a general rule, in London it is the common practice for inspectors to draw up alongside lorries already stopped by traffic lights, to tell the drivers to pull in over the lights and then inspect their lorries. That is the practice at the present time and there is no reason why this practice should not continue. It would not contravene Clause 48(7). If a special investigation has to be made where, for example, something is already known about a load, the inspector can always find a policeman, because he is in a car.
The noble Baroness referred to the power provided under Section 224 of the Road Traffic Act. I do not think that an arrangement of this kind would be practicable in the case of weights and measures inspectors. The sign in question is a large rectangular one, 30 inches by 20 inches, with 4½-inch letters, and it is intended for use at a roadside check point. As a rule, it would be set up at a reasonable distance in front of a lay-by, so that a driver can pull into the side of the road and stop in an orderly and safe manner. The essence of it is the conspicuousness of the sign, both from the point of view of road safety and of common fairness to the driver, who is under an obligation to stop. It is a stop check, and from what has been said in this debate, I do not think it would be much use in detecting offenders with coal lorries. The inspectors might set up the sign and wait all day without a coal lorry coming along. The inspectors need to surprise offenders. That is why, even under this Bill, the driver would be committing an offence if he did not pull into the side
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over the lights, if the inspector told him to do so.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I know that the noble Lord does not like being interrupted, but this is an important point. He says there is nothing in the Bill which prevents inspectors from halting somebody who has already stopped at traffic lights and asking him to pull into the side of the road. Could he quote his authority?
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, if this Amendment is not passed, an inspector can tell any coal lorry driver who is stopped that he wishes to inspect his load. This is often done at traffic lights, and the inspector can continue to do it in this way. If the driver does not stop after being told to do so by an inspector, he is committing an offence. I am only saying what happens in practice. If the driver refused to move from where he was, doubtless the police would have something to say.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I accept that the inspector has the right to stop a driver and that if the driver goes past the traffic lights and does not stop he is committing an offence by that fact. But it says in the Bill:
"Nothing in this Act shall authorise any inspector to stop any vehicle on the highway."
So how can a driver commit an offence when he refuses to stop for an inspector?
LORD HAWKE: The inspector can shadow him until he does stop.
LORD DERWENT: If the noble Lord will look at Clause 48(1) and Clause 49(1) he will see that the two together give the combined power. The point is that the lorry is stopped, and it has not been specifically stopped among a lot of other traffic. The whole of the traffic has been stopped by the lights. It is legal to continue that practice, which is quite common now, because, first of all, the inspectors are in cars and find it a convenient way of doing it; and secondly, it stops getting a lorry into the side in the middle of a lot of traffic. This question of stopping a moving lorry in other traffic is a highly skilled job. It is for that reason that the Road Traffic Acts insist that only a police constable in uniform shall do it. They are the only ones who can do it. The school crossing people are allowed to stop

1427
the traffic; and if the whole traffic is one lorry, then that's that. But they are not allowed to pick out a lorry from other traffic and stop it, because it is technically much more difficult. It is easier to stop a flow of traffic than to stop a single lorry.
May I say this on another point raised by the noble Baroness about whether we can differentiate? It is a new point to me, but I have been thinking about it while noble Lords have been speaking. It is the question of whether you can do it on trunk roads and not on side roads. My first inclination is that if you give the power it might, in many circumstances, if there is a lot of traffic, be safer to stop on a wide road than on a narrow road. It is a difficult one for me to answer, but I think that might well be the case. Of course, the quiet backwater, yes; but that is a particular class of road. In any particular class, one road might be easy and another one difficult—
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I do not wish to interrupt the noble Lord, but would he deal with the example given to me, which I quoted, of what happens in one of our Northern cities, where the weights and measures inspectors are in vans which carry the crest of the local authority and are used for this purpose.
LORD DERWENT: As to whether, because you have a crest, it is more difficult to approach the—
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: No. There were two suggestions put forward. The first, which we have just discussed, was that this could be done by exhibiting a sign. The alternative method was that many weights and measures inspectors travel about in vans carrying the crest of the local authority. These are known to the coal merchants, and they pull in.
LORD DERWENT: I do not think there is any obligation, except by the local authority, on the inspectors to travel about in those vans. I think the local authorities like the inspectors to travel in those vans, but I do not think it is necessary by law.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I am trying to find out what argument the noble Lord will use for saying that that is not a starter.
LORD DERWENT: Obviously they have to be alongside before they can see that crest.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: But this method has been operating for years.
LORD DERWENT: I know it has been operating for years. But we are talking about when you are not allowed to stop a vehicle, and to have the crest on when you draw up alongside a stationary vehicle does not affect the matter, because if the man drives off when he has been told to pull in and have his load examined, he is committing an offence.
Then there is the question of the notice in the back of the car. It was suggested that something should be put into the car to signal to the driver to stop. What is allowed in the way of signals of which one must take notice is laid down in the Highway Code. I do not think a proliferation of signals would necessarily help. After all, a driver has only to say that he was paying attention to the movement of traffic and did not see the signal, and you will find it difficult to prove that he did.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I do not follow this. I do not know whether the noble Lord has been into one county where the police have made use of electric signs in the rear of their cars showing the word "Police" and the word "Stop". They are used. They stop people in this way, and they are duly prosecuted.
LORD DERWENT: In that case, it is true, if you see a police car. I am not certain whether, in fact, it is illegal if a moving police car has that notice in it and you take no notice of it. If they signal you to stop, you have to stop, because it is a police car; and one normally stops because one does not want to get into trouble. But we are considering here the coal driver who is deliberately blind. If it was not a recognised signal, he may say that he has not seen it. As the noble Baroness knows, they are up to all the tricks.
The fact of the matter is that we have had to make up our minds whether the traffic considerations outweigh the consumer protection considerations. Perhaps I can say this before I sit down. If we

1429
are wrong in the decision we take, somebody may get swindled by a dishonest lorry driver. If, on the other hand, we allow it, and we are wrong, somebody is going to get killed. We have, on balance, come down in favour of the traffic experts and not the consumer protection experts.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I came here feeling that the noble Lady had a good case, and I supported her on previous stages of the Bill. Now, the length of her argument has made my noble friend come clean, and his argument has convinced me that his is the right course. The only thing that worries me is that we have frequently debated in this House the question of unserviceable lorries on the road—lorries which are over-weight, with bad mechanism and so on—and it is a little disquieting to hear that the Ministry of Transport's own inspectors are not going to be able to stop moving lorries in order to check them. Having heard what my noble friend has said, I realise it is probably dangerous for them to try. But it is disquieting to think that there will be that lacuna in control of these lorries. I do not believe, from the consumer protection point of view, it is of great importance that the inspector should be able to stop the coal lorry while it is moving. I believe that, in practice, he will trail along after it, and as soon as it stops to make a delivery, he will then pounce. The advantage of being able to stop the moving vehicle is, to my mind, so marginal that I do not think it worth while, if we take into consideration these undoubted traffic difficulties that my noble friend has pointed out. Therefore, I, for my part, hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the Amendment.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Baroness in the Amendment which she moved, as I thought, most impressively and convincingly. I did not think the noble Lord the Minister really answered the points which the noble Baroness made. It was, I think—I say this with respect—very nearly an exercise in equivocation. In short, the situation is that the inspector can stop the vehicle only when it is stopped.
The Minister gave no evidence of this alleged terrifying danger on the roads
1430
as a result of the operation of the power to inspectors to stop vehicles. After all, since 1889 it has been possible to stop vehicles employed in the coal trade, and while conditions now are very different from those in 1889, the difference is not so great if you compare it with 1936, when the Weights and Measures Act was passed, which gave power to stop vehicles loaded with sand or ballast. So far as we know, the local authorities have found no increase of danger on the roads as a result of the conferment of that power to stop vehicles with sand or ballast; and the local authorities, who are also in some cases the highway authority and the education authority, have made no suggestion that this power to stop vehicles should be withdrawn—which is what is proposed under the Bill—on the ground of increased danger to the users of the highways or to children going to school. No evidence has been adduced.
On the other hand, we know that the local authorities who are also weights and measures authorities, deplore the provisions in this Bill, especially Clause 48(7). It is suggested that this power should be taken away from the inspectors, because it is proposed to repeal the Acts of 1889 and 1936, and to repeal local Acts which give the local authorities in certain cases power to stop vehicles. All this is to be removed, as it were, from the protective structure for the consumer.
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, I know that he does not want to make an error for the Record; but in fact the Weights and Measures Act, 1936, did not give powers to inspectors to stop ballast lorries.
LORD LATHAM: If that is the case I must withdraw, but I have been advised that what I said was the case. In any event, it is suggested that this power should be taken from the inspector because of the increasing theft of lorries and the theft of goods which may be on the lorries. That is all very desirable, and naturally we are disturbed at the increase of crime in the way of stealing lorries and their contents. But the burden of that should not be placed upon the consumer, and we must not admit that we can organise ourselves in a decently ordered and properly conducted society only by removing some of the protective facilities which exist for the consumer.

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It seems to me that the proposals in this Bill can be fairly described as a "charter for the cheat". We know, of course, with all respect to the coal trade—and I associate myself in that regard with the expression of the noble Baroness—that it is the case that proportionately there are more fraudulent actions as regards the coal trade than there are in regard to any other trade, and it is unfortunately the poorest of the people whom they defraud. As I said, the proposals in the Bill are almost a charter for the cheat.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord, because he really is grossly exaggerating this? If he is talking about the poorest, it is the poor who buy their coal in 1 cwt. lots; and for a 5-ton lorry to stop each time to deliver a 1 cwt. lot it seems that it must stop about 60 times. So the inspector has a wonderful chance of picking it up.
LORD LATHAM: The noble Lord seldom illuminates a question when he intervenes—and I am sorry to have to say that. But, of course, it is from these people that the itinerant vendors of coal draw most of their trade. It is the poorest people who will suffer as a result of the removal of these protective facilities. In short, the cheat will be able to "cock a snook" at the inspector, to laugh at him and then go on applying his nefarious trade. It really is quite incomprehensible in this year of 1963, and in the name of protecting the consumer, that we should be considering the adoption of the proposals in this Bill.
6.5 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, my instincts in the beginning, I must say, were against the proposals of my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry, because I do not like the idea of giving power to, or allowing power to be retained by, people other than the police to stop normal traffic on the roads. But I have listened with great care to her arguments on both occasions, and particularly to-day. Subject to what the Minister had to say, she convinced me that there is a sound case made out for doing what she proposed. I then listened with a great deal of attention to the Minister's rebuttal of the facts adduced by my noble friend. So far as I can make out, there were five of them. I did not put them down in any
1432
specific order, but traffic control was one of them. He said that to have unskilled and untrained people stopping the traffic was bad for the general movement of traffic and to the detriment of the public.
Having asserted that it was a skilled job, and that only the police could do it, he then, in answer to an intervention by my noble friend Lord Stonham, made a rather curious assertion in reference to school crossings inspectors; that it is easier from the point of view of traffic control to stop a lot of traffic than to stop a little. That seemed to me rather odd, for I should have thought one could snarl up traffic very much more easily by walking out into the middle of the road at a school stopping when a great deal of traffic was coming than by walking along the side of the road when there was one lorry coming and telling it to stop.
LORD DERWENT: I do not know why the noble Lord refers to one lorry coming. What I said was when one lorry, among many others, has to be stopped. That is quite different.
LORD WALSTON: It obviously depends whether the weights and measures inspectors are sensible people, and wait until there is a lot of traffic before they do it, or choose their places more sensibly. The only point I should like to make is that I do not accept the fact that although people can be trained as school crossing inspectors to hold up a lot of traffic it is impossible for weights and measures inspectors similarly to exercise intelligence and common sense in the stopping of vehicles. Furthermore, on that point the Minister has given us no evidence from those responsible for the movement of traffic—from chief constables and people of that kind—to show that congestion in their area is being caused by this practice, and that they would like it stopped. On that point, his argument fails entirely to convince me.
He then brought up this question of stealing. Admittedly, stealing had also passed through my mind. We read of a certain amount of lorries being hijacked on the roads by unauthorised people coming out into the roads, stopping them and going away with them. I was a little sceptical about the stealing, because the average coal lorry carries 5 or 6 tons, and as the price of a ton of coal, if sold legitimately—not the stolen product—is about £10 a ton, the total

1433
value of the contents of a coal lorry is unlikely to be more than £50 or £60. I do not think it is likely that with so many lorries with valuable loads going round the countryside the thief would bother to take a coal lorry and get £50 or £60, when he could by doing the same thing take whisky or cigarettes worth several thousand pounds. I was prepared to be convinced if the Minister had said, "Here are the observations of chief constables. Here are our statistics. So many coal lorries have been stolen". What he said was that somebody had told him—he thought it was a member of Parliament—that someone had told him of some coal lorry being stolen. That cannot be evidence for rebutting the case for this Amendment.
We come to the third point. The inspectors can still, according to the noble Lord, stop these lorries at traffic lights.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, they do not stop them at traffic lights; they are stopped at traffic lights. It is quite different.
LORD WALSTON: The argument is concerned entirely with places where traffic is fairly congested, because where it is not congested it would not occur. There is heavy density of traffic at traffic lights and at that moment the traffic is fairly heavy. It is not always possible in following the lorry to get alongside it. Even supposing the inspector were able to get alongside and lean across and lower his window and say, "You must stop", the lorry driver will not stop there, because if he does he will be holding up the traffic and getting into trouble with the police and doing exactly what the noble Lord is trying to avoid. I will not enter into the legal argument as to whether he will be committing an offence. By the time the inspector can roll down his window, catch the attention of the driver, produce his credentials to make sure he is a duly authorised inspector, the chances are that in nine cases out of ten the lights will have changed and the lorry moved on. I do not think this can be taken as a very serious argument in rebuttal.
We come to the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that all that is needed is to follow the lorry to its depot or its next stop. If it is a decent, bona fide lorry and the driver has nothing
1434
to worry about it will go on; when he sees the inspector following—and the drivers know these inspectors and what their vehicles are—he will go on to the next stop, and all is well. But if he is one of these disreputable characters—and I have no knowledge as to what the proportion is—he will see in his mirror this man following him and will not stop at the next place to deliver short-weight coal; he will drive on to an area which he knows is outside the area of the authority's inspector. So there again the fourth argument fails completely.
The final point which the noble Lord made, having tried to convince us with these other, I would suggest, extremely poverty-stricken points, is that if it is a question of deciding between saving lives on the road or housewives occasionally having short-weight coal, he would go for saving lives on the road—and so would I. But what evidence has he for suggesting this has caused any loss of life at all? When he was specifically asked for figures he said there were none. So he is coming before your Lordships to-day, not as a responsible Minister should, I suggest with all respect, to say, "The evidence is here. This is a serious matter. We have studied statistics. We have obtained them from the road traffic authorities, from the people responsible for collating statistics of accidents and the rest, and there tare so many accidents which have occurred in so many areas over the last five years, so many people killed. Do you want this to go on?" He does not say that at all. He does not even say he talked with somebody who might have been a Member of Parliament, who once said somebody had been knocked down by a lorry. He produces not one jot or tittle of evidence but simply makes a rather emotional appeal based on no evidence. That cannot convince anybody who has followed this discussion. It certainly has not convinced me.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this Amendment; I wanted to save my energies for the deletion of subsection (7). And indeed I knew the case would be fully dealt with by my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry. I was not then aware of the completely devastating answer my noble friend Lord Walston would give to the alleged points of the noble Lord, Lord

1435
Derwent. But I do now want to put one or two things to the noble Lord arising out of the discussion. First, I would ask him—I am sure the House will give him leave to answer—where he gets his facts from. My noble friend Lord Walston said he had not produced any evidence. But whose advice in this matter has he taken? We were told just how the lorries were stopped by the weights and measures inspectors when they came into a lay-by. I do not say that does not happen. Then we were told that when a coal lorry is stopped at traffic lights the weights and measures inspector comes up in his car, presumably takes his eye off the lights—
LORD DERWENT: It happens every day now.
LORD STONHAM: I am just visualising the situation. Still the noble Lord has not told me. But here we are asked to accept this as a serious reason for refusing this Amendment. Consider the people that we have in mind. On the one hand, not terribly highly paid but very experienced and responsible inspectors of weights and measures, trained people, who are out on the roads for the purpose of catching petty crooks. The noble Lord talks of people being stopped at traffic lights and the weights and measures inspector presumably leaning across on to the nearside of his car, because presumably the lorry must be on the other side, and establishing who he is and telling the coal lorry driver to drive into the kerb on the other side of the lights. This is the kind of set-up which the noble Lord thinks is a proper way of doing this job. It is more like something little boys used to call cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers, than a responsible weights and measures inspector carrying out a responsible duty for a local authority.
The noble Lord must visualise the situation he has described. The car driver drives on across the road assuming the coal lorry is going to follow. Many traffic lights are at road junctions, and it is a virtual certainty that if a coal lorry driver knows there is a weights and measures inspector in the car he is going to take the first turning to the left; he is not going to drive into the kerb.
LORD DERWENT: He will then have committed an offence, as the noble Lord knows.
LORD STONHAM: That is always assuming that in those few seconds the weights and measures inspector has convinced the driver of the lorry that he is an inspector duly accredited, and not some kind of highjacker, which the coal lorry driver could quite reasonably plead in defence to have thought, and no doubt would do so. The point I am trying to get over is not whether a weights and measures inspector can and does seize this kind of opportunity to stop a coal lorry, or examine a stopped coal lorry if the noble Lord prefers it that way, but that in this Bill, which is primarily designed to ensure that weights and measures laws should be observed and therefore must be properly administered and, if you like, properly policed, the noble Lord, in a field where we know that petty thievery is constant and rife, proposes to deprive the properly accredited inspectors of the necessary powers to carry out their duties. That is not protection of the consumer; that is just stupidity.
I would ask the noble Lord to tell us who his advisers are, and how it is that their advice is so completely contrary to that of the people who, one would have thought, would have known best—namely, the present weights and measures inspectors, the local authorities who employ them, and who produced the statistics to prove what will be the result if this power does not continue. It is a power which, mainly, they possess in local by-laws. The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said that in the Weights and Measures Act, 1946, there was no power to stop ballast lorries. I am not prepared to argue on that point. But I do say that there is power in local by-laws all over the country now to stop such lorries, and those powers will vanish under this Bill, just as the many powers which local authorities now possess to stop and test lorries will vanish. He spoke of having vehicles check weighed when they had virtually stopped. But there is this sign in the photograph here; that is how they do it.
I do not allege for one moment that weights and measures inspectors should be so utterly mad as to walk out into a

1437
fast-moving stream of traffic and suddenly try to stop a lorry. That would be almost akin to inviting death or serious injury. But I do say that thousands of lorries are stopped by this means, and that acceptance of my noble friend's Amendment would give the inspectors the powers that they badly need and which their local authorities want them to have, and that we should see that they get in this Bill.
6.22 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I think that the reply of the Minister really underlined what I said at the beginning—namely, that whatever reasons were put forward for this Amendment, the reply of the Government was going to be, "No". It seems to me quite incredible that in a case like this, where you have the weights and measures authorities, the local authorities, the industry itself and the consumers all saying
EARL FERRERS EARL FERRERS moved to add to subsection (2):
"and any document displayed with any goods offered or exposed for sale which relates to the price or quantity of the goods and which the inspector has reason to believe may be required as evidence in proceedings under this Act".
The noble Earl said: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I should like to address my remarks to Amendments
one thing, the Board of Trade, without one tittle of evidence from any organisation or any person, completely disregard this evidence. I have given the Minister detailed information from one large city. He has not dealt with one of those matters—not one. I could only hope that reports of this debate will be in the hands of all local authorities and weights and measures inspectors, and that perhaps when we reach the next stage of the Bill the noble Lord will either have some facts to give us or at least will pay some attention to people who deal with this matter. I have no option but to press this Amendment, and I greatly hope that noble Lords on both sides of the House will support me.
6.24 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Amendment (No. 26) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 18; Not-Contents, 40.

CONTENTS

Alexander of Hillsborough, E.

Lawson, L.

Silkin, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Champion, L.

Merthyr, L.

Walston, L.

Crook, L.

Peddie, L.

Williams, L.

Henderson, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Williamson, L.

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailsa, M.

Dundonald, E.

Lothian, M.

Ailwyn, L.

Ferrers, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Albemarle, E.

Ferrier, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Ampthill, L.

Furness, V.

St. Just, L.

Auckland, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

St. Oswald, L.

Bossom, L.

Hailes, L.

Sandys, L.

Boston, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Sandwich, E.

Brocket, L.

Hastings, L.

Somers, L.

Chesham, L.

Hawke, L.

Soulbury, V.

Colville of Culross, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Strang, L.

Conesford, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Craigton, L.

Ironside, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Cromartie, E.

Long, V.

Waleran, L.

Derwent, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Nos. 27 and 28 together. The purpose of these Amendments is to meet a point which was raised in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, in connection with Clause 30. The second of these two Amendments is consequential on the first.
The noble Lord moved an Amendment which would have extended the powers of inspectors in Clause 30(1) to cover not only documents required by or under the Bill, but also any price ticket or notice. The noble Lord argued—and

1439
he was supported on this point by other noble Lords—that in cases of prosecution based on misleading price notices it was necessary for the inspector to be able to produce the notice as evidence in court. We have considered this matter further, as we undertook to do in Committee, and as a result I am moving these Amendments, which I believe will meet the point to which noble Lords attached importance. They will enable an inspector to seize and detain any document, displayed with the goods, which relates to price or quantity and which may be needed as evidence in proceedings under the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 49, line 4, at end insert the said words.—(Earl Ferrers.)
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I took great interest in this matter when it was raised by Lord Faringdon during Committee. I had particularly in mind the widespread use of deceptive price tickets by costermongers, who have various deceptive practices. Very often they put what you think is the price per lb. of the strawberries they are selling on top of the pyramid of strawberries, and then, when you are half way through the transaction, you find that the "½" is written in minuscule letter between the price and the "lb.". This sort of deception is extensively used among costermongers. I very much welcome this Amendment because I really believe that it may serve to stamp out this stupid, tiresome and deceptive practice.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, this Amendment, as I said, is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 49, line 7, leave out ("or articles") and insert ("articles or documents").—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.34 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved to leave out subsection (7). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend and myself, which again deals with power to stop vehicles. Subsection (7) states:
1440
"Nothing in this Act shall authorise any inspector to stop any vehicle on a highway."
I think that it was made perfectly clear by an interjection from my noble friend Lord Walston how uncertain the position of the inspectors will be in this matter, and how that uncertainty will be added to if subsection (7) remains in the Bill—because it specifically draws attention to the fact that an inspector has no authority under this Bill, when it becomes an Act, to stop a vehicle.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, was good enough to write to me after the Committee stage, as he had promised to do, and let me know what he thought about representations which we had made during Committee. He said:
"I have now considered this further, and I am confirmed in my view that it would be wrong to remove subsection (7) of this clause. The removal of this subsection would in itself give no powers to inspectors to stop vehicles."—
I agree with that, of course.—
"The powers which inspectors now have to stop coal lorries under the 1889 Act would be removed by the repeal of that Act under Schedule 9. The purpose of subsection (7) is therefore purely to clarify the position for traders, as well as for the enforcement authorities, and I can see no point or purpose in its deletion."
In my submission, "clarifying the position" apparently means underlining the fact that the inspectors have no powers and that the crooks are free to do as they like. I think that it is a most unfortunate decision by the Government. There is no question but that the Bill intends that vehicles should be inspected by inspectors. That is made clear beyond any doubt by the definition of "premises" as including a vehicle. Clause 58 reads:
"' premises' …includes any place and any stall, vehicle, ship or aircraft".
During the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said (column 602 of Hansard for May 7) that it was arguable that "premises" can be a vehicle. It is not arguable: it is in the Bill. It is by definition a fact. Therefore, if inspectors are going to inspect vehicles, they can inspect them only when they are stationary. If they want to inspect the load in a vehicle that is moving, they must find means of stopping it. If we say in this Bill that nothing here gives them any power to stop a vehicle, then we are drawing attention to the fact that they are going out to do their duty deprived of the essential power.
I would underline that, although we are on the same general point, I am not in this Amendment seeking the powers asked for by my noble friend in the earlier Amendment. I am asking merely that powers which these people now possess should not be taken away. If subsection (7) stays in the Bill the police constables will feel, and probably with justification, that they ought not to assist inspectors to do something which, in effect, is prohibited by the Bill. But if this subsection is taken out of the Bill, the police will feel able to continue to help in stopping vehicles, as they do now. I am not asking, for any additional powers to be given to the inspector, merely that he should not be hindered in the execution of his duties.
In some measure, judging by the replies which he has given previously in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, may have misunderstood the situation. It is not true that no person other than a constable in uniform may lawfully, and quite properly, stop a vehicle on the highway. For many years highway authorities have appointed inspectors of weights and measures as authorised officers under the Road Traffic Act, particularly for the weighing of vehicles suspected of being overloaded. These officers are authorised. They are not constables, but they are authorised to stop motor vehicles on the highway by exhibiting an approved sign, such as the one in the photograph which I showed the noble Lord a little while ago. Despite the arguments which have been used by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, such inspectors of weights and measures who are authorised will continue to use these signs for stopping vehicles and weighing them, as a check against overloading. Surely this would create a ludicrous and quite untenable position, unless the Government had it in mind that nothing whatever, no human or proper interest, should stop the mad flow of road vehicles on the highway.
There is no question, my Lords, of the very great anxiety felt by all weights and measures authorities on this point. In an earlier speech the noble Lord mentioned the City of Glasgow. They are indeed one very big authority, one of the largest in the country, who are extremely anxious on this point. They tell me that officials of the Coal Merchants' Federation are
1442
highly critical of the proposal in the Bill to withdraw the powers of an inspector to stop one of their vehicles. It is not the coal merchants, the owners, who want the inspectors to be deprived of these powers. They are very concerned at the prospect that they are going to lose them. Indeed, the Coal Merchants' Federation in Glasgow have even approached the Corporation to get some form of strict licensing, to rid the trade of the type of person who is giving it such a very bad name; in other words, they are asking for increased powers, not the withdrawal of those which already exist.
My Lords, in a city like Glasgow, just as in London, an offender can so easily avoid detection or avoid proof of an offence, if he has merely to skip in his lorry from the area of one weights and measures authority to another; or, as in Glasgow, just to drive off over the city boundary. I understand that in Glasgow alone in the last year there were well over 3,500 inspections. That is a very large number in one city. Over 1,000 tons of coal were weighted in these inspections, and there were 89 prosecutions and 89 convictions. So it is not that this is a rare offence. It is not negligible. Consumers clearly need protection in this matter. The offence is increasing to such an extent that in Glasgow at times they have had to withdraw staff from one department to another, in order to deal with this problem. We were very disappointed when the Government refused my noble friend's earlier Amendment, and we urge acceptance of this one.
I invited the noble Lord, in a previous discussion, to give us the source of his evidence for the Government's attitude in this matter. He made it quite clear that he was not going to ask for the permission of the House to speak again. Now is his opportunity, because if he has had expert advice on this subject, which would convince us that, desirable as this Amendment would be, it would give rise to greater dangers in another direction, then we ought to know about it. But no mere assertions are of any use, because I am bound to say that time and time again (this has not occurred only to me, or been said only by me: it has been said by a number of noble Lords on different subjects) the statements made by the noble Lord have been divorced from reality. They have

1443
painted quite a false picture of the particular circumstances that we were dealing with at the time. That was the case in respect of my noble friend's Amendment. I therefore urge the noble Lord, if he has the real evidence that would refute these arguments, evidence that would prove to these experts in these great cities that they are wrong, to produce it. If not, I ask your Lordships to be with me in accepting this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 49, line 46, leave out subsection (7).—(Lord Stonham.)
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I think there is much to be said for this Amendment. If we were now debating the question of whether or not a new power to stop vehicles on the highway should be given to inspectors, and the Ministry of Transport said that in their view, because of the increasing traffic on the roads, danger on the roads and so on, such new power should not be given, I believe that noble Lords would respect that, and would not, of course, expect the Ministry of Transport to be able to produce evidence to support their view. But, my Lords, this is not that case. This is the case of taking away from inspectors a power which they have hitherto had for a very long time.
I should have thought that, if the Ministry of Transport are opposing the continuation of this power in the hands of these inspectors, it is up to the Ministry to produce concrete evidence showing instances where danger on the road has been caused by the use of this power by these inspectors. The Ministry, after all, ought to be able to produce this evidence. They do not seem to have done so. I have heard all the arguments adduced by the Minister in charge of this Bill. I have not heard evidence showing any real reason why the Ministry of Transport should be opposing this power of inspectors. The power has existed for a very long time and, unless evidence is to be forthcoming from the Ministry of Transport, I do not believe this power ought to be taken away from the inspectors.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, the last three-quarters of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and the whole of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, dealt with the last Amendment and not
1444
this one, and I intend to confine my remarks to this Amendment. The subsection which the Amendment seeks to remove does not take away from the inspectors any powers: they are removed by quite a different clause. All that subsection (7) is declaring is that they have no powers, because the previous Amendment dealt with the taking away of the powers. This merely states as a fact that they now have no power under this Bill to stop vehicles. The reason it is put in is that up to the passing of this Bill they have had this power, and this is stating emphatically that they have not. But this is not the clause that takes away their power.
LORD AIREDALE: Which clause does that?
LORD DERWENT: The doing away with the Act of 1889, which comes to an end by this Bill.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: Surely, my Lords, that is really a quibble. At a later stage of the Bill one of the Schedules takes away the power; but this subsection is the one that refers to it.
LORD DERWENT: I would ask the noble Lords to read subsection (7):
"Nothing in this Act shall authorise any inspector to stop any vehicle on a highway."
It does not say that it takes away his power. It is merely saying that it is not authorised. It is taken away by the repeal of the other Act. It is in a different part of the Bill.
LORD AIREDALE: It is a quibble.
LORD DERWENT: It is not a quibble.
LORD CROOK: It must be a quibble. We have not reached Schedule 9 yet.
LORD DERWENT: And at this rate we doubtless will not. May I put it in this way to your Lordships? The removal of this subsection, which the Amendment seeks to bring about, would in itself give no powers to inspectors to stop vehicles. Is that clear?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Yes.
LORD DERWENT: The powers they have got will be removed by the repeal of the 1889 Act under Schedule 9; but this subsection does not remove the powers. It is Schedule 9 which does that.

1445
This merely states as a fact what will be made the fact by Schedule 9. Have I made myself clear to noble Lords now? The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, started his remarks by saying that the position of the inspectors was uncertain. The purpose of subsection (7) is to clarify the position, and to make the position certain. We maintain that the effect of deleting it would be misleading, and would only make obscure what is now made clear by the subsection.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, may I—
LORD DERWENT: If I may go on with what I am saying, the noble Lord can speak later, as he is entitled to do. It has been suggested that subsection (7) will create a handicap for inspectors. I do not agree with this view. There is nothing in the Bill which specifically authorises an inspector to stop vehicles. I hope noble Lords will not disagree with that. All subsection (7) does is to make this clear. It cannot in itself create a handicap to inspectors. On the contrary, I think that to remove the subsection might possibly cause confusion, and I think might mistakenly be interpreted as meaning that inspectors have some kind of implied right to stop vehicles even though they have been given no express powers for this purpose. In fact, the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is to the effect that if we delete subsection (7) then inspectors, without being given any power by Parliament to stop vehicles, would more easily be able to deceive lorry drivers that they had got these powers. That is what he said; and, really, if the noble Lord is asking Parliament to encourage deceit of that kind, I am surprised.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, what will an inspector be doing when he pulls up alongside a coal lorry at traffic lights and tells the driver to go over the road and pull up, and to have his lorry weighed? Is that not deceiving him?
LORD DERWENT: Not in the least, because he has not stopped the vehicle. The vehicle is already stopped. Once it is stopped, he can give instructions to the driver that he wishes to weigh his coal, and if the lorry driver does not obey then he is committing an offence. It is no good noble Lords saying that this subsection takes away any power
1446
he has. In our view, if you do not have this subsection in, it is very likely to lead to misunderstanding. As the noble Lord has said, the position of inspectors is uncertain, and it may well remain uncertain if we do not have this subsection in the Bill.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, has the noble Lord any evidence of any misunderstanding up to the present, or of any difficulty?
LORD DERWENT: There can hardly be any misunderstanding at present, because at present they are entitled to stop the lorries.
LORD LATHAM: That is so, but if this Amendment were carried they would continue to be entitled to stop the lorries.
LORD DERWENT: No; that is quite wrong. This would not give any power to the inspectors to stop lorries. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that that is correct.
LORD LATHAM: It is an implied power.
LORD DERWENT: There is no implied power in the Bill. If this subsection is taken away, as the Amendment wants, there is no implied or any other power in the Bill for inspectors to stop lorries.
LORD LATHAM: The implication is by the very absence of anything otherwise in the Bill. I am really very sorry for the noble Lord, because we all know that on this matter his speech is the voice of the Ministry of Transport, not of the Board of Trade.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, this is yet another occasion when the Minister has answered a speech I made in Committee, and not a speech I made this afternoon. It does seem to me that the only chance I shall have of getting a reply to any speech I make is to give a copy to the Minister well in advance so that they can work out the answers to the arguments. Because I did not make the same speech again; I did not use the same material; I advanced new arguments, none of which has been answered. It is within the recollection of the House that almost the first thing

1447
I did was to read out from the Bill what I wanted to take out of it; so I did not deceive anyone. I did not pretend that acceptance of the Amendment would give powers to an inspector, or that he already possesses any. I merely said that acceptance of the Amendment would not underline the fact—these are my very words—that an inspector does not have the power.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, the noble Lord, I think, misunderstood. Several of his noble friends interrupted, and they did not take the same line as the noble Lord.
LORD STONHAM: But when the noble Lord began his speech he said that 75 per cent. of what I had said referred to the previous Amendment, moved by my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry, and only 25 per cent. to the Amendment that I moved. Of course, he is entitled to his opinion on that—and I did say that, broadly speaking, they were on the same general subject. But I addressed my remarks entirely to the deletion of this subsection.
My Lords, I feel that, even if this were accepted, it does not anything like meet the need, but it has been argued and argued in another place, where the Government were adamant, and it has been argued here, and we felt that this was the least we could do. We cannot send these trained and responsible people out to do their job, not merely completely defenceless, with no
authority at all, but with their lack of authority absolutely underlined, so that even a police constable might say, "No, I cannot help you; I am not allowed to do so". What a ridiculous situation. The noble Lord laughs. We are dealing with men who know so much about this that they have stuck up in the cabs of their lorries the registration numbers of inspectors' cars. There was a case, even, where a man had the number in reverse so that it was as it appeared in the mirror of his van. Is the noble Lord really going to tell me that those kind of people will not know that the inspector has no power, that he has been sent out without any authority for his job?
We have been with this Bill—at least, I have—for more than two years, and it has been very much altered and very much improved from its original condition. Basically we have always held the view that it was for the protection of the consumer, but I am bound to say that from our discussions to-day, and from some other discussions on this Bill, the consumer is going to have less protection—considerably less protection—than he or she has now. Therefore, we must press this matter. I know that noble Lords are anxious for us to finish, but we must press this matter to a Division.
7.0 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Amendment (No. 29) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 14; Not-Contents, 31.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Alexander of Hillsborough, E.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Burton of Coventry, B.

Merthyr, L.

Walston, L.

Champion, L.

Peddie, L.

Williamson, L.

Crook, L.

Sainsbury, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailsa, M.

Dulverton, L.

Ironside, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Dundonald, E.

Long, V.

Albemarle, E.

Ferrers, E.

Lothian, M.

Ampthill, L.

Ferrier, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Bossom, L.

Furness, V.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Boston, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

St. Just, L.

Brocket, L.

Hastings, L.

Sandys, L.

Chesham, L.

Hawke, L.

Strang, L.

Conesford, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Cromartie, E.

Iddesleigh, E.

Waleran, L.

Derwent, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Clause 51 [Prosecution of offences]:
LORD CROOK LORD CROOK moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "or the chief officer of police for a police area". The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move, on behalf of my noble friend, to leave out on page 50, line 40, the words "or the chief officer of police for a police area". I read the words of the Amendment because I want to make it clear that the Amendment as now moved is not in the form in which it was moved originally in the Committee stage. It has, in fact, been amended to meet the point of view which the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, then expressed: that is to say, the lack of desire for powers of prosecution expressed by the Board of Trade. In the main, the arguments for the Amendment in its present form remain largely as they were when they were so admirably advanced by my noble friends Lord Latham and Lord Stonham in the Committee stage on the 7th May, but I will try not to repeat the words or the main arguments they then used.
The most weighty argument I would advance—and it is tile kind we have been advancing in this House largely during this Report stage—is that the County Councils Association, all the associations of inspectors, including the Institute of Weights and Measures Administration, feel strongly that the power to prosecute should be confined to the weights and measures authority and persons acting on their behalf. They were, of course, very happy originally to extend the power to the Board of Trade in the kind of Amendment they suggested to us; but, since in his reply on behalf of the Government the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, indicated that the Board had no desire to have that power, the Amendment is now put forward to restrict power to prosecute to local weights and measures authorities.
We accept and strongly support the view of those who have made representations to us. We think that on this, as on other matters we have represented here this afternoon, they know the most about these things. They are the authorities with experience; they are the authorities who will in due course have to administer this Bill when it becomes an Act. We think the technicalities and complications of the Bill are such that they require
1450
qualified administrators and that the power to prosecute under the provisions of the Act should therefore be strictly restricted to the knowledgeable authorities and their experts to whom I have referred.
Let me say to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, who is to reply for the Government, that in our view it is no argument against the proposition to say that sometimes in the course of their duties the police and the inspectors of weights and measures discover very serious offences entirely outside the purposes of weights and measures law which is, as we know, mainly control of the details of trade activities for the public at large. These serious offences that are discovered, and have not normally anything to do with weights and measures, are passed on to the police. So we are informed by those who deal with these matters. On the other hand, where a policeman stumbles on circumstances that might constitute an offence against the weights and measures law, it is equally proper and in the best interests of the public that he should pass the matter to the weights and measures authority, rather than try to deal with it himself. I am told that in practice that is what normally happens. The suggestion that there is any advantage in enabling police officers dealing with serious crimes to prosecute for comparatively minor weights and measures misdemeanours is, as I see it, far removed from the realities of practice.
May I remind your Lordships of the figures, which the noble Lord himself gave in the course of the Committee stage, when he referred to the replies which had been given to a questionnaire sent to county councils and county boroughs? The figures that he had collated by that method proved beyond doubt that there were no police prosecutions for weights and measures offences in the area of the principal weights and measures authorities in England and Wales during the past five years. The noble Lord went on to say, however, that though there were no prosecutions in the areas of county councils and county boroughs, there were some in other weights and measures areas, but he was afraid that he did not have their number at his disposal at that moment. We hope very much that he has that number this afternoon, to make up for the figure he could not give us in May. Let me say

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clearly that, despite all our researches, we have been unable to find any at all in the period in between.
I have not the slightest doubt, of course, that there were some cases ten or twenty years ago, but we cannot trace any in the past five years, the period to which the noble Lord referred. If we start talking about twenty years instead of five, where are we getting? If we go back far enough, to the date of the Statutes which we are so busily repealing, we shall find that the majority of prosecutions were instituted by the police, but we should have to remind ourselves that the reason for that was that a large number of police officers in those days were weights and measures officers as well. But we are not dealing with 1878 or even with 1898. We are dealing with 1963 and with the views of well-informed people of long experience who have to look forward to the years when this Bill has become law. We believe that the views they have offered us are good and that, in consequence, this Amendment is good. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 50, line 40, leave out the said words.—(Lord Crook.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, the noble Lord has taken a slightly different line on a slightly different Amendment, and my reply will be slightly different. As I said in Committee, when Amendments which would have had a similar effect to this one were moved, the police already have the power to institute proceedings under existing law and there is no evidence that the powers of the police to prosecute weights and measures offences have ever caused any difficulties. Indeed, on a number of occasions they have proved useful.
If the noble Lord's Amendment is put forward in the interests of efficiency, I do not think that he has made out his case. This Bill creates a number of new offences, some of which, particularly in Part III, dealing with public weighing and measuring equipment, could appropriately on occasion be dealt with by the police. I do not think that this power ought to be taken away from them. It has always worked satisfactorily, the weights and measures authorities have never had any objection, and we feel that it ought to be left. The noble Lord has
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not put forward the argument made by a previous speaker about zealous young constables barging into stores.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, who made that case?
LORD DERWENT: It was implied that young constables might go into shops. I do not remember who put this forward, but I will check it.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I am bound to say that I very much regret that the noble Lord not only does not come my way at all, but shows this tendency for the argument which comes from the Government Benches to depend entirely upon the Ministry which is advancing it. We are anxious to increase the efficiency of the police. The noble Lord is right in saying that a number of new offences are going to be created by the Bill but, by the way in which our Amendments have been completely stymied by the Government, we are going to have a large amount of chopping up of authorities and of difficulties artificially created for us. We are going on to the London Government Bill next week and then we shall have even more of them.
Apparently the noble Lord is quite happy to sit there representing the Board of Trade and see the police take on this extra work. We are trying to see that the police have less work. I do not know whether the noble Lord knows that in the area of the London Government Bill the police, who up to now have been training young children in safety on bicycles, are being withdrawn from this job. Everybody knows the efficiency with which the police have done this job and that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents rely upon them. They are being withdrawn for one reason and one reason only: because the police have too many duties to do at the moment. When we have a Bill with a Board of Trade background, we have the Board of Trade argument—never mind about transport or anything else. When we are discussing the police or accidents on the road, we get another kind of argument. We never seem to be able to make them fit together.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I just refer to the noble Lord's question, to which I think he is entitled to an answer?

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It was not the noble Lord who said it, but the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and the noble Lord will find it in the second paragraph of column 610 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for May 7. Lord Stonham referred to the "over-zealous young constable" et cetera.
LORD LATHAM: My noble friend is more adventurous than I.
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry that I ascribed it to the noble Lord.
LORD CROOK: In all the circumstances, in view of the adamance of the noble Lord, and the lack of desire to keep on dividing at this hour of the evening, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 61 [Transitional provisions for milk and bread]:
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved in subsection (3) after "apply" to insert "(a)". The noble Lord said: My Lords, with your Lordships' premission, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 together. These are the first two, and I hope satisfactory, Amendments dealing with milk. The purpose of these Amendments is to exempt school milk from the general requirement in Clause 61(3) that third pints shall be marked with their quantity. This requirement applies six months after the Bill is passed and until Schedule 4 comes into force. When the Schedule comes into force two years after the Bill is passed, all pre-packed milk will have to be marked with its quantity. Under present law, third pints are allowed for sale only to schools, and there is no requirement to mark the quantity. Your Lordships will recall that the provision in Clause 61(3) which allows milk to be sold generally in third pints, provided it is marked with the quantity, was inserted in the Bill in Committee following an undertaking given in another place to allow third pints for general sale at an earlier date than was provided for in the Schedule.
In view of the Government Amendments permitting vending machines to sell in any quantity for 6d. up to the time when the Schedule comes into force (we have not yet come to those, but we shall), representatives of the dairies have pointed
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out that it is unlikely that third pints will come into general use during this period, and that the main effect of Clause 61(3) will be that school milk will have to be marked eighteen months earlier than it would have to be under the Schedule. This will involve expense and considerable inconvenience to the trade, and, in the circumstances, we do not think it necessary to require marking of school milk in advance of the general marking requirements for all milk when the Schedule comes into force. Thus the Amendments will temporarily exempt school milk sold in third pints—but not ordinary retail sales in third pints—from the requirement that the containers must be marked with their quantity. I hope the noble Lord opposite will think this is a reasonable provision. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 57, line 26, after ("apply") insert ("(a) ").—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we do indeed regard this as a reasonable provision. It is clear to us that it is necessary, and we are grateful to the Government for having met this point. There is just one small point—and I am sorry I did not give notice of it to the noble Lord. I wonder whether he can tell me why the words "as a beverage" are included. It says:
"…for consumption as a beverage by the pupils of that school".
It seems to me that if they had some milk over and could not get a lot of Tommy Browns and Johnny Smiths to rally around and drink it up, it might have to be tipped down the drain and would be wasted. Why could they not make it up into a milk pudding, or something like that, the next day? Would they be committing an offence? I am not trying to be clever or funny about this, but I am not clear why it could be consumed only as a beverage, as we are dealing with schools, and it might lead to unnecessary waste. I am sure there is a simple explanation, but perhaps the noble Lord could give it.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I speak again with the permission of the House. This is the phrase used in the Emergency Powers (Milk) (Great Britain) Order, 1962, to which this specifically refers. That is the Order in force now and refers to milk "as a beverage".
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, with the permission of the sole supporter on my side, who prevents me from feeling rather like the boy left on the burning deck now that we have come to milk, that still does not explain the point. I appreciate that it is in the regulations now, but I still do not understand why it is in the regulations. That is probably a good reason for putting it in here, but could the noble Lord deal with the point of whether the milk would have to be thrown away if it was not consumed because it could not be consumed as a beverage?
LORD DERWENT: The technical point in regard to school milk is that if it is provided for milk puddings it is not allowed under the Order at present to be provided in third-of-a-pint bottles.
LORD STONHAM: Obviously they will have to throw it away if it is in third-of-a-pint bottles.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 57, line 29, at end insert ("or
(b) as respects any sale of any milk made up in a container in that quantity, being a sale to, or for the purpose of resale to, any person having the management of any school, or any person acting under his authority, for consumption as a beverage by the pupils of that school.")—(Lord Derwent.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
7.25 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, after subsection (3) to insert:
"(3A) The said section 7(1) shall not apply to a sale of pre-packed milk at a price of sixpence by means of a vending machine if—

(a) the milk is pre-packed in a container marked with an indication of quantity by capacity measurement and a statement that it is not for sale otherwise than by that means; and

(b) there is displayed to any prospective buyer, on or in the machine, an indication of the quantity by capacity measurement of the milk in each container offered or exposed for sale in the machine;

and it shall not be a contravention of the said section 7(1) for any person to sell otherwise than by retail, or to have in his possession—

(i) for sale by means of such a vending machine or otherwise than by retail, or

(ii) for delivery on sale otherwise than by retail,

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any milk pre-packed as aforesaid notwithstanding that it is pre-packed in a quantity not otherwise permitted by the said section 7(1)."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the permission of noble Lords opposite, I will discuss Amendments 34, 37 and 38 together—that is, the Amendment to Clause 61 and the two Amendments to Clause 66—as they are connected. Their effect is to permit, for a period of two years from the passing of the Bill, sales of pre-packed milk through vending machines at a price of 6d. in any quantity, provided that the quantity sold is shown on both the containers and the machines. These Amendments will relax the requirements of existing law—the Sale of Food (Weights and Measures) Act, 1926—and they will lapse, with the repeal of that Act, two years after the passing of the Bill by virtue of Clause 63 and Schedule 9. Thus, they will allow vending machines, during the two years from the passing of the Bill, to continue to sell pre-packed milk at their present price of 6d., but in a quantity of less than the half-pint in which they are now required to sell.
In moving these Amendments, I must make it plain that the Government remain firmly convinced, for the reasons which have been given on previous occasions, both here and in another place, that, as a permanent arrangement, sales from milk-vending machines should be subject to the same weights and measures requirements, as apply to other retail sales. This is a matter which we shall no doubt be debating when we reach the Amendment which noble Lords have tabled to Schedule 4. We have put down the Amendments to Clause 61 and Clause 66 in order to meet the current difficulties of the vending-machine operators, and purely as a means of giving the operators of the existing machines a temporary breathing space to prepare for whatever adjustments might be necessary to enable them to comply with the requirements of the Schedule. We do not believe that to perpetuate this arrangement, which applies different requirements to sales from vending machines and to other retail sales, would be either desirable in principle or satisfactory in practice. To mention only one practical point at this stage, any cartons which are not sold within a

1457
reasonable period from a vending machine at the moment are taken out and put on the front of the counter and sold as first milk in the morning. This is a common practice, but if it is made a permanency any cartons not sold in a reasonable period from a vending machine could not be taken out of that machine and sold over the counter. This may well cause difficulties for the trade, and might even cause a public scandal. I mention that in advance to show that this is only a temporary matter, but I suggest that we deal with the long-term position in detail when we reach Schedule 4. For the period until the Schedule comes into force, these Amendments will, I think, meet the purpose of the three Amendments which noble Lords opposite have tabled to Clause 61. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 57, line 29, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, as the noble Lord has rightly said, for a period of two years at least the Amendment he has now moved meets the points that we raised in Committee and it meets the Amendment I moved, No. 33, and the two later Amendments, Nos. 35 and 36, which I shall not now need to move. I am extremely grateful, and on behalf of the farmers and dairymen, and everyone connected with the sale of milk and, indeed, the people in factories, on railway stations, and housewives, who find this a great convenience, I would thank the noble Lord and the Government. I must also add my thanks to the noble Lord for having now so frankly stated the Government's position on this matter and for suggesting that we have the main discussion on Schedule 4 and on the Amendment which I hope to move.
I will add my thanks to him also for making in advance what I regard as one or two quite valuable comments which can be studied. I do not think that the position regarding unsold milk from vending machines is a major point. It had to be dealt with, of course, but each machine holds only about 100 cartons and there are not usually circumstances where it is unsold for a long period; and they are, of course, refrigerated machines. I hope I have thanked the noble Lord adequately. He has made
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some remarks in advance of the debate which we shall have later on when we resume, but I hope he will not mind if I just mention one or two things to him on which he will perhaps cogitate before we resume the Report stage of the Bill at our next session, which I believe will be in about ten days' time.
When the noble Lord considered this matter in Committee he said that the Government felt it was wrong in principle and unenforceable in practice to differentiate between vending machines and other forms of retail sale. Apparently, if he has not decided that this is right in principle, he has at least decided that it is right in practice, but only for two years, and then presumably it will go all wrong and impracticable all over again. Then he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 249 (No. 79), col. 618]:
"I have no wish to enter into the question of price, because this Bill does not deal with price…"
He continued, referring to myself:
"…it is no good the noble Lord pretending that unless the price is 6d. these containers could not be sold in vending machines, because that is not so…I find the noble Lord's argument quite staggering…"
Indeed, it is so staggering, apparently, that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has happily staggered into an Amendment which insists that the price shall be 6d. I do not know who converted him. I know that there have been two letters and articles in The Times but it could not possibly have been The Times which converted him, because we have been assured on the best authority that The Times is an anti-Conservative paper. It must, therefore, have been myself.
The noble Lord went on to say (col. 627):
"If an exemption were allowed for milk sold from vending machines it would be…almost impossible to see how exemptions for vending machine sales of other goods could be resisted."
It is not resisted. When the price of chocolate goes up, the size of the chocolate in the packet goes down. In summer the same refrigerated vending machines, I assure noble Lords from my own knowledge, are used to sell orange drinks or chocolate milk drinks, on which there is no price or quantity control whatever and which lead to no difficulty at all in competition with milk.

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Finally the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, insisted—and presumably he still insists (col. 628):
"Commodities such as milk must be sold only in certain quantities, and in no others…we believe that is most important."
Throughout my time in Parliament, some 20 years, I have also thought that the agricultural community—the farming industry and the dairy industry—was most important, that the interests of the consumer were most important and that the Government and Parliament should not interfere unnecessarily, arbitrarily and without due cause in the development of industry; and I do ask the noble Lord to have a look at what he said in Committee and at the points I have now quoted on which the noble Lord has apparently had second thoughts. I hope that he will come prepared, as I am sure he will, when we discuss this matter again, to listen to the arguments, not only with an open mind but with the power, as I hope, to decide in accordance with the arguments (because they are very heavy indeed) in favour of making the arrangement which is now to continue for two years a permanent one.
Lastly, I hope that he will consider this further point. The Government have apparently decided, for the reasons he stated, to allow this to go on only for two years. I cannot now discuss my later Amendments, but if the method I suggest there were adopted by the Government it would always be open to the Board of Trade, if they found that the interests of the consumers, or any other interests, were being impaired, to change the arrangement. Therefore, I hope that in the interim period we are now fortunately having for consideration, the Government will consider that way of safeguarding the proper interests, rather than the other way round, of bringing this scheme to an end in two years' time, risking the disruption of industry, with grave damage to the farming community, and then finding the remedy after the damage is done. I hope that the noble Lord will think all these things over in the next ten days and that we shall have a thorough debate on them, with many other noble Lords having an opportunity of expressing their points of view. In the meantime I would thank him for the present Amendment.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said early in his remarks that he would be moving another Amendment at the Report stage. Did he, in fact, mean at the Third Reading?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I may be anticipating matters, but I think that it is unlikely that we shall get as far as the end of the Report stage to-night, which means that we shall have to return to it.
7.38 p.m.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, my noble friend has indicated very clearly the point of view of this side of the House on this new subsection. To some extent we welcome it, and the fact that this is an acceptance of the principle, but, unfortunately, it is only for a limited period of time. My noble friend has indicated the tremendous importance of the vending machine for the sale of milk, and also the very great service it gives to the consumer. We are all very concerned with protection of the consumer and, primarily, this Bill has that objective; but one would have thought that a clear statement of quantity and price would in itself have offered the protection which the consumer requires. It appears to me that this Amendment is rather an attempt to extricate the Government from the tangle in which they find themselves over these vending machines, and I am sorry, quite frankly, that it is merely a stop-gap, because the new subsection merely amends the Sales of Food Act which will be repealed in a matter of two years.
I wonder where the difficulty lies in all this and why the Government appear to be making such a fuss of an apparently simple matter. I am told that there are about 6,000 vending machines in this country, each costing about an average of £365. Probably £2¼ million is involved. Does the Minister honestly believe that at the end of two years it will be possible to replace those machines or even effect the necessary very considerable changes that would be involved? Therefore I feel quite frankly that the attitude of the Government is of such a character as to restrict the considerable services offered in vending machines. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand why in the first place there is the acceptance of the principle and then it is limited to a period of two years. When one thinks,

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for instance, that in the Palace of Westminster itself there are quite a number of machines dispensing various drinks of all kinds—non-alcoholic, I must make clear—but in none of which are the drinks in any stipulated quantities, one realises that if the new subsection goes through in its present form all those machines will be useless. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why there is this limitation for the period of two years.
LORD CROOK: I want to intervene for only one minute, because I want to join in the appeal to the Government to take a lot of thought about this problem. My noble friend made reference to machines in this House. He is in fact referring to a type of machine which, whether it refrigerates or heats, has the same kind of refrigeration mechanism—that is to say, heat movement—within it. They have become a very important part in what I have represented for forty years, industrial relations in this country. There has been a growing desire on the part of the Government and everybody else to try to see that welfare and amenity arrangments inside industry are improved and new things are added if possible. It is surprising how many milk machines have been installed in great factories and industrial establishments. Even if I confined myself to milk and said nothing about tea and coffee, and soup and lemonade, the problem would be big. The noble Lord might well protest—I do not think he will, because he will know how right I am—that we are talking about milk and ask why I talk about other things. It is because there is this same heat extraction or heat addition. Very important work by some of our large engineering firms is involved in the provision of this amenity.
I welcome the fact that this Report stage will not come to an end to-night, so far as we understand, and there may be a chance even now for further thought on this matter. Do not let us kill all this, because I am convinced that that is what is going to happen. First of all, it is not merely the case that people have spent large quantities of money on buying these machines to install for their people—and in my representative capacity as chairman of a national Board I may say that we have purchased and put in these very expensive dispensers—but
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it will cost a small fortune to alter them. If they are altered it is probably going to make them more difficult to work. I am sure the Board of Trade must have had this point put to them by everybody connected with the milk industry and with the selling of drinks in general. What is going to happen to this new and beginning-to-flourish industry? Obviously nobody is going to start putting in new machines for at least the two years. The welfare amenity arrangements which we all want to encourage, and the Government want to encourage, presenting charters and the like, are going to be held up. In addition, the firms are going to stop production and might go out of production and not bother any more. Part of what I have said is a little wide of the Amendment, but I said it quite deliberately. I am not trying to make a Party argument here. I think there is a real point at issue. My own colleagues did not know I was going to intervene. I hope the Government will have another look at this.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, during the recent cold weather I was responsible, as a result of the reconstruction of Euston Station, in urging on the railway authorities the installation of vending machines, not only for liquids, on which noble Lords opposite seem to concentrate, but also for solids—pies and the like. For anybody who goes into a railway station at night, it does not matter what the size of the pie is so long as he can get something for sixpence. These intricate and beautiful machines—there is no question about it, their design is wonderful—are today, and are going to be, whether for liquids or solids, a very important factor in the ordinary refreshment of people. If the Government can do anything to assure the designers of these machines and the people who put up capital, including British Railways, for installations of this sort, that these machines will operate for years to come, it will be a good thing, and in many respects I fully support what has been said by noble Lords opposite.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I just say "Thank you" to noble Lords for the limited welcome they have given to this proposal because it is for a limited period. The noble Lords, Lord

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Peddie and Lord Crook, will not expect me to debate Schedule 4 at this moment. May I state what the Government feeling is at the moment and I think is likely to remain?—but I will consider everything that has been said. We are not convinced that it is wise, in the interests of consumer protection, to allow milk in any form, as a long-term arrangement, to be sold in anything except fixed quantities. We are not alone in feeling that; it happens all over the United States, as your Lordships know. As regards this particular Amendment, we felt it would be grossly unfair to ask the people operating these machines to alter them in a hurry; so, at any rate, we are prepared to go as far as that. But, as a matter of principle, but not practice, we are, in the interests of consumer protection, not at the moment in agreement that, in the long-term, milk should be sold in anything except fixed amounts. I am grateful to noble Lords for having given an indication of the arguments I shall have to meet.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 66 [Short title and commencement]:
LORD DERWENT: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 59, line 40, after ("IV") insert ("section 61(3A) ").—(Lord Derwent.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 59, line 43, after ("Act") insert ("section 61(3A) shall come into force on the said date").—(Lord Derwent.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Foods]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, in paragraph 2(2), to leave out sub-paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: This is the first Amendment in the Schedules. It proposes to delete sub-paragraph 2(2)(b) of Part II of the Fourth Schedule. This refers to container allowances under Table B. That is the second category of allowances—not large ones, quite small ones, but certainly allowances much greater than the slip of grease-proof paper. This applies to goods which are not pre-packed. We are talking about
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fish, poultry and sausage meat which is not pre-packed—and it seems to me that to leave this sub-paragraph in the Bill means that people will be allowed to sell these commodities by gross weight and have a container allowance which is quite unjustifiable.
I should not mind a bit if this were Table A and they were small allowances, which would be reasonable and could be regarded as necessary for hygiene; but I think this is a considerable infringement of the principle of net weight which it is not possible to justify. Because these are not pre-packed goods; they will mostly be sold over the counter. It seems to me not right that containers of this weight—not excessive, but still far too much—should be allowed. I am quite sure that we can get this Amendment completed within ten minutes. There is no need to enlarge on it. The principle is there. I should not mind Table A, but I object to Table B. For that reason, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 69, line 27, leave out sub-paragraph (b).—(Lord Stonham.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I hope to persuade the noble Lord that it is not really so unreasonable to do what we want to do. I cannot accept that it would be right to delete the provision allowing, in certain conditions, wholesale sales of poultry and sausage meat by gross weight. As I said in Committee, poultry and sausage meat are among the various products in this Schedule which are liable to lose weight to an unpredictable extent from evaporation or other causes, and for which it is extremely difficult for a factory packer to mark a weight which will be accurate at the time of sale. If the article is only lightly packed—it may not be a container—by a band or wrapper round the sausages, and it is almost entirely exposed to the air, such a marking is quite impossible at the packing place. Moreover, the net weight of such a pack can be ascertained at the time of sale only by removing the wrapper. The Bill recognises this difficulty and does not require the pack to be marked with, or sold by, net weight, provided that the weight of the container or wrapper does not exceed the quite small allowance permitted by Table B of Part XII of this Schedule. They are

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small allowances, and I hope, therefore, in view of that explanation of the extreme difficulty of doing what the noble Lord wants, he will agree to withdraw this Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I must confess that it is a somewhat novel idea that this provision is in the Bill for the reason that goods which are not pre-packed are, in fact, pre-packed. That is really what the noble Lord has said; and apparently he assents to that. That is really quite novel—it is the best we have had to-day. But I think he was hard put to it to find something. Eventually, he just got down to an unwrapped bundle of sausages with a girdle round the middle, and he said that the wrapper could weigh as much as 4½ drams. I quite agree—it probably could, although that is not much. I confess that I am somewhat impressed by what he said about evaporation, although I should have thought the tolerance given in the Bill would have avoided any possibility of a prosecution. I do not altogether like it. I am rather surprised that we have not pushed this one before. I hope that, without giving any kind of undertaking at all, the noble Lord will have a look at this. Perhaps he would like to write to me about it—
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, perhaps I may help the noble Lord, if the House will allow me. I have had a note from the technical side about these wrapped sausages. Sausages wrapped with their wrapper are, in fact, pre-packed. That is at page 52, line 32. There is no doubt about their being pre-packed.
LORD STONHAM: My noble friend Lord Lucan has reminded me of the fact that every sausage is pre-packed.
LORD DERWENT: Every pre-war sausage.
LORD STONHAM: That is what I thought—that a pound of sausages with a wrapper round them are, of course, pre-packed. But I understand the noble Lord to say that Table B is justified because some sausages are not wrapped with a wrapper all round them but just have a band or girdle round the middle holding them together. I thought that even that amounted to pre-packing. I have two thoughts on this. One is, that perhaps it is really not worth talking about, and the
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other is that there may be some slight justification in regard to this question of evaporation. Not now, but perhaps later, I should be grateful if the noble Lord would consult his technical department and would write to me in regard to whether they can think of any other example of this very peculiar category which apparently justifies a sub-paragraph in the Bill. With that, I would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I beg to move that the Report stage be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Motion agreed to.

SAVINGS FROM RAILWAY CLOSURES
7.58 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to inform Parliament, local authorities and members of the public concerned with the proposed closures of railway lines:

(a) of the savings, which it is hoped will arise from individual closures;

(b) the details of the costs on which these estimates are based.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. It will be remembered that on May 14 I asked an ordinary starred Question in your Lordships' House. The purpose of the Question was to ask whether Her Majesty's Government would issue a White Paper in which they would state individually the estimated savings on each of the proposed branch line closures referred to in the Beeching Report and included in the total estimated saving of £18 million. The answer of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, on that occasion created such general dissatisfaction and concern as to cause no fewer than twelve noble Lords, apart from myself to put supplementary questions which, with the answers, occupied nearly seven columns of Hansard. I think he would agree that that was an indication of the concern which was felt in this matter.
In effect, Lord Chesham refused on behalf of the Government to publish the

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figures of anticipated net savings; but he said they would be communicated, with details of direct costs, to the transport users' consultative committees, who would pass them on to the objectors. I am only paraphrasing, not quoting exactly. I found this both astounding and useless because the transport users' consultative committees are precisely and rigidly precluded by the 1962 Act from discussing the costs or savings, so that the information is of absolutely no use to them at all. They are indeed the one body to whom it is not necessary to send that particular information. The people who do need it are the local authorities, industry, business, amenity societies, and private persons who, if they are affected by railway closures, need the information but are debarred from receiving it.
The noble Lord has said that local authorities and others, even in advance of closure notices, could now be preparing their cases for submission to the T.U.C.C.'s on the grounds of hardship, and, on all other grounds, to the Minister. He has not said that they should immediately start doing that, but there is no reason at all why they should not begin to do it if they are on the prospective closure list.
One question which is in everybody's mind is this: "How much does our line lose, and could it be made viable by means of economies or a less regular service, and so on?" Another question which is in people's minds is: "Would it be worth while to approach British Railways to see whether we could take over our line?" None of these vitally important questions can be answered unless the full facts are made available for study. Surely that goes without saying. I put it to the noble Lord, as the prime point of my argument and request, that surely the Government want to be fair to people, want to bend over backwards, if you like, to be just in these matters—and that surely means giving all reasonable access to the necessary information.
I would go further than that—and I am sure the noble Lord will agree—and say that the sole justification put forward by the Government, or by Dr. Beeching, for the closure of a railway is that it is losing money. If it can be shown that it does not
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lose money or that it can be made viable by various adjustments, then the whole case for closure vanishes. Why then this secrecy? Should not the Government do everything possible to make the cost known and positively encourage the local authorities and others to save their railways if they can? Surely this would be better than providing, and probably eventually subsidising, alternative bus services and thus putting extra traffic on to already overcrowded roads.
If the noble Lord will refer to the various answers he gave on May 14—I have no doubt he has already done so—he will agree that he declared there was no secrecy about the figures, but that it was not for the Government to produce them. It sounds pretty contradictory to me. He declared the figures were reliable. The noble Lord nods. It is in Hansard.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am not disputing that. I was merely following the noble Lord's argument in my own mind. I am not disputing what he says.
LORD STONHAM: I shall be glad to be interrupted if the noble Lord thinks I say anything which is not correct.
LORD CHESHAM: I did not want to interrupt the noble Lord. I was shaking my head to myself because of his argument, not because of what he attributed to me, which was perfectly correct.
LORD STONHAM: I think it is perfectly proper for the noble Lord to admonish himself, but I thought he might be admonishing me. The noble Lord said that there was no secrecy about the figures, but that it was not for the Government to produce them. He declared that the figures were reliable, but refused Parliament a chance to check them. They would be produced when a closure was announced. When asked by my noble friend Lady Summerskill what purpose this silence served, he could only say that the Government considered that production of the figures was "inappropriate". I do not know when, in reason, it would be "appropriate". Then his noble friend Lord Colville of Culross asked [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 249 (No. 83), cols. 1181–1182]:
"Is the noble Lord aware that when it comes to the point of a closure and a hearing before the transport users' consultative committee, even if the figures are then available

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it is impossible for any member of the public to address an argument on them, to cross-examine the Board, or to have anything to do with them? They are simply treated by that time as something between the Board and the transport users' consultative committee themselves".
The noble Lord replied:
"I should riot have thought that that was the position".
His noble friend said:
"It is so".
Of course it is so. During the debate last evening his noble friend read out chapter and verse for it, and the noble Lord must know that that is the position. It cannot be discussed; there cannot be cross-examination before the transport users' consultative committee.
I then put forward the view that the answers were disgraceful in a Parliamentary sense, and that they led to the inescapable conclusion that the Government are afraid to submit the figures to close and expert scrutiny; that even if lines are paying or can be made to pay they still want to close them. I do not necessarily say that that is the Government view. I said that that is the conclusion to which this kind of secrecy leads. In my view, it is an utterly indefensible, and indeed an immoral, position.
I propose to show how unreliable are some of the figures in the Beeching Report and to give other examples from the figures of closures now proposed. First, I want to clear up a point of apparent doubt as to whether criticisms of figures and counter-proposals affecting economies should be sent to the Minister or not. At one time last night Lord Chesham appeared to regard this as a management matter not for the Minister. Then later in his speech—and I am sure he will agree with me that it is advisable on both sides that if there is a point of doubt it should be cleared up—in column 1363 of yesterday's Hansard, he said:
"My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport has also made it quite clear that he will carefully consider all relevant representations that are made to him when the Board give formal notice of a particular closure proposal".
I asked:
"To whom should a local authority send the information, if they are of the opinion that a line which it is proposed to close could be made viable by reducing or modifying
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the service? That is a management matter, which the noble Lord said would be excluded. To whom should the representations be made?"
And the noble Lord replied:
"The representations mentioned should be sent to the Minister".
He will remember that his noble friend Lord Hawke later on also seemed to be in some doubt. I think that it will be extremely valuable if the noble Lord could deal with that important point. If the noble Lord had answered that they should be sent to the Railways Board, I would have regarded that as totally unacceptable because it would mean that they were in a sense the judges of their own cases.
I should like now to examine some of the figures merely as samples, because I find that too many figures are extremely boring. The noble Lord did not yesterday quote me quite accurately, but implied that I always said British Railways were wrong, while other people did not find them wrong. I want to give him an example. Everyone is familiar with the statement in the Beeching Report that, generally speaking, if a line does not carry 10,000 passengers a week it cannot pay its passenger costs, and if that particular line has not contributed to its costs from goods traffic then it will need 17,000 passengers a week in order to pay its costs. Dr. Beeching bases that on a single-track line costing £58 per mile per week for route maintenance and signalling, and with stations every 2½ miles each costing £50 a week. He also bases it on 224 trains a week, 32 every day including Sundays. My Lords, if you know of any small branch line with that sort of service—224 trains a week, 32 every day—I hope you will tell Dr. Beeching: because he does not. But he then solemnly proceeds to work out how much per mile each line would lose with costs and service at that imaginary level—imaginary, that is, for many of the lines with which he deals; and of course, without the slightest difficulty he proves what he set out to do: that they do not pay.
For example (and I am referring to the Report) he starts with a line having less than a total of 1,000 passengers a week on these 224 imaginary trains. That is an average of four passengers per train. What railway and what line manager would continue to run trains every hour,

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from 7 in the morning until 10 at night, if each train carried only four people? In fact, my Lords, those figures are quite meaningless below 6,000 passengers a week, for the type of operation taken as a model. The model taken is applied everywhere. The same example has £3,000 a year route-mile costs. But £3,000 a year for route mile costs is for heavy traffic, and it is less than honest to apply that kind of cost as an excuse for closing a lightly used branch line. It is just the same with train costs. The same Report puts diesel unit costs at from 4s. to 6s. a mile—this is in the same section—and 100 pages further on the Report quotes one line with a diesel rail bus costing 2s. 4d. a mile and another one with a multiple diesel unit costing 3s. 1d. a mile.
The noble Lord will also be aware that the Report refers to a steam-train unit costing 15s. a mile. I have just had the actual official railway figures for a branch line still using steam, and the figure is 6s. 4d. a mile. I am not arguing that Dr. Beeching does not know that there is this variation in the figures. What I am saying is that this example has been applied to all these lines, irrespective of their actual costs. But, unfortunately, that does not stop Dr. Beeching in his Report: he just ploughs happily on, using these imaginary figures for a non-existent branch line, to prove that a bus costing 2s. 6d. a mile is so much cheaper. He even has another column showing that, if a bus ran only every two hours, compared with a branch line with a train that is running every one hour, of course the bus would save a lot more money still. That is the kind of thing we are up against in considering these things, and that is why it is imperative for these actual figures to be made known so that they can be properly examined.
My Lords, let me take the actual figures supplied by British Railways for the costs on the Taunton-Barnstaple line. That is the one which they advertised on June 1 as proposed to be closed on September 8—a proposal which, of course, will be objected to. Unhappily, earnings have been falling, and in the opinion of the local inhabitants, as in so many other areas, earnings have indeed been actively discouraged. But the position at the moment is that the total cost
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of running passenger services on the Taunton-Barnstaple line is £81,800, against earnings of £8,610—a deficit of over £73,000. Judged merely by those cold figures, you would say that there is a very strong case for closure; and so should I. But that is only a small part of the story, and it therefore paints a very distorted picture. That is why it is imperative for these figures to be produced and examined. First of all, there has been no attempt whatsoever by British Railways to effect the enormous economies which could be made, and still provide all the service to passengers which is necessary. On this line at the present time (this was in May; not in the busy summer period) there is an average of 600 passenger journeys a day or about 4,000 pasengers a week. That is with 12 trains a day, 6 each way. But far more than half the total number of passengers travel on one train in the morning and one train at night. It would be perfectly feasible to carry practically all the passengers on just three trains each way.
Then there are some 12 stations, all of which are still manned, that still have signal boxes in use, although at some of the intermediate stations only from 1 to a maximum of 10 passengers will get on or off a train all day long. There is no question whatever that at least 6 of these stations could be unstaffed halts. Then, again, the line is still being served by steam locomotives which, according to British Railways, are running at the very low cost, for steam, of 6s. 4d. a mile. But that is very much higher, as they admitted themselves, than the cost of a diesel unit. Anyway, my Lords, it is estimated that with a diesel unit using just 6 trains a day, 3 each way—that is, 90,000 train-miles a year—and also having halts instead of manned stations at certain places, there would he a total saving, out of that deficit of £73,000, of some £65,000.
My Lords, this is the kind of examination which should have been made long ago by British Railways. It has not been made, and therefore it must be made now by interested parties. The local authorities could also make relevant suggestions, not only for economies, but for increasing railway earnings. For example, they could suggest that the railways should publish timetables. I

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know that this sounds fantastic, but I have in my hand a letter and some timetables produced by one of the bodies affiliated to my council which, because there are no timetables in these areas for circulation to the customers, are producing railway timetables for circulation to private individuals, in order that they shall know that the trains are actually running and when they are running.
My Lords, this is a very serious matter. It is not the kind of thing which, if it is submitted to British Railways, they are going to advertise. It is the kind of thing which ought to be ventilated to the Minister—and, indeed, in Parliament. I could quote many more, but I do not want to go on at too great a length. However, I have them here, and I can show them to the Minister. I could quote the case of the railway excursion at Whitsun to Middleton, which, of course, is on a line scheduled for closure. Although there was a Whitsun excursion there, British Railways did not even include it in their timetables. People had to go to the station to find out.
Things like that, although they are management items, should also be submitted to the Minister, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will agree. I would also ask him (he probably will not be able to say this to-night, but perhaps he will write to me about it; or I will put a Question down) whether, if lines are not to be closed on the dates proposed by British Railways, he will guarantee that the trains, which will still be running, of course, will continue to be shown in the timetables. He probably cannot answer that point now, but I am sure he realises it is an important matter and is not just a silly question, in view of the kind of examples that I have quoted.
Finally, my Lords, I will, with the permission of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, quote to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, just a small extract from a letter on this subject which he sent to Lord Gladwyn this month, in which he said:
"…the figures of costs and revenues for lines proposed for closure are not regarded as secret. The Railways Board agreed some months ago to provide them, as well as detailed figures of passenger carryings and, of course, the statutorily required information on alternative services to the transport users' consultative committees for the information of
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the committees and of objectors at the time a closure proposal is formally put forward".
Then he went on:
"Nevertheless, the Board have agreed to let M.P.'s for affected constituencies and local authorities have any such figures at present available and I am sure they will extend the same courtesy to Members of our House. I would therefore suggest that you approach the General Manager, Eastern Region, Liverpool Street Station, E.C.2."
My Lords, I submit that if it is open to any Member of this House—and, indeed, I insist that it should be open to all of us—to apply for information of this kind, surely it would be the sensible and proper thing to accede to the request that I made on May 4, that since this important information is available, it should be published, either by the Railways Board or by the Government as a White Paper in book form, so that it can be studied everywhere and so that people should not have to go to their Member of Parliament and press him to write to a particular general manager to get particulars, as if they were secret. These things are of importance to the greater part of the people of this country. The information is essential to them: all the local authorities want it; and it should be made available.
I hope that the Government mean to use the 1962 Act and all the safeguards that are in it to see that railways are made efficient. At the same time, if those lines which are at present losing money can be shown to have a possibility of being made viable, then the necessary steps should be taken. We should not senselessly allow railways which can be made profitable to be torn up; and every possible assistance should be given to people and to local authorities who are trying to make them profitable. I hope that the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, will be able to say that the Government agree that this information should be made available to the public at large, either by the Railways Board or by Her Majesty's Government.
8.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, I shall not detain the House for long. As my noble friend Lord Chesham knows quite well, I have just come down from one of the affected areas—that is, North of Inverness. I know that this subject is very near to people up there, and I have talked to a great many of

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those who are interested. I have talked to provosts (and, for the information of those who do not know what provosts are, I may say that they are the equivalent of mayors in England), and to many people who are concerned. I have found that they do not quite understand: they rather think that these railways are going to be closed in a matter of months, and rather behind their backs. I have read very carefully the last debate and the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Chesham, and personally I do not think that for a moment. We have been given to understand, at one time by the Leader of our House, that it will be some years before some of these areas have their railways taken away. In fact, it will not be until adequate alternative transport is provided. People naturally ask, "Who is going to decide that?" However, I believe—and I hope that my noble friend Lord Chesham will agree with me—that people in my remote part of the world, which is a vast area, should be told quite definitely that they are not going to have things done behind their backs. At present, I assure you, my Lords, they are very worried.
Apart from that, we have got two things coming on which may be jeopardised by railway closures. We have been told by the Government and by everybody else, quite rightly, that we must do things for ourselves. In Invergordon—and I have no doubt your Lordships know where that is; it was at one time a famous naval base—there has been started a distillery which at the moment employs 200 men, and which will soon employ 400, and more. It is not going to help them if that railway is closed. Then, in the county town of Dingwall there is every prospect of a factory being opened to make component parts for cars. This is a very important project, and it would be a terrible blow if we suddenly discovered that we were not to have any rail transport and no satisfactory road and other transport. That is all I have to say, my Lords, but I hope that it will be borne in mind so far as the North of Scotland is concerned.
8.28 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I have listened with the greatest interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, and I look forward with interest to what
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the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, is going to say in reply. Having had some experience in railway operation, including a diesel-electric railcar service, and coming, as the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, does, from North of the Border, I must say that I feel, with him and with the noble Lord opposite, that no harm can be done in putting the full facts in the hands of the people who are concerned and who are likely to be concerned. But the point I would make is a specific one, and it is this. I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, touched on it, if obliquely. It should be remembered that a number of the services on British Railways to-day, and for some years past, have not been in any way adequate, for reasons which we well know, and that traffic figures taken from existing services must, as a result, inevitably be false. I appeal to the authorities concerned that when they assess the potential traffic of a branch line in terms of passengers, they apply to that a factor which would adduce a figure which is the potential traffic if the service were adequate.
Having said that, having made that point, as I said at the beginning I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say in reply; and, speaking for the Southern part of Scotland, I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, that the anxiety is very real. I can see no harm can stem from the fullest information being placed in the hands of the people who are chiefly concerned.
8.31 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I must say I have admired the facility with which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, switched his mind from pre-packed sausages to unpacked trains, and though I know the noble Lord has had a long afternoon on other subjects I must ask him to forgive me if I speak in some detail on the matters which he has raised, because, as he says, they are of importance. He has raised a number of issues and I feel I must reply to what he said fairly fully. I think he will perhaps understand if I do not follow him entirely through all the detail of what he said. In particular he will understand if I say I shall not attempt to delve into the question of figures in the detail that he has done, because I should probably need the period of preparation

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which he has no doubt had to consider them so that I could put up a proper counter argument. He will not think I am trying to be offensive when I say that I believe that, here and there, there were some flaws in some of his figuring arguments; but I will not pursue that just now. The point is that I think he underestimates the amount of trouble and thought that the railways put into the consideration of questions of the ways of producing and increasing revenue. He does not think that they have adequately considered them at all.
What I should like to do would be to get straight on to the procedure by which information about passenger closure proposals becomes available. As the noble Lord told us, I referred to it in answer to a Question on May 14, and I am wondering whether the procedure may not have been fully appreciated. I do not say the noble Lord did not appreciate it, but I am anxious that the whole House should be under no possible misapprehension on these matters.
Under the Transport Act of last year the Railways Board have to give formal notice of any proposal to discontinue all passenger services from any line or station. The notice has to be published in two successive weeks in two local papers, and the Board have agreed to put copies on stations and to notify the local authorities so that there should be no question of users or local authorities being unaware of when the Board want to go ahead with a closure proposal. That notice will explain that users and bodies representing them can lodge objections with the area transport users consultative committee. As soon as an objection is lodged with those committees, then the Board cannot proceed with the closure until the committee have reported to the Minister on the hardship and he has given his consent.
I am apprehensive that there will not be many proposed closures which are not opposed, and therefore the majority of closures are unlikely to occur on the dates proposed. The noble Lord asked whether on and after those dates I could guarantee that the trains would be on the timetable. Well, my Lords, of course I can personally guarantee absolutely nothing of the sort; but what I am sure will be done is that the Railways
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Board will take notice of what the noble Lord has said on the subject when they come to read the OFFICIAL REPORT; and this I have absolutely no doubt they will do.
People who lodge objections will wish to know more about the proposals and the alternative services. Therefore the Board will send to the consultative committee, when an objection is lodged to a closure, details of the services which are being withdrawn, the number of users and the existing alternative services. They will send details of proposed alternative services (as apart from existing ones) if the proposed alternative services have been worked out at that stage. They will also supply a statement of the direct costs and receipts attributable to the service that is proposed for closure; and, where this is applicable, they will supply an estimate of the expenditure due to be incurred over the next five years or so on renewals. All that information—the various details of the services, the users, the alternative services and the financial information—will be sent to each objector by the T.U.C.C. The Board's notice will in effect allow a period of seven weeks from the first date of publication for the lodging of objections.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will it not be eight weeks—two weeks for advertising and six weeks thereafter, making a total of eight weeks?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords, it could be a total of eight weeks, assuming that the objector sees the first notice and not the notice in the second week; but it could be eight weeks. I thought it safer to say seven weeks. In any case, the T.U.C.C. will allow objectors a reasonable time beyond that in which to complete the preparation of their cases. It is obvious that the late objector when given the information is at a disadvantage and must be allowed a reasonable time. Therefore there is no question of local authorities and other objectors getting that detailed information too late to take into account in preparing their objections. It will in fact be available in plenty of time and will be as up-to-date as, possible.
The noble Lord said clearly in his speech that some local authorities will want to begin the preparation of cases

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for submission to the T.U.C.C. He said that I had said that, which is true. Therefore I am sure that the House will like to know of the arrangements which I understand have been made by the Railways Board with their regional general managers for the provision of information, on request, about particular closure proposals. General managers will supply such information as is available at the time when they receive the inquiry—information of the same general nature and scope as that which will in due course go to the T.U.C.C.—to Members of either House of Parliament, local authorities or other responsible bodies, who are directly concerned with a particular closure proposal. The information which will be supplied will be related, so far as traffic is concerned, to the number and timing of trains and the number of passengers joining and alighting at particular stations.
On the financial side, it will cover the receipts and direct costs attributable to the service or station concerned, together with the capital expenditure I mentioned before. The appropriate T.U.C.C. will be informed when such information is given under these arrangements. I must confess that I was a fraction surprised to find that the noble Lord was quoting a letter I had written in the normal course of private correspondence to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. I do not make much complaint about that, but I was a little surprised that he was in possession of it.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I was in possession of it because my noble friend Lord Gladwyn sent it to me in view of this debate and said I could make what use I liked of it. I quoted an extract from the same letter yesterday, and when I saw my noble friend to-day and he told me that he hoped to take part in this debate. He gave the letter to me because he thought I ought to know what it contained.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I merely take the point personally. I endeavour to write to noble Lords in all good faith when they write to me. I know that the noble Lord mentioned the letter yesterday, but I had not a convenient opportunity to refer to it. I did not know that the letter would be
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used by the noble Lord in his support. I do not blame him.
LORD STONHAM: It is certainly not my noble friend's fault, either. He pointed out to me that the letter was not confidential. It would be quite open to him to publish part of it in the Press.
LORD CHESHAM: Then I must make a mental resolution to mark all my letters "Confidential" from now on, on whatever subject to whichever recipient. All that is left for me to say is that I hope that the arrangements I have just described which the Railways Board have made will go a considerable distance to meet the views which the noble Lord and the other noble Lords who have spoken have put forward.
I know that the financial figures to be provided do not correspond precisely with the terms of the noble Lord's Question, but I understand the Board's intention in this respect to be that the figures which they provide of receipts and costs shall so far as possible be factual and so avoid any large element of estimation. The information which the railways intend to give to inquirers will be that which the T.U.C.C.s themselves agreed last year would be appropriate for them to have for their purposes. As your Lordships are aware, the understanding on which these figures are made available to the T.U.C.C.s is that they are provided for information and, in the same way, those who get figures in advance should treat them for information purposes.
I should like to deal with the suggestion that the Government ought to publish this information. This is a view which I am afraid I cannot accept. It is the Railways Board who are charged with the duty of running the railways and running them on commercial lines, and they have been freed to do so. It is the Railways Board which have published the Report setting out the list of passenger closures which they want to effect. It is the Board which will decide when they want to go ahead with the proposals. It is the Board which will give notice of individual proposals as they come along.
The Government have the task of deciding whether or not proposals which are opposed in accordance with the

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Act should go ahead. They have in fact to decide between the interest of users in the locality and the wider public interest in the form of the railway system. I should have thought it was generally recognised that the Government should not take this kind of action about individual proposals until they have been examined, because I think it would be most unfortunate, in view of what my noble friends behind me have said, and would give the implication that the Government were accepting in advance that these closures were all going to take place and therefore there would be some grounds for the fear, which my noble friends have mentioned, that things were going to happen willy-nilly behind their backs. Time and again I have been at pains to point out that there is a procedure for consideration and any proposals may or may not be carried out for a variety of reasons, some of which I will touch on in a minute or two.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves this point, he said that the general managers of British Railways would supply Members of Parliament of either House with the particulars he has been describing, if they are concerned with a particular proposal. Would a Member of the House of Lords, having no constituency, be provided with these particulars about any line about which he asks?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I should have thought, generally, no. Members of Parliament may perhaps not use a line, but if it is in their constituency they will get the information. But even Members of your Lordships' House live somewhere and I should think that a residential qualification, if somewhat tenuous, would be regarded as something akin to a constituency interest in the area in which a noble Lord resides.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, the noble Lord spoke of "Members of Parliament" in his speech.
LORD CHESHAM: I said Members of both Houses. I want to turn to another point—that is, that there should be opportunities for users and their representatives to cross-examine the Board's representatives on their figures. Here I should
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like to take the opportunity to correct something which I said yesterday in reply to an intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I was speaking at the time about the channels through which local authorities should make representations on matters other than hardship, matters which are in general the direct responsibility of the Minister and the appropriate Government Department. The noble Lord's intervention also related to representations by local authorities, but he referred in fact to representations about management matters, such as modifications to the railway service. I regret that at that moment, in thinking of my argument, I was unfortunately slow in appreciating exactly what it was that the noble Lord had put forward. Consequently, due to a personal lapse, or inefficiency, if your Lordships insist, I inadvertently said something which was not correct. I must apologise to the noble Lord, and make it clear that in fact the Minister cannot undertake to entertain representations about matters of management. My noble friend Lord Hawke picked up the point at once.
I spent some time yesterday explaining the reasons why these were matters which have been left within the discretion of the Board, and therefore any representations about them should be made to the Board. The noble Lord said in advance that that would be unacceptable to him, because they would be judge in their own case. But the situation would be so if I were to accede to his suggestion that the Government should publish these figures. For the reasons I mentioned earlier, that would be merely repeating that particular situation in another form. It really is the fact that with representations of that kind the Board are the appropriate quarter and at the risk of boring your Lordships, I think I must emphasise again the statutory position that Parliament has put them in to be responsible for the management of the undertaking. In that it has put on them specifically the duty of so conducting—and I quote from Section 22 of the Act—
"their business as to place themselves at the earliest possible date in such a position that their revenue will be, and continue to be, not less than sufficient for making provision for the meeting of charges properly chargeable to revenue, taking one year with another".
That is the Board's financial duty. Parliament has put that duty upon them

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and, having done so, I suggest to your Lordships that it is wrong to think that users, local authorities and others can subject the Board to cross-examination about the financial justification for all their proposals, especially proposals which are designed to reduce the burden which falls on the taxpayer.
It is one thing that Parliament should be satisfied that the Government are examining those proposals of the Board involving extensive capital investment, a large part of the burden of which will fall on the taxpayer. But it is, I suggest, another thing that every time the Board want to rid themselves of an unremunerative service every user, and a lot of people who have virtually ceased to use it, should have the right to ask how they arrive at their figures. The reason for this is clear. The committees' job is first to assess hardship to users, and to make proposals for alleviating that hardship.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that the figures in the shape in which I said they would be provided were no use at all to the committees. That, in my view, is not right. The committees need to know those figures so that basically they can assess whether the alternative service which they may be putting forward to alleviate hardship makes sense or does not. What they want from the users is evidence of hardship. After all, the hardship to the user caused by a line closure does not vary whether the saving is £500, £50,000 or £500,000. The financial issues are not a matter for the consultative committee, who do not recommend whether a closure shall take place: these are matters of which the Minister will take account when he is deciding whether or not the closure shall take place.
Having said that, I want nevertheless to make the point that the Government recognise the concern that decisions about closures should not be taken solely on the strength of the losses which the Board are incurring. They are fully aware of the need to take account of any expenditure that will have to be incurred on alternative services, on roads and so on, and also all the matters that we discussed yesterday. But it is the Government's job to go into such
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matters. The Government accept the responsibility. They will be accountable to Parliament for the decisions which they take in particular cases. Therefore, I hope all your Lordships (I nearly said both of your Lordships) will agree that this is the right allocation of responsibility, and that, in the light of what I have said to-day, the arrangements that have been made for giving information about the costs and receipts relevant to individual closure proposals are satisfactory and appropriate in the circumstances.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him this question? He has explained why the T.U.C.C. should have these figures, but is it not the right and duty of the local authority concerned in the area to tell the transport users committee if they believe that the alleged losses are not being incurred or could be avoided? Surely the local authority should have the right to submit such information to the Minister. The noble Lord gave the impression, even if he did not mean to, that it does not matter what the local authority may say about the losses on a line, or what alternatives could do; the railways are still going to stick to their figures. I think the local authorities must have a voice in these matters, and they must have the confidence that, if they make reasonable proposals, or challenge these figures, they will be properly considered and not ignored.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I do not think I said that at all. What I was trying to say was that in such a case as the noble Lord has in mind the Railways Board direct was the correct avenue of approach for a local authority who wished to bring up these matters.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, arising out of one of the last sentences used by the noble Lord, that the Government were accountable to Parliament for each individual decision on a closure, may I ask how Parliament can exercise responsibility if the Government do not publish the figures in each individual case? That surely, is the point of my noble friend's question. The noble Lord seems to have admitted the duty of the Government to give those figures, but said they were not prepared to give them.
LORD CHESHAM: No, I do not think I did that either, with respect. I take it

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that I am in order to answer this question.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: The noble Lord had not sat down.
LORD CHESHAM: I do not consider that what the noble Earl thinks should be read into that answer, either. When it is a question of Ministerial decision, surely every Minister is accountable to Parliament for the decision he has made. That still does not provide grounds, as I see it, for acceding to what the noble Lord wants—namely, that the Government should publish all the detail of this matter.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, is it not inherent in what my noble friend has put that the information should be made available before the Minister reaches his decision? If Members of Parliament are to exercise any judgment at all, they should be given the figures on which to exercise it.
LORD CHESHAM: I thought I had made it clear that Members of Parliament who had reason to have them could obtain the figures.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I think I should like to say, on a cricketing day, that he bowled a ball which came off the pitch rather fast when he referred to users who virtually do not use the services. I like to travel by train, and I am going to Scotland by train to-night. The fact is that I should like to travel to my daily work by train and come back by train but the service is not there. I should like to play that ball straight back to the bowler. It is not always the case that users are not using the service, but often, certainly during the last few years, that the service is not there for the users to use.
LORD CHESHAM: No, my Lords; but before I finally sit down I would just point out that I think it is an almost undeniable fact—and I will not go into the whole statistics and details of the argument—that a large part of the reason for the predicament of the railways at the moment is that people have ceased to use them.

MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendment agreed to.