Lords Sitting of 28 June 1963

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Manchester
The Lord Hailes—Took the Oath.

SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD REMITTANCES
11.5 a.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government with regard to South African gold production—

(a) What is the value of bullion remitted annually by South Africa to the London market; and

(b) In the event of a general boycott by the United Kingdom of South African goods and the consequential discontinuance by South Africa of consignment of gold to Great Britain, whence do Her Majesty's Government expect to receive regularly equivalent gold to achieve such continuing support to sterling.]

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, actual sales of bullion vary from year to year, depending on the level of production and the balance of payments in South Africa. United Kingdom customs returns show that imports from South Africa amounted to £256 million in 1961. No final figure is yet available for 1962, but it is expected to be of the same order. The second part of the Question appears to be hypothetical.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. With reference to the second part of it, which I find disappointingly inadequate, may I ask him whether it is not right to assume that the massive increases in the gold and currency reserves of South Africa indicate the widespread confidence of world financial centres in the strength of the South African economy?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That may be so, my Lords, but since we do not contemplate a boycott the question does not arise.
LORD OGMORE: In any case, my Lords, is it not the fact that the reason why they have very large gold reserves there is that South Africa has most of the gold mines of the world?
LORD BARNBY: With regard to the policy of the South African Government in consigning its gold stocks to this country, would the noble Earl be inclined to give an assurance that that is advantageous or disadvantageous?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No, my Lords; I cannot give assurances on behalf of the South African Government.

MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (BOLTON) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

FORESTRY (SALE OF LAND) (SCOTLAND) BILL
11.8 a.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, this Bill is about one very simple thing: the need for the Secretary of State for Scotland to be able, if he wants to do so, to sell back to private ownership, for use for forestry purposes, land which was bought for the Forestry Commission. It may seem strange to your Lordships that this cannot at present be done but it cannot. The reason for this depends upon the interpretation of three Acts of Parliament, and I will tell your Lordships briefly about them.
The first is Section 4(7)(c) of the Forestry Act, 1945, which this Bill seeks to amend. That section allows the Secretary of State—or, in England and Wales, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—to sell land:
"vested in or acquired by him as aforesaid which in his opinion is not needed or ought not to be used for the purpose of afforestation or any purpose connected with forestry,…".
In other words, he can sell land bought for forestry, but only provided that it is

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to be used for purposes other than forestry. In England and Wales, the difficulty has been overcome by the use of Section 90(1) of the Agriculture Act, 1947, which says:
"The Minister may manage, farm, sell, let or otherwise deal with or dispose of land acquired by him …".
There has been no difficulty south of the Border if the Minister of Agriculture has wanted to sell the land for forestry purposes. But the Scottish equivalent of that Act, the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948, says in Section 61(1):
"The Secretary of State may manage, farm, sell, let or otherwise deal with or dispose of land acquired by him under this Act …"
Therefore, he cannot sell for purposes of forestry land which was acquired by him under the Forestry Act. In Scotland this situation has caused a certain amount of trouble. I may say at once that there is no intention whatever that Forestry Commission land should be sold on a large scale to private owners, but there are cases—and they were referred to in another place—of specific instances where it would have been very valuable had the Secretary of State had the power which this Bill proposes to give him. I think that perhaps your Lordships might like to know one or two of them, to justify the Bill which is before the House.
One of them was a case where the Secretary of State had bought, out of forestry funds, about 5,000 acres of land, and eight compartments of this, of about 180 acres, carried growing trees which had previously been sold to a timber merchant. The trees were kept out of the sale, and the Commission received rent for the land on which they stood. At the time of the application to deal with this land, the trees had been felled in four of the compartments, and the remaining four carried trees 30 to 40 years old which might not be licensable for clear felling for some time in the future. During this time, however, proper management required that windblown trees should be replaced and that other work should be carried out to keep the wood in proper order. The Commission could not undertake this work because the existing trees belonged to the timber merchant. The timber merchant was prepared to sell the trees to another merchant who would have done the necessary work, but he would not do it himself. It was not possible to deal
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with the matter at all, because, of course, the other merchant would not deal with the trees unless he was allowed to buy the land, too. So the whole thing fell by the wayside, and nothing was done to keep this wood in proper condition.
Then there was another case in 1955 and 1956 in which the Secretary of State had purchased out of the forestry fund some 90 acres of woodland which was split up with areas in between them. Subsequently, an estate company acquired the intervening land, and it could well have formed an extremely useful and compact block of about 350 acres if it had been able to include in its management 90 acres of Forestry Commission land. But, of course, the Secretary of State could not sell it to them, so that particular piece of proper management of woodland could not take place.
There was another case in 1961 where there were five acres of Forestry Commission land which were completely cut off from the rest of their woodland by a railway line. In fact, the Commission had no access to them at all. On the other hand, the owner of the land on the right side of the railway line was prepared to include it in his forestry work. It would have been beneficial if this small area of 5 acres had been able to be sold to him for this purpose, but it could not.
The Bill itself deals with this question, as your Lordships will see, by an amendment to Section 4(7)(c) of the Forestry Act. It does not give the Secretary of State unlimited powers to sell Forestry Commission land to anybody he may think fit; he can do it only if it is desirable in the interest of rational land management, and I think that the cases I have mentioned make clear what is meant by that readily understandable phrase. He must also be satisfied that it would facilitate the discharge by the Forestry Commission owners of any of their functions; though that really is the same point. Between the two provisions is a certain safeguard by which the wholesale disposal of Forestry Commission land would not be possible. I do not think there is anything more I need say in description of this Bill. I hope that it is entirely self-explanatory and will commend itself to your Lordships, and that you will be able to give it a Second Reading today. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I do not know whether any other noble Lords are going to speak. I should rather like to hear more about the case.
11.15 a.m.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, the noble Viscount has moved the Second Reading of this Bill with his usual skill and clarity and there is very little that I can add to what he has already said, except warmly to commend it. It is a very simple measure, but it is of considerable importance to the economy of Scotland. It brings Scotland into line with what has been the practice in England ever since the Forestry Act, 1945, where the Commission has been able to resell for afforestation purposes land that is surplus to its requirements. There is no question here of compulsion at all; it is purely an enabling Bill; but it may be useful in getting considerable areas of land restocked with trees which have, till now, been lying idle.
There is one point that I do not think the noble Viscount touched on which may be another good reason for this Bill. Planting is still, of course, an expensive operation; but possibly the overall cost to the woodland owner is today not so great as it was just after the war. It may well be that, owing to the increased planting grants available, and other things, the private woodland owners will now find themselves able to re-purchase land and plant it, which after the war they were afraid to do because they thought they could not face the great expense then involved. I think that is all I have to say. It is a good Bill and useful for Scotland, and I hope it will pass into law. If it does so, then I hope the Commission will look favourably on any requests that landowners may make to purchase or re-purchase such land as has been mentioned.
11.18 a.m.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords this is a most admirable Bill; and there are only one or two comments I should like to make, In several cases I have heard of, the Forestry Commission would have been only too glad to get rid of land they acquired which was
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technically plantable but which, from their point of view, was extremely inconvenient. I had a case myself where neighbouring property was sold and broken up. The farmland was acquired by a new owner, leaving a tongue of land of some 20 acres of not very good ground, but which could not be said to be unplantable, between the new agricultural owner and myself. I should have been glad to take the land off the Forestry Commission at a greater price than they had paid; and they would have been delighted to let me have it, but they could not do so as the law stood. So they found themselves with 20 acres of poor land in a narrow strip between a river and farmland, which they had to fence with over one mile of fencing at great expense—something they would not have had to do if they had been able to get rid of the land.
One point does not appear to me to be quite clear. Is the land which the Forestry Commission are now going to be allowed to sell to be only land that can be planted and not land that already has trees on it? It often happens that when the Commission acquire a large property for the purposes of planting they are enabled to get rid of the agricultural land; but on that land, or adjacent to it, there is often land already carrying timber—sometimes good, more often indifferent. I suggest that, if it is not already possible under this Bill, it should be made possible during the Committee stage that small portions of woodlands like that could also be sold; because they are often merely a great nuisance to the Forestry Commission, being in many cases remote from other land they are administering.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I should like to support this Bill. I am very much out of touch with forestry now; but there is one point that occurs to me that has not been mentioned. That is, I believe that the exercise of the powers under this Bill will allow for experiments on a small scale which may be very useful to forestry in the future. In common with everybody who loves the country, I have always been a great opponent of clear felling, which violently alters the climate and fauna of any area to which it is applied, and have always had great pride in the Swedish system of forestry, which

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avoids this. I believe that if private land-owners, who are mostly warm lovers of the country, made clear portions, which could be disposed of by the Forestry Commission this might enable them to try on a small scale experiments which might prove very useful to the country as a whole.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD CRAIGTON): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend for his lucid and, according to my brief, entirely accurate explanation, and I thank noble Lords for their support of this Bill. I would tell the noble Earl that the Forestry Commission can, under this Bill, sell land with growing timber on it. The Government welcome this Bill and I would ask your Lordships to support it.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I do not want to hold up any reasonable forestry developments in Scotland, but, highly as I value many of the subjects which are deal with by Private Members' Bills, I should have thought that this was hardly a matter for Private Members' legislation. We are dealing in the operation of one part of this Bill with the disposal of Forestry Commission land, and I should have thought that this would have been done on the initiative of the Government.
11.23 a.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, to deal first with the point which the noble Earl opposite has made, this is a problem which affects private landowners in Scotland as much as it does the Forestry Commission, and it is something which they have had very much in mind and have been pressing for for a long time. The Timber Association, the Scottish Landowners' Federation and other bodies of this nature have had a great deal of interest in this subject and have wanted legislation to make it clear. I do not think that it could really be said to be unsuitable as Private Members' legislation. It is a fairly small thing and it seems to me to introduce exactly the right sort of freedom into Scotland, which after all has not proved to be detrimental on the other side of the Border. I do not think that your Lordships will consider it unsuitable for me to move the Second Reading of this Bill
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rather than my noble friend on the Front Bench.
I am grateful to the three Scottish experts who have supported me, and also to my noble friend Lord Craigton, because I am glad to hear that from the wealth of their experience they do see great value in this Bill. I thought so, but it is very nice to have confirmation of it. I also think that the point of my noble friend Lord Saltoun is probably covered because "purposes connected with forestry" would surely include proper experiments in that field. I thank your Lordships for the welcome given to this Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PEERAGE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
TELEVISION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

SALE OF DEAD WILD GEESE PROHIBITION BILL [H.L.]
11.24 a.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Dead wild geese not to be sold]:
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Your Lordships will have noticed that there are a series of Amendments in my name which at first sight would appear almost to destroy my own Bill, or at least very greatly to alter it. I think that it would be as well if, in the first place, I were to explain to your Lordships how these apparent great changes come about and how the main purpose of the Bill is, despite them, preserved intact.

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Your Lordships will be aware that this Bill cannot stand by itself, but must be taken in conjunction with, and is in fact about to become a portion of, the Act which was passed in 1954, in the passage of which I took a fairly active part. It was represented to me that were this Bill to go forward in its original form, it would mean the introduction of a number of penalties of a very much more severe nature than were contained in the parent Act and that they would be applied to offences which, ornithologically speaking, were much less serious than those to which the minor penalties in the main Act applied. I hope that this is not too complicated a way of putting it. In point of fact, what all these changes mean is that we lose the increased penalties for second and subsequent offences, and we lose the power of imprisonment.
Within a very few years, the original Act of 1954 will have to come up for revision. It was admitted at the time to be an Act on a rather experimental basis. One had to see how it worked and then amend it, if and as necessary, in a few years time. In point of fact, the Act has worked remarkably well, though there are, of course, certain deficiencies in it, and certain improvements could be made. Ornithology does not stand still. As an example, perhaps I may be permitted to quote the case of a bird, which is not affected by my Bill or, indeed, by the main Act—that is to say, the collared duck, which now nests in fair numbers in several parts of the country, though it was not even on the British list as a straggler in the year 1954.
When the original Act comes to be amended, which must be within ten years (and I greatly hope that it will be within that time), I am given to understand that favourable consideration will be given to the idea that the penalties for repeated offences should be made much heavier and that imprisonment may well be included as a final resort. With this explanation, I beg to move my Amendment that Clause 1 be omitted.
Amendment moved—
Leave out clause 1.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD THE EARL OF MANSFIELD moved to insert as a new Clause 1:
Extension of prohibition of sale of dead wild geese.
.—(1) The prohibition imposed by section 6(1) of the Protection of Birds Act 1954 on a person's selling, offering for sale or having in his possession for sale a dead wild goose, save as may be authorised by a licence granted under section 10 of that Act, shall, instead of being limited to the period in any year commencing with 28th February and ending with 31st August, have effect throughout each year.
(2) Accordingly, for paragraph (c) of the said section 6(1) there shall be substituted the following paragraph:—
(c) a dead wild goose, or, during the period in any year commencing with 28th February and ending with 31st August, any other dead wild bird being a bird included in schedule 3 to this Act or a wild duck, whether or not so included;'
(3) In this section any reference to sale shall be construed as including a reference to barter and exchange.
The noble Earl said: I beg to move this new clause in substitution of the one just omitted. I think that I have explained what it mainly does, but there is one addition to it, however, which I think is a considerable improvement and to which I should draw your Lordships' attention. That is subsection (3), which says:
"In this section any reference to sale shall be construed as including a reference to barter and exchange."
That fills a gap in the original drafting. It means that a person who shoots a number of wild geese will not be able, as he would under the Act, to dispose of them to his poulterer in exchange for a future supply of chickens, or to his local public-house for a number of bottles of whisky or cases of beer. That, I think, is a considerable improvement. In point of fact, the penalty under the main Act of £5 for every goose that may be sold or may be attempted to be sold remains in this addition to that Act. So we are really getting somewhere. It must be remembered that that is a penalty for each bird and not for each offence. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [Amendment of Protection of Birds Act, 1954]:
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I am now advised that Clause 2 is no longer necessary, and I beg to move its deletion.
Amendment moved—
Leave out clause 2.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 [Short title, construction, citation, commencement and extent]:
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: For the same reason, I beg to move that subsection (2) be omitted.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 22, leave out subsection (2).—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
In the Title:
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I frankly do not regard this Amendment as being of much importance. It was, however, represented to me that there was already a prohibition of the sale of dead wild geese in so far as the close season was concerned, and that therefore the Title would be better and more properly explanatory if it contained the words "to extend the prohibition of the sale of dead wild geese." I think it is a distinction with very little difference, but as it does not harm the Bill I was quite willing to agree to it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out ("prohibit") and insert ("extend the prohibition of").—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with Amendments.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL
11.34 a.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, whereas just now I was presenting to your Lordships a simple Bill for Scotland, I have now a complicated one for England and Wales. Each of the clauses in this Bill is on a different subject, and I think your Lordships might be forgiven if you thought at first sight that it was something of a packet of all sorts. Although the outside of some of the items looks a little sticky and indigestible, I think your Lordships will find that they mostly have soft and palatable centres.
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There are two themes which go through the Bill. The first is apparent from the Title, in that it deals with local government financial provisions. But the second, which is, I think, an important theme, is that they are all aimed at giving local authorities rather more scope to run their own affairs in the most effective way, with the minimum of prohibition and control from Whitehall. There are some limitations which will be found in the clauses or can be provided by general regulations, and some of the existing requirements for individual sanctions or consents will be removed. In fact, I believe that this Bill will cut out a lot of unproductive time and paperwork—the sort of thing whereby sixpence is spent in order to see that threepence is not wasted. But, on the whole, these provisions will not provide for extra expenditure out of the rates. Although local authorities will be able to spend limited sums on some reasonable purposes, they will be able to do so without the necessity, which has hitherto existed, for them to get permission from the Minister on mere trivialities in so many cases.
The Bill does not lay any new duties on the local authorities; it gives them no new powers of compulsion over the citizen. It has been welcomed, except for Clause 3, by all the local government bodies, and warmly welcomed in another place when my honourable friend the Member for Hexham introduced it. I think, therefore, your Lordships might approach it with what I hope would be a favourable mind. Nevertheless, I think that I ought to explain at a little length its somewhat complicated provisions, so that your Lordships should understand them better than I fear you will merely by reading the clauses.
Clause 1 does away with the need for cumbersome procedure which at present has to be followed to enable local authorities to pay their members' expenses when they attend conferences and meetings on the functions of the authority. There has been enormous growth over recent years of the scope of local government services, and it is vital that members, as well as officers, should be able to go to the conferences of the specialist bodies, to learn the latest

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developments in the various fields and how these things are being dealt with by other authorities. Although under the law as it now stands local government authorities have power to pay expenses of sending representatives to conferences, they can do so only if the conference is called by a body which consists purely of local authorities. This has been the law since 1933. It excludes, of course, all the main associations dealing with housing, town planning, highway construction, water supply, sewage purification, many of the road and rail services and similar matters; clean air, parks, burials, and an enormous number of other important functions of local authorities. The effect of this limitation has been to exclude payment of expenses for members to attend conferences dealing with all the important main functions of local government except education (for which there is a special provision in the Education Act), because, although in many cases these important bodies largely consist of local authorities, if there is any other membership, the expenses cannot be paid without the sanction of the Minister. This has been given by special request in the past, but this clause will, I think, overcome the difficulty caused by local authorities' having to ask each time and obtain special sanction under the Local Government Act, 1933.
There is, of course, the other side to this question. I know that your Lordships would not wish such powers and freedom to be used in an overenthusiastic way, and the purpose of subsection (3) of Clause 1 is to grant the necessary control so that these things are not abused. There are two safeguards. One is that the provision is constructed so that the amount of the allowance to members is limited to the rates laid down by the Minister in regulations for other council duties; and your Lordships can see a full and detailed list of the expenses which can be paid under the Local Government (Members' Allowances) Regulations, 1948. This is a comprehensive list and keeps a close eye on the whole expenditure. It does not lay down at all extravagant rates.
The other safeguard is that the clause is simply an extension of the provision in the 1933 Act, which means that it
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is effective only to the extent that it is brought into operation by Minister's regulations, and these will come before Parliament under the Negative Resolution procedure. One of the things these regulations will probably do (perhaps my noble friend Lord Jellicoe could say something about this) will be to limit the number of members whose expenses can be paid, because under the present system, normally, only two members from one local authority can attend these conferences and have the expenses paid by their authority.
Clause 2 relates to a point that was raised in another Private Member's Bill in another place, but was withdrawn when it reappeared in the Bill of my my honourable friend the Member for Hexham. The point about this clause is that under the Local Government Act, 1948, the local authority are empowered, with the Minister's consent, to contribute to the bodies which provide services for the benefit of the authority's area, or its inhabitants, but they can do this only where the activity of that body is carried out in the area of the contributing authority. There may be a voluntary body which serves the area of several authorities in such matters as old people's workshops, convalescent homes, museums, and so on. At present, it is only the local authority in whose area the particular activity is carried on which can contribute: others who also get the benefit of the work cannot do so. This is put right in the Bill.
Clause 3 raised a certain amount of trouble on Report stage in another place. It was inserted there, and was not in the original Bill. It gives power to the local authorities to contribute to associations, not so much of officers but of members, of councillors, of the authorities themselves, if the body to which they wish to contribute is approved by the Minister. There is, in fact, an embryo or an infant body which has recently been set up which will give a certain amount of useful assistance to councillors, and I think it would help them to be educated in their duties as councillors. It is still in a very early stage, and the honourable Member for Islington, North, who is a vice-president, and very keen that the power should be in the Bill, says, nevertheless, that he does not think this body is ready for approval. Nevertheless, there is

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power in the Bill, if such a body should come into existence and be approved by the Minister.
Clause 4 is another adjustment to an existing power. Under the Local Authorities (Expenses) Act, 1956, councils may incur expenditure on the reception of distinguished visitors and persons representative of local government in other countries. They may also pay the expenses of their own members on official courtesy visits abroad. It was an Act to facilitate the "twin town" links, which are very common and, I think, beneficial in this country; but it would also be useful on many occasions for officers of local authorities, as well as members, to go on these expeditions and compare notes with their opposite numbers abroad. This the clause now allows to be done, although I am bound to say that it does not produce the same freedom that many local authorities abroad have when they send their delegations here. Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction.
Clause 5 concerns a technical point and, unless your Lordships have any questions on it, all I will say is that it is to clear up a doubt which existed as a result of the drafting of the relevant section in the 1933 Act. But I will try to answer any questions that your Lordships may wish to raise on it.
Clause 6 is a modest provision to deal with the limitation of local authorities' powers: that they can incur an item of expenditure only where they have statutory authority or where the Minister allows them to do so. This applies even to very small and, perhaps, insignificant items. In the main, the smaller the item the less reason there will be to provide general powers, either by Public or Private Act. There are any number of things which will come into that category, but which will be well worth doing in individual cases by a local authority. I have a variety of examples which might appeal to your Lordships. For instance, the erection of warning posts and expenditure on life-saving patrols at seaside towns; the fencing off of dangerous places where children might fall down and hurt themselves; floodlighting of war memorials; prizes for allotment and garden competitions; and—another quite important little thing for a small
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place—contributions towards the cost of maintaining unremunerative public telephone boxes in villages.
This clause gives a general power to incur that sort of expenditure for the benefit of the inhabitants of the area, and makes it unnecessary for special or public legislation to be passed. In fact, some of these things can be done already with the Minister's sanction, but there are other little points—like the fencing of dangerous places so that children should not fall into them—where the Minister has not hitherto been able to sanction expenditure. Under this clause the work can be done. There will be little new expenditure—and I hope your Lordships will not think that that is too bad a thing—because for the parish councils there is a limitation of one-fifth of ld. rate, and for other local authorities a 1d. rate. This compares modestly with their powers to spend under other individual specialised enactments. For instance, they can spend up to a 3d. rate to advertise the attractions if they are a health resort or a holiday town; they can spend a 2d. rate for net loss on allotments, and a 6d. rate for net loss for helping the arts, music and drama. It is very seldom that they spend anything like that amount. This general power to spend this small amount of money has existed in Scotland for fifteen years, and it has proved very beneficial, although the Secretary of State has had to give his consent to its use.
There are, of course, considerable safeguards. Since there is to be public inspection of accounts, a separate account will have to be kept. There is also the very important provision that the power cannot be used where the authority have a similar power to do that sort of thing under another Act but subject to some limitation or to some consent. If they wanted, for instance, to send more people to a conference than they could otherwise do under one of the several clauses in this Bill, or under the existing law, they could not then use the ld. rate under this clause to do what they could not do otherwise. I think that should be a sufficient safeguard against any abuse of this power.
Clause 7 deals with the power of a local authority to issue bonds. Up to now, they have been able to borrow

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for capital purposes but only by mortgage, stock, debentures or annuity certificates. The last two are very seldom used. Metropolitan borough councils covered by this clause are restricted to borrowing by way of mortgage. On the other hand, there have been over 150 Private Acts to allow local authorities to issue bonds, and recently the Derbyshire County Council attracted £2¾ million from the investing public under a Private Act for this purpose. So this new way of borrowing is now added generally for all the local authorities mentioned in the clause, that is to say, county councils, county boroughs, county districts and metropolitan boroughs—so long, I suppose, as they last. The power will also apply to the other statutory bodies—such as water boards, for example—to whom the relevant provisions in the Local Government Act have been applied by special Statute.
Schedule 1 lays down the conditions of these bonds, and there is power to make even more specific provisions by regulation if necessary, and I have no doubt that the Minister would do so. Clause 8 is the one which I, personally, found the most difficult to grasp, but it seems to me to be fully justified, when eventually one finds out what the point of it is. This is an extension of the existing power of local authorities to suspend for up to five years payments into sinking funds for the repayment of loans for the construction or alteration of works for their revenue-producing undertakings. This clause extends the power to other purposes to be specified by the Minister and, in particular, to the purchase of land which is either initially acquired or is later appropriated to one of these purposes which the Minister says it should be. It also enables the authorities to borrow to pay the interest due on the loan while the suspension is in force, and power can be exercised for any period up to five years, but not, of course, during the last five years.
As I understand it, the difficulty is this: that you have a loan for a large operation which does not in the first stages produce anything in the way of revenue to pay the interest on the loan, and, at the same time, under the law as it at present stands, in addition to getting no return, you pay the interest
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and you also have to pay the amounts into the sinking fund for the eventual repayment. This places a very heavy burden on the rates until the revenue comes in, whereas later the revenue comes in and it would then be very much easier, if it were thought fit, to put bigger funds into the sinking fund, to make up for the period during which none has been provided. This is what the clause will allow to be done; and I think, again, that the safeguards are fairly solid. But of course, it does not follow that all local authorities will want to do this. There may be some, but, on the other hand, it is not a panacea for all circumstances, because it means the money has to be paid at a greater rate later when the suspension stops. Nevertheless, I think the Minister will be able to deal in general regulations under this clause with the purposes for which the power of suspension is obviously right, and probably it would be correct if he dealt also, as the clause provides, with the ad hoc case which does not fall within the general specifications. I hope that my noble friend will also say, when he comes to reply, something about this, because it seems to be an important point.
I should also say that there is the less common case where a loan has been repayable by instalments, and in this case there would be no power to the local authority to dispense with the need to secure the lender's agreement to any 'alteration in the repayment terms so that the lender will not, in any case, be prejudiced. The power may also be used by those other authorities I have already mentioned who have powers to borrow money under the provisions of the Local Government Act given to them by special Statute.
Clause 9 deals with capital funds and the renewal and repairs funds. These are popular with local authorities and they provide a useful means of financing capital schemes of moderate size as an alternative to borrowing. Again, many local authorities have power under Local Acts which they have from Parliament, and there is general power contained in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1953. But the funds under the 1953 Act cannot be applied to education. At that time it was a grant-aided service and the use of capital funds

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for education could have resulted in abuse of the grant arrangements; but now education comes under the general grant, and so it would, I think, be a great advantage to have power to use these capital funds for educational purposes as well; and that is what the clause provides.
Clause 10 empowers local authorities to pay the unexpended balances of loans in ways which I think they would almost certainly be allowed to do now but which would require individual sanction from the Minister. Again, this is bound to save a lot of typing, correspondence and expense both at the local government and Ministerial ends. Clause 11 provides for similar relaxation where boundary changes have taken place in areas of local authorities, and I have no doubt that as the 1958 Act and the Commission set up under it gradually produce boundary changes and the changes of status in authorities that is going on now, this should be rather an important clause.
The rest of the clauses in the Bill and the Schedules are really machinery and I do not think any difficulty will arise under them. But if any of your Lordships wish to ask questions about them I shall be happy to do my best to answer them. I must apologise to your Lordships for being so long on this, but it is a complicated measure. I hope I shall be forgiven for trying to explain it in detail and that this will help your Lordships to give it what I hope will be an easy passage through this House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
11.56 a.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, this appears to me to be one of those Bills to be found in the pigeon-holes of all the Ministries, waiting for some opportunity to be introduced. Clearly, no such opportunity has arisen and a Private Member has undertaken it. But I regard it as being no worse for that fact and certainly, had a Government Front Bench speaker introduced it either in the other House or here the Bill could not have had a better exposition than that which we have enjoyed this morning. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, apologised for the long time he took to explain the Bill, but, after
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all, it is an important Bill and one which I personally welcome. I must admit that when I was a member of a local authority I thought that the existing law on this subject of expenses paid to members was unnecessarily restrictive. These councils are responsible bodies and, of course, have to watch their ratepayers' money, but there are certain conferences, and so on, the attendance at which provides information which otherwise could not be obtained. For that reason I certainly welcome this Bill.
The only other point I would make is that I rather like this expansion of the general power to borrow by means of bond. I think this is useful and should be within the power of local authorities without having to go to Parliament and obtain a Private Bill for this purpose. It is right, I think, that there should be an extension of this power to all authorities, always provided that the necessary safeguards are included. With those few words I, as an ex-local government man, certainly give my personal welcome to the Bill, feeling that it will be beneficial to local authorities; and I would end by congratulating the noble Viscount upon the way in which he introduced it. I hope he will have an easy passage for the rest of the Bill.
11.58 a.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I rise to support my noble and learned friend Lord Colville of Culross in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. I have always advocated decentralisation of responsibility as much as possible, and I think that this is just as important in local government as it is in industry. I am particularly attracted by this Bill because, in my capacity as a member of the Council of the Industrial Welfare Society and of the Executive Committee of that body, I have found great difficulty in getting people from local authorities to attend the numerous courses and lectures which we run and which we believe could help the officials and staff of local authorities. Also, we have evidence from the local authorities themselves that they would like to send their people to the courses that we run. I think that this Bill, if I have understood the very clear explanation of my noble friend, will enable them to do so. Therefore, I welcome the Bill.
11.59 a.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, my first duty is to echo the congratulations which my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has received on sponsoring this Bill, and I think my second duty is to congratulate the Bill on its sponsor. It is, I think, a good Bill and it has certainly attracted a very good sponsor. This fair bride, if I may so term the Bill, has, I think, been very lucky to go up the aisle on the arm of my noble friend, accompanied by two such expert bridesmaids, if I may so term the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and my noble friend Lord Ampthill. As a result of my noble friend's having covered the ground so fully and clearly I have, I am glad to say, very little to do, but I feel that I should straight away make it clear that the Government, for their part, are happy that this Bill has received a warm welcome not only here and in another place but also from the expert local authority associations, and we hope it will commend itself to your Lordships.
I also feel that perhaps there are one or two clauses which I should very briefly embroider, particularly as my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has asked me to say a word or two on one or two parts of the Bill. In the first place there is Clause 1, which, as your Lordships now know, extends the power of local authorities to pay expenses incurred by their members in attending conferences and meetings. The season for conferences of this sort is already upon us, and we shall soon see the papers filled with reports of the conferences of this and that association at Blackpool or Brighton. Some of us may perhaps wonder whether all these conferences always serve a useful purpose. I myself am convinced that most of them do. But, he that as it may, some of your Lordships may conceivably have had some suspicion lurking at the back of your minds that this Bill could lead to some vast increase in conference junketing. If any of your Lordships do harbour that suspicion, I think I can assure you this will not be the case.
The new clause covers by and large much the same ground as the existing Section 228 sanctions which my right honourable friend gives. Its practical effect, therefore, is not to extend confer-
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ence-going by local authority members but merely to replace the detailed, makeshift and often grandmotherly control through Whitehall, by much more economical and decentralised control at the essential points by regulations. The present regulations, I gather, provide that for most conferences a local authority may not pay the expenses of sending more than two members to any one conference. The Department's general practice on the Section 228 sanctions for conferences outside the terms of these regulations made under the 1933 Act has been to sanction attendance by one member only.
The scope of the new regulations will, of course, have to be discussed with the local authority associations, but I think it is likely that they will again limit the number of members who may attend at any one conference, perhaps in much the same way as is now done. They could, of course, exclude certain types of conference altogether if that were held to be desirable after consultation. In any event, I think they are likely to provide for closer control over attendance at conferences abroad, a point which those of your Lordships who may be suspicious of foreigners and their very odd goings-on may find reassuring.
I myself am quite sure, in any event, that this new clause will represent a great improvement over the present practice whereby the attendance of council members at almost all conferences has to be specially sanctioned. In principle this seems to me quite wrong and a misuse of Section 228. It means that a lot of the staff of the Ministry are kept employed on totally unproductive and unrewarding work, and in any case it strikes me as undignified to subject responsible local authorities to this type of detailed control over what are primarily their own affairs. I should like, therefore, if I may, to commend this particular clause very warmly to your Lordships' House.
The next clause on which I should like to touch, again briefly, is Clause 6. This, as my noble friend explained, is a relatively modest prevision providing local authorities with a general power to incur minor expenditure for the benefit of their locality or its inhabitants. He also explained the present position,

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and that this limitation applies only to very small and insignificant types of expenditure. He mentioned the fencing off of dangerous places for which there is no present cover. I was glad he raised that point, because some of your Lordships may remember a rather tragic incident some years ago when some boys playing by the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal near Warrington slipped in. I believe that at least one boy was drowned. The local authority concerned, the Warrington Borough Council, then very properly decided that they should fence the canal at this point in order to avoid any repetition of this tragic incident. But they found they did not have power to incur this obviously necessary and very small expenditure. They had to go to the Ministry, and it was only after a great deal of head scratching by all concerned that it was possible for them to incur this expenditure, and then only by stretching the Section 228 special sanctions further than they properly should have been stretched. This new clause will put right this sort of absurdity, and again I commend it warmly to your Lordships' approval.
The only other clause I should like particularly to refer to is Clause 8. Like my noble friend, I found the drafting of this clause very tricky, but I think the meaning is quite clear. It will give local authorities a power to suspend the annual provision for the repayment and to borrow for the payment of interest on certain loans. I think this fills a need felt in local government circles—and not only in local government circles—for some time past. I regard this particular clause not only as important but also as having a particularly soft and palatable centre, to echo my noble friend's phrase. I might perhaps remind your Lordships that in a debate on urban central redevelopment in another place last year the then Minister of Housing and Local Government (whom we shall soon be welcoming to this House) said [OFFICIAL, REPORT, Commons; Vol. 657, col. 1721]:
"I think that a good case has been made for enabling local authorities carrying out redevelopment schemes to defer repayment for an initial unremunerative period. This means legislation, and I can give no undertaking when that will be possible, but I accept the principle of being able to do this in this field as it can be done in certain other fields."
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When I was at his Ministry, at the time, this was a matter which to some extent came my way, and I am delighted it has been found possible to incorporate this particular provision in the Bill. Of course, it will not mean that all local authorities anxious to get ahead with perhaps very much needed schemes for redevelopment will now be able to do so. We must be realistic here. I would remind your Lordships that in any redevelopment scheme loan charges—and particularly the interest element—can represent a substantial charge on the rates during the initial period before rents begin to come in or before money is received from the sale of sites for redevelopment.
However, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has said this particular clause is not a panacea, and of course it is not. The suspension of loan charges in itself can be expensive, and borrowing to pay interest during the period of suspension will naturally in certain cases quite substantially increase the total cost. Therefore, borrowing for interest, as this clause will permit, is something which the local authorities will not wish lightly to undertake. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that many redevelopment schemes can be expected to yield revenue on a scale which will amply justify recourse to this particular clause; and the experience of private developers proves this up to the hilt. I can think of a number of otherwise very desirable schemes which would have been held up even in the last year or so but which might well have gone forward to the advantage of the community concerned had this provision existed. I do not think I should name the place, but there was a case in the North-East where the importance of power to defer interest charges would have meant the imposition of an additional 3s. rate for the first years of the scheme. In the future that sort of scheme could be proceeded with, if the circumstances were right, without laying an undue burden on the ratepayers. In any event, I am confident that this power to borrow to pay interest will in fact be widely welcomed, as it has already been, by many go-ahead local authorities.
Before I leave this clause I should perhaps confirm to my noble friend that, in framing regulations or in designating

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purposes in individual cases where this power to suspend would be authorised, my right honourable friend would restrict the operation of the clause to purposes which would either produce revenue or lead to the receipt of a capital sum for the sale of land or property. If there is no prospect of either of these things, the local authorities ought, of course, to meet the loan charges in full from the outset.
My Lords, I do not think there is anything further I need add to what my noble friend has said in his lucid explanation of this complicated measure. In looking down the clauses I noticed that, under Clause 14, the Isles of Scilly can be brought within the scope of the Bill. This is doubtless a most important provision, but it surprised me at the time. Nevertheless, I gather from your Lordships that this Scilly provision (if your Lordships will excuse that appalling pun, which I think is permissible on a Friday) is quite customary in local government measures of this sort. That said, I should like once again to echo the congratulations which my noble friend has already received on being the sponsor of what I regard as a thoroughly useful addition to legislation, which I am sure will work to the advantage of Government, both central and local.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am most grateful to your Lordships for the welcome which you have given to this Bill. On the last point that my noble friend made, I must say that I should think the Council of the Isles of Scilly would be just as jealous as myself that they should on all possible occasions have a special mention in legislation of this nature. I think it is entirely suitable. Apart from thanking my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Champion, opposite, for their enthusiastic welcome to this Bill, the only other thing that I should like to say is that in opening I forgot to draw attention to the most important part which will be played in safeguards under the Bill by the district and the professional auditor. This is a subject close to my heart, and I am glad to see that he has an important part to play, whether he be district or professional. My Lords, I commend the Bill to your Lordships for a second reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DEER BILL
12.12 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, in rising to move the Second Reading of this Bill, I want to remind your Lordships of the Deer (Scotland) Act, 1959, which followed the Report of the Scott Henderson Committee on cruelty to wild animals, so wisely set up by the Labour Government in 1951. The sections of the Scottish Act in dealing with the avoidance of unnecessary cruelty to deer are, to all intents and purposes, the same as the corresponding clauses in the Bill that I am now presenting, with the exception of course that they conform to English law as opposed to Scottish law.
The reasons underlying the necessity for this Bill are not in every case the same as those behind the Scottish Bill. The Scottish Bill became a dire necessity through the break-up of many big Highland estates after the war, when the vigorous protection which had been afforded to the wild red deer by these estates went by the board. But for the protection of landowners interested in conservation, the deer were at the mercy of bands of armed thugs who shot them at all times and seasons of the year. The situation was further complicated by the great food drive in the war, and the great increase of sheep on the high hills which in many cases drove the deer to other areas to seek new pastures. That, of course, required the setting up of the Deer Control Commission.
In the case of the England and Wales Deer Bill, which I am now presenting, the reasons are, on the whole, put forward on somewhat similar lines, although there are many reasons which are not the same as those behind the Scottish Act. First, we have had a great increase in the deer population of England and Wales owing to the extremely large acreage of timber that we now have in this country. In fact, it has been increasing ever since the First World War, owing to the extremely praiseworthy efforts of the Forestry Commission and of private landowners. I believe that there are now 600,000 acres of young plantations in England and Wales. This has altered the pattern of wild life in the

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country and has resulted in a great increase in deer, because, as your Lordships know, the natural habitat of deer is woodland. Equally, with the increase of woodland we have had an increase in arable land. Deer do damage to arable land. So it has become necessary to have a Bill to control, but at the same time to conserve, them.
Another reason has been the great increase in the number of weapons in private hands, especially in the last fifteen years. Then there is the greater accessibility of the countryside because of the motor car. This has resulted in a great deal of unauthorised shooting throughout the countryside by people who not only cause great danger and suffering to wild life, but are also a danger to themselves and to the public generally. To aggravate the problem, we have also had higher prices paid for venison, which is a direct encouragement to gangs in cars to shoot entirely for commercial profit without any regard to animal suffering. Probably it surprises a great many people in this country to learn that there is no proper legislation already in force to protect our largest and finest wild fauna. I think we are alone among civilised nations in having no such protection. In feudal times the wild deer were heavily protected by the Crown. But I personally can find no Act of Parliament during the last one hundred years that has done anything at all to protect wild deer. We have the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, which of course is chiefly concerned with domestic animals.
Before proceeding to discuss the Bill itself, I should like to name those organisations which have put an immense amount of effort and work into the preparation of this Bill. First of all, we have the sponsors of the Bill, the British Field Sports Society, ably supported by the Forestry Commission, the Nature Conservancy, the Council for Nature, the Fauna Preservation Society, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, the National Farmers' Union, the Country Landowners' Association, the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, and the New Forest Buck-hounds. I should also like to mention my honourable friend Mr. Jasper More in the other place, who presented this Bill there; also my honourable friend
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Mr. Kimball, who ably supported it, and there are many others, including my noble friend, Lord Willingdon, who is really rather more qualified than I to present this Bill. All these organisations have taken an immense amount of trouble in the preparation of this Bill. I am afraid I have done very little in relation to it; I am just a spokesman, and have not done the actual work.
May I now turn to the Bill itself? If we take Clause 1, which deals with close seasons, and if your Lordships will turn to the Schedule, you will see there the stags and bucks (apart from the roebuck, for which I will explain the reason later) who, if the Bill is passed, are to have a close season from May 1 to July 31. Some of your Lordships may wonder why this is such a short season, because in the Scottish Act the season for stags runs from October 21 to June 30. The reason is the difference in habitat. One has to remember that in the Highlands when the stag has bred he is very weak and valueless as a carcase, and, owing to the sparse grazing because of the early frost, he cannot regain his condition and is in a very poor state for the whole of the winter. But this does not apply in England, because after the breeding season the buck or stag has plenty of feeding and soon regains his strength. One also has to remember that in England, where the deer live in forests, the only season during which one can shoot them is when the leaves are off the trees and the bracken is down, so it is quite impracticable to have the same close season as exists in Scotland. The only way one can shoot deer in dense forest when the foliage is on the trees is to have a couple of highly trained hounds or tufters to drive them out of the forests.
Your Lordships probably want to know why the roebuck has no close season. The reason is that the roebuck has a different life cycle from that of the red deer, the fallow deer and the sika deer. He sheds his antlers at a different time and is in velvet at a different time; and when in velvet he does a great deal of damage in the woodlands. This is in contrast to the cycle of the fallow and red deer who are in velvet from May I to the end of July; the roebuck is in his velvet far earlier on in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. If one had

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a close season for him, it would be extremely hard to shoot him in the summer when the foliage is on the tree. No sportsman, of course, ever shoots a stag or buck in velvet, because they are then at their lowest ebb and, if they are frightened at all, they can easily damage their horns in the undergrowth.
Your Lordships will also notice from subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 1 that:
"The Secretary of State may by order amend the said Schedule by the addition of deer of any species not mentioned in that Schedule …"
The reason for this is that we have other species of wild deer in England that appear to be coming indigenous. We have small deer called a mountjac, which is only the size of a small dog; we also have the Chinese water deer. Probably, in the course of time, these deer may increase and it will then be necessary for the Secretary of State to lay down a close season for them. By subsection (3) the Secretary of State will consult with any organisations interested before laying down a close season for any of these other species of deer, and I understand that these organisations include anti-blood-sports societies.
I think Clause 2 is quite straightforward. We have the same clause in the Scottish Act. One cannot have night shooting, because that leads to great cruelty—one cannot follow up wounded deer. But I would also point out that farmers are protected under Clause 10(2), which brings in the requirements of the Agriculture Act, 1947, to enable farmers or smallholders, if deer are eating their crops, to protect such crops in the night time or the daytime by shooting.
I now come to what I think your Lordships will agree is the most important clause of the Bill, Clause 3. This clause deals with unlawful methods. It follows to a great extent the recommendation of the Scott Henderson Committee in prohibiting such things as traps, snares, nets, poisons, drugs and things of that sort.
We now come to the weapons clause, and I must ask your Lordships to turn again to the Schedules. You will see that under paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 you cannot have a shot-gun under 12 bore. Of course a great many of us would rather do away with the shot-gun, but, as has been pointed out by the National Farmers' Union, who supported this Bill,
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owing to the difficulty of getting firearm certificates it is really necessary to have shot-guns, and so we have had to include them. The Scott Henderson Committee also pointed out that in undergrowth and restricted country the rifle was perhaps too dangerous, and in certain cases it was preferable to have a shot-gun.
Now we come to rifles. Of course, you cannot use a rifle with a calibre of under ·240 inches. No doubt an expert can shoot a deer with a ·22 calibre if he hits it in a vital place, in the neck or in the heart, but I am afraid the average person would only wound a deer. The trouble is that, if you shoot a deer with a ·22, you cannot with certainty tell whether or not you have hit it, because it gives no reaction at all, unless of course you hit it in a vital place. Therefore, after the words "a calibre of less than ·240 inches", there is inserted "or a muzzle energy of not less than 1,700 foot pounds." Some of your Lordships are probably ballistic experts; I think my noble friend Lord Swansea is going to speak on this subject. But what we call the foot poundage or the muzzle energy is a definition of the measure of the punch with which the bullet hits the deer. If you have a high muzzle energy you are, of course, far more likely to kill the deer. But even if you "haunch" it, which would be most regrettable, although the deer may not keel over you can see that you have hit it, and where you have hit it, and can then follow it up. Of course, I quite agree that you cannot expect a local constable to measure the muzzle energy of a rifle, but if he arrests a poacher presumably he will have his rifle and cartridges and then one can easily have the muzzle energy of the rifle proved by an expert.
As regards the shot-gun cartridge, it would of course be far preferable to have only a single ball as large as that used in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent. But here, again, under the existing law in England, if you have a shotgun you have to have a firearm certificate to fire only a single slug, to which again the N.F.U. object, so we have decided that we cannot have that. But a great deal of work has been done in experiments on the size of shot and on the type of shot-gun cartridge. After exhaustive experiments carried out, I understand, under the jurisdiction of a

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deputy surveyor of the New Forest and of one or two other bodies interested in this, the conclusion has been reached that SSG gives the best results, because in their experiments they found that 83¼ per cent. of all pellets of SSG fired proved to be fatal, as against 47½ per cent. of LG. Perhaps some people do not agree with that, but we have the proof of the experiments.
I shall have to return to the unlawful weapons clause because I forgot to mention the use of mechanically propelled vehicles, which of course is not allowed. Under Clause 3(3), the occupiers of deer parks are exempt from the restrictions on the use of mechanically propelled vehicles as set out in Clause 3(2). The reason for this is, of course, that in deer parks the ground is usually flat and open, and the most practical way of getting in to close range is by driving up in a Land Rover, because, as a great number of noble Lords will know, wild animals do not appear to be so scared of human beings in cars as they are of people on their feet. So the object of this clause is to prevent wounding, but the exemption is applicable to only the owners of deer parks. Of course, the chief owner here is the Crown, particularly in Richmond Park.
My Lords, Clause 4 is quite plain sailing, and I do not think there is anything I can say about that. I ought perhaps to point out here, with regard to Clause 4(2), that the term "prohibited article" does not include a car. In other words, if a man were caught poaching and his possessions were taken the authorities could not take his car. Clause 5 follows the Scottish Act but conforms to English law. Clause 6 also follows the Scottish precedent but conforms to English law. Clause 7 also follows the Scottish procedure on seizure, but perhaps I may refer your Lordships to subsection (2) of Clause 7. Here it says:
"A constable may sell any deer seized under this section and the net proceeds of the sale shall be liable to forfeiture in the same manner as the deer sold".
If a constable seizes a deer, you cannot just let it rot in a police station: it ought to be made use of. We are here following, as I have said, the Scottish procedure. There is the same principle in the game laws, too. As to Clause 8, I do not think there is anything I
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need say. The penalties are far less severe than under the Scottish Act. On Clause 9, I ought to point out that "vehicle" includes an aircraft also. It may seem rather extraordinary that people should want to poach deer from aircraft, but I understand that there has been an instance of somebody in a helicopter shooting deer. I must say that seems a rather expensive way of doing it.
Under Clause 10, a person may kill an injured or diseased deer by using any of the articles prohibited by Clause 3(1)(a) or (b)—that is to say, traps, snares, drugs or nets. He may also use any weapon for that purpose. Subsection (2) of Clause 10 is important. I have referred to it before with reference to farmers. There is nothing in this Bill which prohibits farmers from protecting their crops. Subsection (3) of Clause 10 is important because there might be an instance where the farmer or the smallholder was ill, and if he was ill he would, presumably, be unable to go and protect his crops from the deer. Under this subsection he can designate somebody else to do this job for him. Of course, he has to prove that the action is necessary to protect his crops, pasture or trees.
Clause 11 gives to the Nature Conservancy the authority to license such prohibited articles as stupefying drugs or muscle-relaxing agents with the object of taking deer alive for scientific purposes and also educational purposes. These relaxing agents have been used in Africa with great success, and they are humane and quite harmless. The licences can be revoked by the Nature Conservancy at any time. Clause 12 merely prescribes the form in which the Secretary of State is to make orders under the Bill. Clause 13 is just the Title of the Bill, its extent and commencement.
My Lords, that is the Bill. Of course, it is not perfect—I do not suppose any Bill ever has been perfect—but it must be remembered that it had been born out of compromise between many conflicting interests. But I would emphasise that this Bill is not directed to favour any particular section of the community—sport, forestry, agriculture or commerce. The plain object of the Bill is to prevent cruelty to our most beautiful of wild animals. It may surprise your

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Lordships to learn that, out of all the deer shot in. Forestry Commission woodlands last year, 60 per cent. of them had gunshot wounds. I myself have seen the most pitiable sights of wounded deer—deer with their jaws shot off or their entrails hanging out—and it honestly makes one's heart bleed to think that we have not had any previous legislation to prevent this. One sometimes sees fawns that are dying of starvation because the does or the hinds have been shot. My Lords, I really commend this Bill to your Lordships as an extremely humane Bill, and I hope your Lordships will give it all the support you can. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Massereene and Ferrard.)
12.48 p.m.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount on the way in which he has presented the details of the Bill, and I am bound to tell him that I support it to the extent that it does anything at all to help deer. But I want, if I may, in a speech that I think will take rather longer than until the one o'clock adjournment time—but we shall see—to say why it is that I criticise this Bill. I criticise it not because of what is in it but because of what is not in it. I do not like it for the following reasons. It will not stop the hunting of deer by hounds; it will not stop the worrying or the hunting of pregnant hinds; it will not stop that dreadful practice of slitting a deer's throat without pre-stunning; it will not stop the disgusting cruelty of the hunting of carted deer: it will not stop the use of a shotgun using what is called "sportsman" size shot; it will not stop the indiscriminate shooting of deer; and it will not stop the leaving of a wounded deer. That is a fairly comprehensive and formidable list of deficiencies in the Bill, as I see it, but there are more. These I shall endeavour to point out not in this speech, in order not to waste the time of your Lordships, but when moving Amendments trying to change the close season, and so on, when we reach that stage of the Bill, if it goes on its way this afternoon.
As the noble Viscount moving the Bill has said, this is a child of the British Field Sports Society, and I do not need to tell your Lordships that the aims and objectives of that Society are not the
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defence and protection of animals but the defence and protection of all blood sports in this country. They set up this working party under the chairmanship of a Member of another place, a former huntsman and a Master of Hounds, and, as the noble Viscount has said, that working party consulted with various people. It consulted with important and reputable bodies like the Forestry Commission and the Country Landowners' Association, and as the noble Viscount reminded us, it consulted also with the Devon and Somerset Stag-hounds and the New Forest Buckhounds.
But I will name three organisations that it did not consult: the National Society for the Abolition of Deer Hunting, the League Against Cruel Sports, and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. One might have been forgiven for thinking, if this Bill is to help animals, that each one of those three organisations might have had some inquiries addressed to it and might have been consulted before the Bill was drafted. I am afraid I agree with those in another place who said that the Bill is a rearguard action of those anxious to continue blood sports. I agree, too, with the honourable gentleman who, in the Committee stage of the Bill, said that what always impressed him was the enormous lengths to which Parliament in this country will go to protect the interests of so-called sportsmen. My Lords, we are the nation that passed resolutions condemning the Russians for putting a dog up in a sputnik in the air.
It may surprise some of your Lordships to know that deer have even less protection than the hare. They are classed, in fact, with rats as vermin in England and Wales. The Protection of Animals Act, 1911, completely failed to protect them. Sections 12 to 16 of the Larceny Act, 1861, which refer to unlawful hunting, wounding, snaring or killing, relate in fact only to animals that are owned. Wild deer are not owned by anybody and are the responsibility of no one. So in England and Wales you can still do what you like. In Scotland, by the Act of 1959, as the noble Viscount commented in moving this Second Reading, machinery was set up which was regarded by most people as containing many satisfactory features. As one listened to the noble Viscount one would have thought, from his praise

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of the Scottish Act and the comparison he was seeking to make between that Act and his Bill, that this Bill would have reproduced effectively those features in the Scottish Act; but, of course, it does not.
The Scottish Act of 1959 sets up a Deer Commission, making a provision that it is unlawful to kill deer other than by shooting, and providing for the establishment of effective and long close seasons. I should like to deal in Committee with the way in which this Bill does not. In my view, the first improvement needed in this Bill is a clear one: the provision for a deer authority, somewhat on the lines of the Scottish Act Commission, charged with clear functions to be carried out in accordance with the directions given by the Secretary of State. Only by the establishment of such an authority can cruelty, embarked upon in the name of sport, be dealt with effectively.
My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government representative in another place said that the indiscriminate shooting which constitutes the main evidence in respect of this problem is not necessarily attributable to poachers. The fact is that more and more inexpert marksmen are taking part in shoots. I take one of a number of Press cuttings that I possess to quote to your Lordships. It is from the Manchester Evening News of May 31, 1963. It states:
"Top professional people and business men in the North-West have started practising for a suddenly fashionable sport … and in the new hunting grounds of the North it is cheaper than most other prestige pastimes … 8s. per hour … and sportsmen may buy the heads of any deer they kill for £2 10s. 0d."
I regard it as deplorable that the Bill, as it is now drafted, places no curb on the amateur marksmen whose numbers are increasing.
This state of affairs, with its increase in unnecessary suffering to the animal, is likely to continue unless the control of deer is put in the hands of a Commission or authority on lines similar to those I have suggested. Indeed, unless there is such an authority the next thing we shall know, based on this North-West experience, is the use and hiring of land for "shoots" which, in turn, could even lead to the breeding of animals especially
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for use in hunting and shooting. That is common on the Continent. At least one firm in Denmark exports animals especially bred for this so-called sport.
The only method of humane deer control, in my view, is the system increasingly practised by Her Majesty's Forestry Commission, modelled on the German style, which is called "selective shooting"—shooting by experts trained in the knowledge of deer, trained in marksmanship, using high seats and rifles; and not deer drives such as are now practised in this country, and which are still not to be prohibited under this Bill as it now stands. A recent issue of the Field, referring to deer drives, said:
"They are conducted too often as if they were pheasant shoots, with deer sent forward in panic and hasty shots fired."
Nor does this Bill prohibit the most horrible practice of all in respect to deer drives: the hunting of carted deer. On that subject I venture to keep your Lordships from lunch for another couple of minutes to read to you from the pamphlet of the R.S.P.C.A.:
"The most decadent of all hunts is the hunting of the carted deer. The Government Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals, reporting to Parliament in 1951, said of it: 'We cannot see that it fulfils any useful function'."
Then it goes on to give a description given by a person called a "humane person" who saw it at the Norwich Stag Hunt. This is the description given to the Association:
"… 'Two harmless hinds, bred in captivity, each in a small crate, were carted to the meet. The hounds sniffed round the crates for the scent. The crates were then taken to a field some distance away where one terrified deer was released and this bewildered creature made off. Then along came the hounds and huntsmen into the field to get more scent. (The second deer was still in its crate.)
'The hunt was then on and men and women started the chase. Others at different points showed the way the poor frightened creature had gone. It was caught exhausted and half-drowned in a pond and was re-crated to be used for a future hunt.
'The "spare" deer in a frantic state was jolted round the countryside for hours, the trailer traversing banks and gullies following the sport.'"
That animal is released if the first one does not provide good enough sport; or if it manages to get itself killed and thus gets out of its misery. But if the sport is good enough then the second one goes back with the first one.

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My Lords, that is a pretty shocking story. I cannot think why provision to stop this is not in the Bill already. This disgusting thing is practised in only two small parts of the country. It is a blot on England and on the English way of life. I deliberately use the word "England" because both cases are in England. My Lords, we have spent thousands of pounds to save antelopes in Kenya. Can we not spare a thought for the deer in this country, to protect them from those who misuse the name of sportsmanship? While we follow with growing interest tie rescue of animals from the encroaching waters of a dam in darkest Africa, here, in allegedly civilised England, the Press can report an ex-master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds as saying of a deer at kill:
"Of course, it was in calf … they always are at this time of the year … and, of course, it was exhausted … we do not catch them unless they are."
So, are we a civilised community?
While I shall not oppose the Second Reading, I will try to persuade your Lordships, in the stages of the Bill between now and Third Reading, to make such Amendments as will make it a Bill which is really for the benefit of animals as well as for the benefit of alleged sportsmen. I welcome the Bill because it does two things. First of all, it opens the door to legislation about deer; and, secondly, it gives me an opportunity of persuading some of your Lordships to make this the good Bill it can be.
[The Sitting was suspended at two minutes past one and resumed at 2 o'clock.]
2.0 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, as the only Member of your Lordships' House who was a member of the unofficial committee which drafted this Bill and sat through many weary hours in a bad winter, I should like to commend it to your Lordships. I could not agree more that the Bill is a glorious compromise: it pleases everybody on the committee, but satisfies none completely. We had tremendous help as the noble Lord, Lord Crook, said, from the Forestry Commission, in that they were the people on the Committee with probably the most experience in the technical slaughter of deer. The most difficult task
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was that of the ballistic experts, because having once decided what should be possible, with the anti-cruelty well in mind, and the safety and the non-safety of the high-powered rifle, we forgot that there were also some people who owned foreign rifles; and the ballistic gentlemen had to start work all over again.
I wish that my father's great friend the late Lord Winterton could have been here to see this Bill begin its life in your Lordships' House to-day. It embodies a plan that was always very dear to his heart, and I hope that it will have a satisfactory progress. Lord Winterton, I would also add, was one of the greatest masters of foxhounds we ever had in Sussex. I should like to point out that the Bill was given a vast amount of time in another place, where it was carefully considered, and certain Amendments were adopted. What it does is to enable the deer family to produce their young in comfort, and in safe conditions, and the stags to grow their horns at the appropriate times of the year—always provided that they do not commit any major crime of crop destruction, a stipulation that is very much appreciated by many of us who in these days are rather intensive farmers. The Bill lays particular stress on the vital point of the protection of wild life in the right proportion to the various parts of England, a matter which I know appeals to all your Lordships. It also proves the most important point, which again will appeal to many of your Lordships: that the sportsman is the greatest conservationist of all.
2.3 p.m.
LORD DOWDING: My Lords, I welcome this Bill as giving a little much-needed protection to the deer in England and Wales. I do not think that it goes far enough, but there are many interests to reconcile; and we must not forget (I think this is right) that the original sponsor of this Bill drafted it from the point of view of the preservation of field sports. So it would be unreasonable to try to reverse the whole thing in this House. It is a good start towards the preservation and protection of deer, and even if it went through without any Amendment, I should still think it was a valuable Bill.

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The Bill prohibits night shooting, trapping or poisoning, shooting with injurious weapons and shooting from motor cars. Close seasons are introduced for all deer except the roebuck. I do not think that the reasons for this exemption are very cogent. I suppose the original reason for the close season of stags in Scotland was that when they were shot they should have good heads as trophies, with fully grown antlers, and no velvet. But supposing that that was the case, I can see no real reason why the roebuck should not have similar protection, though, of course, if he grows his horns at a different time from other deer then his close season might differ from that of the others.
There is one point that has not been mentioned about the exemption of the roe deer from the close season clause, and that is that anybody shooting one of the other three kinds of deer during that close season would be able to say that it was a mistake; that it was in thick bushes, and he thought it was a roe deer. He might get off on that plea. There is one thing about the close season which is very important—I think it is the most important thing in the whole of the Bill—and that is that the close season for hinds and does in England and Wales does not begin early enough. Owing to the difference in climate, I suppose they generally drop their young three weeks to a month earlier than is the case in Scotland. I think there is a strong case for putting forward the beginning of the close season for hinds and does to February 1. Incidentally, it would also help to abolish the rather horrible practice of hunting pregnant does in March. So I should be strongly in favour of putting forward the beginning of the close season to February 1.
Of course, all these points would really fall to be discussed in full detail during the Committee stage, but there are some which I think could fairly be brought forward now. One of the others is the question of the prohibition of certain arms and ammunition listed in Schedule 2 of the Bill. It seems to me that the practice of horizontal shooting with high-powered rifles is a very dangerous one, and I should like to see the shotgun permitted, provided that the lethal bullet
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is used. The large type of buckshot (I have forgotten what it is called) scatters and makes a very bad pattern, but the lethal bullet is a very deadly projectile. It is used for shooting dangerous game in India and other places.
The objection to such a course is that anybody using a lethal bullet in a shotgun requires a firearms certificate. I do not see any harm in that: I think it is a very good thing. It will prevent a great deal of this casual shooting by inexpert marksmen which results in the wounding of so many deer. We were told by the noble Lord, Lord Crook, that an experienced forestry marksman said that no fewer than 60 per cent. of the deer which he shot showed old wounds from shotguns; and that is a rather terrible state of affairs. So I would say that it was for consideration whether the use of the high-powered rifle, at any rate, should be recommended in conjunction with the high seat, and that the shotgun with lethal bullets should be legalised for horizontal shooting on the ground and in woods.
Additions to the Bill might include a deer-control authority, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Crook. This is, I think, a rather novel idea and it is difficult to see precisely what its functions would be and how it would exercise them. But the idea seems to be worth consideration, because at the present moment the deer are "nobody's children" and it would be a good thing to have some kind of body which had direct responsibility for looking after them. I am one of those who would like to see deer-hunting with packs of hounds entirely abolished. I think that if such a body were formed it should cover the sporting interests, and the interests of the Nature Conservancy, the Forestry Commission, land owners, farmers, market gardeners and animal-protection societies. There is plenty of work to be done by such an authority in the proper management and protection of wild deer which at present belong to nobody; but I fear that public opinion requires further education before such a body would come into the field of practical politics.
The hunting of carted deer, however, falls into a rather different category. I think it is a thoroughly unsporting procedure. The deer themselves, because they are liberated in strange country,

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often run into barbed wire, entangle themselves and are cut very badly. Furthermore, if the deer takes a line across country infested with barbed wire then the field do not get much of a run. And it seems to me that a well conducted drag hunt would have great advantages over this practice of hunting the carted deer. Again, I would say that whatever Amendments may or may not be introduced at the Committee stage, I think this Bill as it stands is a very valuable instrument as, at any rate, a starting point for looking after and preserving the interests of the wild deer of England and Wales.
2.15 p.m.
LORD SWANSEA: My Lords, I would agree wholeheartedly with what the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, said in his concluding remarks. I think this Bill will do a very valuable service in establishing close seasons for deer and in placing restrictions on the methods to be used in killing them. I should like to take up a couple of points which the noble Lord, Lord Crook, mentioned during his speech. When he was talking about the bodies which were represented on the working party sponsored by the British Field Sports Society, he said that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals were not given an opportunity to be represented. That is not quite so; because I have here a Memorandum on the Bill circulated by the British Field Sports Society in which they say:
"In their evidence to the Scott Henderson Committee the R.S.P.C.A. made their position clear in relation to irresponsible shooting, and as they were not actually involved in the earlier Bill or the management of deer they were not represented on the Working Party."
The Bill before your Lordships now is based broadly on the recommendations of the Scott Henderson Committee on which the R.S.P.C.A. were represented.
The other point raised by the noble Lord was that he said that the Bill does not prohibit the shooting of deer with shot-gun cartridges loaded with small shot. With due respect to the noble Lord, I must say that is not so. If he will read Schedule 2 to the Bill he will see that the type of cartridge to be used in smooth bore weapons is clearly defined and does not include any size of shot which could, by any stretch of the imagination, be used for shooting small game.
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Your Lordships may like a little amplification of some of the aspects of the Bill dealing with weapons and ammunition, in particular the clause relating to muzzle energy. This is a common term in ballistic circles and means the striking energy developed at the muzzle by any given bullet or cartridge. It is expressed in foot pounds, and is easily calculated when the weight of the bullet and its muzzle velocity are known. I think it is very desirable for this Bill to include such a provision as that in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 which lays down the minimum muzzle energy for rifle cartridges. The difficulty here is the question of enforcement of the clause. If the village policeman caught up with somebody whom he suspected of being in possession of arms and ammunition which are prohibited under this Bill, I should be most surprised if he knew enough about firearms to be able to tell, first, the calibre of the rifle and, secondly, the power of the rifle; in other words, whether it came within the permitted scope of the Bill. It would be possible for somebody carrying a rifle of an inadequate calibre with which he intended to shoot deer, to have in his pocket a couple of cartridges of a permitted calibre which he may have collected, acquired, scrounged or got hold of in some other way, and to produce them to the policeman, saying, "These are my cartridges; they are legal." Unless the policeman knew more than just a little about firearms, he would be hard put to it to determine whether or not that person was carrying a permitted weapon.
Then, supposing that the constable took into his possession a rifle and the cartridges which were to be fired from it, how is the muzzle energy to be determined? The only way to determine it is to test fire the weapon and measure the muzzle velocity by means of a ballistic pendulum or a chronograph and thence calculate the muzzle energy. I do not know how many chronographs or ballistic pendulums there are in this country. I do not think there are many. Nor can there be many people who are sufficiently skilled or trained in their use. They need skilled operation. How easily those facilities would be available to the police for testing impounded weapons and ammunition, I do not

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know; but it is a rather serious weakness in the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Dowding, mentioned the use of lethal ball cartridges in shot-guns. Here I am bound to say that I agree with him, because the shotgun used with shot, even of the sizes permitted in this Bill, is comparatively ineffective. It is effective only at a short distance with SSG shot—20 to 25 yards. Beyond that distance the pellets have neither the power nor penetration to inflict a disabling wound on the deer, nor are they grouped closely enough to ensure that a vital part of the animal is hit. The solid ball is very widely used on the continent of Europe and, I believe, in the U.S.A., and it is a very effective cartridge indeed for the shooting of deer and wild boar, for which purpose they use it on the Continent.
The Scott Henderson Report itself says:
"The shooting of deer with shot-guns must inevitably be accompanied by a great deal of suffering".
That has been mentioned earlier by other noble Lords in this debate, and is the case particularly when cartridges loaded with what might conveniently be described as "bird-shot" are used. Even with cartridges loaded with large shot, SSG or larger, if the shot is taken at too great a distance there is very great danger that the animal will get away wounded. I do not think that this Bill goes quite far enough in this respect, and I should like to see, so far as concerns smooth bore weapons, small shot prohibited altogether and only the use of lethal ball or rifled slug being allowed.
While a suitable rifle is the most humane weapon, if a shot-gun must be used I think that a ball cartridge, especially for red deer, should be the only one allowed. Admittedly, it needs a firearms certificate, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, said, I do not think that this would be a bad thing, as some measure of control would then be exercised over those who would be entrusted with the control of deer. The Forestry Commission, for instance, are very closely concerned in the control of deer, and I feel sure that they would not allow any of their employees to go out and shoot deer in order to reduce their numbers unless they were well satisfied
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that the person was able to kill the deer effectively and humanely and that he used a weapon suitable for the purpose.
It may not be generally realised just how powerful a ball cartridge in a shotgun is. This Bill lays down a minimum muzzle energy of 1,700 foot lb. As an example, the muzzle energy developed by the ·303 service cartridge is in the neighbourhood of 2,300 foot lb.; the muzzle energy of a solid ball in a 12-bore shot-gun may be anything from 2,400 to 2,700 foot lb. Admittedly, it does not maintain its velocity over a great distance, owing to its poor ballistic shape and very curved trajectory. The maximum effective range of one of those cartridges would be about 50 yards, but up to that distance it would certainly deliver a disabling blow to a deer, even if it was not hit in an immediately vital spot.
As regards the danger of the solid ball, admittedly it has a range of approximately a mile. If it were fired horizontally, as it would be in most cases, if it missed the deer, and missed any trees that were around—in other words, if it were allowed to continue on an uninterrupted course until it hit the ground—it would hit the ground in the space of about 200 yards. At that distance it would have lost a considerable amount of velocity; and even if it did ricochet, it would not go very far. It is only when the shot is fired at a considerable elevation so as to reach its extreme range, that it could be dangerous, and in that respect the ordinary rifle would be more dangerous than the solid ball from a shotgun, because it would go further. My Lords, I think I have said enough about that point.
There is one other point that I would make. As your Lordships are no doubt aware, a short while ago Imperial Metal Industries said that they were going to cease all production of centre-fire rifle and pistol ammunition. From many points of view, that is extremely unfortunate: it means that we shall now have to be dependent, at least for the time being, on imported ammunition. If they had still been producing commercial rifle ammunition I am quite sure that, with the passing of this Bill, they would have taken it upon themselves to see that they did not produce any rifle cartridges, capable of being used against

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deer, which did not fall within the provisions of this Bill. Now that they are ceasing production there will be no such certainty. We shall be relying on imported ammunition, and with the less powerful cartridges—those which are marginal cases under this Bill—there will be no guarantee that certain of them will not fall outside the provisions of this Bill. And although freely available on the commercial market, they may not be suitable for the purpose.
My Lords, I think I have taken up enough of your Lordships' time, and I will finish by saying that this Bill is very desirable. It fills a gap in providing for the humane killing of deer, and although it has certain weaknesses I am sure that they can be overcome in due course, either at a later stage or, perhaps after the passing of the Bill, by an Order in Council. I commend the Bill to your Lordships as a very big step forward in the treatment and management of deer.
2.34 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this seems to me to be a sportsman's Bill. It is a very difficult subject because it involves many interests with different points of view. There are the people who are interested in the preservation of nature, who want to see the deer in this country preserved and, if possible, their numbers increased. Then there are the foresters and the farmers who, in some cases, would like to see deer exterminated. One can understand the point of view of a man who has grown crops with great difficulty and finds overnight that a large part of them have been destroyed or eaten by deer. Then there are people who are interested in hunting deer, who would like to preserve a limited number. These are the people who shoot deer out of sport. Then, in lesser numbers in this country than in Scotland, there are those who poach deer in order to sell them on the market and who naturally would like to see as many deer as possible.
There is also, of course, the humanitarian point of view, which insists that, if we are going to keep and preserve deer, they should be allowed relatively happy and free lives, and that if they are to be killed they should be killed as humanely as possible. It is difficult
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to argue to a humanitarian that hunting deer—chasing it for a long time and then cutting its throat—is a humane way of despatch, and I must say that I agree with the humanitarian point of view; I do not think it is. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, has said, present public opinion supports it, and there is nothing we can do about it. But we should recognise that this Bill is a compromise measure. I imagine that all of us in this House, apart from the controversial issue of hunting the deer, would wish to prevent any cruelty or suffering to these animals, which can possibly be avoided, particularly by indiscriminate shooting of deer as a result of which these unfortunate, wounded and mutilated animals are eventually found half dead and in a dreadful condition. It is from this point of view, I think, that this Bill has its greatest importance.
I suggest that the main things to be said for the Bill are, first, that the deer are going to be protected. Up to now deer have been considered wild animals, nobody's responsibility, and have been completely unprotected. I think that is one great point of the Bill: it brings deer into the category of those animals for whom we are concerned. The second great point of the Bill is that it attempts to limit indiscriminate shooting, often by unskilled marksmen, which causes a great deal of suffering. Lastly, and perhaps most important, it introduces a close season for most species, during which the deer can breed. However, I hope that during the Committee stage of the Bill we shall see some alterations.
I should like to apologise and say how sorry I am that I was not able to be here this morning to hear the noble Viscount introduce the Bill, but I shall attentively read his speech in Hansard. However, I should like to say I do not see why we should not have a deer authority or deer commission which could be responsible for studying this subject and looking after the deer in our forests. This may have been argued this morning, and I would be very much in favour of it.
I do not want to argue the following points; I want merely to state very briefly what I hope will result from Amendments during the Committee stage. I personally should like to see a provision to the effect that a licence must

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be issued to people who wish to kill deer, so that no one could do so without a licence; or, alternatively, as the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, said, that a firearms certificate should be granted for the purpose. For that reason, I would much prefer the rifle to be the only weapon allowed for the shooting of deer. But if, as I understand, the rifle is considered to be too dangerous over flat spaces, I would agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said in his speech (which I thought was an extremely well-informed and interesting one), that we must allow smooth-bore guns but only to be used with a lethal cartridge or slug and not allow bird shot or any lesser bore of gun.
There are two other points. The first is that I do not see why the roebuck should be excluded. We know that they can do quite a lot of damage. But I do not see why there should not be a close season for them too; and I suspect they are excluded because there are certain interests who like to shoot them early in the year when nothing else can be shot. Whatever is the reason, I am sure they ought to be brought into the Bill and given a reasonable close season. Lastly, I hope that we can put back the date of the close season to, say, something like February 1. I understand that the breeding season here is different from that in Scotland, owing perhaps to climatic temperature and other differences; but I think the hunting of the deer later than February 1 is a mistake. I hope that someone will introduce an Amendment to alter the date of the close season and I would suggest February 1. However, hoping that some of these alterations, which I am sure would be good ones, may be brought into the Bill I would, like many of your Lordships, give it a warm welcome and hope it will be passed.
2.43 p.m.
LORD HURCOMB: My Lords, I should like to express very shortly my strong support for this Bill. It may not do everything that everyone would like; and it may not do everything it does in a way that everybody likes; nevertheless, it has received a surprising measure of assent from a very great variety of interests. It has the strong support in principle of various organisations with
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which I am concerned: the Council for Nature, the Fauna Preservation Society, and the Nature Conservancy itself. If I may, I would suggest to your Lordships that in a matter of this kind we shall make more effective progress by taking such steps as to secure a general measure of consent than by attempting something more which may be controversial and, in some respects, premature.
I am one of those who think that it was a very important step forward when the law was altered in relation to Scotland and a Deer Commission was set up. Under good scientific guidance it has worked very successfully, and I believe that it has given general satisfaction. But I feel that any step of that kind would be premature in England and Wales: although we may at some time reach the stage when such a step could usefully be taken, I am confident that we have not yet reached it. Here, with all the interests concerned, I feel that the promoters of the Bill have been wise in restricting its scope, as they have done; and for my own part I hope it will be generally accepted that we should not interfere with the long-established sports of the countryside—an issue which does not really arise out of the essential features of the measure. It is a great step forward that at last we are having a Bill which protects the deer and secures their humane treatment and, at the same time, recognises the fact that they have to be controlled. In Scotland, control is necessary in the interests of the deer themselves. I think it is equally so in this country; and the legitimate protection that agriculture and forestry need has clearly to be recognised—especially in view of the growth of some of the smaller species of deer, the roe in particular, and possibly some of the imported species. I would submit that the Bill is in no sense a measure for the protection of sportsmen; it is a genuine measure for the protection of deer, and marks a sensible and scientific step forward in conservation.
I would add only one further point. In the past, I have had a good deal to do with many European naturalists and I have had the pleasure of taking some of them round this country. They have always expressed amazement that Great Britain, which has led the world in so many respects in the protection of natural life and in the practice of sport in a

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really sportsmanlike spirit, should have left these most interesting and largest items of our fauna in England and Wales completely unprotected, with very little protection on the humanitarian side and none at all in respect of close seasons. I am very glad, on this account alone, that at last Parliament is able to deal with this situation.
I think we are all indebted to the honourable Members in another place, to the noble Lords in this House and to all the voluntary organisations, for having reached this measure of agreement, which will enable us to remove what has been a legitimate source of criticism of our practice in this respect from other countries, who in most respects are so far behind us. Therefore, I give the Bill my strong support and hope that it may reach the Statute Book before the end of this Session.
2.47 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I welcome this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, said a great many of the things I was going to say and so I shall be brief. I should like to say that I speak only on my own behalf and not for anybody else. I think it is the greatest pity that the occasion has been taken on this Bill, which is purely humanitarian, to drag in the question of British field sports and of hunting. It was my fortune to be brought up upon Exmoor, where deer have been hunted from time immemorial. I was brought up to be a sportsman, and the essential of being a sportsman is to be humane. All sportsmen—and I think here that I am speaking for stag-hunters and fox-hunters and everybody else—abhor any form of cruelty. I am not getting carried away, but there has been a Commission, which has decided that hunting must go on in the interests of deer and foxes. So it is the greatest pity that the opportunity has been taken to try to make an anti-hunting Bill of this measure.
There are two minor things I would mention on the question of close seasons. The noble and gallant Air Marshal, Lord Dowding, said that he objected to the hunting of hinds in March. I would point cut that the close season in the Bill starts on March 1. Secondly, I do not think that anyone wants to hunt, shoot or deal in any
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way with stags during and after the rut. Then, the stag is quite incapable of helping himself, and, in any case, he is inedible. I welcome the Bill and follow heartily behind what the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, said.
2.49 p.m.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, with practically every speaker who has spoken in your Lordships' House to-day, I give whole-hearted welcome to this Bill, but there are one or two details on which I am at variance with several noble Lords. I am not going to mention the smaller ones, but will go at once to the Schedules. First of all, in regard to the close season, I entirely agree that, on the one hand, it should be advanced for hinds and does to a considerably earlier period, and, on the other hand, that the roebuck ought to have a close season, too. It must be recognised that the roe can be an extremely mischievous animal, dangerous to the growth, and almost to the existence, of young woods. At the same time, he a most attractive little beast—so much so, that I myself have fenced with deer fencing most of my larger new plantations in order to avoid the otherwise absolute necessity of keeping the numbers of roe down to a very low level, if not to exterminate them altogether.
The damage done by the roe is almost entirely with his horns, and not with his teeth. He does nip off the tops of a few young trees if he gets a chance, but my experience is that such damage is not sufficiently great to be worthy of serious consideraton. But when the buck is getting his horns, and the antlers are engorged with blood and are itchy, then he rushes about the woods rubbing those horns on young trees, for which purpose he usually chooses trees of anything from three-quarters of an inch to two inches in diameter. He often completely ring-marks them, and the number of dead or dying trees that one finds on a plantation, simply from this use of the horns, is surprising.
Usually he begins to get his horns about Christmastime, although I have seen them as early as November. By the time a close season would be introduced, comparable to other deer there would be no reason why he should be a nuisance at all, so far as his horns are

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concerned. They would have been comfortable for a long time past. Therefore, I think these deer should be given the benefit of this protection, always bearing in mind that it is possible for any owner or occupier to take steps against them if they are found to be too numerous or doing damage at other times.
Where my main controversy arises is in regard to the prohibited firearms and ammunition—in fact, the general use of the particular type of firearm. If it is a question of sport, there is no doubt that all deer should be shot solely with a rifle; and in order to avoid, in comparatively inhabited country, the danger of so-called horizontal shooting, the desirable thing is that, where one cannot get a bank against which to fire, one should have platforms built so as to get plunging fire and render one's shots innocuous to the neighbourhood. That can be done only on properties where the deer are regarded from a sporting point of view. I think there has been rather a lack of perception in your Lordships' House this afternoon of the fact that when most deer are shot in order to preserve crops or woods they are shot by driving woods, often in the course of the ordinary day's duty.
Were I going out merely to shoot roe—an unpleasant but, unfortunately, unavoidable necessity—the ideal weapon that I should use would not be a rifle, and it would not be even the shotgun with aspherical or hollow bore. First of all, snap shooting with a shotgun, a single bullet, is a very difficult thing and requires an expert shot. My noble friend Lord Swansea might be able to do it, but I doubt whether the rest of us here could. Furthermore, unless the shooting is taking place in very open country one has to look over one's shoulder all the time to see that there is no one within several hundred yards. As my noble friend Lord Swansea said, the possible range of solid ball is about a mile, which is roughly the equivalent of a ·22 rifle with a long cartridge. At, say, 1,000 yards, I would far rather be hit by a ·22 bullet than a plunging 12-bore solid.
LORD SWANSEA: I would remind my noble friend of what I said. I said that the extreme range of a solid ball from a shotgun is about a mile if fired
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at an extreme angle of elevation. But I think I said that the shot fired more or less horizontally, as it would be from a standing man against a deer roughly on the same level as himself, if it missed the deer, and did not hit anything else on the way, would fall to the ground in about 200 to 250 yards.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: The noble Lord overlooked the fact that not everyone can contain himself. People are sometimes apt to fire slightly uphill, and if the deer happen to be downhill the other side, the range of the bullet might be a great deal more. It might be several times 200 or 300 yards, and then it becomes a very dangerous weapon. Accuracy is also extremely difficult. If I were setting out for the purpose of shooting deer in woods or not very open country, the weapon I should use would be the 12-bore shot-gun, preferably a 3-inch chamber gun, and the shot I should use would not be the immense slugs mentioned in the Bill, but something like AA shot, 40 to the ounce, the reason being, as the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, said, that the pattern of this very large shot is extremely bad.
I made experiments during the war on behalf of the Home Guard, when one put up targets which were supposed to represent the Hun, and it was extraordinary, even at comparatively short range, how often that target was missed altogether, and how seldom there was more than one large bullet which struck it. The mass effect of a dozen AA pellets striking a deer at 30 or 40 yards—personally, I should not fire at more than 25 yards—is infinitely more satisfactory than one or two large pellets, which in any case might not hit a vital spot. Even with a small deer like a roe, there is quite a lot of roe where a hit does not make a vital wound. It is for that reason that I feel it must be recognised that, in order to keep deer in control safely, one must legislate for the use of a shot-gun. I, personally, should like to see a decidedly smaller-size shot allowed. With these comments, which I hope are not too destructive, in common with the rest of your Lordships I welcome this Bill, which is going to do something which ought to have been done long ago for the benefit of most of our interesting wild life. I see no reason whatever for setting

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up a Deer Commission. We have already the Nature Conservancy, and I think it is to them that the task should be entrusted.
2.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, this Bill offers for the first time, as the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, pointed out, a limited measure of legal protection for the largest and most beautiful of our wild animals in England and Wales. For that reason, every noble Lord who has taken part in this debate—and I have heard the whole or part of all the speeches which have been made—has welcomed its introduction. I would add my congratulations to those of other noble Lords to the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, for the clear and painstaking way in which he explained the Bill. He mentioned that Scotland had this protective legislation in 1959. Those of us who live South of the Border cannot allow Scotsmen to go on out-stripping us in this way.
This is a Bill which bears on its face the stamp of compromise. As the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, pointed out, it is in fact a compromise between all the main interests concerned—humanitarian, farming, nature conservation and sporting. I think these main interests have been reflected in the views expressed by noble Lords in the course of the debate. Now, of course, humanitarians complain that the Bill does nothing about deer hunting by staghounds. I was not very impressed by the arguments of the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, that this was the only way of controlling the deer population in certain parts of the country. Would he not agree that, although you need hounds to catch and kill the deer in certain parts of the country, you need not necessarily have an organised hunt as well?
But I think most noble Lords took the view that they themselves did not like deer hunting or did not approve of it—and I am one of those myself—and also took the view that whether or not you ban this sport must depend on public opinion. Obviously, you do not want to pass a law banning a sport because it is cruel unless you have public opinion behind you. If one just looks at what happened in the past, it easily bears out this view. Three or four hundred years ago we had cock-fighting and bear baiting
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in this country, but no one would tolerate those sports now. They are banned by law. At the moment bull-fighting is a popular pastime on the Continent but is illegal here. These sports are recognised by public opinion to be cruel and are, therefore, prohibited by law. But I do not think myself—and I share the views of my noble friend Lord Huntingdon and the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb—that we have reached the moment when public opinion wishes this sport to be made illegal. However, I think that one of the functions of Parliament is to educate public opinion, and it is a very good thing that some of your Lordships have expressed such a strong view against deer hunting, which view has also been expressed in another place.
At the same time I am sure none of us would wish to appear prigs in this matter and we must admit that there are plenty of people outside Parliament from whom we ourselves have a great deal to learn. But it is a very good thing that there is no proposal in this Bill to ban deer hunting, for it certainly would not have survived the first test in another place. On the other hand, I do think—and the weight of opinion expressed in this debate was in this sense—that the Bill should give more protection to deer than it offers at the moment, and this protection is needed both in relation to weapons that are used to kill deer and in relation to the close season for the protection of the species.
There was a great deal of discussion about the use of the shot-gun. Some noble Lords took the view that the shotgun should be banned, which is the case, I believe, in Denmark and Western Germany, both of which are agricultural countries which produce a great deal of food and have woodlands and deer as well. In those countries, at any rate, it looks as though agricultural interests do not suffer because the use of the shot-gun is prohibited. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, who suggested the other alternative of allowing a shot-gun to be used but without shot; that is to say, with a solid ball or rifle slug. That is clearly the other alternative if you want to kill deer in the most humane way. But neither of these alternatives is offered by the Bill. I think everyone would agree that the weight of the evidence shows that the

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shot-gun is effecting an enormous amount of unnecessary pain and suffering in deer at the present time. The Scott-Henderson Report, as the noble Lord, Lord Swansea reminded us, confirms this, and I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, who mentioned the facts reported by the Forestry Commission about the number of animals among those killed by the Forestry Commission which had been previously wounded by lead pellets.
On the question of the close season, there is the poor, lonely roebuck. I suppose that, as a male, I may be slightly prejudiced, but it seems rather hard that he alone among the male members of the species, should not have the three months which other members are allowed, when they are free from pursuit by sportsmen or people protecting crops or wishing to keep down the deer population. But the strongest case of all is that made out by my noble friend Lord Huntingdon for advancing by one month the close season for hinds, bringing it forward from March 1, which is the date in the Bill, to February 1. The date in the Scottish Act, I think, is February 16. So that hinds in Scotland are protected a fortnight earlier than is proposed for those in England.
Surely that cannot be reasonable: because the climate in Scotland is a good deal colder, and it must therefore be the case that in England hinds have their young at an earlier date than they would have done in Scotland. I think the idea of killing or shooting a large animal like this in an advanced state of pregnancy, or when it already has its young, is repugnant to all of us, and this can be prevented only if the date is brought forward by, say, one month, which would make England only a fortnight earlier in this respect than Scotland.
I hope that Amendments on these lines may be put down at a later stage of the Bill. I am sure your Lordships will agree that no Bill that comes to this House is absolutely perfect, and it is one of our most useful functions to improve Bills that come to us in any ways that appear to be desirable. It is perfectly certain that we do not want to make any alteration that would involve the fate of the Bill. We certainly do not want to
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jeopardise its passage through Parliament at this late stage in the Session, but I very much hope that some of the alterations which many of your Lordships would like will be made at a later stage. And I certainly hope that the noble Viscount will be successful in getting this Bill passed into law.
3.7 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am sure that all Members of your Lordships' House, and indeed all animal lovers, are indebted to my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard for sponsoring this measure, and I also think we are indebted to him for doing so in his speech at Second Reading so fully and so ably. Being one of those Members of your Lordships' House to-day who are perhaps less well informed at first hand about this matter, I am grateful, too, for the very well-informed observations which have been made on this Bill by a number of your Lordships who are obviously very well informed about this matter. It has certainly added greatly to my knowledge. I have learned about poaching by helicopter, which I was not aware of before. I have learned a great deal from my noble friend Lord Mansfield about the more mischievous habits of the roebuck, and something about the relative lethality of SSG and LG pellets, which I was also not very well up in, and about the plunging effect of 12-bore solid shot. On that I do not want to go much deeper because I feel that these inner mysteries of the art of ballistics are perhaps best left to my noble friends behind me.
The law as it stands—and this was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crook, and the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon—does in fact at present offer little or no protection to deer in England and Wales. This Bill, if it becomes law, will, as my noble friend explained, go some way towards bringing England and Wales into line with Scotland. Some may think, with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that it is perhaps unfortunate that the English and Welsh should have lagged so far behind the Scots in this matter. Your Lordships will recall, however, that while the Committee on Cruelty, the Scott-Henderson Committee, made a specific recommendation in their 1951 Report that there should be a statutory

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close season for deer in Scotland, they made no corresponding recommendation so far as England and Wales are concerned. The Committee thus recognised that the Scottish problem was a more urgent one, and I myself therefore think it was right it should have been dealt with first.
Nevertheless, I am sure your Lordships will agree that the interval which has passed during which the present Bill has been produced has been put to good use. You will doubtless remember that, despite the very clear recommendation of the Scott-Henderson Committee for a close season in Scotland, no little difficulty (to put it mildly) was found in getting the various interested bodies to agree about the merits of a close season there. That being so, I should also like to congratulate those who have worked on the preparation of this Bill on having arrived at agreed proposals on the close seasons which are, I understand—this was confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb—in the main, generally acceptable to all the interested bodies and organisations.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I believe it is correct to say—I think the noble Earl will agree with this—that all the animal welfare societies want a longer and extended close season for hinds.
EARL JELLICOE: That may be so. Doubtless this is one of the points in the Bill to which your Lordships will wish to give further attention on Committee. On the question of the close season, it is quite obvious that nature creates a clear need, on humanitarian grounds, for a close season for hinds at certain times of the year. With the male deer the need may not be so obvious at first sight. However, as many noble Lords have explained, the "velvet" which covers the growing horn is extremely sensitive and damage to it can therefore cause acute pain. Unless deer can remain undisturbed while they are "in velvet", there is a risk of damage to the horn and of consequent suffering. I therefore find myself in sympathy with both Clause 1 and Schedule 1 of this Bill, without going into the precise details of the timings, and indeed of the particular categories which are included there.
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The same sort of humanitarian considerations underlie the case for the imposition of nightly close times under Clause 2. This clause should, I feel, be of great value in preventing much of the suffering which must inevitably be caused to deer when they are shot during the hours of darkness, but are not mortally wounded, and therefore cannot be followed up and despatched. I was struck here by the illustration of the sort of suffering which is caused, which I think was given by my noble friend, that over 60 per cent. of the deer culled each year in the Forestry Commission's forests already often carry shot of small calibre. I think it is quite clear from such evidence as I have seen, that many of these poor animals must have lived, often for months, in a maimed and mutilated condition and must have suffered greatly.
This brings me to the weapons provisions in Clause 3 and in Schedule 2. As a glance at them shows, they are complex and they go beyond the comparable provisions in the Scottish Act of 1959. The original provisions of the Bill when it was introduced in another place, were even more complex, but they have been modified to overcome some of the more difficult problems, above all of enforcement, which they appear likely to give rise to. I think it is clear in any event, that if we are to succeed in eliminating the suffering at present caused to deer by the use of unsuitable weapons and ammunition, these rather detailed provisions are going to be quite unavoidable. But on the precise details of the type of cartridge and other matters, I, for one, would like from the Government's point of view, between now and our Committee stage, to give close attention to what has been said in this debate to-day and I am sure that those other noble Lords who are interested in this matter would also wish to do the same.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, can the noble Earl on this point give us any guidance at all in regard to the issuing of a firearms certificate? Is there any objection to a firearms certificate being issued?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I should prefer not at this stage. I should like to reserve my ammuniton on this point until we get to the Committee

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stage, and meanwhile look at this whole question more closely.
In regard to penalties in Clause 8, the Bill, as originally drafted, provided for more severe penalties if two or more persons acting together engaged in night shooting or the use of prohibited weapons. In this respect it follows Section 24 of the Deer (Scotland) Act which was designed to deal with the problem of gang poaching organised on a commercial basis in Scotland. The taking of deer by such gangs involved considerable cruelty. While I understand that indiscriminate shooting of deer by two or more people together sometimes takes place in England and Wales—there were reports of this type of thing in the Lake District in 1951, and in the Quantocks in 1959 and 1961—there is no evidence, so far as I know, to suggest that it is common or organised on a commercial basis. In these circumstances, there is not, in the Government's view at least, any justification for retaining in the Bill these very drastic penalties and forfeiture provisions which were originally provided. We feel that, on balance, the Bill is the better for their deletion.
I do not think that at this stage it would be right for me to try to add anything more to what has been said by other noble Lords speaking with a great deal of knowledge on this matter. Some noble Lords feel—and this view has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Crook—that the present Bill does not go far enough. I think he took the most extreme position in that respect, but other noble Lords have also felt that in certain respects the Bill should go somewhat further. But, be that as it may, I should like to agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, has said, that this seems a sensible and scientific step forward. And, in any event, there is little doubt that if this Bill becomes law it will do much to reduce the suffering at present inflicted on deer by indiscriminate shooting—by shooting at night (when wounded animals cannot be followed up), by killing hinds when suckling (thus leaving calves to starve), and by the use of inadequate weapons which maim and mutilate but do not kill outright. In that respect, speaking personally, I welcome the Bill in that it will undoubtedly reduce the suffering inflicted
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on what is certainly one of the most attractive and most interesting species of wild animals which inhabit our islands.
My Lords, this is a Private Member's measure and it is for you to decide whether or not to give my noble friend's Bill a Second Reading. It will equally be for your Lordships to decide on the fate of the various Amendments which I think it has been foreshadowed may well be moved at Committee stage. However, before I sit down I should like to make it quite clear that the Government has no desire whatever—to put it no higherx2014;to impede the further progress of this clearly humanitarian measure.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down could he reply to me—and it may be that there is no Government view on them—on the two points I raised, in particular the question of carted deer, which has not been mentioned at all?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, as regards carted deer I was rather at pains to steer a little clear of the whole question of hunting. Here I would echo the views expressed on both sides of your Lordships' House, that whatever we may feel on the merits or demerits of hunting, there is clearly not a sufficient consensus of public opinion in the country at the present time for us, in the context of this Bill, to decide one way or the other. On the specific question of carting, I think I should also like to make my observations brief. I felt that, in talking about the habit of carting deer for the two Hunts which I think do cart deer, the noble Lord in one respect was—I am sure quite unwittingly—a trifle misleading in what he said. He quoted some words in the Scott-Henderson Report of 1951 to the effect that the carting of deer in this way fulfils no useful function. It is quite true that that Report said that, but I think it is also right, since it has been quoted and since I have been specifically questioned on this particular point, that I should just read the whole sentence from which that extract came. The sentence is to be found in paragraph 239 of the Scott-Henderson Report, and it reads:
"We are not satisfied from the evidence which we have received that there is a sufficient degree of cruelty in this sport to justify legislation to prohibit it, and therefore while

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we cannot say that it fulfils a useful function"—
the words quoted by the noble Lord—
"other than the provision of recreation, we do not find it necessary to make any recommendation about it."
The Scott-Henderson Committee not having made any recommendation about it, having considered the matter very seriously and attentively, I myself should also prefer not to make any recommendation about it to your Lordships this afternoon.
3.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I have been told to be very brief and I shall be, but might I just point out first of all to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, that there is only one carted deer Hunt in the country now? The mid-Kent pack stopped about two years ago. The noble Lord, Lord Crook, spoke about stag hunting as carried out on Exmoor. Apparently, he cannot have read the Report of the Scott-Henderson Committee, because they laid down that it was necessary for the control and conservation of the red deer on Exmoor. The noble Lord, Lord Crook, said quite rightly that the Forestry Commission are extremely enlightened in their deer management, on which I quite agree. But I would point out to the noble Lord that the Forestry Commission employs hounds themselves to hunt deer.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, whom I was extremely pleased to see supporting the Bill so warmly, said—I may have misunderstood—that he did not object to professional, paid people following deer with hounds, but he did object to people following hounds if they were not paid. I cannot quite understand that.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am sorry; I am sure it is my fault, but I do not think the noble Viscount has understood me correctly. What I said was that hunting is not indispensable for the control of the deer population. Very often, as the noble Lord himself said, hounds or dogs must be used—they are used by the Forestry Commission—but you can use hounds or dogs without having an organised hunt at the same time. That was my point.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: In other words, what the
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noble Lord objects to is not the hunting of animals by hounds, but the enjoyment of people following the hounds. I think I am correct in that assumption. Anyway, my Lords, I said that I should be brief, but I would just point out, with regard to having a deer control commission in England, that it is not practical in England as it is in Scotland, because in England the total deer population is only about 40,000, whereas in Scotland it is 200,000. So there is really no need for a deer control commission.
I quite agree with the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Mansfield, and I think one or two other noble Lords, about roebuck not being protected. I think it is a pity, but we have to remember that this Bill is a compromise, and that we have had to take into account the views of all sorts of people and of all sorts of organisations. It is not, of course, a perfect Bill, but it is a start. Another point made by some noble Lords was with regard to the Schedule dealing with weapons. I agree that perhaps it can be improved upon, but I should like to point out that Clause 3(4) states:
"The Secretary of State may by order amend the said Schedule 2 by adding any firearm or ammunition or by altering the description of, or deleting, any firearm or ammunition mentioned in that Schedule".
Therefore, my Lords, the Bill already covers that point. If it is proved that the weapons clause in the Schedule can be improved upon, the Secretary of State has power to do that.
With regard to hinds, it has been suggested that hinds ought to have the close season put back, to have an extra month from February 1 instead of March 1. I have seen hinds shot in February. Several noble Lords have said they are heavy in pregnancy then, but in actual fact that is not so; they are not heavy in pregnancy. With regard to carted deer, there is something that has not been pointed out. I happen to know that a mid-Kent stag hunt, when they existed, had two or three deer there which they hunted for years and years. They always ran the same line. I know it may seem rather absurd to your Lordships to say so, but, honestly, I think that two or three of these old deer really enjoyed it. The hounds do not harm them, and the instant the deer gets tired he stands at bay and the hounds do not

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touch him. He runs into a yard, and then he is taken home, where he is given a week or two's rest.
LORD CROOK: Is the noble Viscount suggesting that the stag or the deer enjoys that?
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I do not think they object to it after they get used to it. I personally do not particularly approve of carted stag hunting; I would just as soon have a drag-hunt—but we are really off the point here. I should like to end by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate for their support, and particularly my noble friend Lord Jellicoe for his sympathetic reception of the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

OIL IN NAVIGABLE WATERS BILL
3.30 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, perhaps, after the controversies of the Bill we have just been considering, your Lordships will be relieved to come to a Bill which is concerned with the pouring of oil on waters. This is a Private Member's Bill introduced in another place by Mr. H. A. Price, the Member for Lewisham, West. It is a short Bill, but I hope to show your Lordships that it is none the less important in trying to make further progress in preventing the pollution of our beaches by oil.
I am sure I have no need to dwell on the seriousness of the problem. Many of your Lordships will have had the personal unfortunate experience of being covered in oil on our beaches; but, even if you have not, you will be aware of the seriousness with which this problem is viewed by British holiday resorts and the tourist industry; not to mention the amount of destruction and damage caused to wild life, to birds in particular, but also, possibly, to fish. The problem has tended to increase since the war as the quantity of crude oil carried by sea to new refineries in this country and the Continent has steadily
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increased. We in the United Kingdom have suffered particularly badly because of the heavy concentration of British and foreign shipping around our coasts and also owing to the fact that the Atlantic currents may bring oil over great distances to our shores. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that the ultimate objective must be to prevent the release of oil in any way into the sea by any ship at any time; but this has necessarily to be the subject for international negotiations and we can proceed only by stages. I hope to be able to show noble Lords that this Bill represents a significant step forward to the ultimate objective.
The problem arises because of the practical needs of shipping. The cargo-carrying tanks of the oil-tanker require to be cleaned and freed from oil residue after the cargo has been discharged. This is a lengthy process and must be carried out before the ship arrives at an oil-loading port or before entering port for repair or survey. Moreover, when not carrying cargo, the tankers need to ballast some of their cargo-tanks with sea-water to ensure stability. On discharging this ballast, oil remaining in the tanks is discharged at the same time. A separate but equally important aspect arises in the case of ships, other than tankers, which are burning fuel oil. The bunker tanks from which the fuel has been used must be ballasted with seawater in order to maintain stability. This ballast water becomes considerably contaminated with oil and often has to be retained until arrival within sheltered waters, or even within port areas, in the interests of safety.
The solution is two-fold. So far as tankers are concerned, it involves the retention of tank washings, oily residues and oil-contaminated ballast water in a slop tank where, after a period of settling, separation of oil and water can take place and most of the oil-free water can be discharged overboard. The balance must be retained on board and pumped ashore at oil-loading ports or tanker repair ports. Secondly, as regards non-tankers, it is necessary to install oily water separaters on the ship to ensure that only clean water is pumped into the sea; and also to provide installations in ports to receive the residues remaining after the separation of the water.

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It is satisfactory for many years that the United Kingdom has been in the forefront of this struggle to achieve the ultimate object. In 1952 the situation around our coasts had become so serious that the Minister of Transport set up a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. P. Faulkner
"to consider what practical measures can be taken to prevent pollution by oil of the waters around the coasts of the United Kingdom."
The Committee reported in 1953 and, in accordance with its recommendations, an international conference was convened by Her Majesty's Government and met in London in April-May, 1954. It was attended by representatives of 42 nations and resulted in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, 1954.
The Convention's recommendations were accepted by Her Majesty's Government and were incorporated in the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1955, by which this country became the first to ratify the Convention. That Act designated certain prohibited sea areas in which it was an offence to discharge oil. It stipulated the keeping of records relating to the discharge of oil, and laid down considerable penalties for the infringement of its provisions. The Convention also provided that, when the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation came into being, it should act as a central co-ordinating body, and it was this body, the I.M.C.O., which convened a further conference in March-April, 1962.
This second conference was attended by 55 countries, and prepared a list of amendments to the 1954 Convention, which represented a series of further useful steps towards total prohibition. And this Bill, to which I am inviting your Lordships to give a Second Reading, is to put into effect those amendments agreed by the 1962 Convention and so enable Her Majesty's Government to ratify them. They will come into force twelve months after their acceptance by two-thirds of the contracting Governments. Unfortunately, on this occasion the United Kingdom will not be the first to ratify, as these amendments have already been ratified by France, Poland and Sweden, and I understand that the necessary legislative steps are being taken in the U.S.A. and the Federal Republic of Germany. At the same time, it is
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important that this country, as one of the leading maritime Powers, should ratify the amendments as soon as possible, and give an encouraging lead to other countries to follow suit.
I should like now to refer to the provisions of the Bill. Clause 1, relating to the sea areas in which the release of oil is prohibited, eliminates the distinction between tankers and other ships which was made in the 1955 Act. In that Act, the prohibited sea areas were larger for tankers than for non-tankers, but, as I have already explained, the problem applies to other than tankers, and it is an advantage that these prohibited sea areas should apply to all ships. Under the 1955 Act, the areas concerned may be varied by the Minister in order to meet the provisions of any subsequent international Convention, and the enlarged prohibited area recommended by the 1962 Convention can, and will, be put into effect by the Minister without need for further legislation. One of these prohibited areas, which is of most immediate concern to the United Kingdom and which, when this Bill comes into effect, will apply to all Conventions on shipping, extends some 1,000 miles westward into the Atlantic from Iceland, in the North, to Cape Finisterre, in the South, including the whole of the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, the North Sea, the Irish Channel and the Baltic Sea.
Clause 2 of the Bill is an entirely new departure and a significant step forward towards total abolition of the release of oil at sea. It makes it an offence for any United Kingdom-registered ship of 20,000 gross tons or more, for which the building contract is placed on or after the day on which this clause becomes effective, to discharge persistent oil anywhere at sea. Underlying this provision is the idea that ships of over 20,000 tons built in the future should include arrangements for the retention of oil separated from water in tank washings, oily ballast water and oily residues, so that clean water only is discharged at sea and oily waste is subsequently deposited on arrival at port.
The Bill recognises, as did the Convention, that there may be special circumstances which make it impracticable or unreasonable to retain the oil or oily

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mixture in the ship, and in such cases the master is allowed to exercise his discretion, provided he reports the fact to the Minister. This early discretion allowed to the master of a ship applies only outside the prohibited areas specified for other ships.
Clause 3 relates to the Schedules to the Bill and covers three minor amendments to the 1955 Act. The first is to define more clearly what is meant by pollution. In the 1955 Act the words used were:
"with the consequence that the oil in the mixture fouls the surface of the sea".
The effect of this amendment is to remove all reference to fouling the surface of the sea and to prohibit the discharge of an oily mixture containing 100 parts or more of oil in one million parts of the mixture. The second relates to the defences provided under the 1955 Act in respect of the discharge of oil in a prohibited zone. The 1955 Act allowed as a defence the proof that the discharge of an oily mixture was made in order to secure the safety of a vessel or her cargo. This is enlarged by this Bill to include the safety of any other vessel or her cargo. Thirdly, the 1955 Act applied only to ships registered in the United Kingdom, but in accordance with the recommendations of the 1962 Convention this is now extended to include unregistered ships of British nationality. Naval ships are still excluded, as they were in the 1955 Act, but the provisions of the Bill will now apply to other Government ships, such as G.P.O. cable-layers and Air Ministry weather ships.
Clause 4 extends the Bill to cover Northern Ireland, and provides that the Minister may bring into operation any part or the whole of the Bill at any time by order. The reason for this is to ensure that, as the amendments to the 1954 Convention are accepted by two-thirds of the contracting Governments, they may be brought into force twelve months later in the United Kingdom, as provided by the Convention. My Lords, there is still a long way to go before the ultimate ideal of total prohibition of pollution of the sea by oil is achieved, but in the meantime I can warmly recommend this Bill to your Lordships as a significant step forward, backed by international agreement. I
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beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
3.42 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Mabane, who is Chairman of the British Travel and Holidays Association, has asked me to apologise for his not being here; he had to leave at half-past two. He has asked me to say how enthusiastic his Association is in supporting this Bill. Personally, I remember querying along the Mediterranean coast last year why all the local Italian inhabitants swam in the swimming pool within a yard of the sea while the English folk swam out to sea, until we realised the oil and bilge pouring in from the ships stopping at Naples, and also, I think, from the drains coming out from the city. He asked me to mention one further point, and that is that he understands from experts that some of the causes of the trouble are ships sunk in the war that are now discharging oil from the depths. I am sure the Minister will take note of this point.
I have also been asked, as representating the Fauna Preservation Society, of which I am Chairman, and the World Wild Life Fund, to express our gratitude for this Bill. Also I think we should remember the tremendous propaganda and hard work put in by Mr. Callaghan in another place over the years to stop pollution, especially as it affects wild life and birds. It seems strange that in the last ten years the human race seems determined to destroy, not only themselves, but everything of beauty. Anything that this Bill can do to make oil pollution better in the seas around us has the wholehearted support of this Society.
3.40 p.m.
LORD HURCOMB: My Lords, I was a member of our Government's delegation, both at the earlier international meeting and at that held last year. I am very glad to hear that we are now taking steps which will enable our Government to ratify a new Convention. The alterations made some material improvements in the old agreement, some of them of very direct interest to this country. As one who took a part in these proceedings and has in many respect a great interest in its subject matter, and more

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particularly having been for so many years associated with the Ministry of Transport and shipping, I cannot but regret that on this occasion our Government has not been able to be the first in the field. France, Poland and Sweden have on this occasion got ahead of us. But I think it is only right to say how much all those concerned with the protection of our bird life are grateful to the Government for the assistance they have always given to advancing some means of coping with this evil, not only in the international Convention itself, but behind the scenes in the drafting of this measure.
There is one point I should like to raise to which the noble Lord who will speak on behalf of the Government may or may not be able to give some answer. The crux of the whole matter, as was said by the noble Lord who introduced the Bill so clearly, is how to get rid of the oil which can be separated on board ship in washing out the tanks, or whatever other methods may be adopted. The disappointment I think we have all felt during the last ten years is that so little progress has been made in most countries of the world in providing the shore facilities to which the separated oil can be discharged. But, of course, there is another method, and that is to retain the separated oil on board ship and put it back into the holds with the new cargo. I should not wish to ask any question or say anything which might impair progress of negotiations, but I would say that to my own knowledge our own ship-owners and oil companies have taken the most progressive and enlightened views of these matters. I believe it is quite practicable, having separated the oil, to put it back and bring it again into the country as part of the new cargo. The great difficulty is that some authorities abroad insist on charging dues on the separated oil, so that the owner of the oil and the ship are subject to a financial disability. There may be means of getting over that.
As I have said, I do not want to ask any question or make any point which could possibly embarrass negotiations. But that is the real, new and hopeful line of approach: to avoid the cost of having to put facilities on shore (which in some cases is not at all easy) for the reception of the separated oil, and to merge it in with the cargo and use
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it again, which I believe to be in the long run both the economical thing to do and also the real way of keeping the oil out of the sea. I should again like to give my strong support to the Bill, and hope that the Government will lose no time in ratification, once they are empowered to do so by the passage of this Bill.
3.48 p.m.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, may I say a word or two on behalf of this side of the House to thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for introducing this Bill and to assure him that it has our support? We hope it will have a speedy passage through all its stages. May I add that, like other noble Lords, I have the honour to be one of the vice-presidents of the River Boards Association, and I am in a position to say that that Association is strongly in favour of the Bill. The River Boards Association, representative of the river boards of our country, has a mass of evidence which is convincing as to the need for this Bill, and I am sure that when it reaches the Statute Book and becomes an Act the separate river boards will do all that they can to see that the Act and its provisions are effective. Again, I should like to congratulate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for bringing forward this Bill.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I should like to make the briefest of interventions in this debate in order to give warm support to this Bill. For a number of years now the Co-ordinating Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea has been campaigning in this country and abroad to secure in due course, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, told us, the total prohibition of the discharge of oil and oily wastes into the sea. The Association of Municipal Corporations have been in deep sympathy with this work, and this Bill of course has their warmest support. They, of course, are particularly concerned with eliminating or reducing to a minimum the contamination by oil of beaches and coastal works. This matter has become not merely a nuisance but a menace to their position and prosperity; and, naturally, they are anxious that this Bill should become law as soon as possible, again as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has emphasised, as just a further step

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towards the ultimate goal which is total prohibition.
3.53 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, having regard to what your Lordships have said generally on this matter, I hasten to assure your Lordships that the Government give their full support and welcome to this Bill, and I should certainly like to take the opportunity of expressing my thanks to my noble friend Lord Aberdare for having introduced it as he has done to your Lordships today. It seems to be generally recognised as important that it brings us a further step towards the stage when the discharge of oil into the sea, heedless of the consequences, on which I need not expatiate beyond what my noble friend has said, will cease. Of course it is perfectly right that the Bill is needed in order to give effect to amendments that were made to the 1954 International Convention by the Conference which met in this country last year.
The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, regretted that we had been slower than some Governments to accept it. I hope that he did not mean to be chiding in that respect, because I do not think that after a period that is only a little over a year the Government can really be described as being slow.
LORD HURCOMB: My Lords, I was not seeking to chide Her Majesty's Government at all, but merely to regret that on this occasion we were not first, as we were before.
LORD CHESHAM: Of course, I share the noble Lord's regret in that respect, but I am unable, without actually making a constitutional study regarding the other countries, to say offhand whether their legislation permitted them more easily to accept the amendments than is the case with us. Be that as it may, we cannot formally accept the amendments until the existing legislation is modified to give them legislative effect. I might point out that, for the future, the Bill takes opportunity, I notice, to extend certain of the Minister's powers under the 1955 Act so that provision can be made for the easier
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acceptance of future measures as and when they are agreed internationally, and possibly even to avoid the position which the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, now regrets.
The noble Marquess, Lord Willingdon, mentioned wrecks, which, undoubtedly give rise to pollution. There is really little that can be done about it, from the very nature of the problem, and also from the fact that many of them lie in very deep water. I suppose we can at least derive a little comfort from the fact that that must be a diminishing problem over the years, as the war recedes.
The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, mentioned retaining or re-separating residues and using them again, which I understand is a matter of some technical difficulty. I can assure him, though, that my information is that work is proceeding to try to develop the system he mentioned, although it is not proving as easy as is sometimes thought. In the same way progress is also going ahead—whether or not it is fast enough to satisfy the noble Lord I do not know—to provide facilities for discharging it in ports in countries which have accepted the Convention. With that, I have no more to say except that the Bill does have our sincere welcome and full backing, and I can assure your Lordships that it is the Government's intention to accept these Amendments as soon as the Bill receives the Royal Assent.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I should like to thank, most warmly, those of your Lordships who have so kindly supported this Bill, as indeed all of you have. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Chesham for giving it Government support, and to the noble Lord, Lord Burden, for speaking on behalf of the Bill from the other side of the House. May I also refer particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, who has himself played such a significant part in bringing these provisions into effect as a member of both international conferences? I would thank all your Lordships for the kindness shown to this Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WILLS BILL
4.0 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, this Bill amends the law relating to the formal requirements for the making of wills. It will enable the United Kingdom to ratify the Hague Convention on the Conflicts of Laws Relating to the Form of Testamentary Dispositions, made on October 5, 1961. That is Cmnd. 1729. The terms of that Convention were largely based on the Fourth Report of the Private International Law Committee which reported to my noble and learned friend Lord Kilmuir, then Lord Chancellor, on July 23, 1958. That is Cmnd. 491. My noble and learned friend Lord Kilmuir had invited that Committee, which was then under the Chairmanship of Mr. Justice Wynn-Parry:
"To recommend what alterations, if any, are desirable in the rules of the private international law of the United Kingdom relating to the formal validity of wills."
The Committee produced an admirable Report, for which they have earned and deserve our gratitude, setting out the defects of the existing law and making clear recommendations for its improvement. It is interesting to note that, of the twelve members who served under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Wynn-Parry, three have now become High Court Judges, and one has been appointed a Judge of the International Court of Justice. The Committee were of such distinction that if any noble Lord desires enlightenment on any part of the Bill he would do much better to refer to the Committee's Report than to rely on any words of mine. I will simply sum up what I think is the principle which should be followed in dealing with the subject matter of this Bill, and assure the House that this Bill endeavours to give effect to it.
The principle underlying any law requiring wills to be executed with certain formalities is that only those documents should be accepted as valid of which it can be said with reasonable certainty that they were executed by the testator with the intention of disposing of his assets after his death. A document which fulfils these conditions ought to be accepted as valid, and it is therefore a defect in the law if such a document
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has to be excluded because of some technical imperfections of which the testator might reasonably have been unaware. If, therefore, the testator complies with the formal requirements of any system of law which he may reasonably assume to be applicable, his will should be treated as formally valid.
Further, it is plainly desirable that, so far as possible, a will treated as valid in one country should be treated as valid in others. Such is the principle to which I think The Hague Convention and this Bill give effect. The Bill had the support of members of all Parties in another place, and I now commend it to this House. At a later stage I shall be happy to give further explanations on any point on which a noble Lord desires to be further informed—a task in which I know I shall have the help of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Cones ford.)
4.2 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, after the clear exposition of this Bill by my noble friend Lord Conesford, it is not necessary for me to add a word in explanation of the measure. That it is a useful measure, he has made clear; and it will, of course, have the support of Her Majesty's Government. I should like to join with my noble friend in thanking the members of the Private International Law Committee for their most valuable Report, which has been a great help. It was not possible to legislate with regard to it before because The Hague Convention had not then been concluded. This is a useful measure, and I join with my noble friend in commending it to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

OATHS AND EVIDENCE (OVERSEAS AUTHORITIES AND COUNTRIES) BILL
4.3 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, this Bill clarifies and improves the law on

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various matters relating to the taking and admission of evidence and the administration of oaths where the evidence is taken or the oath is administered in one country for purposes connected with another. I venture to deal with it shortly, because the House will certainly prefer to leave to a later stage any detailed consideration which it may desire.
It is a normal and convenient international practice for a court wishing to obtain evidence abroad to appoint a person to take the evidence on its behalf in the foreign country. Clause 1 clarifies the law, and empowers any person appointed by a court or other judicial authority in a foreign country to administer oaths in the United Kingdom for the purpose of taking evidence for use in civil proceedings. So much for Clause 1. I pass to the second clause.
Our diplomatic and consular representatives abroad have long had power to administer oaths and to perform notarial acts which are then recognised by our courts here as valid for the purposes of our law. Clause 2 enables provisions to be made by Order in Council for authorising the administration of oaths and the doing of notarial acts by the representatives of any Power that is protecting our interests in any country with which we are not maintaining diplomatic relations.
Clause 3 adds counsellors to the class of British representatives abroad who
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are empowered by the Commissioners for Oaths Act, 1889, to administer oaths and do notarial acts in a foreign country. Our courts are empowered by the Foreign Tribunals Evidence Act, 1856, to comply with requests from foreign courts to obtain evidence in relation to matters pending in those courts. Clause 4 enables such facilities to be made available for any international court or tribunal which may be specified by Order in Council. Clause 5 is designed further to facilitate the proof in our courts of entries in public registers overseas.
My Lords, those, very briefly, are the provisions of the Bill. It had the support of Members of all Parties in the House of Commons. I now commend it to the House, and beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Cones ford.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the clear and sufficient explanation he has given of this Bill, which the Government welcome, and I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at eight minutes past four o'clock.