Lords Sitting of 6 May 1963

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

FACILITIES FOR PEDESTRIANS IN BELGRAVE SQUARE
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:]
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that it is now virtually impossible for pedestrians to cross the road in Belgrave Square, where the traffic is both fast and almost continuous; and whether they will take steps to meet this, problem by means of suitably placed traffic lights and pedestrian refuges.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I agree that traffic at peak times is fast and heavy. There are traffic islands at each corner of the Square which are helpful to pedestrians who wish to cross to the centre. These pedestrians are relatively few, and their number would not justify the provision of traffic signals. The installation of additional refuges would be likely to cause some hazard to moving traffic. So I can only ask that more pedestrians use the traffic islands, and at busy times be even more careful than usual. The Commissioner of Police agrees with my conclusions. As for the roads leading into the Square, I am aware that pedestrians find some difficulty in crossing at certain times. I can see no easy solution, but I should be glad to look into the matter further in consultation with the highway authority, if the noble Lady has any particular places in mind.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. Has he considered
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whether the islands at the corner of the Square are sufficient, in view of the fact that in the main part of the Square the road is exceptionally wide and that it is a long way for a pedestrian to travel to the corner in order to cross? Also, is the noble Lord aware that there are a number of Embassies located either in the Square or adjacent to it, and that the difficulty of crossing in the centre of the Square is a source of serious concern to the staffs of those Embassies and to distinguished foreigners who visit them and who may not be familiar, or as familiar as we are, with the habits of our English traffic? Will the noble Lord have these facts in mind in looking at the situation again?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords. I had thought, or tried to think, about most of those facts, but the fact remains that part of the trouble is due to the pedestrian traffic being so light. There is no reason for them to go to the centre of the Square except to collect their car or to go into the private garden, to which access is limited to quite a small number of people. While I am aware of the problem caused to the few, I should certainly like to think about it again in view of what the noble Lady has said. I do not see any solution to it at present.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, the noble Lord's answer seems rather to imply that the slaughter of a few is relatively unimportant. It is not only a question of crossing from the north pavement to the gardens in the centre. Will he consider the position of a person who works on the north side of the square and wishes to get, say, to Victoria Station every evening, or to reach his office from Victoria Station every morning, at the peak hours?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, my preliminary reaction to this is still that it does not seem to be necessary to cross to the centre of the Square to do so.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Perhaps the noble Lord would be good enough to experiment.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, could the noble Lord say, if he has not considered this, how many roads these unfortunate people would have to cross, starting from the north, in order to reach Victoria Station?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could we know the number?
LORD CHESHAM: Three.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, may we take it from the noble Lord's Answer that Her Majesty's Government have adopted as a principle that pedestrians do not have equal rights on the roads with motor traffic?
LORD CHESHAM: No, my Lords, you may not take anything of the kind as an adopted principle. The principle that should be deduced from my Answer is that pedestrians are a traffic component, as are all the other components of traffic, and I think they should be treated gas such.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, would the noble Lord perhaps ask his statisticians, who from time to time give us such good information, whether there is a larger percentage of pedestrian accidents in one-way traffic roads in comparison with other places? I see many of the one-way traffic places where it is absolute terror for pedestrians to cross at all.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, without having the figures at my finger tips, I can say in general that the introduction of the one-way scheme in London has resulted in a decrease of accidents to pedestrians. But if the noble Earl would like, I will try to get out some more figures on these matters and let him have them.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (MARINERS) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS, 1963
2.41 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS OFFICE (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, my right honourable friend, the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, needs these regulations to take account of some of the changes made by the National Insurance Act, 1963, particularly the increase of the upper earnings limit for graduated contributions from £15 a week to £18. The regulations extend the various scales to cover earnings
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which will in future count for graduated contributions. They also provide that the old scales shall continue to apply to ships which are at sea on June 1 and return to this country within the following three months. This will reduce the amount of clerical work falling on ships' masters. Your Lordships will be pleased to hear that the National Maritime Board, which represents the two sides of the shipping industry, has assured the Minister that it is in favour of all the changes made by the regulations. I beg to move that these regulations be now approved.
Moved, That the National Insurance (Mariners) Amendment Regulations, 1963, be approved.—(The Duke of Devonshire.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) (COLLIERY WORKERS SUPPLEMENTARY SCHEME) AMENDMENT AND CONSOLIDATION ORDER, 1963
2.43 p.m.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, as the House may know, the Colliery Workers' Supplementary Scheme is an approved scheme set up in 1948, under Section 83 of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, at the request of both sides of the coalmining industry. It provides supplementary benefits for colliery workers (and their dependants) receiving benefit under the Industrial Injuries scheme for colliery accidents or diseases. The cost of the benefits and administration is borne by a fund formed by contributions from the National Coal Board and the colliery workers. The rates of supplementary injury and disablement benefits are expressed as a proportion of the rates of those benefits under the Industrial Injuries Act and so they were—or will shortly be—automatically increased by the National Insurance Act, 1963. The rates of supplementary death benefit for the widows and women having care of the children of deceased colliery workers are not so linked and an amending Order is necessary to alter them.
This Order seeks to increase these supplementary death benefits at the same time (May 27, 1963) and by the same

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proportion (approximately 17 per cent.) as the rate of industrial widows' pension is being increased by the National Insurance Act, 1963. The proposed figures are 41s. a week for a widow aged 40 or over with children and 12s. 3d. for a childless widow under 40. The present rates are 35s. and 10s. 6d. respectively. Increases in contributions to pay for the increased benefits are also proposed—from 5¼d. to 5½d. on each side. Certain other minor amendments are proposed and the Order consolidates the Scheme in its amended form. I beg to move that these regulations be now approved.
Moved, That the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme) Amendment and Consolidation Order, 1963 be approved.—(The Duke of Devonshire.)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, since the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, is not able to be here to-day, I thought I would just say a few words which I think he would have liked to say, had he been present. He is a member of the Special Orders Committee which considered this Order, and he raised a point at the meeting of the Committee. It concerns the question of whether this Order is founded on precedent. The Committee were of the opinion that it was founded on precedent, but there is a small point which the Duke raised and probably would have raised had he been here to-day.
The present scheme includes a clause to the effect that investments may not be made in any securities which have not paid 5 per cent. at least for ten years. The new Order, as I understand it, removes that part of the scheme. It is true to say that the Trustee Investments Act, 1961, includes that restriction, so in that respect it differs from the new Order. My Lords, I thought it right to inform the House of this very small point, because, as I say, I felt that the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, would have wished to do so had he been here.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I should like to confirm that the Lord Chairman is quite correct in what he has just said in elucidation of this Order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EGGS (GUARANTEED PRICES) ORDER, 1963
2.45 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, this Order has been made under Section 1 of the Agriculture Act, 1957, and so far as hen eggs are concerned it revokes and replaces the Eggs (Guaranteed Prices) Order, 1957, as amended in 1960. It gives effect to changes in the arrangements for providing guaranteed prices for eggs sold through the British Egg Marketing Board, changes which were agreed with the Farmers' Unions at this year's Annual Review discussions, and announced in the Annual Review White Paper.
The previous subsidy arrangements for eggs were very complicated, but the idea behind them was that of a deficiency payment system under which the Government bore the difference between a guaranteed price and the market price. We found in practice that those arrangements had certain faults. For example, changes in the farmer's return did not necessarily match changes in the guaranteed price because the rate of subsidy depended not only upon the guaranteed price, but upon a conventionally estimated market price derived from the market prices obtained in earlier years. But, apart from various practical difficulties in the previous arrangements, it had become clear that they were ceasing to be appropriate to present-day circumstances. For some time now there has been a danger of production outstripping demand—or outlaying demand, if my noble friend Lord Conesford will permit the expression—bringing about low market prices and heavy subsidy bills. Production reached a new record in the 1961–62 subsidy year. But for a recent check due mainly to heavy fowl pest slaughterings—and also to some extent to the very cold winter—the situation last year might well have been even more serious, with obvious over-production and very low market prices throughout the year.
We are therefore introducing, with the agreement of the unions, new guarantee arrangements incorporating features analogous to a standard quantity system. It would not be practicable to adopt a standard quantity system similar to the

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one we already have for milk, because a varying proportion of our eggs are sold outside packing stations and do not attract subsidy. We have adopted instead what is called an "indicator price". Noble Lords will see from Article 4(b) of the Order that this is the price the Egg Board might be expected to get, on average, if there were neither too few nor too many eggs being produced at home, and if imports were at their normal level—that is, the sort of level we have been used to in recent years. The essential idea is that subsidy payments should be limited to the difference between the guaranteed price and the indicator price, which has been set at 3s. 2d. a dozen. I should add that it is not intended to change the indicator price every year, although it is always open to review in the light of changing circumstances, and that the level of 3s. 2d. is based on actual market experience over the past six years and is recognised by the unions as a fair determination.
That is the idea behind the new scheme. In fact there are some elaborations upon it. In the first place, we have not gone straight to the position where the Board must bear the full effect of any fall in prices below 3s. 2d. We shall move very gradually to that position between now and 1969. Should there be any deficiency between the indicator and market prices, the Government will bear—by way of additional subsidy—60 per cent. of it in 1963–64, 50 per cent. in 1964–65, and so on by diminishing steps of 10 per cent.
Secondly, if the market price is above the indicator price, the rate of subsidy will not be reduced by the whole of the excess—as would be the position in a simple deficiency payment arrangement—but by two-thirds of it. This gives the Egg Board an incentive to obtain the best market prices possible, because it means that they will get something more than the guaranteed return if prices go above the indicator price.
The third possible adjustment to the basic rate of subsidy is of a somewhat different nature from those that I have just mentioned, and can be considered separately from them. It is dealt with in the proviso to Article 4, and enables Ministers to reduce the indicator price—thereby, of course, increasing the rate of subsidy—if they are satisfied that
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during any part of the year imports have risen above a normal level, and having regard to the Board's average selling price for hen eggs both during the part of the year in question and over the year as a whole.
My Lords, I have explained to the best of my ability the main points. The Government believe that these arrangements on the egg subsidy meet present circumstances. The Farmers' Unions have agreed both to the principle of the Scheme and to the major points in it. I ask noble Lords to approve the Order.
Moved, That the Eggs (Guaranteed Prices) Order, 1963 be approved.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
LORD WISE: My Lords, I did not think that so much could be said on the subject of eggs, but who am I to enlarge upon it? At any rate, the noble Lord has given us a very full explanation and I am certain that we shall read it with great interest and will understand it. The Order has been commended by the Special Orders Committee; it has been approved by those associations interested in the production of eggs, and it has certainly been approved by the Minister himself. So there is nothing much more that I can do from this side of the House, except, I think, to commend the Order because it deals with a period as long as up to 1969. So between now and then we shall probably not be troubled again with this particular Order.
There is one paragraph to which I should like to call the Minister's attention, and that is the last paragraph in the Explanatory Note, on the last page of the Order, which says:
" Provision is also made by the order to enable adjustments to be made in the event of the market being disturbed by abnormal imports of hen eggs from abroad."
I hope that will not happen, and I hope that we shall be able to produce good fresh English eggs sufficient to feed our own people. I beg to commend the Order.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I have two thoughts about the Order, one of which I share with a colleague on my Bench, that every morning now the hens will not cackle; they will choke. Since this is an official explanation, probably with copies circulated to the industry, I

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think that any young man proposing to go into the poultry industry who tries to make an estimate as to whether or not he is likely to make a profit, will be very highly disturbed in mind.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BRITISH MUSEUM BILL
2.50 p.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 Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to. House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Altered composition of British Museum Trustees]:
On Question, whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE EARL OF PERTH: If I might say just one word on Clause 1 of the Bill, I am sure it is a good thing that the number of Trustees should be reduced from 51 to 25 but, in that reduction, there will inevitably be casualties; and I remember very well, on reading your Lordships' debate on Second Reading, how many of your Lordships expressed regret that the family Trustees were to be casualties. Indeed, I think that many of your Lordships felt that, if it was not a breach of faith, it was something very like it to dispense with the family Trustees. Even the noble Earl who is sponsoring this Bill expressed the same regret, I think.
I had very much hoped that, having heard the Second Reading debate, he would have been able to give us some comfort, in the sense of saying, for example, that the Prime Minister, who has to make no fewer than 15 nominations for the Trustees, would, as a matter of practice, other things being equal, endeavour to appoint one or two of the family Trustees among those whom he nominated. If that practice grew up, there would be some diminution in what is, as I say, something very near to a breach of faith, and the family Trustees would not feel so badly let down. After all, it is a very considerable responsibility that the
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Prime Minister has, in having to nominate no fewer than 15 Trustees, and his task would be to that extent easier if he knew he could look to the family Trustees to provide one or two of them.
Again during the Second Reading debate the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, pointed out that there used to be a practice by which the chairmen of these various bodies were consulted by the Prime Minister before he made his nominations. I should greatly hope that that practice will be followed by the Prime Minister in this case where he has to appoint what is, in fact, more than half of the Trustees of the British Museum.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): I do not think I can give a definite reply to what my noble friend has just said. On the Second Reading I reminded your Lordships, many of whom had raised this matter, that in another place an honourable Member who was himself a family Trustee had expressed the hope that there would be some association between the new body of Trustees and the families who either had given, or might in future give, important donations to the British Museum. I also reminded your Lordships that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my honourable friend Mr. du Cann, although he could not agree to write anything of the kind into the Bill, said that the Government would look favourably on any such association. There are a great many possible forms of association which one might conceive, and I do not think it would be desirable to discuss any particular one of them, because it obviously must be a matter for the Trustees to consider later. That is, I recognise, a very vague way of putting it.
My noble friend has now suggested that perhaps the Prime Minister might consider appointing one, or perhaps two, of the 15 Trustees who will be his nomination from those families who have been associated with the British Museum and whose family connection may have given them some inherited and acquired experience. I do not think the Prime Minister could commit himself to anything of this kind, certainly not at present, and it would probably be

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a little difficult for him to find one person, or even two, who would be representative of six unrelated families. All I can say is that I am sure the Prime Minister will carefully consider what has been said about this, both in your Lordships' House and in another place.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Lending of objects]:
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE EARL OF PERTH: May I again interrupt, on Clause 4, which concerns the question of the lending of objects? Probably the clause as it stands is, in the circumstances, a proper clause. I must confess I had given thought to whether there was some way of amending it to give effect to what many of your Lordships said during the Second Reading debate about your anxiety lest political pressures were put on for the lending of objects, but it is perhaps a very difficult thing to do; therefore I think we shall probably have to leave it as it is. However, I hope the Trustees, when they are considering the question of lending, will bear in mind the general opinion or fears which were expressed, both in this House and, I believe, in another place, at the possibilities of political pressure, and also bear in mind the fact that if they do not want to give way to such pressure they will certainly have, I think, the support of your Lordships' House. It is a pity, perhaps, that your Lordships no longer are a "long stop" in this, as you were before this happened both to the British Museum and to the National Gallery; but what has happened has happened.
The only other thing I would say on this clause is that when the Trustees take into account any risks to which an object, whatever it may be, is likely to be exposed, I hope they will pay as much attention to the packing of such an object as to anything else. The noble Earl, Lord Crawford, spoke about the sending of the Mona Lisa to America. I will not express an opinion on that; but what is certain is that, once it went, the care taken to ensure its safety was as great as human beings could devise.
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I think this is a very important factor for the Trustees to take into account in the future, because very often in the past, undoubtedly, something has been lent abroad and that is the end of it. It goes to be packed and trans-shipped, and so on; it is handled rather carelessly and comes back damaged. I hope the Trustees, in thinking of the risks, will take into account the method of transport, whatever they lend.
LORD HURCOMB: May I say, speaking as one comparatively recently appointed as a Trustee, that all the considerations which the noble Earl has in mind are bound to be uppermost in the minds both of the keepers and of the Trustees. Though there was a good deal of discussion on the way in which this clause should be drafted, we are grateful to the Government for the manner in which they have expressed the intention, which leaves decisions absolutely to the discretion of the Trustees. I feel myself that, with that safeguard, your Lordships need have no apprehension that the Trustees will be rash in lending things which ought not to be moved from Bloomsbury.
May I recall to your Lordships the honour I had a few months ago of moving in this House a Bill enabling the Trustees to lend the Royal Cup to an exhibition at Vienna? In that case we refused to lend a very important object for the particular purposes of the exhibition in Vienna because it was thought, after careful examination, to be rather too fragile to make it legitimate to take the risk. In the case of the Royal Cup itself, we actually sent the distinguished keeper of that part of the Museum's collection in person with it, to see that it came to no harm. I feel, therefore, that, in the form in which the clause now stands, your Lordships need have no apprehension in giving to the Trustees the discretion the clause confers.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am grateful both to my noble friend who raised this matter and to the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb. I am sure your Lordships can rely on the care and prudence of the Trustees in the exercise of the lending power which they are given by Clause 4. There are some objects, such as some of the things sent to Vienna, which can be lent without any possibility of harm. I think the Committee will agree that it

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was rather a cumbrous procedure that, whenever this was considered desirable, there should have to be a special Act of Parliament to allow it to be done. I have no doubt whatever that the Trustees will rightly be very reluctant to lend anything without the most careful consideration. I hope I shall have the support of both the noble Earl, Lord Perth, and the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, when we come to the Amendment on Clause 8 by the noble Lord, Lord Denning, on the transfer of documents to the Public Record Office.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Staff]:
3.3 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved to add to subsection (2):
"; and persons so appointed shall be treated as if they wore in the civil service of the Crown."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. It is on very similar lines to one which was moved in another place and with which the Government spokesman on that occasion expressed a great deal of sympathy. Indeed on the Report stage there the Government went some distance to meet it, at any rate in respect of the superannuation pensions arrangements for the staff of the Museum. But it is desirable, I think, that this problem of the exact status of the staff of the Museum should be cleared up more effectively than was done in another place.
As I understand it, the question of whether the staff in the British Museum are civil servants, or at any rate of the same status as civil servants, is one that has given rise to a considerable amount of discussion in the past. At times they have been regarded as civil servants and treated as civil servants, but I understand that of recent years the trend of opinion has been the other way; and it would seem, from reading the discussions in another place, that the view taken by the Government of the legal position of the staff is that they are not civil servants and have not the same status as civil servants. I believe that that situation is not altogether satisfactory, certainly in regard to the staff of the Natural History Museum. They were assimilated (that was the word used) in 1945 with the
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Scientific Civil Service, and on that happening, most of them—certainly many of them—took it that they would he in exactly the same position as civil servants, like the scientific civil servants, if not technically members of the Civil Service. It may be different in the British Museum proper, if one may so describe it.
This matter is of very considerable importance in regard to more aspects than just pensions and superannuation; it is of considerable importance in relation to conditions of service and of dismissal. The ESTACODE, the civil servants' code of rights in these matters, which has been applied with considerable success in recent years, is supposed to apply to the staff of the British Museum. As the Committee will recall, the case of Dr. Tucker was raised on another occasion in this House. There was considerable controversy about the manner of his dismissal and whether the provisions of ESTACODE were, in fact, observed. I understand that at least one of the Trustees contended strongly in the discussion in another place that they had been. The matter ought not to be open to controversy: it should be perfectly clear whether or not the provisions have been observed. There is at any rate one very important aspect of this matter which does not seem to be at all clear: it seems, so far as Dr. Tucker was concerned, that he was given no opportunity of appeal against the decision. If it was an ESTACODE decision—which he maintains it was not—he ought to have had the chance of appealing; because under the ESTACODE there is provision for an appeal.
The great advantage of accepting this Amendment would be that it would make it perfectly clear that the ESTACODE applies formally and is not applied just as a matter of informal routine by the Trustees. In those circumstances, there would be a clear right of appeal in the event of a decision by the first tribunal going against the person who appeared before them. It may be said—and I suppose the noble Earl will say it—that as these men are employed legally by the Trustees of the British Museum, they cannot be treated in this way. But I do not think that is a valid argument. To start with, the Government themselves have gone a long way, in the clause which they put down in another place, to show that it is not so; and the whole of this

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Bill is, to a large extent, based on a hybrid organisation. The Trustees do not have full power to appoint a director; the Prime Minister is brought in there. The terms and conditions of service of the staff are not laid down by the Trustees completely in any way, because it is provided that the Treasury must sanction them. Therefore to allow this particular matter to be taken, to this extent, out of the hands of the Treasury would not in any way be contradicting some of the most important principles which are laid down in the Bill itself.
In all these circumstances I hope that the Government will be able to see their way to accept this Amendment, or, if the precise terms are not such as appeal to them, that they will be able to indicate that they can accept some sort of provision, of which I hope they would be prepared to accept the burden of drafting. As has so often been said on these occasions, we who put down the Amendments are not expert draftsmen. I hope that the Government will be able to say that, if they cannot accept this wording then they will be prepared to accept something like it and so draft it as to make it clear that these persons ought to be in the same position as the remainder of the Government Scientific Civil Service; that they should have the same rights and conditions of service and dismissal, and should be assimilated to the Civil Service proper.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 31, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Chorley.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: This Amendment was discussed in another place, as your Lordships know, and was there considered carefully and sympathetically by the Government. The first difficulty which was met with was that if a servant of the British Museum is to be placed in exactly the same position as a civil servant, the Crown must become his employer. He cannot be a servant of the British Museum, because the Crown has the right of dimissing him at pleasure. The sucurity of tenure of employees in the British Museum would not become any greater, if this Amendment were to be accepted and they became 100 per cent. civil servants.
The Government thought that no decision should be taken finally on this matter
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until the British Museum Trustees had had an opportunity of consulting their staff. This they did, and they found that some of the reasons why it had been desired that the staff should be assimilated with the Civil Service were based on misconceptions, not only with regard to security of employment but also with regard to transfer. Apparently, it had been considered among some of the staff that it would be easier for them to be transferred to another branch of the Civil Service if they were civil servants; but that is not so. In fact, in some cases it might be more difficult.
The Trustees inform us that a majority of those who expressed an opinion, in both museums, taken together, were against any change being made. There was an almost unanimous vote against it at the Kensington Natural History Museum. At the British Museum in Bloomsbury, where there was a different kind of meeting and only a proportion of the staff expressed any view, there was a majority the other way. But, in the opinion of the Trustees, because the points which I have just mentioned had not been properly explained or appreciated, there was an overall (with apologies to my noble friend Lord Conesford) majority against it. The British Museum Trustees, having taken account of the views expressed by the staff and having given further thought to the considerations involved, decided that they could not recommend to the Government that any change in the present status of the staff should be made in this Bill, and we feel that it is right to accept this recommendation.
Your Lordships know, of course, that the superannuation position of the staff has been fully protected by Amendments which were made to the Bill and which now appear in Clause 6(3). An exchange of letters has taken place, with the agreement of the Trustees, between the Treasury and the National Staff Side, giving the assurances sought by the Staff Side on the further treatment of the British Museum staff. These letters register the intention of both parties that the staff would continue to be treated, as they are now, in exactly the same way as civil servants, except to the extent that it is impossible to give absolutely identical treatment as between Crown servants and servants employed by an

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independent body of Trustees. The National Staff Side have expressed themselves as completely satisfied with these assurances, which, I think, give the staff as a whole the substance of what is aimed at in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley.
LORD CHORLEY: Before the noble Earl resumes his seat, would he deal a little more explicitly with the application of ESTACODE in cases of dismissal and with the question of appeal? Naturally, he spoke largely from a brief and he overlooked one or two of the points which I made, to which I and others attach great importance.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No, I could deal with it only in the general sense that the National Staff Side have expressed themselves satisfied, and that our advice is to the effect that the security of tenure position would actually not be so good if they were 100 per cent. civil servants. I do not want to go into the particular question of one individual, on which the noble Lord concentrated part of his speech, because that has already been heard by so many Ministers and considered so many times that, in our opinion, it must be looked upon as closed.
LORD SHACKLETON: I should be much inclined to support the view of the Government in this matter, but I must say that the noble Earl has not dealt satisfactorily with the arguments of my noble friend Lord Chorley. The question of achieving justice in an individual case causes a great deal of concern and I am a little surprised that, knowing that my noble friend had this Amendment on the Order Paper and knowing his interest in the case of Dr. Tucker, the noble Earl was not prepared to answer his questions regarding ESTACODE. The case of Dr. Tucker has been very fully considered, but I make no apology for raising it now, because of the limitations that confront us in raising cases of individual injustice. If the Government had been inclined to take the views of my noble friend Lord Silkin in regard to an Ombudsman, there would have been a reasonable prospect in cases of what I might call administrative injustice that they could go to some form of independent inquiry which we could all safely accept.
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The noble Earl said that he did not want to go into the case because so many Ministeries had considered it. I happen to know this to be true. I know that at least one Minister saw Dr. Tucker and considered his case very carefully. And I do not propose to go into the details of the case, except to say that I and certain other people regret the attacks that have been made on the Director of the National History Museum, Dr. Morrison Scott, which I think have been unjustified. There is no doubt that the object behind my noble friend's Amendment is to ensure that the provisions that would have applied to a civil servant in such a case would be applied. The noble Earl has not answered it.
On the question of turning Museum officials into civil servants, whereas I think there are probably grave difficulties and that the matter has been carefully looked at time and again, I did not find as entirely satisfactory evidence that opinion has been tested the argument that a small majority at the British Museum was in favour and that, owing to the way the meeting was organised, the rest did not vote. I think that the opinion expressed at the Natural History Museum is convincing. But if the Trustees had really consulted their people, one would have expected a much more clear-cut opinion. I am sorry that the Government are not able to give a more satisfactory answer on these points.
The EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Lord appears to agree that it would not be desirable at this moment for me to go into the controversy between Dr. Tucker and Dr. Morrison Scott. I will, if he likes, look further into the general question of the ESTACODE. But the Government were satisfied that Dr. Tucker had the full benefit of ESTACODE, except that his appeal was to the Trustees and not to a Minister; and a formal right of appeal to a Minister would take away the Trustees' position as employer and their power of discipline. I do not think it would be right for me to go into the particular case again now, but if the noble Lord wants me to give him any further assurance about the working of ESTACODE in this connection, I will gladly do my best to do that.
LORD CHORLEY: I should like to say one or two words in reply to the noble

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Earl. I am grateful for the help of my noble friend Lord Shackleton. I am not really so much concerned with the case of Dr. Tucker as to try to get some kind of procdure established which will be followed in other cases: because, with the large growth of the staff in these institutions, there will be other cases of this kind—not on all fours with it, but cases where people will be dismissed and will have grievances, and where there will be arguments as to whether they have had a fair deal. That is the relevance of this point. It is not so much the Tucker case itself, but the fact that it is the sort of case which falls into the pattern.
I cannot accept what the noble Earl said: that because these are Trustees there cannot be an appeal outside. The whole of this Bill, if your Lordships look at it carefully, is drafted in such a way as to bring the Government in all the time, and there would be no difficulty in providing an appeal to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Science or some quite outside person in a case of this sort. That does not seem to me to be a viable argument at all. It is no doubt quite true, as the noble Earl says, that technically from a legal point of view the situation of the civil servant is weaker than that of a member of the staff of the Museum. Technically, the civil servant has a very poor case from the point of view of employment. ESTACODE is a conventional code and not a legal one; it is a code which is brought into being because the legal position of the civil servant is so unsatisfactory. But if it is effectively applied, and if these provisions for appeal are adhered to, it gives to the civil servant a very sound position in regard to the conditions of his work, and particularly in respect of any possible dismissal. That, I think, could very properly be applied to the staff, whether they are to be regarded as civil servants or not, and would undoubtedly give them a better position, not technically in law, but in actual practice, than they have been getting of recent years in the employment of the Trustees.
I do not propose to press the Amendment at this stage, but I wish to give the noble Earl notice that I will consider the whole position, and if I can think of some method of getting ESTACODE formally applied by means of
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this Bill at a later stage, I will certainly do my best to see that that is done. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Separation of Natural History Museum
7.—(1) There shall be a body corporate, with perpetual succession and a common seal, known as the Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) and hereafter in this Act referred to as "the Natural History Trustees", which from the commencement of this Act shall have the general management
(2) The Natural History Trustees shall consist of twelve persons appointed as follows, that is to say—

(a) eight appointed by the Prime Minister;

(b) one appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the President of the Royal Society; and

(c) three appointed by the Natural History Trustees.

3.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK THE EARL OF CRANBROOK moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "(Natural History)" and insert "of Natural History". The noble Earl said: I move this Amendment with some diffidence, because the phrase "British Museum (Natural History)" is hallowed by a tradition of some 90 years, since the natural history collections of Bloomsbury were moved to South Kensington. In print or in typescript there is no difference between the word "of" and a couple of brackets; but it is an awkward phrase to use by word of mouth—although I might add that it is not for this reason that I move the Amendment. It seems to me that now that we are making a change in the constitution of these two museums we ought at the same time to make it abundantly clear that the British Museum (Natural History) is entirely separated from the British Museum at Bloomsbury. I feel that the term, "British Museum of Natural History" is more euphonious and more convenient, and it makes the situation abundantly clear—although in other countries some museums having that sort of title are not, in fact, national museums but are State or other museums.
As with the discussions that took place on the previous Amendment, I understand there has been some testing of the opinion of the staff at the British Museum

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(Natural History). A very similar situation arose to that on the question of whether they should be civil servants at Bloomsbury. Only a small proportion actually voted, but of the proportion which did vote the majority preferred the phrase which I propose to the phrase which is used in the Bill. I believe that some senior people prefer the name which they grew up with; but although, as we grow old, we tend to like things with which we have grown up, we are rapidly brought back by our children; to the grim realities of the present day. I am not suggesting that your Lordships should look upon this Amendment in any way in that capacity, but I believe that my phrase is the better one. It will mean the same thing in the eyes of the world, so far as the reputation of the museum as it exists to-day is concerned. I hope your Lordships will approve the Amendment and that the Government will be prepared to accept it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 46, leave out ("(Natural History)") and insert ("of Natural History").—(The Earl of Cranbrook.)
LORD SHACKLETON: I hope that the Government will accept this Amendment. Among those who are accustomed to using the Natural History Museum—at any rate, in the days when I used to attend there more frequently—it is referred to as the "B.M.", in the same way as one refers to the "B.M." at Bloomsbury. This seems sensible; and, frankly, it is a more dignified title. If we are going to use names, we might as well get them right, and I think we should put this right now.
LORD CHORLEY: I should like to add my support to that of the two noble Lords who have spoken, and I hope that the Government will see their way to accept this Amendment. In the first place, it is obviously much more sensible to use the expression "of Natural History". I do not think there is any question at all that abroad that is the expression which is almost always used; and many people in England, I should think, also use it almost as often as the more technically correct title. The great foreign museums of this kind all use the same sort of title: the Musée Nationale d'Histoire;
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the American Museum of Natural History—and I think other examples could be given if one wished to pursue it.
As the noble Earl has said, on the whole the staff seem to be in favour of this change. It is interesting to note (one might perhaps just mention this in passing) that the late Dr. Charles Regan, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who, I think, was one of the most distinguished, if possibly one of the most temperamental, of the Directors of the Museum of Natural History of our generation, did introduce this change in the thirties, with the concurrence, as I understand it, of the Trustees at the time. A considerable amount of notepaper was actually printed with this heading. It was brought to the notice of the Trustees that legally this was not right, and no doubt legally it was not. Dr. Regan's initiative was overruled in that way. This is a very interesting episode and shows how the march of events, so to speak, are entirely with this proposal. The objections to it are purely of a sentimental kind, and I hope the Government will be able to accept it and fall in with these views.
LORD HURCOMB: I do not wish to enter into controversy with noble Lords in any part of the House on this question of nomenclature or elegance of terminology. But I am informed that the consensus of opinion among the staff is against the change. I would not take the view myself that this is really a matter for the staff; it is much more a matter for the draftsmen or for your Lordships to settle. But I do not think it is correct to say that abroad the Museum of South Kensington is called the Museum of Natural History, or the British Museum of Natural History. It is known to them all as the British Museum, and if they are scientific people or naturalists they do not add "Natural History". By "the British Museum" they mean the institution at South Kensington. I think the feeling of the senior staff is that they would really want that left as it is.
There is one other point which may have some significance. In the United States the American Museum of Natural History is not the State museum. The State museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Therefore, you are not speaking of parallel institutions if you speak of the American Museum of Natural History and the British Museum

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of Natural History. I cannot say that I think this is a vital matter, but I think it wants a little more consideration than appears to have been given to it by some of the junior members of the staff who appear to have expressed opinions off the record to some of your Lordships.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: This is not an important point, and the Government have no strong views about it. It is always rather clumsy to have names in brackets, like the Scottish Council (Development and Industry). There are many names like that. As your Lordships have been speaking I have come to the conclusion that there are three small reasons I should like to put forward in the hope that your Lordships will not press the Amendment. One is that my information is the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb. I understand that the Trustees and the Director and staff are against a change of name. The next small point, which is by no means a conclusive one, is that the Museum has been known, as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, said by this name for 90 years. People are in the habit of using it, and will probably want to go on using it.
The third reason is that there was, as your Lordships will remember, a good deal of feeling about the separation of the Kensington Museum from the British Museum. Many people were against it. The Government thought that it was a right and sensible thing to do, and I think the majority of your Lordships and the Members of another place agreed with that. But we also said that we hoped the Prime Minister might be able to appoint some people who would be Trustees of both bodies, and that there would be close co-operation between them. I think many of the staff at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington are proud of their connection with the British Museum, and this verbal alteration emphasises the fact that they are now being separated, and might perhaps be taken to emphasise it a little too far—to rub salt into the wound of those who think it is a pity. These are all very small points. If your Lordships feel strongly about this matter, I will certainly do what I can to look into it again before the Report stage. But I feel that on balance it would be
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better if the Amendment were not pressed further. Although three of your Lordships have supported it and only one has not, I think that on the whole the balance is against doing it.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I hope the noble Earl will consider this matter further. I was very surprised indeed to hear him say that the majority of people referred to this institution by the name which is in the Bill. I have never met anybody who ever referred to it in that way. I find that people call it the Natural History Museum. That is the natural term to call it by.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: If I may say so, that is what I call it.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I am glad to hear that the noble Earl does call it so. Therefore, if we want to keep the word "British" in it as well, the natural transition is that which is proposed in the Amendment, to call it the British Museum of Natural History, and then it will accord with the common parlance which is used by educated people generally.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Perhaps I should say that there is not at present any legal term, any statutory term. But when this Bill becomes an Act, then I suppose there will be.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: That is all the more reason for getting it right now.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am stimulated by my noble friend to think that I am an uneducated person, because I have always known it as the "B.M." In the days when I and my friends went on expeditions with botanists and biologists, we always talked about the "B.M.". Certainly to the general public it is the Natural History Museum. We might call it the British Museum, South Kensington, and the other one would be the British Museum, Bloomsbury. I do not think your Lordships would accept that for one moment, although probably it would be the most convenient distinction. I think it is a less tortuous title. It is our opportunity to call the British Museum of Natural History by its proper name. It will still be known as the "B.M." by the people accustomed to speaking about it and working in it. I think the Government might take it just a little further.

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I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, is not here to support us.
LORD HAWKE: Would most people not continue to know it by what they call it at the moment, which is the "dead zoo"?
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: With the greatest respect to the noble Earl in front of me, and the noble Lord who spoke from the Cross Benches, I have seldom heard aliquot novum pro horrifico said in so many different words meaning the same thing, that anything new is bad. I will not trouble your Lordships with a Division at this moment, but I hope the noble Earl will look into it again, as he suggests he should, because I feel it is a better phrase, and there are better reasons for changing the title than the very bad one which seems to be the only argument against it, that just because it is something new, therefore we do not like it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.40 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved to leave out subsection (2) and to insert instead:
"(2) The Natural History Trustees shall consist of twelve persons appointed as follows, that is to say—

(a) The Minister of Science for the time being;

(b) one appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the Council of the Royal Entomological Society;

(c) four, who shall be respectively distinguished in the sciences of Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy and Palaeontology, appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the Council of the Royal Society;

(d) one, a Zoologist, appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the Council of the Zoological Society of London;

(e) one, a Botanist, appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the Council of the Linnean Society of London;

(f) one, appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh;

(g) three appointed by the Natural History Trustees."

The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. Its object is to provide a rather more scientific pattern of Trustees than that which is provided in the Bill as it stands, which, in effect, leaves the matter almost entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister. I feel that there are objections to such a situation. It is true that one is to be appointed by the Treasurer,
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on the nomination of the President of the Royal Society, and I imagine the three others are the co-opted members appointed by the Natural History Trustees; and presumably the words are left like that for co-option purposes.
I think there are objections to the nomination of the Trustees being left almost entirely to the Prime Minister. It is not likely, of course, that he will make political nominations, but there is always the possibility of controversy in that sort of thing. That is one of the reasons why it would be better to take it out of the hands of the Prime Minister. What he is much more likely to do is to appoint a collection of people with high degrees who are nearing the end of their working life and whose names are put up to him from outside; because it will only be occasionally possible for the Prime Minister to bring his own knowledge to bear on this matter. The result of that method is that almost always one gets a clique—perhaps that is not the right word, but I cannot think of any other at the moment—of what one might call "Establishment" scientists, which is not altogether satisfactory, although sometimes it has its point. Therefore, it seems to some of us that it would be a little more sensible, while we are reorganising the Natural Science Museum, to consider the appointment of Trustees—and this is dealing only with that aspect of the question; I quite appreciate that if this Amendment were accepted it would require Amendments in other parts of the Bill which I have not attempted to work out.
I think that if your Lordships would look at this Amendment you will see that it gives a much more reasonable pattern, and one which is much more likely to lead to effective work by the Trustees instead of their being there just, so to speak, to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Director. It might have been much better if we had had active Trustees during the recent past, who knew about these things, instead of Trustees who had obviously little scientific knowledge of what they were being called upon to do. There is always a great danger in a situation of this sort when the nominations are left entirely in the hands of a very high political Minister of the Crown such as the Prime Minister.
We now have a Minister for Science, and I think the general view is that that appointment has been of very considerable value. I think he could be a Trustee, although it may well be that this is open to objection, because a Minister of the Crown possibly ought not to be a Trustee in this way; but I think in other directions there are Ministers of the Crown who are Trustees. I believe the National Gallery has political Trustees. This would have the great advantage of giving the Minister for Science a close liaison with a most important aspect of scientific work in this country, as the Natural History Museum is a place where some of the most valuable scientific work in the world is being carried on. It would be a good thing if the Minister for Science were in rather more direct touch, and an appointment of this kind would enable him to be so.
Then we try to bring on to the Board of Trustees the scientists who know most about the work which is being done there. There is a nomination of the Council of the Royal Entomological Society, zoologists, mineralogists, palæntologists and botanists are brought in under subsection (2)(c); a zoologist on the nomination of the Council of the Zoological Society in London in paragraph (d), and a botanist on the nomination of the Council of the Linnean Society under paragraph (e). Your Lordships will also see that one is to be appointed by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Scotland has been very much left out of this, and it would be valuable to have a specific nomination from Scotland. I should think the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh would be the most appropriate body to make a nomination of this kind. The Amendment finishes up by accepting the co-option in the clause as at present drafted.
I think those are important arguments in favour of altering the pattern. It may be that your Lordships will think that the appointments could more satisfactorily be altered in other ways, and I would not in any way object to discussing the possibilities of improvement; but I feel that as the Bill stands at present it is not at all satisfactory, and I hope that the Government, even if they say that they cannot accept this Amendment, will
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be prepared to consider some different pattern which will give the Board of Trustees a much clearer and useful scientific content. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 4, leave out subsection (2) and insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Chorley.)
LORD SHACKLETON: Obviously, after the tremendous period of gestation that finally led to the Bill, would come a time when the Government got exhausted and said: "Let us leave the rest to the Prime Minister and let him do the nominating." It is extremely difficult to indulge in this game of picking out, not the Trustees, but the selection team. It is enjoyable, but very difficult to decide to whom to give the responsibility; and for this reason there is a natural tendency to fall back on the Prime Minister. Curiously enough, this is a little less the case in regard to the Natural History Museum than possibly it would be in regard to the British Museum at Bloomsbury, the reason being that, with the British Museum of Natural History, it would probably be easier for the Prime Minister to look around among biologists and geologists for suitable people for this appointment. Nor would I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Chorley that the Trustees should all be nominees of bodies of this kind. Certainly the emphasis should clearly be that all of them should be scientists of one kind or another, with the possible exception of the one nominated by the Minister for Science.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It says that the Minister himself shall be a Trustee.
LORD SHACKLETON: I misunderstood that, and I thank the noble Earl. I wonder if the Government have considered whether there is possibly a different way of doing this. We have experimented in the past with all sorts of nominating bodies. Perhaps some of the former Trustees, some of the hereditary Trustees, even the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, might come into it. I remember when the Government were setting up the Independent Television Authority that the nominees were then going to be, I think, the Lord Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition, and my noble friend who was then the Leader

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of the Opposition said no, he would much rather leave it to the Minister. There are certain advantages, of course, in leaving it to the Minister, but I cannot say that he should be the Prime Minister. Perhaps it should be the Minister for Science.
I am sure my noble friend does not wish to press this Amendment to a Division, but, depending on the treatment that we get on certain Amendments later on, we may have to look at the method of nominating people to be Trustees of the British Museum in Bloomsbury. I shall be interested to know the exact reasons why the Government have rejected the idea of having at least a wider spread of nominations; why, even if a majority of nominees were made by the Prime Minister or by the Trustees, there should be in fact only one appointed by a specifically outside body, namely, the Royal Society. It might be better to give more choice in this respect to the Royal Society or comparable bodies. So I shall be interested to hear the exact processes of thought that have led the Government to their present decision.
LORD HURCOMB: May I say one word on this question? I feel very much in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has said. I think, first of all, it is important that the Trustees should not be appointed as representatives of some particular interest, thereby feeling that they are bound to go and press, for example, the claims of mineralogy, or whatever it may be. I think that is a point of real importance. I think also there is a difficulty in selecting the nominating bodies. The two points really hang together. If people are appointed by a nominating body they will naturally feel they are there as spokesmen of the body which nominated them. The list in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, appears on the face of it to be a good one, but I think it is open to criticism. The Linnean Society, as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, would be the first to assert, is not merely a botanical society. There are other societies which are purely botanical societies, they might ask why they were omitted. I feel that, if the Government were disposed to amend the Bill at all, by far the simplest and probably the soundest way would be to enlarge the nominations of the Royal Society somewhat at the
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expense of the Prime Minister's voice. After a good deal of experience in publicly appointed bodies of various kinds, I personally have always felt that in the long run the best thing was to leave the appointments to the Prime Minister with a pretty free hand. He does in fact consult all the people he ought to consult, and possibly more. Governments are not apt to make important appointments without taking a great many preliminary soundings. But if it were the general feeling of the House and the Government themselves were disposed to do so, some enlargement of the Royal Society's right of nomination might be the easiest way out of the difficulty of finding the appropriate Amendment.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I cannot support the Amendment as it stands, although the underlying principles I think are important. Now that we are setting up a new body of Trustees for the Natural History Museum it is important that there should be a high proportion of scientists actively engaged in their profession on the body of the Trustees. Although I should like to see that, I must confess that I think the proportion Lord Chorley's Amendment would give would be too high. I would not want to see it as it would be; assuming that perhaps the Minister for Science would not be a scientist, there would be about 75 per cent. scientists and only 25 per cent. laymen or people of a similar sort. I think the proportion should be something nearer 50-50, or 60–40 the scientists being the 60.
Again, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb; I believe it would be better to rely on the Prime Minister than on the nominations of even the Royal Society. I think what one wants to get is a balanced team. I think in fact that if you throw wide open to a number of bodies the chance of nominating Trustees you are very unlikely to get a balanced team, and I would be prepared to rely on the Prime Minister of the day, after making proper inquiries, to produce a balanced team of Trustees for this important institution. I should like the noble Earl to give us some assurance that is going to be the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and one hopes that reflects the policy of future Governments. Quite frankly, I would sooner have the list of the noble Lord,

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Lord Chorley, than the position in which the Government have in mind the appointment of a large number of estimable people who are not in fact professional scientists still engaged in their profession.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I should like to express agreement with the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook. I would particularly associate myself with the underlying principle of Lord Chorley's Amendment, that there ought to be due representation of the sciences among the Trustees of the Natural History Museum. But the difficulty is not only the question that any one who represents a particular society may feel himself to be a spokesman of that society, as the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, very appropriately pointed out. Nor is it the difficulty that societies come and go and wax and wane, like individuals. There is, I think, a further difficulty in that my noble friend's Amendment ties the Trustees down to particular branches of science, and this waxing and waning applies not only to societies but to the different branches of science themselves. The boundaries between various disciplines are by no means rigidly fixed, and they have moved very noticeably within even short periods. It might therefore be preferable to embody the spirit of the Amendment in terms which do not give quite so rigid a form.
3.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The Amendment begins by proposing that the Minister for Science for the time being shall himself be one of The Trustees. I think that, even if all future Ministers of Science were as vigorous and as active-minded and as enthusiastic as my noble friend who at present holds that office, it is very doubtful whether many of them would find time to go to any substantial number of meetings of the Trustees, and I think it would be undesirable that an active Trustee should be in office ex officio as a member of a Government. I think that would tend to make people think, even if it were not true, the Government might be exerting political influence in the administration of the Museum. In the case of the former Trustees of the British Museum those members of the Government who were
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ex officio members did not normally attend the meetings. They merely took part in choosing the elected Trustees, who did all the effective business.
The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, said he thought some members of the Government were members of the National Gallery Board of Trustees, but I do not think any are ex officio. I think the Duke of Devonshire always has been a member on other grounds not connected with the Government, but I do not think there are any Government members as such. The main part of the Amendment raises this principle, which comes up again and again on all kinds of legislation, whether, and if so to what extent, in providing for public boards or public bodies, statutory bodies of every kind, we should write into any piece of legislation that so many, such-and-such a number, of them should be appointed to represent certain interests or should be chosen by the Minister from among people who have special knowledge of certain interests or some provision of that kind.
It is a difficult question. I think that the weight of opinion here has been (I think it usually is in most cases of this sort) that you do not gain anything by making statutory provision for a whole lot of specialists representing special interests to be put on public authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, spoke of interests being represented. Perhaps that is slightly ambiguous. The word "represented" may mean "appointed by the bodies", or it may mean "chosen by somebody else because they were considered to be representative of those bodies." But, in any case, if an individual is put on a board of Trustees as a member of a certain body, he is apt to feel, "I am here to represent the entomologists", or "I am here to represent the zoologists", or that he is there to represent this or that branch of science. The result is that you do not get such a broad or general view taken of the business of the hoard of Trustees as you otherwise would.
If one cannot trust the Prime Minister, with all the advice which a Prime Minister always gets in matters of this kind, to choose the best people for these appointments, it is difficult to see how one can ever get appointments made on the basis of the hest advice. Of course,

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no Prime Minister ought to want, or would want, to appoint—I forget the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, but he referred to people who know nothing about science. That does not mean that he would want to appoint scientific specialists who will represent special interests of certain branches of science. But of course anybody choosing persons to represent the public interest on a board of Trustees must do his best to choose people who are either themselves scientists of repute or who take a well-known and great interest in science.
I do not think you gain anything by writing into an Act of Parliament that this or that kind of scientist must be chosen; because the Prime Minister will, in any event, probably choose the same people; he will choose people who are good scientists, or who are good advocates of science, or who are people of the type we wish to advance the interests of science without necessarily having become experts themselves. He will do that anyhow; and in all probability you will not increase the chances of getting a good board, you will probably increase the chances that you will get a second-rate board, a board that is not so good. I know that this is a question which we have debated again and again, not only in regard to this subject but in regard to all kinds of social legislation. In this case I think that the balance of argument is against having these special representatives of interests or branches of science. But, in reply to the final question of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I would point out that the Prime Minister has said that in making all these appointments under this clause he will consult the Minister for Science.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: The noble Earl has not replied to the point that I made. The Government must have drafted this Bill with something in view about the constitution of the Trustees to be appointed. Have the Government in their minds the appointment on the Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum of at least 50 per cent., and probably 60 per cent., of scientists actively engaged in their careers? If they have not that in mind and do not intend establishing that precedent, I feel that an Amendment similar to that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley—although I would not
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move exactly the same Amendment—will have to be put down at a later stage in order to get the position quite clear.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: With great respect to my noble friend, I would suggest that his doubts are a needless reflection on the common sense, not necessarily of the Prime Minister but of all future Prime Ministers. To my knowledge, it is not likely that the Prime Minister has yet considered the persons whom he will ask to serve upon this Board of Trustees; and I do not think that it would be sensible or profitable to the country to attempt to tie his hands in doing so, because that would mean tying the hands of all future Prime Ministers. It would limit their choice in a way which I think, from his earlier speech, the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has himself indicated would be undesirable.
LORD SHACKLETON: This is quite extraordinary. The Government have said that there is a case for a separate body of Trustees for the British Museum of Natural History, yet they are not prepared to say the sort of Trustees that are to be appointed. Surely they must have considered this question—though I must say that I have grave doubts whether the Government really did think out the separation of the Natural History from the British Museum. Certainly they have not yet made a case. I think I could make a better case. But surely the argument must be that they will appoint certain kinds of Trustees. Surely, when we are debating this particular point, and when he is advising us not to accept an Amendment that deals with it, it is not too much to ask the Minister in charge of the Bill for some sort of assurance. He may say that it is common sense; that it follows that we should not tie the hands of the Prime Minister. But this is rather like the attitude of a Minister who refuses to accept what is the precise meaning of a clause in a Bill, saying, "We shall have to leave it to the courts to decide". We are putting this into legislation. Surely, we can be told something. We do want to write into the Bill something to give effect to what-ever intention the Government had in this matter, which so far they have failed to disclose.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I felt that the noble Lord was unreasonable in suggesting that we should write into the Bill

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that there should be either 60 or 70 or 75 per cent. of scientists or any particular kind of scientist. I do not think we should tie the hands of the Prime Minister in that way. Although I do not think it would be reasonable to expect that the Prime Minister should yet have considered the composition of the Board of Trustees, it is the intention to use at least 50 per cent. of scientists, if that is any comfort to the noble Lord. That does not prevent him from using more if he thinks it a good thing. I really do not think that it would be of any advantage either to the present Prime Minister, or to future Prime Ministers, that we should try to tie his hands in any way such as suggested by this Amendment.
LORD CHORLEY: I am afraid that I regard the Minister's reply as a thoroughly unsatisfactory one. I do not propose to press this Amendment at this stage; but I feel that the position ought not to be left, and I shall consider whether at any rate a substantial number of nominations ought not to be made on the recommendation of the Royal Society. I am not absolutely wedded to this Amendment; I put it forward simply as a suggestion as to what might be useful. The noble Earl will not have the Minister for Science because he will not be able to find time. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is not a person with nothing to do, has found time. I well remember that the late Marquess of Zetland, when he was at the India Office, at a time when I should think the Secretary of State for India was quite active (it was at the time of the India Act just before the war), found time to be chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Trust without anybody ever saying that that showed that it was a Government organisation or anything of that kind. Therefore, it just is not true to say that the Minister for Science would not have the time, and would never attend; he surely would. Nor do I think the scientists who are nominated by these bodies would regard themselves as under any obligation to do exactly what the body wanted them to do as delegates—which in effect was what was suggested. Most of the members of the National Trust are nominated by the National Gallery, the British Museum and national institutions of that kind, but
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when they actually get to work at the National Trust they show that they are not there just on behalf of the particular institutions which nominated them. I have never felt that a very strong argument.
If the noble Earl would like it to be put in such a way that he should consult these bodies before making the appointments, I should be happy to accept it on those lines. But as to leaving it in the hands of the Prime Minister, we know that some Prime Ministers have given a good deal of attention to this subject and have made soundings in various directions, while others tend to accept the advice of some scientist who happens to be advising them at the time. The result is that the Board may well be nominated by some scientist with a slant in a certain direction, and the situation becomes completely unsatisfactory. It would be much better if the Royal Society—which, after all, represents science in a most adequate way—were asked to come into consultation on these appointments. I should like to look at the whole matter again, and reserve my right to put something down at the next stage. In the meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
4.12 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON LORD SHACKLETON moved, after Clause 7, to insert the following new clause:
National Reference Library of Science and Invention
".—(1) If at any time the Trustees set up a National Reference Library of Science and Invention, then the Prime Minister shall within one year from that time lay before Parliament a scheme for the establishment of that Library as a separate institution under a separate body of Trustees; and if the scheme is approved by resolution of each House of Parliament the Prime Minister shall by statutory instrument put it into effect.
(2) Any such scheme shall provide for the Library Trustees to be a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, to be known as the Trustees of the National Reference Library of Science and Invention (British Museum); and shall also provide that there shall be twelve Library Trustees, of whom—

(a) eight shall be appointed by the Prime Minister;

(b) one shall be appointed by the Treasury on the nomination of the President of the Royal Society; and

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(c) three shall be appointed by the Trustees of the National Reference Library of Science and Invention;

and there shall be included in the Trustees persons appearing to the Prime Minister to be qualified as having had experience of and having shown capacity in science or technology including cybernetics especially information processing systems.
(3) For the purposes of this section, ' cybernetics ' means the theory and practice of control and communication processes.
(4) For the purposes of section 15(1) of the Copyright Act, 1911, the Trustees of the National Reference Library of Science and Invention (British Museum) and the Trustees of the British Museum shall, notwithstanding anything in this section, be deemed to be one and the same body."
The noble Lord said: this Amendment, which I move, also bears the names of my noble friend Lady Wooton of Abinger and the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, and, quite clearly, Party politics are not a major matter when we discuss a measure of this kind. It is surprising that in the debates, particularly those in another place, little was said about the immensely important Library side of the British Museum, and it is a fact that there are still a large number of people in this country who are not yet aware that the British Museum is one of the greatest libraries in the world. That certainly would not be true of your Lordships' House, and it seems logical to those who look at the matter that any extension of a National Library might be joined to the British Museum.
We have put down an Amendment the effect of which is to sever the National Reference Library of Science and Invention from the British Museum. We had some difficulty in drafting this Amendment because there is no reference to the National Reference Library of Science and Invention in the text of the Bill itself, but it is clear from the Government statements, from the White Paper, and indeed from the Explanatory Memorandum, as well as from the statement made in this House in 1960, that a National Reference Library is to be set up, and it is also apparent that it is to be an integral part of the British Museum.
It is many years since the case for a National Reference Library was first put forward, and year after year Governments have refused to do anything about it. The National Scientific Advisory Council (the Government's own advisory council) have been pressing for it for a long while, and, at last, in 1965 it looks
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like coming into effect. It is proposed that this Library shall be housed in association with the Patent Office. In this field there has already been one major development in the establishment of the National Lending Library of Science and Technology, at Boston Spa, Yorkshire. This is part of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and has been established to collect comprehensively, and to loan, scientific and technical literature. The proposal with which we are concerned to-day is a Reference Library which it is not proposed shall lend material, but which will have a comprehensive collection of scientific and technical literature, together with the bibliographical aids for reference purposes.
In proposing the severance of this Library from the British Museum, I should like to make it clear that this is in no way a reflection on the British Museum, and least of all on Sir Frank Francis. It is to a large extent on the initiative of Sir Frank Francis and the ideas which he has produced that we are at least within sight of the setting up of this extraordinarily important establishment; but the Director and Trustees of the British Museum have wide responsibilities, most of which are far separated from the purposes of this particular Library. The Trustees, as we have seen from the debates in both Houses, particularly those in another place, would not be likely, except by chance, to be aware directly of the purposes of this Reference Library—and I keep on stressing that it is a Reference Library.
This Library needs to be an integral part of the national effort in the field of technological development and industrial efficiency. It has to be concerned with current technical developments, and its attitude must be dominated as much by the future as by the past. I stress that this is an important difference from the functions of the British Museum. A technical library is not just a repository for a large number of books, and while I would not suggest that the National Reference Library should be, as one librarian described a library in another country,
"a phantasmagoria of flashing lights, spinning tapes and rattling teletypes",
none the less it is likely to be using much more advanced methods than have been generally associated with libraries.
I would not suggest, for one moment, that the British Museum itself is not aware of, and concerned with, these matters, but when one looks at the vast number of documents and books, the literally thousands and thousands of documents, particularly journals, that come in each week, for which a reference has to be provided, one realises that clearly the book itself is a convenient piece of information which the human computer can most easily absorb; but there are devices available to-day which can do some of the work. Some of your Lordships will have read some interesting articles in The Times on the use of the computer in relation to biblical research, and we are told that it is now easy to prepare a Concordance in the course of a few months, whereas before it would have taken a lifetime. It is unlikely that the National Reference Library will be concerned with Concordances, but they will be concerned with providing easy reference. They will not be concerned only with books, and that is why the Amendment is drafted. A later Amendment goes with it with regard to the transfer of books between the National Reference Library of Science and Invention and the British Museum, in which we have specified "objects".
My main argument in favour of creating an independent establishment is that this Library, whatever may be done for the British Museum proper, must rank very high in relation to Treasury support, because—and this is a matter which I am sure is close to the heart of the noble Lord the Minister for Science—it is quite clear that very high priority and support must be given to scientific and technological development. We are concerned with the British Museum which, with the best will in the world—as it is so starved that it is unable to open its Reading Room to the public every evening—would naturally find it difficult to give the absolute priority in this matter which is necessary for this National Reference Library.
It may well be that the Government will argue that the money that is made available will be earmarked for the purpose, but in that case they will be virtually taking major policy decisions, which will not be decided by the Trustees. We are arguing that there should be
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separate Trustees for this Library. I think a case has already been given by the Government, when once they separated the Natural History Museum from the British Museum in Bloomsbury. There is a much stronger case for supporting the National Reference Library.
To turn to the Amendment, thanks to the wisdom of my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger we have got over the particular difficulty of the Trustees. We have in fact proposed, first of all, that, within a year of the setting up of the National Reference Library of Science and Invention the Prime Minister shall lay a scheme before Parliament for establishing it as a separate institution under separate Trustees. We have not, therefore, attempted to go into the constitution and the application in detail of this particular Bill to the National Reference Library. We proposed adopting in a way which may be described as slightly conservative, the exact form of appointment of Trustees that applied to the Natural History Museum, except that we have insisted that a certain proportion of them should have appropriate qualifications. These qualifications are "experience" and "having shown capacity in science or technology". We do not necessarily stand by this form of words, which is, of course, adapted from some of the nationalisation Acts.
After saying that they should have shown capacity in science or technology, we have added,
"including cybernetics especially information processing systems."
The noble Baroness. Lady Wootton of Abinger, and I were naturally hesitant about inflicting this particular word on your Lordships. To those of your Lordships like the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, who are familiar with science fiction, it is, of course, a familiar phrase. We have included it because it precisely indicates the purposes we have in mind. We have attached a definition and, if the noble Lord who is going to reply wishes us to go into it further, we can go into it at greater length. But it is because this Library is to be concerned with information processing systems, and not just the storage and ready availability of books, that we have used a phrase which frankly we found most convenient. I may say that before we put it in the Bill I even consulted the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, to see that it did not

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give him loo great offence. We should not necessarily stand on the word "cybernetics", but I hope that the Government are going to accept this principle.
We have provided—and other consequential Amendments may also be necessary—that the Copyright Act shall apply to the Trustees of the National Reference Library of Science and Invention (British Museum), as well as to the Trustees of the British Museum. We hope that there will be close co-operation, and I should expect that there would be. This is essentially like the Patent Office Public Reference Library. One would not necessarily expect them to store much in the way of historic science books. I think the Patent Office at the moment keeps nothing over 50 years, or something like that. Obviously, certain hooks would in due course go back to the British Museum itself.
As I say, we have made provision for an exchange between the two sets of Trustees. It could even be said that the Trustees of these institutions might fall out and disagree, and that that would be an argument in favour of having one set. You do not solve divisions and problems simply by combining people. But if, by any chance, they should fall out too seriously, the Government would have to intervene. That is why we have pit down an Amendment giving power to the Prime Minister—which in any case ought, I think, to be in the Bill—to direct that a Trustee can resign his office.
I hope the Government will accept the principle of this Amendment. It is strongly supported in the scientific and technical world. The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee have given it support in principle, and ASLIB—the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux—have given strong support to it. It is also supported by all those who are actively concerned with this problem. The need is to make this Library not just into a research centre but into a tool. I would emphasise that it is a tool it is a tool of research, it is a tool of management, it is a tool of industry. Its purposes are so different from the more scholarly and lone-term purposes—and I am not saying there will not be great scholarship in this—of the British Museum, that I think it ought to be supported. Therefore I hope that the Government
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will either accept this Amendment, or will accept the principle of it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 7, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Shackleton.)
4.28 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: It may seem a little odd that this Amendment hangs entirely upon a hypothesis: that if the Trustees at any time set up a National Reference Library of Science and Invention then certain things shall follow, but I think that the references that my noble friend Lord Shackleton has made to the history of this matter will serve to dispel any illusion which might be created that the movers of this Amendment were engaged in an exercise in clairvoyance. Actually, the history of this matter goes back at least twelve years. It was, I think, in 1951 that the Government accepted in principle the idea of establishing a Library such as that to which we have referred, and to which reference is made in the Explanatory Memorandum to this Bill, though not actually in the Bill itself.
We all know that what Governments accept in principle is not always realised in practice, certainly not within the lifetime of the generation when the acceptance is made. But if we come to the latter history, I think it was only three years ago that the Minister for Science categorically announced that it had been decided to set up such a library—a National Reference Library of Science and Invention—and I think his exact words were that it was to be "built up and expanded from the existing Patent Office Library". He also told us that arrangements were going to be made for this Library to be built upon a new site, and that it was hoped that it would be in full operation by 1965. I am not sure whether that hope is going to be fulfilled quite within the programme outlined, but at least it shows that we are not engaged in an exercise of the imagination. If any Members of the Committee should have any further doubt, I would direct their attention to the fact that there are already advertisements appearing for staff to be engaged to serve in the Printed Books Department of the British Museum for work in the National Reference Library of Science and Invention.

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At the same time as the Minister for Science made his announcement in 1960, he added that it had been decided that this Library should be part of the British Museum Library. So far as I know, that was a purely administrative decision. I do not think that it has been considered at any time by either House of Parliament. So we now accept the fact that the Library is to be in closest association with the British Museum, and we have moved our Amendment on that basis. But I would call the attention of the Committee to the fact that the genealogy of this Library is now a little complicated. It is, in a sense, the child of the Patent Office Library, and it is also very closely associated with—we might say that it was the twin of—the National Science Lending Library. The National Science Lending Library is itself, in a sense, a child of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, under whose auspices it operates, and the new National Science Reference Library is now to have a further fosterparent in the form of the British Museum.
It seems that, unless the Library has a very considerable measure of independence, this complicated genealogical dream may lead to administrative confusion, but I would assure your Lordships that in no sense do the sponsors of this Amendment under-estimate the value of the contact with the Museum. It will be seen that we have provided one very important contact in the final paragraph of this Amendment, which has reference to Section 15(1) of the Copyright Act. Members of the Committee will also notice that we have preserved the words in brackets, which have been referred to this afternoon at one time as "clumsy" and at another time as "hallowed". I do not know that we are particularly wedded to the maintenance of the brackets if the Amendment moved earlier by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, should be accepted; but we would emphasise that there are very real advantages in maintaining connections with the British Museum and that, in asking for the separate body of Trustees, we are not asking that this link should be destroyed.
What we have in mind is, I think, the very thing that the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said in relation to the Natural History Museum on the Second Reading
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of this Bill. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 248 (No. 69), col. 926] that as
"… the main body of the Museum at Bloomsbury and the Natural History Museum are separate institutions for most practical purposes, it would be sensible and reasonable that they should have separate bodies of Trustees …"
As my noble friend Lord Shackleton has pointed out, that argument applies with added force to the new Reference Library. In the first place, it is a Library, and not a museum. The British Museum runs a magnificent Library, but it is primarily a museum. In the second place, as my noble friend has urged, the National Reference Library of Science and Invention is an extremely highly specialised Library and calls for interests which are far removed from those that are bound to occupy, and rightly occupy, the main attention of the Trustees of the British Museum.
Any doubt that one might have on this score has in my case certainly been dispelled by the number of extremely distinguished Members of your Lordships' House who, on seeing this Amendment, have asked me what is the meaning of the word "cybernetics". This itself, I think, reveals that there is a very wide division of interest between those who are primarily concerned with libraries in the humanities and arts, as we have known them, and those with libraries which are of a very much more technical character. This is not going to be a place even for the reading of literature. This is going to be a place primarily for search for information; and the main qualification that will be required of the people who work it will be to understand the processes which are now becoming extremely technical—the processes of information retrieval and the classification of scientific information.
As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has said, in this work the use is growing every day, not only of the human mind but of those enormously more powerful substitutes for the human mind which electronics have given us, and it is absolutely essential that, in the management of this Library, we should have persons who are conversant with the possibilities and who are also not deluded by imaginary estimates of the possibilities of these new instruments. There is nothing like the same scope for this kind of technical

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library in the arts and humanities, if only for the reason that they do not have a technical vocabulary and the imprecision of their language makes the same kind of information classification and retrieval impossible.
The argument will certainly be used that these highly technical qualifications will be appropriate in the staff of the Library but that it is not necessary that they should be enjoyed by the Trustees. But to some extent it is necessary that the Trustees should have an understanding of the basic processes. The Trustees will devote themselves to large questions of general policy, and not to detail; but the large questions of general policy are bound to include such matters as the amount of money to be spent upon new technical developments, many of which are extremely expensive, and questions of that kind. We have therefore thought it wise to include a phrase which is, after all, a very general phrase—it is not rigidly binding; it is a very general phrase—and provides that the Trustees shall include persons who have shown "experience of" and "capacity in" the relevant fields of science and technology.
It is for these reasons that we are very anxious that there should be a body of separate Trustees, many of whom I think would have very little interest (to put it in the reverse way) in the ordinary day-to-day affairs of the British Museum. Just as many of the Trustees of the British Museum would feel themselves, I think, not particularly drawn to the activities of the new National Science Reference Library, so many of the Trustees that we envisage, who are particularly interested in these developments in technical scientific information, would themselves feel out of touch with other branches of the British Museum's work. For these reasons, it seems to us that two bodies of Trustees closely linked, and still both of them carrying the name "British Museum", would be the right solution in the establishment of this new Library.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I should just like to add one word to what the noble Lord and the noble Lady opposite have said, very cogently and, I hope, sufficiently eloquently for the noble Earl to be ready to say that the Government are prepared to accept, if not this actual Amendment, at any rate the principle of it. I think it is quite clear that the very wide scope of disciplines for which the
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Trustees of the British Museum and the Director are responsible cannot be wide enough to include this new Library. They certainly cannot be wide enough to include something else which I think will probably have ultimately to be added to this Library, or possibly to the National Science Lending Library—that is, the abstracting service which, sooner or later, the Government of this country will have to build up: an abstracting service and a bibliographical service for scientists of all sorts, both physical and biological.
At the present moment abstracting services are rendered by a very large number of bodies; in some cases we have to use documents published in America, while others are published by scientific sources in this country. But more and more foreign countries are tending to set up national abstracting and bibliographical services, and I am quite certain that this country must follow suit very shortly if we are not to fall behind. Those could usefully be added to one or other of these libraries, and that is far outside the scope of the British Museum at Bloomsbury. But, of course, the biological abstracting, to a certain extent, is within the scope of the Museum at South Kensington, many of the staff of which are actively engaged on it today. I hope that the noble Lord will accept the principle of this Amendment, even if lie cannot accept it as it stands. It certainly is of the greatest importance.
LORD ECCLES: I should like to support about 50 per cent. of the arguments in favour of this Amendment. I certainly join with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in paying tribute to Sir Frank Francis. I believe that if Sir Frank Francis has sufficient funds he can be trusted to adopt all the best methods of modern library keeping. What I do not like is the idea that, because a number of your Lordships do not know what "cybernetics" means, we should hive-off those who do and leave the rest of us in ignorance. This attempt to divide the two cultures, so that there is not an inter-play between the two, is a mistake. We should be very sorry if one of the effects of doing this were to give "absolute priority" (this was the phrase used) in funds to the pursuit of scientific information over that of the older cultures. In my view, they are both extremely important, and it is necessary to bring the

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scholars in the two great divisions of learning as closely together as possible. I would think that the modern methods of abstracting information and making it available were important to humanists and historians, as well as to scientists. What I see as a difficulty is that we have already split off the Natural History Museum. I was myself connected with a long series of unsuccessful attempts to get the Patents Library started up again. Therefore I feel very strongly that if this is the opportunity to do the job properly then we should take it.
At the same time, I do not like the idea of splitting the British Museum Library—the greatest Library in the world, at any rate for books that are out of print—into two; and I was wondering whether my noble friend who is going to reply could, as it were, accept the principle of the Amendment and undertake that there should be a sub-committee of the Trustees of the British Museum, including some members especially qualified, who would look after the National Reference Library. There is always trouble when you have to draw a dateline and say that books up to 50 years old are to be in one library and books printed more than 50 years ago in another. Because that means that a transfer is necessary every year. Also there are many people who wish to consult both old and current texts. Whilst I sympathise very much with the purpose behind the Amendment, I rather hope that the connection with the Museum could remain fairly strong; and I believe that, if this could be so, the modern methods that may be more easily adopted in the Science Reference Library would come to be adopted even more quickly in the British Museum Library proper.
4.46 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, began by saying that he was a little surprised that more interest had not been taken in another place in the subject of the National Science Reference Library when the Bill was going through its various stages there. I was certainly very interested to listen to the noble Lord himself and the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, and my noble friend Lord Eccles, who had
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taken such a deep and lasting interest in this subject. I do not think the noble Lord need apologise at all for introducing the word "cybernetics". I should say it is of the very greatest importance that the expert staff in the National Science Library should be adept in cybernetics (which he has defined as the theory and practice of control and communications processes). Whether it necessarily follows that the Trustees should also have a knowledge of this branch of science, I am not quite so sure. It would not be a bad thing if they had. But is it not rather like saying that the managing director of a business must be an expert typist? Some are and it does no harm but, after all, that should be no reason to make it a condition of selection.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Has the noble Earl in mind that electronic computers are much more expensive than typewriters?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It is not a question of expense; it is a question of technical knowledge. This is not quite the same thing.
LORD SHACKLETON: May I interrupt the noble Earl? Would he really expect that somebody running a business machines business or somebody running a company making computers would not really have some knowledge of them?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I would not necessarily expect a man who was running a firm manufacturing typewriters to have a knowledge how to type himself. There is no doubt no harm in it and it might be a good thing. I was only suggesting that it might not be a reasonable condition of selecting him. But the main question raised by the noble Lord's Amendment is whether there should be the same administrative separation between this new National Science Reference Library and the British Museum as we are proposing to make in the Bill between the National History Museum and the main body of the British Museum at Bloomsbury. The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, kindly quoted my remarks on this subject that since the National History Museum was doing a separate job from the British Museum it was sensible that they should be separated. I do not

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agree there is quite the same case for administrative separation here.
This project for a National Science Reference Library, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, reminded us, stems from the recommendation of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, and the idea has always been that the library should be formed out of the existing Patents Office library and that it should be administered as part of the British Museum housed in a new building which would also house the Patents Office. I gave your Lordships the financial estimate for the building of this science library, which is part of the building of which the plans are now being submitted to the Ministry of Works. The whole thing will cost £3 million and it is estimated that £1 million of that will be applicable to the part of the building which will contain the new library, under the authority of the British Museum Trustees, while, of course, the Patents Office itself will continue to be under the Board of Trade.
The aim will be to provide a practical working library with complete reference service, manned by extra staff, and with open access to the shelves. The original plan was that there should be accommodation for 600,000 volumes. When this figure was looked at again a year or so ago, in the light of the increasing output of scientific literature, it was agreed that provision should be made for 800,000 books and that the building will be constructed in such a way that further accommodation can be made available if it proves necessary to increase the size of the library still further, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, forecast. There will be a continuous process of weeding out older material, which will be transferred to the new library at Bloomsbury or elsewhere, when it ceases to be in continual use or demand on the South Bank.
On the Second Reading of the Bill, I explained that the British Museum Library is going to be a much larger building, costing £10 million, but probably it will not be finished until long after this new National Science Reference Library. By the time it is built, we hope it will be large enough to contain the books which are no longer thought desirable to be retained, because they are getting out of date, in the library on the South Bank. It was originally hoped that we might start building in 1963, but the need to reconsider the size of the
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library held up the plan. It is now hoped to make a start next year and have it ready for use in 1966 or 1967.
It was in May, 1960, that my noble friend the Minister for Science announced to your Lordships that it had been decided that it would be in the long-term interests of learning and of the national collection of scientific literature that the library of science and invention should be formed as part of the British Museum Library, although housed as a separate unit, and that the scientific publications at present in the British Museum Library would be incorporated in the new one. That decision was arrived at after careful consideration by the Government, who felt that it would be wasteful, if we were going to build two new national libraries, the new British Museum Library at Bloomsbury and the National Science Reference Library on the South Bank, that they should be under separate management. We thought that that would mean overlapping to a considerable extent.
The British Museum Library is already the national library, and it is a comprehensive library on all subjects. There is no reason why it should not provide adequately for the increasing needs of scientists, and every reason why it should do so. The British Museum receives, free of charge, under the Copyright Acts, a copy of every publication in this country, including all scientific literature. Obviously that should go to the Science Library, but that would lead to administrative complications, if the library were not part of the British Museum. We could not take away all scientific books of which the British Museum has a statutory right to receive a copy and give them to another body of Trustees when required, and then take them back when it was considered that they were not wanted any more.
LORD SHACKLETON: I do not see why this transfer cannot take place.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I should have thought that it would make it much easier and smoother if all were concentrated under the same body of Trustees. But I was just going on to point out that the original idea was that the whole thing should be in Bloomsbury. There might be a question of having a separate body of Trustees, even then, but I do not

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know if it would have occurred so readily to the noble Lord and those who support him in this Amendment. It was thought unsatisfactory to have the libraries all-Bloomsbury for a number of reasons and the arrangement decided on to house the library in one building, but under the British Museum Trustees, and including the Patents Office Library, was considered as the arrangement which would achieve the maximum efficiency and economy.
To create a separate body of Trustees for the National Science Reference Library would, in our view, destroy the point of making the library a part of the British Museum, and the retention in the title of the words "British Museum" would not make any practical contribution to the problems of avoiding duplication and co-ordinating the activities of the two libraries if we had completely separate administrations for the two. The responsibility which the British Museum Trustees will have for the National Science Reference Library will naturally be one of the factors which the Prime Minister will have in mind in appointing Trustees, and it will be his intention that the Board should include persons qualified to assess the importance and the needs of the library.
I listened carefully to the case put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, and it had occurred to me, before my noble friend Lord Eccles spoke, that I might make the suggestion which my noble friend made, and which I think is worth considering. What my noble friend suggested was that there should be a scientific advisory committee, which would include distinguished scientists and provide the British Museum Trustees with special advice, without detracting from their responsibilities for the administration of the library. If your Lordships approve, I would undertake to look into this matter and to consult with the First Secretary, who is in charge of the Bill in another place, to see whether we can either make a positive statement about this or meet the point in any other way.
The noble Lord's Amendment says:
"If at any time the Trustees set up the National Reference Library of Science and Invention …"
Of course, the noble Lord is aware that the Trustees and staff of the British
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Museum are already actively engaged, jointly with the staff of the Patents Office Library, on the preparatory work for the National Science Reference Library, and additional staff have already been provided by the British Museum for this purpose, and their annual purchase grant has been increased to enable a start to be made on the acquisition of books and periodicals in fields not at present covered by the Patents Office Library.
I take the noble Lord's point about Government grants, but I do not think there is any real reason to suppose that two separate administrations would have a better chance of getting more money out of the Treasury than one acting for both. I understand the point put by the noble Lord, but I do not think that science and the Science Library would necessarily do better in the financial sense than if it was all under one management. It seems perhaps a little hard to suggest that when, after all these years of hard work, these preparations which have been made by the British Museum Trustees and staff are completed, and the new building is ready to receive the Library, the British Museum Trustees who have borne all the burden should have the Library taken away from them and given to a different body. I hope your Lordships will agree to consider the suggestion which the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, made about getting some more definite decision in regard to the Advisory Committee.
I would conclude by saying (I do not know whether I have told your Lordships; I heard it only this morning) that the architect's plan has now been submitted to the Ministry of Works. I have not seen it myself, but it will, we hope, be approved before very long, so that work may be able to start on the South Bank—that is, in the neighbourhood of Cornwall House, East of Waterloo Bridge, part of which I think comes into it—in the early part of next year.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I find the noble Earl's answer very disappointing. Some of the points he has made appear to me to be, if I may say so, verging on the trivial, such as, for instance, when he suggested that the transfer of material from Bloomsbury to the South Bank would be made more difficult if there were separate bodies of Trustees. On the noble Earl's own

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argument at an earlier stage, the Trustees are not going to concern themselves with matters of detail of that kind. But the main part of the reply by the noble Earl seems to have taken the form of simply rehearsing the fact that these decisions have been made; and that, indeed, is the exact matter which this Amendment seeks to rectify. He has also added that in the appointment of Trustees the Prime Minister will no doubt include persons who are experienced in, or have shown capacity in, science or technology and the relevant fields of those subjects. After all, the number of Trustees of the British Museum is being reduced, and the Prime Minister's appointments are not now very numerous. If he is going to load the Trustees of the British Museum rather heavily with people of these specialist qualifications, he will find, I think, that the body of Trustees will be unbalanced from the point of view of the Museum.
Here I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, that this is not an attempt to drive a wedge between two cultures. The two cultures are unified, and unified under the same parentage. But what we are concerned with is that the balance of interests on the two bodies of Trustees is necessarily different. The one must include a heavier weighting of one kind of qualification, and the other must have a heavy weighting of the other. If they are merged, a high proportion of the Trustees will feel themselves not cognisant, or not sufficiently cognisant, with matters which concern the others. That is the problem. There are not two cultures; there is one culture, but there is an enormous number of sub-departments and specialist interests.
Surely the argument the noble Earl used in conclusion is not one upon which he would wish to stand—namely, that we must go on with what is perhaps not the best decision, because it would be hard luck on people who put work into this programme if changes were made at this stage. It would be a sad thing—and I am sure the people who have put the work into this programme would be the first to recognise it—if decisions which could be improved upon were not so improved merely out of regard for the hard luck feelings of those who had worked at an earlier stage. I cannot think that the
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noble Earl wishes to stand upon an argument of that kind.
LORD SHACKLETON: I would still make an appeal, although I do not expect it to be answered. As I said before, this is not a Party issue, but I am inclined to take this matter to a Division, and I hope for support from all quarters of the Committee. I should like to deal with one or two points that my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger has already mentioned. The speech from the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, nearly made me into a Liebersite.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): A what?
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, knows what I mean.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I understand now.
LORD SHACKLETON: This is not a question of two cultures. It is a question of a National Reference Library of Science and Technology. There will be all sorts of scientific libraries which will continue. What we are proposing is that its principal control will be in the hands of the people primarily concerned with its purposes. I should visualise that there would be quite likely one or several industrialists with particular knowledge of technology, and so on, who would not be likely to be found a place among the Trustees of the British Museum. Nor do I think that the suggestion of a scientific advisory committee meets the case. What we want is a separate direction. The idea of this Library has come up—it has been fathered in its latter stages by the British Museum—and now we are saying that its purpose is so different that it ought to be separate; and the only argument that we have against this is the argument that everything in this country should be included in the British Museum—possibly the Public Record Office, and the whole lot.
I would urge noble Lords who have heard this debate, and any who have come in later, to support us on this Amendment. At least we shall get a principle across. And I hope notice will be taken that the purpose of this Library is different from that of the purposes of

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the British Museum Library. Therefore I will press this Amendment to a Division.
Clause 8 agreed to.
5.17 p.m.
LORD DENNING LORD DENNING moved, after Clause 8 to insert the following new clause:
Transfer of documents to Public Record Office
". Notwithstanding anything in this Act, the Trustees of the British Museum may with the consent of the Lord Chancellor transfer to the Public Record Office any historical manuscripts or other documents that formerly formed part of the Public Records, or which form part of a series of documents the bulk of which are in the possession of the Public Record Office, or which in the interests of historical research it is convenient so to transfer."
The noble and learned Lord said: This is a small Amendment, put forward in the interests of historical research and completeness. At the moment the British Museum have many scraps of paper or, shall I say, of parchment which are needed to make some of the great historical manuscripts in the Public Record Office complete. At the present moment there is no power to make those documents complete, and this Amendment is designed for the purpose. As your Lordships will know, Masters of the Rolls for well over 100 years now have had a special responsibility for the Public
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 23; Not-Contents, 39.

CONTENTS

Alexander of Hillsborough, E.

Faringdon, L.

Shepherd, L.

Archibald, L.

Henderson, L.

Somers, L.

Attlee, E.

Latham, L.

Stonham, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Lawson, L.

Summerskill, B.

Champion, L.

Lindgren, L.

Walston, L. [Teller.]

Cranbrook, E. [Teller.]

Lucan, E.

Williamson, L.

Denning, L.

Milverton, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Shackleton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Amulree, L.

Eccles, L.

Long, V.

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E.

Lothian, M.

Bossom, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Margesson, V.

Chesham, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Newton, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Grenfell, L.

Palmer, L.

Conesford, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Perth, E.

Craigton, L.

Hanworth, V.

Rea, L.

Denham, L.

Hastings, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Derwent, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Devonshire, D.

Hurcomb, L.

Sinha, L.

Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Jellicoe, E.

Templemore, L.

Dundee, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Waleran, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Record Office, and I am glad to say that my noble and learned friend Lord Evershed, my immediate predecessor, is supporting this Amendment.
I should like to give your Lordships just one illustration of what happens at the moment and how it will work. We have in the Public Record Office a whole series of account rolls on parchment which were made to record the building of Rockingham Castle by King Edward I in the year 1280. We have 30 of these account rolls on parchment for each of the years spent in building the castle, containing the records of the masons, the stone and the work that was done, all in the queer abbreviated latin and in handwriting that is most difficult to read. But many years ago one-half of the 30th roll was torn away in a jagged edge; and that one-half, out of the whole 30, is now in the British Museum. I have here a photograph of the half which the Public Record Office has of the parchment, with its jagged edge where it has been severed from the other. All that we ask is that there should be power, not to compel, but to permit, the British Museum, if they think fit, to make this record complete by transferring that missing half to the Public Record Office so as to make our documents complete. I may say that even the rolls in which your Lordships might

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be most interested—the rolls for the reconstruction of Westminster Hall in the time of Richard II, and all our account rolls—are complete except for one counter roll in the British Museum. So we do plead that the document should be made complete for research.
It is said: "Oh well, of course, nowadays microfilms can be made of the missing half; and, instead of transferring the original half of the parchment to the Public Record Office, let the Public Record Office have a photograph." But historians and researchers would tell you that you cannot compare a photograph to the original parchment roll. You do not get the erasures, the handwriting, the blots, or even the sealing wax reproduced on a photograph. I remember an attempt to fit together a photograph of a torn page of the proceedings of your Lordships' House. Trying to piece it together was a difficult task and very unsatisfactory. If you have the whole document you can see so much more, especially nowadays with ultra-violet lamps which enable you to see the texture of the document and read it as a whole.
Historians plead that that document should be made complete, and you may wonder why not. But, so far as I can gather, the British Museum Trustees take the view, "What we have we hold." I should just like to compare their attitude to that of a private individual. We have in the Record Office some fine fifteenth-century illuminated manuscripts of Furness Abbey. They came into the Public Record Office after the dissolution of the monasteries. When they were examined in detail they were found to be lacking one page. In 1930 this missing page came into the hands of an ordinary private individual, and he generously presented it to the Record Office, where it has been reunited and the whole of this fine cartulary is now complete. What a private individual can do, and is willing to do, apparently the British Museum are unwilling to do. We do not ask for compulsion, but only for liberty, if the Lord Chancellor consents, that the document in the Public Record Office in our keeping should be made complete. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 8 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Denning.)
LORD EVERSHED: I should like, if I may, shortly to support my noble and learned friend. As will be apparent to your Lordships from what he said, since I was his predecessor as Master of the Rolls, I do so in what I believe to be the interest of public records. Of course, nowadays the separation of public records would be very unlikely to happen; but in ancient days that was not so. Your Lordships will know that before the passing of the first Public Record Office Act (I think in 1838) a number of Committees of one or other of the Houses of Parliament were set up to try to find out what should be done, since unfortunately, what would now be kept in the ordinary way in the State Departments had largely been dispersed and disseminated all over the place, not out of any ill-design but simply because at that time it was not perhaps fully appreciated quite what were State Papers.
Not long before I ceased to be Master of the Rolls, a most remarkable document, of the days, I think, of King Edward III, was put up for sale, having found its way eventually into a saleroom in London, and the Treasury had to provide a substantial sum to buy it back again. I am not thinking of that kind of case, but it has happened that what we now know in truth are public documents have for a long time formed part of private collections and, as such, have in the past been handed over to the British Museum. By Schedules to the latest Public Record Office Act such documents, being in the British Museum, would not be public records for the purposes of that Act, so that there would be no power to recover them. May I make one thing quite clear? I fully realise, and my time in office as Master of the Rolls fully taught me, that a public document to the historian and to the researcher owes a great deal of its value to its companions, to the fact that it is part of a collection or a series. For anyone interested in this science of the archives to deny that would be an obvious heresy; and I do not, of course, deny it.
As my noble friend has pointed out, we are not for one moment suggesting that all documents which strictly are, or were, public records, should now be taken from the British Museum and put in the Public Record Office. All we say is that, like everything else in human affairs,

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every rule has its occasional exceptions; and the case that my noble friend has mentioned, of the parchment that happens to be torn in half, one might think was such an exception. Again, I venture to emphasise, if I may, what has fallen from my noble friend: that all we are saying by this Amendment is that the Trustees of the British Museum should have power, if the Lord Chancellor consents, to transfer, say, a part of a document, to make up a whole, or perhaps some other document, which might be thought, by those best able to judge, to be of more value to the historian and the researcher, in the company of the rest of its series than in the company in which in fact it finds itself. Every such exceptional case would be dealt with on its own merits. It is merely that it would be right that there should be liberty given to deal with an exceptional case in that way.
As I am speaking on the subject, perhaps your Lordships will allow me to say this: that from those I have often seen who have acted in the matter of research in the Public Record Office, I have always heard the very highest praise for the service and help given to the Public Record Office by the Keeper and Assistant Keepers and other civil servants in that office. In saying that, I am not obliquely denigrating the British Museum, but after thirteen years' association with the Public Record Office I should like on this occasion to pay my acknowledgment to the staff of that great institution. The only thing I would add is that I am not sure, from what has fallen from my noble and learned friend Lord Denning, that the Amendment, which speaks of "historical manuscripts or other documents", in the plural, might not be better put in the singular, since his best case happens to be that of a single manuscript. But the form of the Amendment is, in fact, the same as that moved in another place, and I should like to support it.
5.30 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: I, too, should like to support the Amendment. Both spoke to it with such tremendous charm—indeed, on the part of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, almost with pathos—that this idea of uniting the torn document to its other half is almost irresistible, and obviously appeals to this Committee. But, of course, that is a very
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dangerous argument to use in relation to the British Museum. If one were really to restore missing parts, the Erechtheum in Athens would benefit from a certain figure, and there are other objects which might be restored to their natural place. The argument that people did not perhaps realise the importance of certain public records before they were disposed of, but now they do, could also be used by others.
But, having said that, the fact remains that I think the Public Record Office is in a rather different case. The argument in favour of the British Museum's not being too restrictive and too tight to permit an entirely sensible arrangement of this sort is one that I should hope would commend itself, despite the danger of breaching this principle, to the Committee. I take it this could be a two-way traffic. Indeed, the Amendment could be very similar to the Amendment I had not moved previously.
LORD DENNING: It has power already to do it.
LORD SHACKLETON: It would seem this is one of which the Government would at least accept the principle.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: There are certain documents in the British Museum which it might be argued ought more appropriately to be held by the Record Office, and an Amendment was put down in another place similar to that which the noble Lord has moved. It was negatived on Report after consideration had been given to the views of the British Museum Trustees upon it. Both the noble and learned Lords, Lord Denning and Lord Evershed, are evidently fully familiar with those arguments on the strength of which the Amendment in another place was negatived. First of all, there is the general principle of non-alienation. The British Museum Trustees attach great importance to that and would be most reluctant to make any breach in it, even within a strictly limited field and on the basis of permissive powers. I think they feel that once there are permissive powers, although they have power to refuse it, it opens them to a great deal of pressure which in some cases it might be difficult to resist.
Then there is the argument about the breaking up of collections. As the

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noble Lord, Lord Evershed, said, although in modern times it is unlikely that different public records in the same series would become separated, that could happen yin earlier centuries. It could happen that those separated records might become part of a private collection and that the association might be even more historical than the association between the different records. For instance, the Cotton Library is largely built up of documents of that kind. The noble Lord, Lord Evershed, answered that, I think, by saying something of which I was not aware: that legally these would not now be classified as public records.
LORD EVERSHED: Being in the British Museum they are excluded, I think I am right in saying, from the definition, according to the Schedule of the Act of 1958; so that strictly the Public Record Office could not demand them qua public records because they are in the British Museum.
The EARL OF DUNDEE: I am much obliged. I think the noble Lord is saying that if his view is correct, even if this Amendment were accepted it would not be possible to move these documents to the Public Record Office.
LORD EVERSHED: Yes, because many documents are handed to the Public Record Office which are not strictly public records. Once they leave the British Museum they immediately become public records.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I had thought, when I first heard the noble Lord's speech, that he was arguing that this Amendment was not a very formidable one because these old records, by this new enactment and being legally public records, could not be transferred under his Amendment. I should like to look into that a little further.
The third argument of the British Museum was that since they have always published catalogues of their manuscripts and since those catalogues are well known to scholars, transfers might be a source of confusion and frustration, because people who came to the British Museum about a document recorded as being in the Museum's collections might discover it was no longer there. That would not apply to the private donors, whose behaviour the noble Lord contrasted with
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that of the British Museum, because they would not have published catalogues of the manuscripts they held and the fact that they were kind enough to give them to the Public Record Office would not cause confusion or inconvenience to scholars.
I was not quite convinced by Lord Denning's deprecation of photographic copies. He first of all said microfilms, but I think in this case they would more likely be ordinary photo copies. I have given a lot of my own charters and documents of historical interest to the Register House in Edinburgh, and for my own gratification I have very good photo copies, which are just as good and safer.
After listening to the three very eloquent speeches we have heard, I think it would be frustrating the purpose of debate if I did not look into this matter again. I think the Government were right to refuse this Amendment and the other place was right to negative it on Report, but since three of your Lordships have pleaded so pathetically, as well as eloquently, on this point, and none of your Lordships has spoken in an opposite sense, I think it would be right, before asking your Lordships to reject the proposal out of hand, that I should undertake to do what I can to look into it again to the best of my ability.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I should like to add my plea to the noble Earl to look at this matter again, because I do not think the objections which have been raised are really substantial. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Evershed, was simply that if this Amendment were passed it would still not confer upon the Public Record Office the right to demand from the British Museum documents in their custody.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I thought he meant it would not give the British Museum power to transfer, but I think the noble Lord has given the right interpretation of Lord Evershed's argument.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: That is the whole point of the Amendment: to give the British Museum power to transfer, but not to give anybody the right to demand them. In any case, the power is limited under the proposed Amendment, because it is subject to the consent of the Lord Chancellor. That consent, I have no doubt, would not be given without very careful consideration.

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As to the other point which the noble Earl has made, he says it would disrupt the operation of the British Museum if a number of transfers of this kind were made, because the British Museum possesses and has published catalogues of its collections. It is perfectly true that catalogues have been published, and they are very valuable indeed to those who are engaged on research. But I would ask the noble Earl to consider the point which he himself made: that photo copies can be made and, therefore, if such a document were transferred to the Public Record Office to complete the continuity of their records and to put the document into its proper context in the historical series there could still be kept in the British Museum a photo copy so that anybody who went there could see that and, to that extent, would not be frustrated. If his research was so serious that it was necessary to look at original documents and not at photo copies, it would still be better for him to go to the Public Record Office and see them in the context of the other documents which form the whole series.
LORD EVERSHED: In thanking the noble Earl, as I do, I want to make it quite clear that, of course, where, as is often the case (perhaps in nine cases out of ten), the value of a particular document to history and to historical students is that it is, and has been, part of a collection, that would be a complete answer to any suggestion for its transference. Here we are concerned with only the occasional case. I submit to your Lordships that it seems rather extraordinary that a manuscript which happens to be torn in two could, by Act of Parliament, be prevented from ever being joined together again. This is only the occasional case. May I express my gratitude for what has been said about photography in meeting the catalogue point? Possibly an erratum could be put in the catalogue which would meet the particular case that I have in mind. But I am most grateful to the noble Earl for the consideration that he is giving to our point.
LORD DENNING: May I say that I am most grateful to the noble Earl for saying that he will look into this matter?
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That being so, I will withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 9 to 11 agreed to.
5.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK THE EARL OF CRANBROOK moved, after Clause 11, to insert the following new clause
". The Trustees of the British Museum and the Natural History Trustees shad make two separate triennial reports to Parliament on the condition of the collections, the provisions for research and exhibition and other matters connected with the British Museum and British Museum of Natural History respectively."
The noble Earl said: At present, about half of the 51 Trustees of the British Museum are holders of important offices of the Church and State and are Trustees ex officio. They include the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord the Master of the Rolls, who has just spoken—in fact, by and large, about 50 per cent. of the members of the body of Trustees are Members either of your Lordships' House or of another place. One imagines that when the Trustees were set up in that form, it was expected that men of that calibre who interested themselves actively in the day-to-day running of the Museum could report to their fellow Members either of this place or of another place. Moreover, I believe time was when the most reverend Primate used to present to your Lordships the budget of the British Museum. That, alas! is no longer the case. Indeed, it is obviously a fact that men of that sort of calibre with the responsibilities which they bear to-day have not got the time to carry out their duties as Trustees, and it is for that reason that a special Committee does the day-to-day running of the Museum.
Under the new set-up there will not even be that rather tenuous connection with the two Houses of Parliament; and neither House, nor the general public, will have any opportunity of learning what is being done at the two Museums, nor indeed what should be done and what is not being done. Moreover, the finances are hidden away in an obscure corner of the Civil Estimates, and when one does find them after some difficulty, they give remarkably little information.

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So, therefore, we have two institutions of the greatest importance in the cultural and scientific life of this country the governing body of which have no opportunity, or will have no opportunity, and are under no obligation, to give an account of their activities.
While we have been discussing this Bill, some of your Lordships, and indeed some people in another place, have ventured to criticise some aspects of the work of both Museums, and I personally have been ventilating criticisms which are commonly made in scientific circles—I hear them frequently made with greater or less intensity, but they are symptomatic, I think, of a general disquiet. We know that in the past two or three years a great deal has been done, but after the many years of neglect there is much backlog to be made up. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on Second Reading referred to the need for new buildings at South Kensington, the enlargement of the North block; and I referred to the necessity for more facilities for research both at home and abroad. In some of the replies, certainly in another place and to an extent here, that were made to these criticisms and to some of the Amendments which have been put forward, I am bound to confess that I see some signs of a certain amount of complacency in high places. We know that some improvements are being made, and it may well be that the disquiet which I and others have voiced, the complacency which I fancy I see, may be unjustified or unreal and there may be plans in view, things being done, about which the general body of biologists know nothing. The Trustees have no means of reporting that and of letting us know. I do not feel that we should have these two important institutions being run with neither Parliament nor the general public, nor scientists or students at large, knowing anything about what is going on. At least, I think that every three years they should make a report. I would like to have seen one yearly, but I think it might be rather a strain. But it should be at least every three years. I have reason to suspect that the Trustees themselves would welcome the opportunity, would welcome being given the duty of making at least a triennial report. I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 11 insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Cranbrook.)
5.50 p.m.
LORD HURCOMB: I ought perhaps to make it plain that in this matter I am expressing merely my personal views and am not in any way speaking on behalf of any of the other Trustees. I agree entirely with what the noble Earl has just said. I have little doubt that the new bodies of Trustees will themselves want to issue reports on the progress of work at the Museums for which they are responsible. I feel that it is in every way important that they should do so to keep the public informed, to keep scientific people informed, and to enable them to voice complaints as to where they are being held up by lack of money, or whatever it may be, explaining to the public and to Parliament just what is needed to make these great institutions fulfil their functions, as we should all wish them to do.
It is true that in one way or another the Museums do inform various sections of the population as to what is happening. There are periodical reports, which get a great deal of publicity in the Press, about the growth of the acquisitions to the collections at Bloomsbury, and there are various technical journals which publish periodically thoroughly authoritative accounts of what is happening. But that is not the same thing as a comprehensive report to the public which could be made available to Parliament.
I am doubtful whether it would be wise to put the Trustees under the obligation to publish statutory reports in the ordinary form of Government publications. The rules under which one publishes documents through the Stationery Office are a little restrictive in the matter of the covers one may employ or the illustrations one may include. It may well be, therefore, that this should be done not by making the reports White Papers in any ordinary sense, but if the Trustees were given the duty of publishing—and I myself would certainly say annually—such reports as they think fit, informing the country as to the progress of the Museum. It would be all to the good and would fill a gap which, as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook has said, has been very remarkable in the past. It is surprising that Parliament itself has heard

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so little about what the museums have been doing. I therefore support the Amendment proposed by the noble Earl, again making it clear that I am expressing my own views on the matter.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I should like to say one word in support of this Amendment, which seems equally desirable from the point of view of the public and from the point of view of the Trustees. The interested public is probably not very large, but it is sizeable and is undoubtedly exceedingly keenly interested. I think this audience has been increased in recent years through popular education via radio and television. Far more people are now taking an interest in what museums are doing and are anxious to know more about them and how they are run.
From the point of view of the Trustees, I cannot help thinking that it would be very frustrating to serve as a Trustee for a long period and to give no public account of your stewardship. For that reason I am delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, say that, so far as he personally is concerned, he supports this Amendment. If I have read the Schedule correctly, I think it is possible for a Trustee to serve for as long as fifteen years. Few of us would wish to occupy a position in which we gave no account of our stewardship for as long a period as that, nor should we wish others to occupy such a position when they are acting on behalf of the public at large or a specialised section of the public, as in this case.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: There is not, and never has been, any general rule or practice about the publication of reports by any museums or galleries. The Tate Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery issue annual reports; the National Gallery brings them out every few years, but not at regular intervals; and other museums do not publish reports of their own at all, but they often contribute to the Survey which forms the second part of the Reports published periodically by the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries. Some institutions lend themselves more readily and easily to reports than others.
A report which deals adequately with such an enormous and complex institution as the British Museum involves, of
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course, a vast amount of work for a great number of people. That is not necessarily an argument against doing it, and, as your Lordships have recalled, the British Museum used until 1938 to publish an annual report. Since then it has ceased to do so on grounds of economy, which we can well understand, because the cost of doing that kind of thing has vastly increased since that time. It involves a very great amount of clerical labour, and the wages of clerical labour and the costs of printing have increased enormously since 1938. Naturally, the British Museum feel that all the expense of doing this might be better spent on some other purpose. The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the Trustees are contemplating again resuming making reports.
LORD HURCOMB: If the noble Earl will allow me to interrupt, may I say that I am not entitled to say that? I thought I had made it clear that I was expressing only my personal views. I feel that if the Trustees are asked to take note of the feeling of your Lordships in this matter, they would themselves be glad to resume publication of the reports. If they are not put under too rigid obligations, by Statute or otherwise, they can then deal with the difficulty as to the bulk of material to be covered by a report by covering one subject in one year and dealing with something else the next. Therefore, if you allow them latitude I feel that all these difficulties will disappear. But I cannot do more than say that I personally feel they would be very sympathetic on this matter.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: What I understood—apart from what the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, has said—was that the Trustees had been considering the question of resuming the reports which stopped in 1938. The Government's view is that we should be delighted if they would start making reports if and when they felt that they had anything really worth while to say.
As the noble Baroness said, many more members of the public are taking an interest in museums, but whether they would like to read a routine report I am not sure. The Trustees might not consider it worth while to produce routine reports which would take up a great deal of their staff's time, involve them in a

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vast amount of labour, and cost a great deal of money, and which would not be read by anybody at all. When—and this is a matter the Trustees should decide for themselves—they felt that they had something worth while and interesting to say which would be read by somebody, we are all for their doing it; but we think we ought to leave it to them, and not put them under a statutory obligation to do something which might not always be necessary and which might not be read by anybody at all.
LORD SHACKLETON: I do not know why I should feel so strongly on a matter like this, but I do. I feel it is quite intolerable that there should be no report to Parliament.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Would the noble Lord always read it if there were?
LORD SHACKLETON: No, I probably should not read it, but I should read the Natural History Museum Report section, and there are other people who would read the British Museum part. I do not think it is fair for the Government to say to the Trustees: "Publish if you think worth while and if there is enough money."
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: "Enough interest", not "enough money".
LORD SHACKLETON: Enough interest, and in fact enough money. Parliament is legislating now in regard to the British Museum, and I think there ought to be a report. It ought to be a statutory obligation, and this is not a very onerous one. I think, with the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, that the Trustees, and certainly the officers of the Museums, would probably welcome it. According to my information, the Natural History Museum were in fact anxious—certainly the Director was anxious—to produce such a report. I should have thought that this ought to be a statutory obligation, and that even now the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, could consider Lord Cranbrook's Amendment. It is a very mild one.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: There is not a statutory obligation on any other museum or gallery.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I must confess I was astounded when I heard the reply of the noble Earl in front of me, who could not see an abundant necessity for a report of this nature—certainly from the Natural History Museum, which is a major research institute. We all have year by year the reports of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Agricultural Research Council, the Medical Research Council and so on.
LORD SHACKLETON: And the Arts Council.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: Admittedly, we do not all read the whole lot, but we do read those parts in which we are particularly interested and where we feel that we could have some contribution to make. The accent on the great cost, the vast amount of work involved, and this, that and the other, seems the poorest of replies that I have ever heard to something that has been accepted on all sides of the Committee—
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: If there is anything in this argument in favour of doing it, there is nothing to prevent the Trustees from doing it. I said that we are delighted that they should.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: There is approval on this side of the House, on that side of the House and on the Cross-Benches, for the Trustees to have a statutory duty to report to Parliament and the nation at large on what are fundamentally important things—the condition of the collections, the provisions for research and education, and other matters. Now those are important things. Every year important matters arise, and I simply fail to understand why the noble Earl cannot accept this Amendment. Can he give me an undertaking that he will be prepared to consider it if I put it down again on the Report stage or on Third Reading? Otherwise, I feel so strongly about this matter that I will feel bound to divide the Committee on it.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 31; Not-Contents, 24.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Amulree, L.

Attlee, E.

Alexander of Hillsborough, E.

Archibald, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Champion, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Shepherd, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Cranbrook, E. [Teller.]

Lawson, L.

Somers, L.

Crook, L.

Lindgren, L.

Stonham, L.

Denning, L.

Lucan, E.

Strang, L.

Faringdon, L.

Milverton, L.

Walston, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Perth, E.

Williamson, L.

Hanworth, V.

Shackleton, L. [Teller.]

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Henderson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E.

Lothian, M.

Chesham, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Luke, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Grenfell, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Craigton, L.

Hastings, L.

Margesson, V.

Denham, L.

Hawke, L.

Newton, L.

Derwent, L.

Jellicoe, D.

Palmer, L.

Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Lansdowne, M.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Dundee, E.

Long, V.

Waleran, L.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 12 agreed to.
First Schedule [Tenure of Office and Proceedings of Trustees]:
6.11 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK THE EARL OF CRANBROOK moved, in paragraph 1, after "not" to insert:
"be of such a length as would involve his remaining in office after the age of 72 years and in no case shall".
The noble Earl said: We discussed some time back, on the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, the constitution of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum, and, mutatis mutandis, I believe the same thing applies to the Trustees of the British Museum at Bloomsbury. Now that we are setting up new Trustees, the governing bodies of both of them, I think, and certainly that of the Museum at South Kensington, should be moulded like those of other bodies responsible for research and should in fact be bodies vastly different from those which now govern the two Museums. To-day the boundaries of scientific knowledge are enlarging so fast that it is difficult for the professional, and almost impossible for the amateur, to keep fully up to date. As we grow older and our undergraduate days recede further away, and our schooldays still further away, all of us find it increasingly difficult to understand and to realise what is going on in modern science. Time was when a professor at a university went on teaching until he died: to-day, he has to retire at 65 or 67.
I believe the noble Earl in charge of the Bill told us that the Prime Minister,
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in making appointments, would probably appoint 50 per cent. from men such as professors actively engaged in the pursuit of their profession. I put down the age of 72 in this Amendment because I doubt whether such a man, however able, could continue to be sufficiently closely in touch with modern science bearing in mind the difficulty which any one of us has, when we get to the sort of age which most of us here are to-day, in keeping up to date with the developments which take place during our careers. I do not believe that such a man could keep closely in touch with modern developments for more than five or seven years after his retirement; and, so far as being on the governing body of a research institute is concerned, it is vitally important that the governing body should be in touch.
There are other walks of life where a man with the accumulated wisdom that comes of old age can continue to be of service well on into old age; and we know and see innumerable examples of men performing very valuable services to a late age. Indeed, I feel that, for the Trustees of the Museum as at present constituted, age is really no bar to the type of work which they have done in the past. But it does seem to me that, under the new set-up there will be a new type of Trustee, possibly with very new functions, whether the Prime Minister himself chooses him or whether he come on the nomination of some learned society, and it is important that men should leave the governing body of a research institute before they cease to be in touch with science. The age I have chosen is in line with that which applies to county court judges and it is that which is

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thought applicable to members of agricultural tribunals and agricultural advisory committees, because members are then thought to be so far out of touch with modern practice as to be no longer useful.
I found some difficulty in wording this Amendment, because I think that it applies possibly more strongly to the scientists than it does to those who are concerned with humanities. Nevertheless, at Bloomsbury much scientific work is done, and it will be important for the Trustees there to be as closely in touch with modem thought as it will be in South Kensington; and I believe that this rule should apply to both. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 5, after ("not") insert the said words.—(The Earl of Cranbrook.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Earl raised this question of age on Second Reading, and I see that I pointed this out to him in reply [OFFICIAL. REPORT, Vol. 248 (No. 69), col. 964):
"The first Schedule to this Bill provides that each Trustee shall hold office for only such a period as is specified in the instrument by which he is appointed; and that is ten years on appointment, and five years on renewal. So there will be plenty of opportunity to change the Trustees before they become old enough to be themselves exhibits in the Museum rather than administrators".
The noble Earl now wishes to introduce a further safeguard by providing that, whatever happens, no one shall go on being a Trustee after the age of 72. These questions of age limit are, of course, very difficult. They have existed in some professions for a very long time, and I dare say they are justifiable in many professions. The noble Earl mentioned university dons. It always used to be thought that schoolteachers, too, went on and on, and it was sometimes very difficult or embarrassing for the governing bodies of the schools to tell them they thought the time had come for them to retire. On the other hand, there are disadvantages, too, if you fix a retiring age and people do not get old at the same time—and some people are at their best at 65 or 70. I remember one brilliant classics teacher at the school where I was who had to retire at the age of 65 when he was just at his best and, I think, his most brilliant. He had learnt a lot more since he was 55; but, of course, at 65 it was too late for him to get any other employment and
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he had to go coaching people, "cramming" them for unimportant exams, for the rest of his life. That, I thought, was a very great waste of talent.
It may be argued that it is really a question of saving employers, Trustees and governing bodies embarrassment, and that it would be better if they were courageous enough to discriminate between one man and another. However, the argument is that it saves the need for discrimination in many professions and enables young men to get promotion more quickly. I would hardly have thought that that applied to the position of a Trustee of any Museum because, unlike a profession, it is merely a kind of responsibility which any suitable person may take on, involving a moderate amount of work. He may be able to give invaluable service up to the age of 75 or 80. I would suggest that the condition in the Schedule to this Bill which provides that after the first ten years he cannot be appointed for more than another five years, will be sufficient to enable the Prime Minister to make sure that there are not inordinate numbers of excessively old Trustees. It would be a pity to deprive the British Museum of the services of people—and I can think of many examples—who might perhaps be at their best for that kind of work and who would be able to give valuable help even when they are past the age of 72. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships will not wish to press this Amendment.
LORD SHACKLETON: There is really a point of substance in the noble Earl's Amendment, but it is a difficult question. There is no doubt that there might be circumstances in which an extremely valuable individual was lost. But the great argument in favour of a definite age limit is precisely the one that the noble Earl mentioned: to have a clear-cut decision about which there can be no argument. There is some loss, undoubtedly, as a result, as we know by examples which have been quoted time and time again in this House when discussing the retirement of judges and so on. There is a general desirability of fixing an age, but, personally, I think it would be difficult to carry this Amendment into effect in view of the Government's attitude. I am not proposing to move the next Amendment (which might provide a more brutal

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solution in particular cases) at this stage. I do not know whether the noble Earl wishes to press this question, but it may be that he could consider this again before the Report Stage and we could decide how else to deal with it.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I wonder whether the noble Earl might consider—I do not want to press the Amendment—whether it is not possible to have an Amendment providing that the first appointment should not bring a man beyond a certain age. One could then have a look to see how he is getting on and not renew the appointment if he is showing signs of senility. It is almost impossible to lay down a fixed age of retirement; that I realise. But I should like some provision whereby we do not have people continuing to work at the Museum long after they have lost touch with scientific development. Perhaps the noble Earl will consider this.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Of course, I will consider any argument which the noble Earl wishes me to consider; and I intend in any case to have a Report stage. But I would again say to the Committee that I do not think the position of people undertaking a very occasional piece of public service such as being a Trustee of the British Museum is comparable to the case of whole-time professional workers such as schoolmasters, university dons or Judges. I do not think there is any real parallel between them because, with great respect to your Lordships, age may by a gradual process resulting in a slight loss of efficiency. It does not mean that you are incapable of giving advice or to make decisions which have to be made by a Trustee of the British Museum, and it seems to be an unnecessarily rigid proposal that no one shall be a Trustee after the age of 72.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that the probable balance of advantage is on the side of an age limit in the case of Judges, schoolmasters, and so on; but I would put it to the Committee that the parallel does not hold in the case of such an appointment as a Trustee of the British Museum, which is not a whole-time job.
LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: Before the noble Earl finally
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considers this point, I hope he will remember that a maximum age tends to become a minimum age and that in trying to overcome an evil one sometimes becomes landed with other difficulties. I hope the noble Earl will not say that you cannot be appointed until you are over 72.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
First Schedule agreed to.
Remaining Schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported, with an Amendment.

ANIMAL BOARDING ESTABLISHMENTS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
LIMITATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
MATRIMONIAL CAUSES AND RECONCILIATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
PROTECTION OF DEPOSITORS BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES BILL
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Derwent.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AIREDALE in the Chair.]
Clause 24 [Short weight, etc.]:
6.29 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON LORD FARINGDON moved, in subsection (2), after "other act" to insert "or uses or is party to the use of any

493
device". The noble Lord said: It may have occurred to some of your Lordships to wonder exactly what kind of device I had in mind when I put down this Amendment. The kind of device I had in mind—and this is an example—is the package which would appear to be very much larger than the actual goods that it contains. Noble Lords may well suppose that this kind of case would be covered by the phrase already in the Bill, "an act calculated to mislead", but I must confess that not only I but some of my friends have doubts as to whether the act would in fact cover this particular piece of duplicity.
It seems to me that an act would be something more personal, a relationship between buyer and seller; and the act of handing over a deceptive carton might not come within the purview of the phrase, "an act calculated to mislead". Obviously this is a complicated point, which I suppose will never be decided until it has arisen in the courts after the Bill has become an Act. But I suggest that it would be safer and surer to adopt the words which I put forward as well as those which are already in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 34, after ("act") insert "or uses or is party to the use of any device".—(Lord Farinqdon.)
LORD HAWKE: I think that the wording of the clause as it now stands may have a wider interpretation than the noble Lord who moved the Amendment thinks. I would put a hypothetical case to my noble friend, wondering whether or not the wording at this point of the clause is a trifle ambiguous. The present words are:
"… calculated to mislead a person buying or selling the goods as to the quantity thereof…"
It is the normal practice in a fruit shop to serve oranges at, say, seven for 1s. The usual device is to have the large oranges in front and the small ones behind. The buyer is not being deceived as to the number he is buying, because he knows that he is going to get seven oranges; but he can be deceived as to the total quantity, because the seven oranges he gets are going to weigh appreciably less than the seven he sees in front of him. I am perfectly certain that the clause does hot intend to make
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that sort of action, which I should have thought was covered by the maxim, caveat emptor, illegal; but as drafted it might conceivably do so, and that ties up with the noble Lord's Amendment, because that would be a "device". For that reason, at this stage I put forward this particular argument.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I was most interested in the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. If it were possible to find a form of words which could prevent customers from being given smaller merchandise than that displayed in the front it would be a great boon to all shoppers. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will have a suggestion here, but it would be very welcome. I rise to support the Amendment. This clause is an important one. The question of short weight causes more anxiety and annoyance than any other. I should have thought that the clause as drafted would at first sight imply that it is made an offence to make a misrepresentation about weight at all. Where I find a difficulty—and I am now seeking information, not being legally qualified on the question of definitions—is that I am not sure whether this adequately covers what is intended.
The words in the clause, "or does any other act calculated to mislead", I have been advised, do need additional qualification. The word "misrepresentation" earlier on seems to be qualified by, "either by word of mouth or otherwise as to the quantity", but there is no qualification of the words, "act calculated to mislead". I am told that these are not sufficient to cover the use of a device, as in the case of deceptive packaging put forward by my noble friend Lord Faringdon.
I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, if it is not true that the Amendment we are putting forward ensures that the shopkeeper or shop assistant who handed a deceptive package across the counter to the customer would be committing an "act calculated to mislead". The people who have talked to me are under the impression that the clause as worded would not make that an offence. I should therefore be grateful if the noble Lord could clear up for me this important point of definition.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD DERWENT): This is a matter of legal interpretation. May I first reply to my noble friend Lord Hawke, who suggested that people could be deceived by having all the best goods put in front and the others at the back? It is perfectly true that where goods are sold by number this is liable to happen. I can think of no conceivable regulation which can stop it. This matter was looked at by the Hodgson Committee and during the preparation of this Bill, but no solution was put forward to do away with it, and I do not think that one can be devised in an Act of Parliament.
LORD HAWKE: I am afraid that I did not make myself clear. I do not want the noble Lord to deal with it, to make it illegal, because I think it is impossible. My point was that as the clause is drafted at the present moment, the person we have in mind might be liable to prosecution, and I think that that would be unsatisfactory. May I suggest that instead of the words "quantity thereof", we put "weight thereof" or "number thereof"? I believe that that would clear up the matter.
LORD DERWENT: With great respect, I do not think that it would clear up the matter at all, because weight and number are quantity. Other people cleverer than I am have tried to find a solution, and no one has succeeded. With regard to the Amendment, subsection (2), to which the Amendment relates, provides broadly that it is an offence for anyone to do anything calculated to mislead anyone about the quantity of goods sold or offered for sale. The Amendment seeks to specify that the use of a device calculated to mislead about quantity is an offence. I am advised that the use of a device for this purpose is clearly an act which is made an offence by the subsection as it now stands so that the Amendment is unnecessary.
I would add that a similar Amendment was moved in another place, and my right honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary took careful advice on this point from the Board of Trade legal advisers, and assured the House at the time that the clause as drafted could catch the retailer as well as the packer or manufacturer, and that the words "party to the use of a device" were covered by the clause. I did not accept
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that as necessarily true, so I took the matter up again having read what was said in the other place, and I am assured by our legal advisers that there is no possible shadow of doubt. I am not a lawyer, but I am afraid I cannot go further than that.
LORD STONHAM: I am sorry to hear the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, say that he had not once, but twice, taken the best possible legal advice available—
LORD DERWENT: No. The Parliamentary Secretary took it the first time, and I took it the second.
LORD STONHAM: Took it once by proxy, and once in actuality. He then said that, having taken the best available legal advice on the subject, he came to a full stop and nothing could be done. I think that in these matters, when we seek legal advice, it is always a good and salutary thing to bear in mind Mr. Bumble's dictum about the law and about legal advice and look at this thing in a practical way.
The noble Lord has somewhat contradicted his legal advisers, because in relation to the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, which was count, there is no possible legal way, apparently, of preventing a fraud—and that is what it amounts to—when things are being sold by count. This clause is for the prevention of fraud, and I should have thought that the answer the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, would give would be that the case quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, is in fact a fraud, and that it would be covered by the clause. But he has not said that, and therefore his legal advisers have apparently indicated that it would not be covered, and the greengrocer can do this thing with impunity, despite this Bill, and get away with it. I should have thought that that was precisely the case which would be covered by our particular Amendment, because it is the use of a device, the device being to stick the big oranges in front or the big strawberries on top and the little ones at the back and at the bottom. That is a device for the purpose of deceiving or defrauding the customer.
But let us get away from mere count, since we are also thinking of measures, and take the example of the stallholder in a market place who talks of full-size blankets, full-size sheets and full-size

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table cloths, as they do. They hold up a sheet. You cannot measure it with your eye and you think it is the proper size for a single bed or a double bed and are deceived in that way by the description "full-size", when often these sheets are not full-size at all. That is a device calculated to mislead, and I do not think it is covered by the subsection as it now stands. Personally, I think that if we were to consider this matter further we could find dozens of similar examples—not just of packaging, but of verbal statements or other devices which are used to deceive the buyer.
There was one point which the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, seemed to ignore altogether arid which was put by my noble friend Lord Faringdon—namely, the point about the salesman or shopkeeper who hands over a package which is only partly filled, but which has been pre-packed, and he himself has not packed it, and who would have a possible defence—it might be a good defence—that he did not know that it was only partly filled and therefore was a misleading package. In those circumstances, as I see it, under the clause as it now stands, there would be no recourse back to the packer, who had obviously deliberately attempted to deceive by using the device of only partly filling the container. All those things, as I see it—and examples have been quoted on both sides of the Committee—are not covered by the subsection as it now stands, and would, I submit, be covered if this Amendment were accepted. I would therefore ask the noble Lord to assure us that he will go back to both his legal and his lay advisers on this point so that we may come back and find a different answer next time.
LORD DERWENT: The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, seems to have departed very much from the original Amendment and the case put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon. All I have said is that I am advised that this Amendment adds nothing to the clause, and anything that adds nothing to a clause is bad drafting if you add it. As regards the various points raised by the noble Lord, there are other methods in the clause by which prosecutions can be made. It is no good taking one case and saying, "Can you
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do this?", and another case and saying, "Can you do that?". The noble Lord referred to the case of undersize sheets being passed off as full-size. That is the offence of supplying a false trade description as to quantity and a prosecution would lie. But that is a different matter from that covered by the Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, and the noble Baroness wanted to make certain that this clause applied throughout, down to the retailer, and the answer to that is, "Yes, it does".
LORD HAWKE: I hope that my noble friend when consulting his legal advisers will also raise this question of the exact wording in quantity. I differ from the other side of the Committee, because I do not want it to be possible to have prosecutions for this universal device, or whatever you call it, of the smaller things being kept at the back, because obviously the inspectors would be overwhelmed by such matters. I am still inclined to think that where you are dealing in measurement and number it would be safer to put in line 35 "as to the measurement or number" rather than "quantity".
LORD DERWENT: I see what the noble Lord means, but it really is not possible. The noble Lord is asking that where a trader is selling by number, whether bananas or oranges, it shall be an offence if he in fact says that all the oranges are of the same size. I know the noble Lord does not want to go so far as that; but if you are going to draft anything, that is what you have to do. It is no good my going back to my legal or lay advisers on that point. When things are sold by number and there is deliberate misrepresentation, when a case might apply—if you had enormous bananas in front and tiny ones behind—that is a different matter. But to draft anything to cover what is not an actual misrepresentation, because they are rather bigger in front than behind, is not possible.
LORD HAWKE: My noble friend and I are 100 per cent. in agreement, and I am merely trying to save his Bill from doing something that he does not want it to do. Will he consult his legal advisers?
LORD DERWENT: I will consult them to see that the Bill does what I think it does.
LORD LATHAM: Would the noble Lord agree that the action would fall within the doctrine of "holding out"?
LORD DERWENT: I do not know which doctrine the doctrine of "holding out" is.
LORD LATHAM: Holding out that all the bananas were large bananas.
LORD DERWENT: It might or might not.
LORD FARINGDON: This has been a lively discussion, very largely, it seems to me, beside the point of the Amendment. I raised a legal point, as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said. He appears to have taken high-powered legal advice, and I am bound to accept what has been told me. With your Lordships' permission, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 24 agreed to.
Clause 25:
Pleading of warranty as defence
25.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, in any proceedings for an offence under this Part of this Act or any instrument made thereunder, being an offence relating to the quantity or pre-packing of any goods, it shall be a defence for the persons charged to prove—

(a) that he bought the goods from some other person—

(i) as being of the quantity which the person charged purported to sell or represented, or which was marked on any container or stated in any document to which the proceedings relate; or

(ii) as conforming with the statement marked on any container to which the proceedings relate, or with the requirements with respect to the pre-packing of goods of this Act and any instrument made thereunder,

as the case may require; and

(b) that he so bought the goods with a written warranty from that other person that they were of that quantity or, as the case may be, did so conform; and

(c) that at the time of the commission of the offence he had no reason to believe the statement contained in the warranty to be inaccurate, that he did in fact believe in its accuracy and, if the warranty was given by a person who at the time he gave it was resident outside Great Britain and any
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designated country, that the person charged had taken reasonable steps to check the accuracy of that statement; and

6.50 p.m.
LORD CROOK LORD CROOK moved, in subsection (1)(a), after the first word "person" to insert "resident in Great Britain". The noble Lord said: With your Lordships' permission, I will also take the next Amendment, No. 16. Both of them deal with Clause 25. The clause, as your Lordships know, sets out the line of defence which can be offered in respect of an offence which relates to the quantity or pre-packing. To sum up, what the subsections provide is, first, that the goods were bought from some other person; secondly, that the trader also bought the goods with a written warranty; thirdly, that at the time of the commission of the offence he had no reason to believe that the statement contained in the warranty was inaccurate; and, fourthly, that he took all reasonable steps in respect of the custody of the goods. The purpose of these two Amendments taken together is to restrict the warranty defence to warranties given by persons resident in Great Britain.
I would remind your Lordships that in the majority of clauses in this Bill we have dealt with goods produced in this country. We have pursued them right the way from the time when they were seeds on a farm, through the Wholesaler to the retailer, and then traced them back again. Here, for the first time, we are looking at goods that come in from abroad. We feel that the person who imports goods should be made absolutely responsible for their propriety in respect of subsequent sale in this country. We on this side do not think that it should be a defence in proceedings under the Bill that warranty should have been given by persons abroad who cannot be answerable in the courts of our own country here. It is perfectly true that under paragraph (c) in line 41 there is provision that the person relying on the warranty must prove to the satisfaction of the court that "he had taken reasonable steps" to check the accuracy of the statement. In practice, so far as we know this is not an easy thing to do, if only because the word "reasonable" has been liberally treated in the courts in its

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interpretation. We think that in this context it would mean "reasonable" in all the general circumstances.
The nature of the business is such that importers in many cases never see or take any actual physical possession of the goods which they import. The goods come into the docks and are held on the docks until moved to the place of the person who has purchased the goods—for instance, either figs or dates, which were referred to in another place when they were discussing this matter on Standing Committee. They come in great boxes containing smaller boxes, from Smyrna or other places, and are moved off to the point of sale. The most that happens is that the wholesaler here who is putting the goods over to the retail trade or, it may be, to smaller wholesalers, has himself had a sample of the goods sent in on the new seasons pick (to take the Parliamentary Secretary's reference) of the figs or dates, and they are accepted on a specification of the quality that he is entitled to expect or the number or ounces of goods defined in the packing.
It is not good enough to suggest, as the Parliamentary Secretary tried to suggest in another place, that it is a feasible function for the person baying in that way to go down to the docks, open up a package and have his random sample checked, looking at the odd box to see whether there are 6 ounces in it or not. I suggest it is quite absurd to try to hold people to a statistical check of that kind to prove "reasonable steps". I hope that the noble Lord when he replies will be able to tell us that he can at this stage of the Bill accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 21, after ("person") insert ("resident in Great Britain").—(Lord Crook.)
LORD DERWENT: There is between us here simply a difference of view, and I will explain what it is. I am taking the two Amendments together, as the noble Lord has suggested. The Amendments would have the effect of depriving any trader who imported goods of the defence of warranty in any proceedings for an offence relating to the quantity or pre-packing of those goods. He would not have any warranty defence. The defence of warranty is one of the most important safeguards for traders, in the Bill, and it
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would be unreasonable discrimination, in our view, against the importer, compared with other traders, and against imported goods, too, to withhold this defence entirely from a trader who imported goods. The consequence would be to place upon the importer the whole burden and responsibility of ensuring the accuracy of the quantity and compliance with pre-packing requirements of the Bill. The clause already provides that a defendant who is relying on a warranty from an overseas supplier—for example, an Australian exporter of butter—has, in addition to meeting the other conditions which the ordinary home trader has to meet, as set out in subsection (1) of the clause, to take reasonable steps to check the accuracy of the statement of a warranty given by the supplier overseas.
It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Crook, saying that it is impossible for him to check, because unless he has taken reasonable steps his defence of warranty will not hold. These provisions are similar to those in the Food and Drugs Act, 1955. In the Government's opinion, the additional requirement for importers to take reasonable steps to check the accuracy of the statement of warranty given by an overseas supplier is sufficient. We are not likely to move from that view. The importer has an additional burden in this respect. We think that burden is sufficient, and I therefore ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.
LORD CROOK: I should think that what has just been stated is the complete opposite. Surely, what we are suggesting takes away a burden that the Government will place upon importers in trying to do their job. I do not know whether the noble Lord has studied the material that went to the Standing Committee in another place, where one of the honourable Ladies quoted what some of us know from reading constantly the excellent reports that come in every month from the Birmingham inspectors. They followed through on a given case, and they had to show exactly what I tried to show: to get this warranty you have to go right through to the shipping delivery. I think this was a case of dates or figs, the very fruit referred to by the Parliamentary Secretary. They were in boxes allegedly of six ounces. Sixty at a time were put in cases, and

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the total net weight of fruit in the case was 19½ lb., which meant that it was 3 lb. short. I suggest that the kind of thing we are after not only means we are trying to provide that the warranty is one which can be actionable in our own courts, but takes away some of the burden from the importer and does not put new burdens on him as the noble Lord suggested.
LORD DERWENT: The burden would be that he would have no defence at all, if this Amendment were passed, and he might well stop importing. As regards checking, which the noble Lord suggested in his original speech was almost impossible, I may say that there are at this day sample checks being made by inspectors at the London docks on behalf of importers. So it is not so very difficult. But if, after sample checks have been made, one case out of 200 cases is found to be faulty, if this Amendment were passed the importer would have no defence at all. That, really, is unreasonable when you consider that an importer has a more difficult job than the home trader. You are then going to say that he cannot have any warranty defence at all. We do not consider this is reasonable.
LORD STONHAM: I do not feel that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, answered the kind of example which my noble friend Lord Crook mentioned the second time he spoke, about the case of figs. It often happens that fruit is imported for sale on commission, without having been bought from the foreign exporter until after it has been sold in this country. It cannot be bought, because it is imported on commission. Where is the warranty going to lie in such circumstances?
The case contains cartons which give a net weight or quantity; and the statement of either on the case may be totally false. In a case of that kind the consignment is imported for sale on commission. It is either sold in a London auction or in a wholesale market by a commission agent working for the foreign exporter. He, of course, would he the person resident in Britain who would sell on behalf of the importer to a third party. I should like the noble Lord to tell me whether, in such circumstances, there is any value in the warranty at all? There would be, as I see it, no kind of recourse
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and, therefore, if the case is like that, and of the kind quoted by my noble friend Lord Crook, we think the words "resident in Great Britain" are necessary to put into this clause.
It may well be that a particular case such as I have quoted has not come within the purview of the noble Lord, or may not have been considered by his Department. In such circumstances I shall understand if I cannot get an answer right away, but I do think that under this clause that is the kind of case which must be considered.
LORD DERWENT: Is the noble Lord suggesting that these are goods which the person who is selling them does not know are imported?
LORD STONHAM: The person who first sells them would almost certainly know that they were imported. The second person who sells them, probably a retailer or a secondary wholesaler, would know they were imported only by the nature of the goods. He would of necessity know they were imported if they were goods which came in at a certain season of the year, but he could not possibly know who the exporter was and there would not in fact have been a sale until after the goods were landed in this country.
LORD DERWENT: That is perfectly true, but the fact of warranty still does not ride. There is a middleman in this case; they are sold on commission. The man knows they are imported. Does he or does he not sell having received a warranty? If he sells without a warranty, whether on commission or in any other way, then he is liable. He has sold goods knowing them to be imported, and if they are defective and he has no warranty it is his own fault; and, if he has a warranty, has he taken reasonable steps to see that the goods are in order? It is the question of selling, not the importing, for the man who may or may not commit an offence.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Lord still has not quite got the point. These cartons have a description on them as to quantity. The commission agent has not actually bought those goods. There is no contract of sale and he did not specify what should be in the cartons. They are merely sent to him for sale on commission for as much as they will fetch, and

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he sells them as they are, but if they have a printed label outside the carton which does not tally with the quantity of goods inside, then what is the position? He was at no time the owner of the goods because he was selling them on commission. He was not responsible for the fact that the outside container may differ from the contents. He did not order the goods; he was merely selling them; and he is not responsible for any difference between the description and the contents. There would be, in my submission, no redress for the third party because you could not get back to the exporter.
LORD DERWENT: What the noble Lord is saying is that the commission agent had no warranty as a defence. Therefore this clause does not apply. This clause applies to somebody pleading warranty as a defence, and the noble Lord says this man has no warranty. The noble Lord's case has nothing to do with this clause at all.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I wish to put only this last point. Supposing a man is selling on commission goods supplied to him on warranty, and he sells them in oral auction of sale on warranty because they have been supplied to him on that basis on commission. He would not have known himself where they came from.
LORD AIREDALE: Surely the Minister is right about this. This clause applies to a person who, under subsection (1)(a), bought the goods from some other person. If he did not buy the goods from some other person, if he is the commission agent for some other person, this subsection does not apply to the case.
LORD DERWENT: That is quite correct. He has no warranty in his defence.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 25 agreed to.
Clauses 26 and 27 agreed to.
Clause 28 [Offences originating in certain countries outside Great Britain]:
7.7 p.m.
LORD LATHAM LORD LATHAM moved to leave out Clause 28. The noble Lord said: I rise to move Amendment 18 on the Marshalled List. Its purpose is not dissimilar
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from the purpose which was in the minds of those who promoted Amendments 15 and 16. We seek the deletion of Clause 28. This clause proposes to enable an offender to raise the defence that the offence was due to an act or default by some other person not answerable to our courts, another person in a so-called designated country, which is defined in Clause 58(1) as meaning
"… Northern Ireland, any of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man …"
if the Board think it proper to designate them for the purpose of the provision.
It is thought that the principle contended for in relation to Clause 25 is also perhaps more closely applicable here; that a person charged with an offence in this country in respect of imported goods ought not to be able to claim acquittal on the grounds that the offence was due to an act or default of another person in a country not within our jurisdiction. I submit that the provision in Clause 28 is, as it were, an ever-open door to certain people to offend with the knowledge and contentment that they can have as a defence an allegation that the offence arose from an act or default of some other person not within our jurisdiction. This is an "open sesame" with a vengeance, and I hope the noble Lord will be able to meet the submission that I have made and agree that the clause should be deleted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 28.—(Lord Latham.)
LORD HAWKE: I rather doubt from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Latham, if he has ever been engaged in the import trade, because, without this clause, the importing business would become quite impossible. Just consider the question of the importer of goods. He buys them on a sample. He has cases shipped to his warehouse. He probably opens a case to see that they conform to his sample and he then proceeds to send the cases off to the people who bought them. If the noble Lord has his way, the trader would have to open every case in his warehouse and check them. I am not sure he would not have to open every tin, if they were tins. I assure the noble Lord he would put a stop completely to all the import of packaged foodstuffs to this country in one fell swoop.
LORD DERWENT: I hope to be able to comfort the noble Lord, Lord Latham, by giving certain assurances to show him that the door will not be open; it will be closed except when we want it open. The object of the clause is to enable the Board of Trade to give a defence to traders in this country against whom an offence is alleged or charged under Part IV of the Bill if they can establish that it was due to the act or default of some person in a designated country (this is also a question of warranty but this is in a designated country); for example, a packer or supplier carrying on business in a designated country.
The effect of deleting this clause would be to render traders (who might sometimes be retailers) who were supplied direct by packers in the countries concerned liable for anything found wrong with the goods supplied by that packer. The expression "designated country" is defined in Clause 58 of the Bill and means such, if any, of the following countries, that is to say, Northern Ireland, any of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as the Board, having regard to the law—and this is important—for the time being in force in that country, thinks it proper to designate for the purposes of this or other clauses of the Bill by order. As your Lordships are aware, these countries are wholly or partially independent in weights and measures matters. The Northern Ireland Government are, under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, responsible in their own country for all matters covered by this Bill, except those basic provisions of Part I which apply to the United Kingdom—for example, the basic standards and units; Northern Ireland come in under those. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have responsibility for, and power to legislate for, all weights and measures matters within their countries. These countries are, however, all parts of the British Isles, and the effect of the clause is therefore to put dealings in all parts of the British Isles, if possible, on the same footing. Foreign countries are not covered by this clause.
The essence of this designation procedure is to ensure that there is a measure of reciprocity with these territories in weights and measures matters, and that, as far as possible, common weights and measures arrangements
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apply throughout the British Isles. The Board of Trade will not, for example, think it proper to designate one of the countries mentioned for the purposes of this clause unless they are satisfied that if a count in this country concluded that the commission of an offence was due to the act or default of a person in that country, the authorities in that country would have the power and would be willing to consider using that power to institute proceedings against the person concerned. Similarly, if a designated country reported to the Board of Trade an alleged offence by a packer in Great Britain, the Board would pass on the allegation to the local authority in whose area the packer carried on business so that they could warn him, keep a close watch for a repetition of the sort of fault attributed to him, and, if they found sufficient grounds, take proceedings against him in the local court in that area.
The Board of Trade, I repeat, will think it proper to designate and keep designated one of these countries only when they know power can be taken under the law of that country to punish people who commit packing faults and so on. It is the hope of the Government that in time all our regulations will correspond throughout the British Isles, including the designated countries. I hope I have said enough to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Latham, that perhaps the way the clause is going to work may be the best one.
LORD STONHAM: Before my noble friend has another word, may I ask the noble Lord if the position is this: that when a country is designated its exports to us are all covered by the designation; there is no exclusion by description? For example, if you take the Channel Islands, the major exports are horticultural—tomatoes from Guernsey and Jersey, potatoes from Jersey. Invariably, they are sold here in the original containers in which they came and, of course, the packages are in standard weights, and therefore there is, or should be, a warranty at that time. Can the noble Lord assure us that in that kind of quite substantial trade the regulations in the country of origin are such that an offender could be caught and dealt with?
LORD DERWENT: That will be the sort of matter to be taken into account by the Board of Trade in designating. May I repeat the words I used: the Board of Trade will not, for example, think it proper to designate one of the countries mentioned for the purposes of this clause unless they are satisfied that if a court in this country finds that an offence has been committed the court in the designated country has the power to punish the offender.
LORD HAWKE: I apologise to the House for having talked nonsense. I did not realise the designated countries were these.
LORD LATHAM: I was surprised at the defence of this clause put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, and I was even more surprised that that defence was underlined by the Minister. Are we to assume the importer has no remedy at all against the exporter? After all, the importer buys either by sample or inspection or by viewing, certainly by reference to some standard, by which of course the importer is protected. The offence of the importer is not that he has been let down by the exporter in another country; the offence is that the importer puts these goods on sale although they do not, for reasons which may be related to the exporter, comply with the requirements of the law. The importer can have recourse to his defaulting exporter, but the public cannot have recourse to the defaulting tradesman who retails these defective goods or otherwise fails to comply with the requirements of the law in this country. It seems there is no hardship imposed on the importer, but there is hardship on the people who buy—the customer, the consumer. In those circumstances I submit that there are grounds for accepting the deletion of this clause.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 28 agreed to.
Clause 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Powers of inspector with respect to certain documents]:
7.20 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON LORD FARINGDON moved, to leave out all words after "in charge of" and to substitute:
"(a) any document required by or under this Act to be associated with any goods; or
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(b) any price notice or display ticket, to produce that document for inspection."
The noble Lord said: The object of this clause is to enable an inspector to require the person in charge of any document required under the Bill to be associated with any goods to produce that document for inspection, to seize and detain it if he thinks fit and if it contains a false statement, or to endorse it with particulars of any inaccuracy. The suggestion of my Amendment is to extend this power of the inspector to other documents of a limited kind and class—namely, to price notices or display tickets, and to treat them in exactly the same way as the Bill suggests in the case of the required documents.
A rather similar Amendment was moved in another place. The Government then objected and rejected the Amendment on the ground that it was not right or fair to insist that a purely private document, as it were, should be able to be demanded by an inspector. My Amendment has been considerably narrowed, and it is intended to apply to documents of these particular types because it has been found that these documents often form the absolute basis of a prosecution and that many prosecutions have failed where it has not been possible for the inspector to produce price notices or display tickets. These are the instruments of a fairly common kind of cheating, particularly in open markets where a price notice or ticket can be so written as to give an entirely false impression to the buyer.
In general, there are four kinds of such notices or tickets. There are simple statements of weight; a statement of the rate per lb. in association with a statement of the total price; a statement of total quantity and price, or a statement of number and price. This can be so written that the buyer gets a false impression, and it is of the essence of the prosecution in these cases that these price notices or display tickets can be produced in court. It is a really serious matter, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will see fit to accept this Amendment which is for the protection of the public and, I suggest, essential to the working of this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 36, line 3, leave out from ("of") to end of line 4 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Faringdon.)
LORD DERWENT: I agree with the noble Lord that he has narrowed this Amendment from the terms in which it appeared before. The Amendment as at present drafted gives inspectors of weights and measures power to examine, and if necessary to seize or endorse, any documents which are especially required by the Bill, or by orders made under Clause 21, to be associated with particular classes of goods and to be delivered to the buyer. The effect of the Amendment would be to enable an inspector, in addition to demanding to see the documents required, also to demand to see any document relating to price or display tickets which the person concerned had in his possession. Apart from what the Bill asks for, it would also enable the inspector to seize things which are not so far demanded by the Bill.
LORD FARINGDON: I think the noble Lord is under a misapprehension. Certainly that is not the sense in which I understand this Amendment. It does not, I suggest, entitle an inspector to demand documents which have relation to price or display tickets. It entitles him only to seize a price or display ticket which is actually shown in connection with the goods.
LORD DERWENT: I trust that I have not misread this Amendment.
LORD FARINGDON: I really think that the noble Lord has made a mistake.
LORD DERWENT: The inspector may require him under the Bill to produce it for documentation, and he can demand to have it. That is the way that the Amendment is read. I see what the noble Lord wants; he merely wants the inspector to look at it.
LORD FARINGDON: I want him to be able to seize it, having looked at it and discovered it to be deceptive.
LORD DERWENT: But if that is the point of this Amendment, I do not quite see why it is put down; because, presumably, if a price ticket is put on goods which the public can see, the inspector also can see it. So I do not see why he should need to demand to see it. It is there for him to see as evidence.
LORD FARINGDON: The point is that he may see it, but he has not a
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legal right actually to seize that price ticket. If he does not seize it, then when he comes to prosecute he no longer is in a position to produce a deceptive statement, price ticket or display ticket, even if he can demand that it shall be produced in court where it will form an essential part of the prosecution. Although he may demand it, the display ticket or price ticket which has been left in the hands of the dealer may have been subjected to alteration. There have been court cases, for example, where a little "from" has been written in at the top left-hand corner before the statement which is, in fact, the statement complained of.
LORD DERWENT: I find it difficult to believe that—and we have no example of this—an inspector cannot get corroborative evidence, which is all that is required if a price ticket is displayed. It seems to me that he can always get corroborative evidence. If it is not displayed, it is of course doing the public no harm.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Does the noble Lord mean that the inspector would have to take some other person with him to give corroborative evidence? Otherwise, where would such evidence come from, unless he happened to have a special customer?
LORD DERWENT: He might get a customer or a police constable. But so long as the ticket is on view he can get corroborative evidence. We do not believe it is right that inspectors should have general powers of seizure and examination—and we are advised that the Amendment is bound to limit this particular power of seizure—of these tickets unless they are strictly required by the Bill in other forms. I know that this Amendment is fairly narrow in its terms, but we still think that it would be an unreasonable extension of the Bill to give inspectors power to demand documents which the law does not require to exist. We have to preserve a reasonable balance between the provision necessary for enforcement of the law and freedom of the individual, including the individual trader, from unwarranted interference. But we take the view that if a price ticket is displayed, evidence can be produced.
LORD CROOK: As I understood the noble Lord, he was trying to tell us the opposite of the doctrine which is now

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being preached to is as magistrates: that we should try to avoid dragging yet more people into court than is necessary. I understand the argument of the noble Lord is that he is happy to have this matter proved by the inspector going to fetch the "copper" down the road who is far more helpfully employed assisting motorists; whereas this could be done quite easily by taking the ticket and allowing only the person who is making the examination to come to court to substantiate the prosecution—in other words, one person comes, instead of two.
LORD DERWENT: He will still have to produce the evidence, even if he seizes the ticket. What this Amendment asks is that, in regard to a price ticket or display ticket, which, unlike some other documents, does not have to be produced under the Bill, the inspector should have general powers of seizure. That is what I am advised this Amendment in fact does. We do not think it is right that he should have those general powers.
LORD AIREDALE: I should have thought that there was great merit in this Amendment because the courts like to act upon the best evidence. It is perfectly true that an inspector can be called as a witness, with somebody else to corroborate him, and to say that on the harrow boy's cart the figure "½"—inserted between the "2s. 6d." on the price ticket and the "lb." both appearing in large letters—was written so small that hardly anybody could see it. The barrow boy will say that the "½" was written in clear letters. Therefore, the court will say, "Here we have a dispute as to fact. We wish we could have had the price ticket produced to us." Under the Amendment it would appear that the inspector would have power under subsection (2) to seize the inaccurate price ticket and to produce it to the court, and they could see for themselves the extent of the deception being practised.
LORD HAWKE: There seems to be weight in the last argument. Could my noble friend accept something to the effect that the notice or display ticket could be seized only if it was an essential part of the evidence? So far as I can see, it is only in a very limited number of cases that a price ticket can be evidence. The documentary evidence
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which the inspector will require will in most cases be the weight ticket, or something of that nature. There are not many offences that could be committed by exhibiting the price. The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has hit on one where there is some element of deception in regard to the lettering being too small. Could my noble friend alter this wording to bring in the possibility of seizing a notice in that limited sort of case?
LORD DERWENT: The only difficulty I see is who is to decide what evidence is necessary.
LORD LATHAM: Is this not something more than a case of evidence? It is the actual physical means by which the fraud is perpetrated—and that can be destroyed by the vendor.
LORD DERWENT: I am rather doubtful whether we are likely to give way on this; but, in view of what noble Lords have said, if the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment to-day I will have another look at the point, and write to him before the next stage of the Bill. I do not think the Amendment in its present form is likely to be accepted, for the reasons I have given. But, in view of what noble Lords have said, if I may look at the whole question again, I will let Lord Faringdon know whether he should put down another Amendment, or whether we can come to some arrangement about it. If he will withdraw the Amendment now, I am willing to take another look at it.
LORD FARINGDON: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, and I accept his offer. I would point out, incidentally, that it has not infrequently been known for inspectors to produce exactly these documents, and cases have been substantiated by their use. It was suggested that an inspector could demand that this kind of document should be produced. I had no intention of giving that impression at all. I wanted to allow the inspector to seize a display ticket which was actually on the goods to be seen, not to say to the seller: "Have you a display ticket for this?" and then take it. If the display ticket is not displayed, then it is not committing any offence. I thank the noble Lord very much, and I also thank other noble Lords for their support. I feel that there is a point of substance here, and I am hopeful that the noble

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Lord will come round to agreeing with me. With your Lordships' permission, I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clauses 31 and 32 agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, this would probably be a suitable moment to break off. I move that the Committee do now adjourn during pleasure until twenty minutes to nine.
[The Sitting was suspended at twenty-five minutes before eight o'clock and resumed at twenty minutes before nine o'clock.]
Clause 33 [Selling by quantity, making quantity known, and weighing in presence]:
LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to leave out subsection (3). The noble Lord said: I rise to move the Amendment standing in my name. The Bill requires that many pre-packed goods shall be sold by quantity expressed in a certain manner—net weight, gross weight or count—and Clause 33(2) prescribes the various ways in which this shall be done. Subsection (3) of Clause 33 introduces a novel principle into the field of weights and measures legislation. It is an alternative to the general principle of this legislation, that the seller must make known to the buyer the quantity or weight et cetera of the goods sold. Where the Board so provide by order, the seller of any goods specified in the order shall be deemed to comply with the requirement generally placed by the Bill upon the seller to make known the quantity, if he provides a scale for the use of the purchaser. This will transfer the burden of ascertaining the quantity of the goods from seller to buyer. The Association of Municipal Corporations has considerable doubt about the wisdom of this change of principle.
Subsection (3) of this clause has been amended since it was first introduced, and the procedure will now be available only where the Board of Trade so provide. One feels that it will make for a
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reduction in the degree of protection of the public which the new legislation will provide; that it may operate in favour of large supermarkets where there is enough space to provide scales for the customer's use, and, incidentally, to the detriment of the small shopkeeper. Even if a purchaser has the courage or is able in the crowded conditions of store trading to take the goods to a scale, he may be unable to ascertain if there is short weight, because he will be able only to ascertain the gross weight of the packed goods. I feel, and the Association of Municipal Corporations certainly feel, that subsection (3) is not required and should be deleted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 42, leave out subsection (3).—(Lord Milverton.)
LORD DERWENT: Although my noble friend has introduced his Amendment with commendable brevity, I hope your Lordships will forgive me, as this is a matter which has been much debated not only in Parliament but elsewhere, if I reply at some length, because I think the Government's view must be made quite clear.
The effect of this Amendment would be to remove the provisions in the Bill which relate to "do-it-yourself" weighing—which I think is the way we refer to it now. Clause 33(3) gives the Board of Trade power to provide by order, subject to Affirmative Resolution by Parliament—I would point that out to your Lordships—that a requirement in the Bill to "make known" the weight of goods sold by retail shall be satisfied if the retailer makes available, without charge, suitable weighing equipment on which the buyer can weigh the goods himself. At the moment, Schedule 4, Part VII, provides that this clause shall apply only to fresh fruit and vegetables.
In my submission this is a problem for which there is no completely satisfactory solution. We cannot accept that this subsection of this clause should be deleted. Perhaps I might remind your Lordships of the background to this subsection. It is designed to deal with pre-packed foods which are liable to lose weight by heavy and unpredictable evaporation under modern methods of packing. It does not follow, of course—and there I would agree with my noble friend—that this subsection may be necessary for ever, but, under present-day

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conditions of packing, we believe it is necessary. It is heavy and unpredictable evaporation; unpredictable because it is affected by things like temperature, the time of picking, the time of packing, and so on. At the moment, as I say, the clause deals only with fresh fruit and vegetables; but we feel that the important thing from the point of view of consumer protection is that at any rate the buyer should have some idea of what he is buying.
Various suggestions have been put forward. One is that the weight should be put on whatever the package is at the time it is packed; but that, in our submission, is riot going to tell the consumer anything, really, unless he also knows how long ago it was packed, what the temperature was, and what the conditions of travel were—and they all affect this question of evaporation. So we say that the best way of dealing with this is for him to weigh the goods—I mean weighing in some form; I will deal with the other point in a minute—at the time of purchase, so that at any rate the purchaser does or can know at the time of purchase the weight of what he is buying.
In the ordinary shop the retailer would normally meet this requirement by passing the package over the scales in the purchaser's presence. My noble friend is quite right: the difficulty arises here as to these self-service stores. They face a special problem, in that they cannot weigh in the purchaser's presence without losing their economies of staffing and, therefore, affecting their price. The other possible alternative, of marking the display shelves with notices about the quantity of goods, would involve them, in the case of evaporable goods, in periodic checks throughout the day as to whether the quantity marked was still true; and that again would appreciably add to their costs. Accordingly, and in keeping with the concept and growing popularity of self-service methods, this provision for "do-it-yourself" weight checking by the buyer should enable him to continue to benefit from the cost economies which self-service permits while still having full opportunity to satisfy himself as to the weight of whatever he is buying at the time he buys it.
Originally, of course, this subsection applied to a much wider range of goods than fruit and vegetables, and it is owing to debate in the other place that its
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range has been narrowed. If the Board should at some future date consider it necessary to extend the provision to other goods, they will be able to do so only by order requiring an Affirmative Resolution of Parliament, and after consultation with the interests affected. That is laid down in the Bill. We maintain, and genuinely maintain—it is not just that we like it this way, but because we believe it is in the interests of the consumer—that at least at present (I will not go further than that), for fresh fruit and vegetables, where the problem of evaporation is greatest, this is, in fact, in the interests of the consumer, the best way of dealing with the matter. I hope that I have convinced my noble friend that we feel very strongly, and I hope he will feel inclined to withdraw his Amendment.
8.50 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I am at the moment speaking in virtually a personal capacity, because inasmuch as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, referred to this as an extremely difficult matter in which there is no completely satisfactory solution, obviously there are differences of opinion on both sides of your Lordships' House. I would remind the Committee that two years ago, when we discussed a similar Bill, I spent some three or four Parliamentary days trying to persuade Her Majesty's Government to accept what I regarded as the only sensible solution in this matter: to accept a marking of net weight at the time of packing. The noble Lord has rejected this solution because he says the buyer must know what he or she is buying. In my view if the housewife is buying a bag of sprouts which she is assured weighed 1 lb. when it was packed then she still knows what she is buying, because it is still the same bag of sprouts although out of each 1 lb. there may have evaporated by that time 1½ ounces of water.
I think, and I have always thought, that one of the important things we have to bear in mind in this Bill (quite apart from the protection of the consumer, which is extremely important) is that we should not take steps which are impracticable or impossible to fulfil, and which would unfairly handicap the producer. I regard the pre-packing of vegetables as one of the most important

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and valuable developments in horticulture; and I should therefore be opposed to any measure which would unfairly, and in my view foolishly, restrict that development. I therefore regard the proposal to remove subsection (3) of Clause 33 as wholly wrong; although I must add that I regard the Government solution as quite the wrong one.
It is, indeed, a remarkable one, because here we have a Bill which is in some measure the housewives' charter; and in that charter we are going to tell the housewives that if they are to be protected they must protect themselves. It is quite fantastic to imagine the housewife in the supermarket wheeling a wire basket trolley with one hand and guarding a couple of children with the other; stopping at the stall for strawberries or vegetables; letting go with both hands and weighing the products to see if she is getting fair weight. On a technical point I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, that it is no good suggesting that the housewife will not get fair weight, because with this method no weight is imputed at all. In fact, no weight is marked on the package; therefore it is impossible for her to get short weight because, unless she weighs it, the housewife will not have a clue what weight she is supposed to get.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, may have noticed with some surprise, but, I am sure, with no apprehension whatsoever, that no Amendments to Clause 33 were tabled from this side of the House.
LORD DERWENT: I thought we had already convinced noble Lords.
LORD STONHAM: Then the noble Lord is far more optimistic than I imagined he would be. The reason was a simple and sensible one. We wanted to hear what the Government had to say on this particular matter; because we are still convinced that the best solution, not the only one but the best, is net weight at the time of packing. It is the solution which is adopted with considerable success in other countries. I have some packets here from Australia, which are marked, "Net weight when packed". They have windows through which can be seen what the vegetables are and through which the vegetables can breathe, as they must. I know that carrots grown in Texas are sold in this country in
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packs which are marked with only net weight. Carrots are comparatively easy. I should like them to try it with sprouts or vegetables of that kind. One cannot say with any degree of reliability that the innocent trader would be free from dispute over the net weight of pre-packed vegetables.
If it is argued that they should be packed with a heavier weight to allow for loss by evaporation, I would point out that even that is unreliable, as the noble Lord has indicated, because of the variety of conditions. But if we have net weight when packed, then I am sure that we have a reasonable and sensible method, fair to the trader and to the housewife and extremely easy of inspection because there can be inspection at the packers. I do not want to develop this matter any further, because we shall table suitable Amendments on Report stage. I only want to say now that, for the reasons I have given, we support the Government in rejecting this Amendment, because, in default of the better ones that we shall move, we think that this is better than nothing at all.
LORD MILVERTON: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, for the care he took to answer and make clear the difficulties of this situation. In the circumstances, I do not wish to pursue the matter further, and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 33 agreed to.
Clause 34:
PART V
LOCAL ADMINISTRATION
Local weights and measures authorities in England and Wales
34.—
(4) If on any qualifying day the estimated population of any non-county borough or urban district is sixty thousand or more and before the expiration of the designated period the council of that borough or district resolve that they be the local weights and measures authority therefor and send a copy of that resolution to the Board and to the council of the county in which the borough or district is situated, then, without prejudice to subsection (6) of this section, the council of that borough or district shall be the local weights and measures authority therefor on and after 1st April in the second year after the year in which that qualifying day falls, whether or not at any time after that qualifying day the population of that borough or district falls below sixty thousand.
8.57 p.m.
LORD LATHAM LORD LATHAM moved to leave out subsection (4). The noble Lord said: I rise to move Amendment No. 21 and it might be for the convenience of your Lordships if, in my speech, I also deal with Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 for they are closely related. Perhaps these three Amendments are the most important to this Bill, for it is of little use to have the most admirable Bill unless it is administered satisfactorily towards the best achievement of its purpose. I ask your Lordships to bear with me if I speak at some length on this matter.
The object of these Amendments is to ensure that in England and Wales the administration of the Act, except possibly in a few cases of exceptionally special circumstances, is placed in the hands of the largest units of local government administration—namely, county councils and county borough councils. This Amendment seeks to delete subsection (4), which enables non-county boroughs and urban district councils, with populations of over 60,000 or more, automatically to become authorities by resolution. In order to provide for the exceptional case, where very exceptional circumstances make it expedient to permit a non-county borough or urban or rural district council to be given the powers, it is suggested that subsection (5) should be amended as indicated in the Marshalled List. This, I think, commended itself to another place, when an Amendment to include rural districts within the scope of subsection (5) was accepted; and it is strongly urged that the machinery of subsection (5) is adequate to provide for cases where councils, other than county councils and county borough councils, satisfy the Board that there are exceptional circumstances. It will mean that applications from county district councils will be considered on their merits and the population of an authority will not be the sole determining factor.
These Amendments have been tabled, not with the motive of claiming additional local government functions for the larger authorities, or on behalf of their constituent members, but solely on the grounds of the good and efficient administration of the weights and measures services. The clause, as drafted, provides for the first time that
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non-county boroughs or urban district councils with populations of 60,000 or more may resolve as of right to be the local weights and measures authorities for their areas. Over the country, as a whole, and excluding Greater London which is dealt with in Clause 35, there are some 22 county boroughs and 6 urban districts with populations of the requisite size, of which 10 boroughs are already weights and measures authorities by virtue of their status as quarter-sessions boroughs or by statutory resolution under the provisions of the existing legislation, as are 39 smaller boroughs with populations lower than 60,000.
The general effect of the clause, therefore, would be that 10 non-county boroughs would retain their weights and measures functions, as against 39 which would relinquish them, and 18 other authorities, 12 boroughs and 6 urban districts, would become entitled to relief and to exercise the functions for the first time. If the functions are also given to the proposed 32 new London boroughs under Clause 35 of the Bill, the total number of new authorities eligible for the functions for the first time will be 50. With very few exceptions—namely, areas which will include the defunct county boroughs of Croydon, East Ham and West Ham—all these authorities would have to provide premises, costly equipment and adequate staff. Statistics are available which show that the cost to the public in these areas would rise immensely, while the efficiency of the service would most probably diminish.
It is further estimated that if the Government's proposals are given full effect, 284 additional qualified inspectors will be required, as compared with the 180 if the functions are confined to county councils, including the Greater London Council, and county borough councils. It is well-known that the supply of newly qualified inspectors is at present not covering normal wastage or retirement et cetera, and that additional inspectors on the required scale could not be available for some years.
The proposals as to units of administration should be carefully examined in the context of the Report of the Hodgson Committee, which emphasised the advantage of large units of administration for the weights and

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measures service, and stated in paragraph 43 of the Summary of Recommendations:
"The administration of Weights and Measures law should continue to be in the hands of local authorities but should in future be entrusted only to those larger authorities where the work would require the employment of at least three inspectors; that is, with certain exceptions, only to county councils and county borough councils. …".
The changing pattern of trade since then has added emphasis to the advantages of larger units. The service is a highly technical one, and differs from practically every other branch of local government service in that it demands for practically all its activities a highly trained and specialised professional officer. There is little in the day-to-day activities of the service in which elected representatives can participate as is the case with so many other departments of the local government service.
For these reasons alone, a small and more remote type of authority has no advantage over the larger. A larger authority, covering a considerable area of population, and with comparatively large inspectorial staffs, can, on the other hand, attract, and justifiably employ, senior officers of high calibre and experience—qualifications which would be denied to the smaller units employing, say, two subordinate inspectors. The larger authority can, moreover, make a much fuller and more economical use of the expanding capital equipment which is essential to this service. Much of its equipment, such as reference standards and testing equipment, must be provided in practically equal quantities and cost for the largest as for the smallest unit.
Again, the comparatively larger staffs employed by the large unit enables specialisation, which is so desirable in the wide, and ever widening, field of activity in this service, to take place. Finally, the considerable extension of activity proposed by the new legislation, including the necessity for a liaison machinery with other authorities, the co-ordination of effort, the correspondence with manufacturers, dealers, transport undertakers and the like, the keeping of efficiently maintained records, and legal work in connection with transactions, will demand that any inspectorial staffs are backed by an efficient
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headquarters administrative organisation. Only the largest units of local administration at present provide, or could economically provide, the essentials of an efficient service on these lines. Furthermore, recent developments in the pattern of trade and the distribution of consumer goods—supermarkets, self-service, discount selling—all add emphasis to the need for fewer and larger rather than more and smaller units. The smaller trader is to an increasing extent being supplanted by the multiple shop concern, with branches extending over areas of many authorities and proportionately more district council authorities than county authorities. The same proprietary goods and, indeed, pre-packed consumer goods of all kinds are being distributed from large regional packing stations over great areas of the country.
The Bill provides for a substantial extension of control, not only over such goods, but also in relation to the sale and carriage of goods of various kinds by means of road vehicles. This demands the greatest possible measure of uniformity and enforcement action, and freedom of movement of enforcing officers. With the multiplicity of such authorities, it is inevitable that interpretations of the requirements of complex laws and multifarious regulations will differ to some extent, to the frustration and annoyance of traders operating in certain areas.
Enforcement of trade control legislation is tolerable only if there is a wide measure of uniformity of attitude, policy and practice over considerable areas, and this can best be achieved by entrusting the duties only to the larger type of authority. Many traders, I understand, particularly in relation to the enforcement of the analogous Foods and Drugs Act, which is at present in the hands of numerous comparatively small authorities, already bitterly complain of the frustration of having to deal with a multiplicity of small autonomous authorities with differing views on the same subjects in the same comparatively small geographical area.
It is fallacious to suppose that uniformity in all these important matters can be achieved by co-ordinating efforts of the Board of Trade alone. In relation to these services, it has been shown that these desirable purposes are in practice

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achieved only by large units, each employing a considerable number of inspectors whose work is properly directed and co-ordinated. Units of this size tend to avoid wasteful duplication of effort which inevitably arises when a multiplicity of small autonomous authorities operate over the same area, each checking the same goods, each independently following through elaborate investigations, querying, sizing and taking arbitrary and different decisions, even legal action, in relation to the same articles. This has happened to some extent with existing authorities and become so serious that county chief inspectors found it necessary to take steps to avoid it so far as possible by setting up a central reference organisation.
These realities were fully recognised by the Hodgson Committee in the less acute circumstances of ten years ago when they made proposals to reduce the number of authorities from 258 to 140 by restricting the functions to the least number of major authorities and providing for the combination of some of the smaller of these. The Bill, far from facing reality, I submit, proposes to add to the number of authorities those urban authorities having, and those subsequently attaining, a population of 60,000, which population, or, the basis of average county administration, could economically employ the equivalent of 1¼ inspectors.
The extent of the administrative cost which could arise if the proposals in the Bill are carried to their full conclusion is best illustrated by the extreme example of Greater London. This will have no fewer than 32 autonomous weights and measures authorities. The final effects of the Government's proposals should be emphasised. It is estimated that the cost of providing and equipping a new weights and measures office, even on the smallest and most modest scale, would be in the region of £16,800, and the estimated annual cost of maintaining the service in the small units of 60,000 population would be approximately £9,650. These figures illustrate the likely effect upon the rates in conferring the powers with regard to weights and measures on the smallest authorities. I hope, with that formidable submission, if I may say so, the Minister will be able to indicate that the Government will think again as regards the authorities to be
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charged with the duty of enforcing the provisions of this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 39, line 17, leave out subsection (4).—(Lord Latham.)
9.15 p.m.
LORD CROOK: I want to make it clear that this is not just a casual Amendment put down merely at the request of the County Councils Association, and that every word of the noble Lord's speech has the fullest support of every one on this side of the House. We regard this as a completely absurd kind of provision in the Bill. We thought there was sense in the paragraph of the Hodgson Report to which the noble Lord referred and it seems that the Government have done the best they can to run away from it. If the Bill goes through as it is, there will be an adverse effect on the service, a proliferation of weights and measures authorities to do the work that is being done perfectly well at the moment by existing authorities. I know of no complaint on the grounds of inefficiency or ineffectiveness of the present arrangements. Under the Bill we are to have these new authorities, which will mean new premises, costing a great deal of money; new motor cars; and, so far as I can understand, not only is it the intention of the Government to do this in respect of the 60,000 population urban districts but they go so far as to say that the whole of the 32 new boroughs which they want to introduce under the London Government Bill (which I contemplate with horror) should also have that kind of responsibility.
The proposals on units of administration throughout run completely contrary to the interests of the service. One of the essential things in this local government service, as in so many of the Civil Service Departments, is that, while Parliament may pass all sorts of provisions, they have to be administered afterwards by the authorities responsible, who have to recruit good and effective staff. The noble Lord has referred to the large number of additional staff who will be wanted—probably 300 experienced people, at the least. The noble Lord has indicated the probable cost in terms of capital, and I should like to show it in terms of a penny rate. The cost of administration in a place like Huyton,

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part of the Port of Liverpool, is equivalent to a rate of 1·50d., against 0·24d. in the County of Nottingham. The penny rate product in Huyton comes out at £6,480 and at £76,500 on the Nottingham population basis. No one who looks at the rating figures and tries to understand the costing can understand what the Government are up to and trying to do. I hope that when the noble Lord gets up to try to persuade us to vote for this he will have something much more concrete to say in favour of this proposal.
LORD MILVERTON: I should like to say one or two things about these Amendments to show why I hope the Government will not find it possible to accept them. One has to look at the recent history of how this clause arose. The Hodgson Committee recommended that only county boroughs and county councils should exercise these functions; the Association of Municipal Corporations and other associations protested, and eventually the inclusion of non-county boroughs with a population of 60,000 was decided upon by the Board of Trade after discussion with all the interests concerned. This figure represents a compromise of conflicting views on the thorny problem of functions, and was accepted by the Association of Municipal Corporations as such, although it does not go as far as they would have wished. An attempt to amend it upwards was, however, made in another place and was defeated.
The effect of these Amendments would be to delete those parts of Clause 34 which provide for non-county boroughs and urban districts of 60,000 or more population to become weights and measures authorities of their own volition and to take away the functions from non-county boroughs who are already exercising them. Instead, non-county boroughs and urban districts are put on the same level as rural district councils who, under subsection (5)(b) of the clause, may make representations to the Board and the county council asking for the conferment of functions; and the Board, after consulting the county council, arid if satisfied that there are special circumstances, may confer the function on the rural district council.
I sincerely hope that the Government will not accept these Amendments, because
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Clause 34 is this compromise on conflicting views on the administration of weights and measures functions which were put forward to the Government by the various local authority associations in the context of local government functions generally. The clause departs from the recommendations of the Hodgson Committee, which were, of course, to the effect that I have already mentioned; and following the Report of that Committee, the local authority associations had discussions with the Minister of Housing and Local Government on the allocation of these functions. The Government White Paper (Cmd. 161). Local Government Reorganisation Functions, contained the following paragraph:
"The Departments now make the following suggestions and comments…Weights and Measures. Instead of being delegated this function should be conferred 'as of right' on borough and urban district councils of 60,000 and upwards, with discretion to the Minister concerned to confer by order, in special circumstances, below 60,000".
In allocating functions to non-county boroughs of a population of 60,000 or more, Clause 34 follows this recommendation in the White Paper, and the Association of Municipal Corporations inform me that they see no reason why there should be any departure therefrom on the lines suggested by these Amendments.
This, unfortunately, is a case where there has been no agreement between the Association of Municipal Corporations and the County Councils Association as to the population level at which weights and measures functions should be administered by local authorities, or indeed as to the type of local authority who should administer them; and the Association, as I have said, have accepted this solution as part of the whole pattern of local government reorganisation and reallocation of functions. If these Amendments were successful that pattern would be upset, and other Amendments would be called for in other fields of local government functions.
By this Bill functions are being conferred for the first time upon urban district councils, and during the passage of the Bill through another place the representatives of the rural district councils asked that they should have the same powers as are given to urban district councils. The Government's reply was

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that the number of urban district councils who could exercise the functions was much smaller than that of non-county boroughs, and the number of rural district councils was even smaller, and that in the scattered areas of most rural district councils it was preferable that county councils should exercise the functions. Further, the spokesman of the rural district councils said that only two rural district councils of over 60,000 population will wish to exercise the functions, whereas 45 non-county boroughs with a population of less than 60,000 are already exercising them and many of them will wish to continue. I suggest, therefore, that it is quite wrong to apply the same test to non-county boroughs as to rural district councils in this matter as would be done if these Amendments referred to were successful. So I express the hope that the Government will not accept them.
LORD SHEPHERD: What has surprised me of late is the Government's attitude towards local government and other fields, particularly economics and trade, and the sort of fragmentation that is going on. This is quite different from what is happening in private industry. In order to be efficient private industry finds it necessary to create as large an organisation as possible. Their one aim is efficiency. We are seeing here the fragmentation, particularly in the London area, of the weights and measures enforcement. As I understand it, London has one authority which is able efficiently to enforce the existing weights and measures legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, I think has just given me the clue to what the Government have in mind—that instead of having one weights and measures authority, there should be 32. It is part of the Government idea of giving more power and more interest to local authorities. I think that there is a lot to be said for it, but Lord Milverton—and this was the burden of his case—did not at any time say whether the giving of this extra interest to a local authority would in any way make weights and measures legislation and its enforcement more efficient.
There is very little in which a local authority can take tan interest in regard to weights and measures; there is very little to discuss, and little for them to administer. This is purely a matter of straightforward administration of the provisions in this Bill. The local authority
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would not be able to depart from it in one way or another. The chief inspector and the other inspectors under this Bill will merely have to enforce the provisions. Therefore, I can see little advantage in giving this power to a local authority, except that it is something else which they can put on the door of the council office. I cannot see that it would in any way give any extra interest to a local authority, or that it would stimulate the interest of the electorate or the people who sit on the council. As I have said, this is purely an administrative duty to be performed.
As the business world will show, the bigger one's organisation—so long as it does not get too big, and so long as it is of sufficient size—the more one is able to create efficiency. And above all else—and this is the important part—it gives far greater opportunities for the promotion and advancement of inspectors. At the present moment you would have maybe one or two weights and measures inspectors in one small local authority, with no opportunity of advancement, no opportunity of having increased responsibility. But such opportunities would exist in a larger organisation such as the London County Council or the Greater London Council. There is a lot to be said for it. We want to see efficiency. This is the one point that we need to bear in mind in regard to this clause. I am quite satisfied from all the experience I have had in dealing with matters similar to this—and I am sure that other noble Lords have had such experience—that there is a far greater chance of efficiency, of enforcement of this Bill, if the unit is of sufficient size to give opportunities to the officers for advancement, and to enable them to take an interest in their duties.
There are other matters, of course. This means that you are able to move your weights and measures inspector from one area to another. He does not get too familiar with those people he is called upon to inspect. I think there is a lot to be said for this, and no doubt the London County Council could produce evidence to show that there has been considerable effect by its ability to move inspectors from one area to another. But I would suggest to the Committee that it must judge these Amendments not on the grounds—as the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, would have us do—of the

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social prestige of a local authority, but on the grounds of efficiency and the effect of the enforcement of the provisions of this Bill. I believe efficiency would come if the Amendment which the Opposition have moved were acceptable this evening.
LORD DERWENT: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Milverton for having shortened the amount I am going to have to say, because there are certain facts which he gave which I shall repeat more shortly than I would otherwise have done. I am rather astonished by the speeches of the three noble Lords opposite, and I think I must read Hansard with great care. I understood the noble Lord, Lord Latham, to say at the beginning of his remarks—I may have understood it wrongly—that he was not speaking on behalf of the larger authorities. I shall see in the morning what he said, but I thought he said that.
LORD LATHAM: I did say that.
LORD DERWENT: The whole of his speech, of course, was an advocacy for the larger authority. Both he and the noble Lord, Lord Crook—
LORD LATHAM: If I may say so, the noble Lord must be a little more precise in his language. My making a speech in support of the larger authorities is very different from my speaking on behalf of the larger authorities, which is not the case here.
LORD DERWENT: I take the noble Lord's point. I think that is splitting hairs.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no.
LORD DERWENT: I shall read what he said in the morning and then make up my mind. What really astonished me in the two speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Latham, and the noble Lord, Lord Crook, was that in listening to them one would have thought that ours was an extraordinary point of view, which no one but Her Majesty's Government supported, and that the rest of the world held the same view as they did. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, of course took quite a different view. He said that there was another point of view. But I would say—
LORD SHEPHERD: I rejected it.
LORD DERWENT: I would say, as regards the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, some considerable part of which was devoted to London Government, that London Government and this clause have nothing to do with each other. It is Clause 35 which deals with Landon Government. The noble Lord also made a rather strange point, I think, in that he first of all said that the larger authority must ipso facto be more efficient than a smaller authority, and he then went on to say, "But of course the weights and measures authority under this Bill has very little to administer". I took down his exact words. The two do not seem to me to go exactly together.
The provisions of Clause 34, as my noble friend said, are in accordance with Government policy on local government which was originally stated in the White Paper Command 161 which was, as he also said, published in May, 1957. The clause provides—and I shall restate this part of it—that counties and county boroughs will be weights and measures authorities as in the past and that non-county boroughs and urban districts with populations in excess of 60,000, and in special circumstances non-county boroughs and urban districts with populations of less than 60,000 and rural districts of any population, may be weights and measures authorities. The provision in respect of rural districts was added during the Report stage in another place.
There are two sides to this question. This general policy was decided after exhaustive discussions by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Board of Trade with all concerned, including local authorities; and, like most decisions of this kind, as has already been stated by my noble friend Lord Milverton, it represents a compromise between the advocates, such as the noble Lords opposite, of the advantages on grounds of efficiency and economy of very large authorities, and those who hold the view, equally strongly, that smaller authorities ought to have as much responsibility as practicable. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, one realises that they are perfectly competent to carry out this duty. The Government believe that the arrangements set out in this clause are reasonable. One thing is certain, as

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is obvious from our discussions this evening: that no arrangements will satisfy everyone. This is a compromise which was reached after discussion. The Government believe that the clause as it stands provides a workable system which will satisfy most people, and I accordingly ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Lord, Lord Dement, accused my noble friend Lord Latham of talking on behalf of the larger authorities. He has made it quite clear that, on behalf of the Government, he is talking on behalf of the parish pump. I have never heard such a naïve demonstration of a prearranged deal as that given by the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, when he said quite clearly, "This is part of a deal," and that if this Amendment were accepted it would upset the whole pattern. Parliament is no longer supreme. This is an arrangement behind closed doors somewhere in Whitehall where civil servants, possibly with a junior Minister in attendance, do a deal and say what they will accept and the number of residents there shall be in an area before they qualify for a weights and measures administration.
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord—
LORD MILVERTON: Might I interrupt the noble Lord?
LORD STONHAM: One at a time.
LORD MILVERTON: Might I interrupt the noble Lord? I seem to remember hearing him the other day, or one of his colleagues on the other side, complaining bitterly that the Government did not consult before legislation with the interests concerned in it.
LORD STONHAM: But there is a great difference between consultation and decision. The decision should be made here, in Parliament: we should not be told that the deal has already been arranged and that to accept an Amendment to vary it would upset the whole applecart. Now the other noble Lord's turn.
LORD DERWENT: The noble Lord knows very well he is trying to mislead the House. The consultations took place perfectly openly between all concerned over a long period of time, and everybody knew what was going on.
LORD CROOK: The noble Lord must not use the word "mislead".
LORD STONHAM: I was not a party to these consultations, I was not present at them, and I had no idea of the setup until I heard the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, make his speech. I do not think we can normally be accused of being on the side of the big battalions—certainly I cannot—but in this case it is a question, surely, of efficiency, and it is a question of cost. My noble friend Lord Crook quoted some of the figures of cost to the ratepayers—and I should have thought the A.M.C. would have been interested in this. When you have a county authority with a weights and measures inspectorate and the cost is a rate of three-farthings in the pound, and when, in one of these smaller district councils of 60,000 or more, such as Farn-borough, the rate may be as much as 4d. in the pound, that, surely, is a consideration which is of some importance—or does the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, ignore completely the difference between a rate of three-farthings in the pound and a rate of 4d. in the pound, merely for the sake of the alleged prestige of having a weights and measures inspectorate in a county borough or borough or an urban or rural district of 60,000 population? That is the first consideration.
The second consideration is that of efficiency. There can be no question whatever that in these established organisations with a wide experience and a wide coverage of different kinds of weights and measures administration, it must be more efficient, it must lead to less conflict and less differences of judgment and opinion. We have the situation in London where the London boroughs have the administration of the Food and Drugs Act and the London County Council has the administration of the Weights and Measures Act, How much less efficient is that in total than the arrangement in Middlesex where all come under the same administration and where it is far more efficient, far less expensive and gives rise to far less friction and misunderstanding among traders and the general public!
There is one argument that I think is fairly conclusive in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said that the

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Government believed that the arrangements set out in Clause 34 are reasonable, after discussion with the interests involved. I have said this before on other Bills and I will say it again: the most important thing is the public we serve; and also whether we are satisfied that, after we have had our discussions and our Amendments are accepted or rejected and the Bill reaches the Statute Book, we have done any good.
In this matter we shall not have done any good unless we are satisfied that there is an adequately experienced inspectorate able to carry out the provisions of the Act. And on this the Government have been noticeably silent. Their figures as to the number of inspectors available and the arrangements for their increase have been questioned time and again. I have read the discussions in another place and the figures given by the Government. I have before me a memorandum on those figures by the Association of Inspectors of Weights and Measures. I should have thought that if anyone knew the difficulties which were likely to arise it would be the people who are at present doing the job. They say that the question of the figures for established positions is obscure; but returns since the end of last year show that there are at least 940 positions and that in four or five authorities the establishment is not complete. But there has been an increase of some 25 in established positions since the Board of Trade checked their figures, and these were irrespective of whether or not they included Scotland in their figures. But apparently they have ignored the Scottish requirements—some 80 inspectors—completely.
The impression we have is that the Government feel there will be no real need for any significant increase in the overall national establishment of inspectors as a result of the new Act. But we feel there is going to be a considerable need for an increase in the inspectorate, irrespective of the decision to create a number of new inspectorates of weights and measures out of the smaller local authorities. My noble friend mentioned that the smallest number of qualified inspectors that can make up a single unit is three, and the Hodgson Committee suggested that in a population unit of 60,000 there would be work for 1¼ inspectors. If they are right, that would be a
536
considerable waste of expensive trained personnel.
The Government do not seem to have had any regard to the considerable increase in the duties of inspectors which we are rightly imposing in this Bill. I have a list before me of some 20 different duties. I will not weary the House with it, but it is a very impressive list, which includes six cases where entirely new duties are created. I will mention only one, in which the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, and I have a common interest—that is, the measuring of spirits in licensed establishments. That is one wholly new duty, which will involve inspectors in a great deal of work—
LORD SHEPHERD: And temptation!
LORD STONHAM: —particularly in the initial stages after the passing of this Bill. Obviously, the Government propose to create an increased number of weights and measures authorities. Inevitably they will be small ones; inevitably they will be relatively expensive; inevitably they will lead to an increase in the acute shortage of inspectors, which will have its effect in other areas, and lessen the efficiency with which the Act is administered. Inevitably they will lead to differences in decisions, to confusion, to frustration, and to difficulties in trade.
We feel that this is a wrong and absurd decision, for which the only justification, as the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, made apparent, is that it has been decided some time ago, probably well before November, when the matter was discussed in Committee in another place. To us that seems a totally inadequate reason, a completely unjustifiable reason, and quite disgraceful. If Clause 34 remains in the Bill in its present form, it will invalidate to a large extent the efficiency and value of this Bill. We feel that the Government, in their discussions outside this House, came to a wrong decision, succumbed to the wrong pressure, and that they should now admit their error and accept this Amendment.
LORD DERWENT: I only wish to add one thing, for the Record, because it may be misunderstood, although I do not think the noble Lord was misleading the House. I should like to make clear that if an urban county borough do not wish to take on the job because of the cost, they need not do so. They can hand it over to the county council.
LORD SHEPHERD: Would the noble Lord say whether he refutes or accepts the figure given by my noble friend Lord Latham of the cost to a London or a county borough council to set up new weights and measures departments—namely, £16,500? Can the Minister deny or accept those figures?
LORD DERWENT: I certainly cannot accept them. I am advised that they are comparative guesswork and will vary from authority to authority. But as regards London, I wish the noble Lord would move away from that, because it is a quite different arrangement. When we come to Clause 35 (I believe one noble Lord opposite wishes to speak on that clause) we will deal with London; but it has nothing to do with this clause, and what will happen in London is something quite different from what will happen here.
LORD CROOK: am completely unable to understand what these figures are in this consistent policy. The Government say that 300,000 must be the figure of a borough and are doing away with
Clause 34 agreed, to.
Clause 35 [Local weights and measures authorities in special areas]:
On Question, Whether Clause 35 shall be agreed to?
10.0 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: During discussions on the last Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, told us, quite rightly, that we were' not discussing Clause 35. We have now reached Clause 35, and we on this side of the Committee and, I have no doubt, the Government
urban districts of 65,000 and amalgamating three or four of them, yet they come here and say that any urban district council over 60,000 can pass a resolution. Indeed, I wonder what my own urban district council's position would be if they took advantage of one paragraph here. I find it quite amusing. The Bill says that if the council pass a resolution by June of this year they will become a weights and measures authority; and since by June 30 the Government will not have got the London Government Bill, if this urban district of Carshalton did that I do not know what would happen when the London Government Bill received the Royal Assent because that Bill guarantees that three years after they pass the resolution they will get their powers.
LORD DERWENT: I think the noble Lord had better wait for the London Government Bill.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents. 12; Not-Contents, 27.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Faringdon, L.

Silkin, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Latham, L.

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Champion, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Walston, L.

Crook, L.

Shepherd, L.

Williamson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Albemarle, E.

Derwent, L.

Lothian, M.

Atholl, D.

Ferrers, E.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Bossom, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Milverton, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Newton, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Hastings, L.

Perth, E.

Chesham, L.

Ilford, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Conesford, L.

Jellicoe, E.

St. Oswald, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Templemore, L.

Denham, L.

Long, V.

Waleran, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

are still in a position of some doubt and difficulty. Our difficulty is that we are still in process of discussing the London Government Bill and Clause 35 is, of course, affected by that Bill.
Our understanding of the situation is that the President of the Board of Trade will, under the London Government Bill, if it is passed in its present form, have power to create, as it were, 32 weights and measures authorities out of the presently proposed new boroughs to be created. Our difficulty is therefore, since we are in effect dealing with something which has not yet happened, with regard to the framing of Amendments

539
in respect to Clause 35. As I think has already been made clear in our previous discussions, we feel that the creation of 32 weights and measures authorities under the area proposed to be created under the London Government Bill will be a mistake. Weights and measures administration is very different in a great city like London from that of the generality of the country as a whole.
The London boroughs will be very close together, and it is not argued that they would be small authorities. Indeed, they will be authorities legislating for perhaps a quarter of a million or more people. They will not be small in that sense, but they will be very close together geographically and, in many cases, the goods inspected by or dealt with by weights and measures inspectors are goods nationally sold and common throughout the country. That, in a sense, would seem to make matters of administration easier and more uniform, but it does happen at times that there are mistakes in labelling and otherwise and we feel that that is one of the difficulties that may be created under the proposed new arrangements.
In any case, the creation of each of the newly proposed London boroughs into 32 weights and measures authorities will inevitably add to the total number of trained inspectors required, which in itself in the initial stages is going to create a difficulty. We feel, just as was mentioned on the previous Amendment, that this may be a retrograde step, one which should not be taken without full consideration, and we should, therefore, like to hear something from the Government about their intentions under Clause 35, assuming that the London Government Bill goes through in its present form and the alleged intention of the President of the Board of Trade to create these 32 weights and measures authorities is carried out. I hope the noble Lord will be able to deal with some of the points I have raised in connection with this clause.
LORD CROOK: I should like to support my noble friend and add this. I hope that when the noble Lord speaks he will tell us something about the figure of cost involved which the Government have doubtless worked out. One of the things I had thought there was some agreement about between the
540
L.C.C. and the Government was that we were having too many offices in London. Presumably the noble Lord will be telling us that there will be 32 more to take over this job now instead of its being, as at present, centralised with the L.C.C. I am bound to tell him that, fed up as people already are with the large increases in rates they have had over the past few weeks, they are very afraid of the effects of the London Government Bill, if the House is unfortunate enough to let it go through, and they would like to know what further costs will be thrown on them by this.
The noble Lord, Lord Latham, when he referred to the capital costs, indicated a figure which, although pooh-poohed by the noble Lord, still remains a fairly active figure of £18,500 as a minimum for buying instruments and setting up office; and 32 times £20,000 is quite a substantial figure. The ordinary cost of administration would not be much less than £10,000 in each borough. We should like to know what are these proposals which the Government are making for further increases in rates.
LORD DERWENT: I find the figures get even more muddling. They have gone up £4,000. We were talking about £16,000.
LORD CROOK: We were talking then in terms of the whole country, and not the much more expensive Metropolis.
LORD DERWENT: I do not know whether those figures are correct. I should like to help the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, but I do not quite know what he wants from me. It is presumably the part of this clause which is dealing with London government, and not the Scilly Isles and possibly the coastal and inland waters.
LORD STONHAM: I did not mention the Scilly Isles.
LORD DERWENT: I do not know what the noble Lord's difficulty is. This is a clause which, whatever happens in the London Government Bill, however that comes out in the wash, gives power for the Board of Trade to direct which local authorities in the metropolitan region shall be weights and measures authorities. That is what this clause does, and I do not quite see—and I am very willing to listen—exactly what more

541
in the way of explanation the noble Lord wants from me.
LORD STONHAM: The point I really wanted from the noble Lord was confirmation that that is the Government's intention: that in fact assuming—notwithstanding Heaven and Lord Morrison of Lambeth forbidding—we get the London Government Bill on the Statute Book in its present form, it is the intention of the Government to create 32 weights and measures authorities out of the proposed 32 London boroughs. If the noble Lord indicates that that is firmly their intention, then we shall have a bit more to work on before we come to the Report stage, and presumably there will be something which can be discussed in respect of these matters in the London Government Bill.
LORD DERWENT: I understand perfectly now. I had not quite understood it. I will repeat what my right honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary said in the other Place on this point, when he said on the London Government Bill that if the Bill went through on the lines presented—we will forget the 32 except that that is probably the figure—the Board intended to make each London borough the authority for weights and measures. That was said then, and I have no reason to suppose there is any difference now. I have not actually taken up the point, but I confirm that that was the undertaking given.
10.11 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: There is one point which I should be most grateful if the noble Lord would elucidate for me. We have heard a certain amount from my noble friends on this side about these figures of £16,000, £18,500 and even £20,000. The noble Lord opposite has poured scorn on those figures.
LORD DERWENT: No; I said I had no idea how those figures were arrived at.
LORD WALSTON: I apologise. If he did not pour scorn on them, his tone seemed to be somewhat scornful in referring to them. But so far as I can make out, he gave no alternative figures which either confirm or deny that these figures are correct. If that is so, am I right in thinking that he was proposing that these new duties should be imposed on certain local authorities which will lead to some increase in the rates without having any idea whatsoever as to how much the
542
extra cost is going to be? Is he so irresponsible as to stand up here and say, "We are going to enforce this particular activity on certain local authorities. We do not know if it is going to cost them £10,000, £20,000 or £30,000. We have never gone into it"?
That seems like his attitude when he was commenting on certain remarks of my noble friend Lord Latham earlier on, when he said that he could not understand what he meant but he would look it up to-morrow and make up his mind what had been meant. But in fact he did not on that occasion delay advising his noble friends to vote against my noble friend's Amendment. Although he said he was going to delay making up his mind until to-morrow, he had in fact already made up his mind that he was going to oppose it. It seems as if he is saying "Although we have not decided what the cost is going to be we still insist that it is going to be borne by other people, not ourselves—perhaps the ratepayers." Perhaps he would elucidate on that. I may be entirely wrong.
LORD DERWENT: When I was talking about the noble Lord, Lord Latham, I was saying that apropos of a remark he made. I could not believe that I had heard aright, and I said I would look it up to-morrow to see whether I had misunderstood. That is all I said. As regards these figures, they are extremely difficult to work out—they may well be that sort of figure. I should not like to go further than that at the moment. They will vary considerably. One doubts the figure because of the way that it is arrived at, in regard to the implication behind certain remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Crook. To listen to him, one would have thought that a completely new office block was being erected for a weights and measures authority. That was what it sounded like. Therefore, one is rather tempted to disagree with, or rather to doubt, the way those figures are arrived at.
I will not go further tonight than to say that I do not say they are wrong, though I have no actual confirmation that they are right. If the noble Lord would like to put down a Question, I may be able to answer it; but in view of one or two things that were said, I doubt the way in which those figures are arrived at. I do not say they are wrong, because I do not know.
LORD WALSTON: Surely it is not up to my noble friend on this side to work out what the cost of Government proposals is going to be.
LORD DERWENT: But he did.
LORD WALSTON: It was a suggestion put forward. But primarily the responsibility lies, as it must, on the Government's shoulders to work out the cost of these proposals which they are going to impose. To come along and say, "I do not know, but maybe if you ask me a Question at some future date I may be able to give you an answer" suggests that this is a question which has never been asked by the Government of themselves.
LORD CROOK: I am obliged to my noble friend for his intervention. I should like to say to the noble Lord opposite that each time I have quoted a figure it has not been one that I have suddenly invented, but one that has been arrived at by local authorities. The Government have no figures.
LORD DERWENT: Here is one reason. In the question on London boroughs,
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: As it appears that fewer than 30 Lords have voted, in accordance with Standing Order No. 50 I declare the Question not decided and, pursuant to the Standing Order, the House will now resume.
House resumed.
which we are now talking about, I would point out that it is perfectly allowable, under Clause 37, for London boroughs to combine. Whatever cost you work out is then wrong. It may well be found that the London boroughs may combine under Clause 37.
LORD LATHAM: First of all you fragment them, and then you combine them again.
LORD DERWENT: So far as I know, they have not been fragmented yet.
LORD LATHAM: Only the present Government could achieve that, I am sure. Would the Minister say, out of his abundant knowledge, whether this additional expenditure on weights and measures will be grant-aided?
LORD DERWENT: I have no idea.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
On Question, Whether Clause 35 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 26; Not-Contents, 2.

CONTENTS

Albemarle, E.

Denham, L.

Lothian, M.

Atholl, D.

Derwent, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Bossom, L.

Ferrers, E.

Newton, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Perth, E.

Bridgeman, V.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Chesham, L.

Hastings, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Conesford, L.

Ilford, L.

Templemore, L.

Craigton, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Waleran, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Lansdowne, M.

NOT-CONTENTS

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Stonham, L. [Teller.]