Lords Sitting of 16 May 1963

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

AFTER-CARE OF EX-PRISONERS
3.5 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to state in the latest year for which figures are available, the total Treasury funds expended on the administration of after-care, and on the actual aftercare, of ex-prisoners, respectively.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, during 1961 the total expenditure of the various after-care organisations was £334,000. Of this amount, £276,000 was spent on administration, including the salaries of prison welfare officers and after-care officers who provide personal service, and £58,000 was spent on direct material aid to former inmates and their families. The total contribution from public funds amounted to £273,000, representing £243,000 for administration and £30,000 for direct material aid.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that those figures show that 16s. out of every £1 of the very meagre amount paid for after-care goes in administration and leaves only some £50,000, about 10s. per discharged prisoner, for actual aid to prisoners and their families? I am not commenting adversely on the cost of administration, but does not the noble Earl agree that it is imperative that more funds should be provided for the actual after-care of prisoners, if only because it is much cheaper than letting them go back to prison again?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord has done the sum
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quite correctly. I do not necessarily draw quite the same conclusion from it, because, as I mentioned in my original Answer, the sum spent on administration includes salaries of prison welfare officers and after-care officers, and their salaries and expenses are inevitably a large part of the expenditure on a service which is necessarily of a personal nature. The second point I would draw to the noble Lord's attention is that a good deal of expenditure of an aftercare variety falls on the National Assistance Board and, of course, has not been included in the figure I have given to your Lordships' House.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, nevertheless is it not the case that only some £50,000 was spent on actual after-care of prisoners, and that is what a man looks to when he goes in urgent need of help? It is also the case that the amounts received from the National Assistance Board are quite small. May I put this question to the noble Earl? What plans have the Government in mind for increasing the amounts of actual after-care expenditure on prisoners, many of whom are in desperate need and who, if they do not get help, will inevitably go back to prison?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not think that Question Time really provides me with a suitable opportunity for expanding at great length on our plans in this direction. I would remind the noble Lord that we had a very full debate recently on the whole question of prisons, including after-care, and also that my right honourable friend's Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders will shortly report on the whole question of after-care and that will provide us with a good opportunity for stock-taking in this very important field.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, does not the noble Earl agree that it is most necessary, from the point of view of after-care, that the Advisory Council should report at the earliest possible moment, and that the Government should decide on their policy in the light of the views of the Advisory Council as soon as may be?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I entirely agree.

CONDITIONS FOR BROADMOOR INMATES
3.10 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to state, for the latest convenient date, the total number of male inmates at Broadmoor Hospital, the area available to them for open air exercise, and the average number of hours per week that they are able to work.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, There are 691 male patients. A total of 33 acres is provided for their outdoor exercise. The time a patient spends at work depends on his mental and physical condition: 300 patients, whose treatment is more advanced, work regularly for 30 to 35 hours weekly; 369 work less regularly, for periods up to 30 hours weekly; and 22 are not fit to work.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask whether he can say if there is any difficulty in the provision of work for the employment of prisoners and, if so, whether his right honourable friend will consult with the right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary, who apparently has no such difficulty, and will be look particularly into the case of many Broadmoor patients who are not allowed into the 33 acres he mentioned, but can exercise in only a very confined space?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, as regards the first question, I have no reason to suppose at all that there are not sufficient opportunities for work for all those who are capable of working. As regards the noble Lord's second question, every male ward has an adjoining open space of about two acres and there is also a patients' sports field which very nearly all patients are allowed to visit once or twice a week.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I will, send the noble Lord particulars of the cases I have in mind, where many men are much under-employed, which makes me wonder whether there is difficulty of
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getting work, and of cases of lack of adequate exercise, which I hope he will look into.
LORD NEWTON: Yes, my Lords, but I would assure the noble Lord that there have never been any complaints at all from any patients claiming that they did not have sufficient fresh air.

COAL LORRY ACCIDENTS
3.12 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any knowledge of any accidents caused by the exercise by weights and measures inspectors of their power to stop coal lorries on the highway and, if so, whether they will give statistics of all such accidents within the last five years.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, the available accident statistics do not show whether any accidents have been caused in this way.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord.

HIGH ALTITUDE NUCLEAR TESTS
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: 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 will make a statement on their consultations with British scientists about the effects of high altitude nuclear tests on scientific experiments.]
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)My Lords, at my request, the Steering Group on Space Research arranged last autumn for a panel of experts to consider this

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question. Their report is published to-day as a White Paper, and copies are available in the Printed Paper Office. A copy of the text has been sent to the United States Government.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for his reply. Can he say whether these tests have any harmful result, either on scientific experiments or on other human beings; and if they do, would Her Majesty's Government ask the United States Government to refrain from such experiments?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, as regards the first part of my noble friend's Question, there is, I think, no evidence that they have any harmful effects on human health. Certainly I do not think the Report indicates any. With regard to the effects on scientific experiments, this is what the trouble is about. I do not think there is any doubt about that. The high altitude nuclear test which the panel of scientists was concerned with will have very wide effects upon scientific experiments. What exactly is meant by "harmful effects" in that context is more difficult to define, but it will alter the environment of the earth in such a way as to affect scientific experiments seriously.
Obviously, the question of approaching the United States Government is a difficult one. I had contact with them on more than one occasion on this subject. There is more than one factor that one has to bear in mind. I do not think there is any doubt that scientific opinion in this country deplores—or, at any rate, feels—that tests which can affect the environment of the earth or any scientific experiments of other scientists in different parts of the world are a matter of international concern which requires discussion. On the other hand, a Government of any country is concerned, as well, with national security, and in the present state of disarmament negotiations it is not quite certain how far one can go.
There have, of course, been Russian nuclear high altitude tests, as well, which equally could cause trouble, and I think
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one has to face the fact that tests in the high atmosphere or above the atmosphere are one of the consequences of the failure of the Powers to reach a test ban agreement or disarmament agreement; and, in the absence of such an agreement, the most one can do is to make representations when one knows of anything in the air.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would the noble Viscount agree that Professor Lovell, whom we all admire and respect, has denounced some of these tests in an unqualified manner?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think if the noble Lady will read the White Paper she will see exactly what the balance of scientific opinion is. I have never known Professor Lovell say anything which I personally would not go along with, and he certainly has not said anything inconsistent with what I have just said to my noble friend. It is simply the fact that many tests of this kind could, if they were initiated after the result of international discussion between scientists, even be valuable. His complaint has been, I think, that it is a unilateral action on the part of any nation that undertakes tests of this kind which can affect the experiments of other scientists; and, in particular, he complained of something which is outside the scope of the White Paper and of the present Question—namely, of an attempted test which was of quite a different character.
The Question refers to high altitude nuclear tests. The first experiment of which Professor Lovell made a complaint was an experiment called Project West Ford, which consisted in throwing up—or attempting to throw up, because it failed—a number of what the Americans called dipoles but what I prefer to call needles, as a means of making experiments in communications, which is a totally different kind of experiment. This has been repeated in the last few days. But I think, partly as a result of what scientists and others said to the American authorities, there are certain "fail safe" devices attached which have made them a good deal less objectionable.

ELISABETHVILLE: DETENTION OF BRITISH SUBJECTS
3.19 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given Her Majesty's Government Private Notice: namely, to ask Her Majesty's Government what information they have received in regard to the arrest of four, or possibly five, British employees of the firm of Gecikat in Elisabethville.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, four British subjects were detained for questioning in the course of house searches in Elisabethville the day before yesterday, May 14. Her Majesty's Consul saw them soon after their detention. The four men were released the same afternoon. Her Majesty's Consul saw a member of the group after his return home, and he had no complaints.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, may I ask, first of all, whether there is any information about the fifth man, a man called Mr. Jimmy Hunter, who was arrested at the same time; and secondly, whether the noble Earl is aware that this is just one of a whole series of incidents of violence in which the Army Nationale Congolese have been involved in the past few months in Katanga and which have resulted in the loss of many European and African lives. Thirdly, may I ask whether Her Majesty's Government will give instructions to make a strong protest, not only to the Resident Minister, Mr. Ileo, in Elisabethville, but also to Mr. Adoula's Government in Leopoldville, and indeed to the United Nations' Representative in the Congo.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, on the first question, the only information we have from our Consul is in respect of the four men whom I have mentioned, whose names were those reported in The Times. We have no information about any others. On the second part of my noble friend's question, of course the situation in Elisabethville, as we all know, is not at all happy, but I should not be inclined to exaggerate unnecessarily what is going wrong, which I think may sometimes happen. On the third question, our Consul did see and make representations to Mr. Ileo and, as I have told your Lordships, the men were released.

FUTURE BUSINESS
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to make a statement on arrangements for future Business which has been agreed through the usual channels. In response to a request from noble Lords opposite for more time in Committee on the London Government Bill, I have removed most of the Government Business from the days allocated for the Committee next week and the week after next, and my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has agreed to postpone the Second Reading of the Limitation Bill. The only Government Business which will remain to be taken on those days are Special Orders for Affirmative Resolution. I have not been able to get in touch with the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, to ask him to postpone the Second Reading of the Animal Boarding Establishments Bill, but perhaps the House will agree that this Business may come on at about 7 p.m. on Tuesday next until the Dinner Adjournment. In addition, it has been agreed that the House will meet on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 2 p.m., and on Thursdays at 2.30 p.m., for the next two weeks.
The Business removed to give more time to the London Government Committee has been postponed until after Whitsun. Time must necessarily be found for this postponed Business which will now be added to the other Business already envisaged for the limited time between the Whitsun Adjournment and the Summer Recess. It has therefore been agreed that the House will sit on Fridays after Whitsun. It has been proposed that Friday sittings should start at 11 a.m. and continue until approximately 4 p.m., with a luncheon interval of an hour. I would propose to take on Fridays only Government Business on which the House would not normally expect to divide, and also proceedings on Private Members' Bills.
The agreed allocation of time for the remainder of the London Government Committee is as follows:

To-day: Part II and Schedules 5–7 (concluded):

Monday, May 20: Part III and Schedule 8 (1st day);

Tuesday, May 21: Part III and Schedule 8 (concluded). Part IV (1st day);

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Thursday, May 23: Part IV (concluded). Parts V and VI and Schedules 9–11:

Monday, May 27: Part VII and Schedules 12 and 13 (1st day);

Tuesday, May 28: Part VII and Schedules 12 and 13 (concluded), Part VIII and Schedules 14 and 15;

Thursday, May 30: Part IX and Schedules 16 and 17.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl for giving this Government plan of Business so far ahead. In the main, we agree on one basis; in so far as the Government have said that they are going to allocate to this Bill only the days mentioned in the final schedule which the noble Earl read out, the arrangement of Business within that time has been noted and agreed. But we have by no means agreed in principle that they are bound to get the Bill through by the end of this month before we go on holiday. My colleagues feel very strongly on that point. We of course accept the provisional plan which is made by the Government, as they have a right to make, on their proposition that they are going to have only so many days allowed before Whitsun. But with important matters still arising on the London Government Bill, both with regard to education, housing, town planning and to all the health and welfare services, it is going to be an exceedingly difficult task, and we ought not to suffer undue physical pressure on such a limited Opposition as we have here at this time.
There is one qualification I should like to make. One Bill which would be among those upon which the noble Earl thinks there would not be likely to be a Division if taken on Friday, is the Contracts of Employment Bill. We are not at all sure about that one. But we could perhaps have further conversations, through the usual channels, about that. The only other thing is perhaps a more general protest, on behalf of my colleagues—and I am quite sure there will be others who desire to protest, whether they do or not, on the Government side—at one being called together on Friday before Whit Monday, when most people will want to be home the night before, or on their way home on that day. That is an exceedingly difficult day for most Peers.
There is one other case which the noble Earl the Leader of the House will remember, or the Chief Whip will remember, we
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put to him. We have a number of our Members in this limited Opposition who have to go on earning their living, as well as serving in this very heavy pressure here; and those of them who are in business reserve Friday to be able to meet people in the business they are concerned with, and clear up matters for the week. Engagements have been made, and that kind of thing. These things are not easy to arrange.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl for one moment? I am sorry, but I do not seem to have made myself quite clear. I know that in the original discussions it was suggested that we should meet on the Friday before Whitsun, but as a result of representations from the noble Earl opposite, I said that it would be on Fridays after Whitsun and not before.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I must have missed it, and I humbly apologise Ito the Chief Whip, because I would not misunderstand him for the world. I rather gathered that somebody else rose to a point on this statement, and if any other noble Lord does want to rise I wild give way now, as I want to go on to a further point of the Business to-day.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl. I was only going to say to the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip that it seems quite clear that the noble Earl opposite and the Opposition want to have it both ways. They are not consenting to an agreed timetable (which is what I always advocated in another place in my time) in which adequate time could be concentrated upon the matters of importance which Members of the Opposition wished to debate and discuss. If the noble Earl opposite said that he could not guarantee that we should get this Bill by any certain date, I wonder whether the deliberate intention is to force upon this House what the Irish Members forced upon another place, the use of guillotines and closures.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen to the humorous asides of the noble Viscount opposite, who speaks with considerable experience of these matters as a former Chief Whip in the

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House of Commons. I associate myself with what my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has said. It is true that this has been provisionally agreed through the usual channels, and certainly when the usual channels are functioning I do not want to quarrel with them. But it is difficult to be certain about these things—for example, the question of housing and town planning. There may riot be an enormous number of Amendments—I do not know; I am speaking from memory—but it is a very big subject on which the whole future of housing and slum clearance in London and Greater London has an enormous significance. It involves other matters. Education is a very big subject. Even if the Amendments are limited, the debate must be adequate. There are some other things too, but we shall do our best in these matters.
There is one point I should like to raise, which is this proposal to meet at 2 o'clock instead of 2.30. I nearly had my digestion ruined the other night with the meat pie and so on which I ate in the Tea Room of another place. But we shall all have our digestions ruined if we are not careful if we have to meet at 2 o'clock without any time to let lunch settle down inside. I do think that is running us a bit hard. Moreover, noble Lords on both sides often have luncheon engagements, and that makes it difficult to get here at 2 o'clock. If would suggest to the Chief Whip that at any rate he might think about this matter; and, to use a famous phrase of a former leader of the House of Commons, "For the rest, we shall have to see how we go and hope for the best."
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, of course I appreciate what the noble Lord says but I think there is more than one side to the question. To begin with, I think that one would always measure the length of time that is necessary for discussion of a subject by its size or importance. The number of things to be said on an important matter may be less than the number of things to say on a relatively small matter, and I am perfectly sure that the House as a whole can co-operate in this plan by asking itself entirely how the best discussion may be obtained on a controversial Bill. We have, I think,
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made very considerable concessions to the other side about it and we have done so in a spirit of reasonableness. It is, I think, important to recognise that we on this side, though we perhaps talk about it a little less, suffer just the same digestive complaints as the Members on the opposite side.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, can the Chief Whip say whether the 2 o'clock opening is only until the Whitsun Recess, or is it until the Summer Recess?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I certainly hope that it will be necessary only until the Whitsun Recess. Noble Lords opposite asked me to make as much time available as possible for this Committee stage and I thought that the extra half-hour would be appreciated.
3.33 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should now like to raise the question of Business for to-day, which I referred to yesterday in connection with the Ecclesiastical Measure which has been placed down for to-day. I know perfectly well that the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester would be sorry if we had to postpone this discussion, but I beg the House to remember and I am asking specially the Lord Bishop will consider this matter that the Ecclesiastical Measure submitted is a very important document indeed. It has 89 clauses and 9 pages of Schedules, all interrelated. It is the subject of an introductory report from the Ecclesiastical Joint Committee and would require long research by legislative reference back before any ordinary layman could really understand it. It is a tremendous task for anyone to have to undertake, and when one considers what is the business state of the House which was referred to yesterday by the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, that probably we have never had a period from now up to July when there was such pressure on this House of Parliament to deal with legislation, then I beg that we should not still further endanger proper discussion of one of the greatest unmandated Bills ever laid before the House on the local government of Greater London, by having to break off from that to-day to give the

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fullest consideration we can to a Measure of such importance as that which is submitted on behalf of the Church of England.
It is a very important Measure. There are some important reforms, and some reforms would no doubt be welcome to members of the Church of England of all views. Some are much more controversial; and when some of them are considered as being in relation to other than purely Church matters, such as civil rights, then I suggest to the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, that the only possible way of getting a fair view, and then a free vote of the House, as it is not a matter upon which Parties will exercise any influence, and to be able to understand exactly what we are doing, is to have a full day's discussion. I should like to see negotiations take place with the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester, whose name is down to move it to-day. It is a Measure which cannot be amended, with all its consequences. I beg of them to agree to postpone it, and I will help and collaborate between the Bishops' Bench and the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, if he were so inclined, to see whether we could fix a date for the future on which we could give round about a day's discussion to this vastly important Measure.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, the noble Earl has put me in an extremely awkward position. I greatly respect him, and I should not wish to suggest that I was following any course of action which was disrespectful to him, indeed, I should be anxious to give no suggestion that we are in any way trying to hurry this important Measure. But I have put down this Measure through the usual channels, this day has been allotted for the debate, and many of us have been put to considerable trouble to adjust our times so that it might be possible for us to be present at this debate. The Motion has been on the Order Paper for ten days and the first doubt I heard whether we should be able to debate the matter was at six o'clock last night, when I returned to my home after doing some work on the other side of the county. I have not had any opportunity of discussing the matter with the noble Earl, who could, presumably, have raised it with me at any time during
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the last ten days. Therefore I feel, with great reluctance, that we ought to discuss this matter now, since full notice has been given of it.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, what then becomes of my arrangement with the Government on the discussion of the London Government Bill? We are under a sort of imposition that we must cover to-day right up to the point indicated by the Government in the London Government Bill, and it is really impossible for us to work under the pressure we are with such a small number; nor do I think that half-a-dozen Members of your Lordships' House opposite have had the opportunity to master the intricacies of this particular Measure which is now to come up from the Church. It is impossible to do the two. There are bound to be feelings on both sides of the House with regard to items in this Church Measure, as, if necessary, I shall show later on, and if we cannot come to an arrangement by agreement, then our only way will be to make a sufficiently comprehensive speech on a Motion to adjourn the debate on the Ecclesiastical Measure.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think that almost everything the noble Earl has said could have been said on some Motion or other. At the moment we are only asking questions of the Chief Whip on his Business statement. I think we really must now try to get ourselves into some kind of order. So far as I am concerned, I think the noble Earl, with respect, is mistaken in trying to draw me into this controversy. This is not Government Business. I made my discussions with the noble Earl about Government Business in the knowledge of both of these things—we were both aware that this item was on the Order Paper—and I do not think they are to that extent connected. Our agreements were not conditional and they were not based on any misapprehension. I think it will probably be the wish of the House, when the business is called up, to have the right reverend Prelate develop his case. I do not know anything about the merits of the Measure myself and I do not know how many Members of either side wish to speak. I think we had better see how we go on.
With great respect to the noble Earl who leads the Opposition, I do not think

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this is a matter upon which he is speaking as Leader of the Opposition; I think he is speaking as an individual Member of the House, as in a sense I do, too. Although I wish to expedite the hearing of Government Business, as I think the Opposition does as a body, I think the courteous thing to do in this case is to allow the right reverend Prelate to put forward his Motion. Of course it would be possible, if it should prove that any part needs further consideration, to raise that point in the debate. I think the two political Parties who are in dispute in this House about the merits of the London Government Bill should not try to tie this dispute in any way to the conduct of Business. There are sections of the House to whom ecclesiastical business is important, and I think we should show a certain amount of courtesy and deference to those who wish to discuss other items of Business which are perfectly properly on the Order Paper.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, on the question of how to proceed with Business in this matter, I am not speaking for myself; I am not alone at all. It is the view of the Opposition that we ought not to have pressure put upon us, and then for the Business to be intersected by allowing an important debate such as must arise on a Church Measure. I have always felt, though I have respected the opinions of the Leader of the House, that there should be some conversations between him and the persons who put down Motions as to the state of Business and other arrangements which could be made. I do not accept that sort of half-rebuke for one moment: I have no desire to be discourteous. I think I know enough about Business procedure, after nearly forty years in Parliament, not to do the wrong thing in these matters. What the course must be is perfectly open. If the right reverend Prelate does not give way, then he will move his Motion, and in speaking to the Motion myself, when he has finished, I shall move the Adjournment of the debate, and show with reason and detail why I move it. That is not discourteous; that is actually facing up to the facts of the situation.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, all I said was that at the moment we
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are not discussing any Motion. We are simply commenting upon the Business statement, which did not in fact contain this item, by the Chief Whip. I would say, with respect to the noble Earl, that the best way of getting on with the Business is to get on with the Business.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, it should be understood the point my noble friend who leads the Opposition is raising is not the merits of the Ecclesiastical Measure at all. That can be discussed at some time, maybe to-day, maybe some other time, and the Whips will be off on our side, and I presume on the Government side, too, and everybody will be free to say what he likes. The only point my noble friend is concerned with now is whether it should come on to-day or at some later date. It has to be remembered, according to the Chief Whip's statement, which had prominent reference to the London Government Bill, that there has been cleared off the list of intended Business pretty well everything other than the London Government Bill. Therefore, my noble friend is perfectly entitled to raise the question whether it is convenient to-day to take the Ecclesiastical Measure when it is a London Government Bill day.
While I am on my feet, if the House will forgive me—I think I am in order, but only just; I will take only a minute—I would add that the House will remember that, in Committee, the Ministers on the London Government Bill said that the Metropolitan Boroughs Joint Standing Committee had assented to the bringing forward of the first election date. I have made inquiries and I am assured that the Standing Joint Committee have not agreed to the bringing forward of that election date.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Do not get cross. Do not stir me up.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, I must say that I was staggered when I received to-day the document I have in my hand and was told that it had to go through to-day, and I am glad the noble Earl my Leader has made the protest about this matter.

ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION MEASURE, 1963
3.46 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 this House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. I am grateful to the House for giving me the opportunity of presenting the Measure at this time. Before I start my speech, the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has asked me to say that, owing to the change of time of this debate, he may have to be absent for a short time during it. He hopes the House will understand his absence.
The Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure is one of the most important that has come from the Church Assembly to receive the consent of Parliament. It has as its purpose the recasting of the Ecclesiastical Courts and of their method of working. The system of Ecclesiastical Courts is of very ancient origin, dating from at least the Ordinance of William the Conqueror who separated the Ecclesiastical from the Secular Courts of the Realm. They are part of the judicial system of the land. They exercise, of course, a limited and specialised jurisdiction, for apart from faculty cases, of which I shall speak later, they are solely concerned with the trial and, if necessary, the sentencing of clergymen of the Church of England who are accused of offences involving either their conduct or doctrinal, ceremonial or ritual matters. But the Ecclesiastical Courts are the Queen's Courts, the Judges are the Queen's Judges administering the law of England. Any attempt to reform these courts and their working must therefore be approached with a sense of great responsibility, and this the Church may claim to have done.
The immediate incentive for this Measure comes from the Archbishop's Commission on the Revision of Canon Law which reported in 1947. In the consideration of the sections on the Ecclesiastical Courts it was decided that the matter was so complex and technical that it must be subject to special investigation. At the request of the Convocations, the
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Archbishops in 1951 set up a Commission on the Ecclesiastical Courts under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Lloyd Jacob. The Commission reported in 1954. Its Report was debated in the Church Assembly in the spring of 1955, and the Canon Law Steering Committees of Convocation and the House of Laity were instructed to make proposals for further action in the Assembly. This they did a year later, and when the Assembly set up a Commission to prepare a Measure it debated the directive it should give to the Commission on the specific reports. Five years later in the summer of 1961 the Measure was presented and received general approval.
In the spring and summer of 1962 it was, because of its importance and complexity, subjected to two stages of revision. In the autumn of 1962 a number of drafting amendments were accepted and the Measure was given final approval. Throughout its passage in the Assembly the Measure was keenly scrutinised; a number of amendments were proposed, and some of substantial importance were carried. No amendment was pressed to a Division. The House may rest assured, therefore, that the Measure has received the full consideration over a long period of time of the Church Assembly, and that there has been no undue haste in presenting reforms of so important an aspect of the life of the Church of the nation.
What is the need for this large-scale reconstruction? The answer is a simple one. It is that in the course of time the system of courts has become so complex and many of them have become anomalous, and in legislation over the last 120 years it has been customary to create new courts to deal with new situations. In consequence, there are at the present time for each diocese four courts and five quasi-courts, as they are called. For each Province of Canterbury and York there are six courts, and at the top there is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This Measure aims at producing order and as much simplification as possible out of what the Lloyd Jacob Commission called "a jungle of courts". It is quite true, as I have said, that the incentive for reform comes in this instance through the Canon Law Commission, but the new system proposed by the Measure is in no way dependent upon Canon Law revision, nor does it prejudge what may be

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later decided. A Measure is needed, Canon Law revision or no Canon Law revision, to clarify and bring order into a system which is at present obscure and chaotic.
I will not burden your Lordships with a detailed description of the system of courts which is proposed, for this can be found in the Measure and in the Explanatory Memorandum. I ask the House therefore to be content with a very rapid survey of their structure. In broad outline, they are designed to deal with three types of proceeding. First, faculty cases; that is to say, applications which in the main deal with the fabric and furnishings of the church. For these the Measure makes only one significant change from the existing procedure. They will be heard in the first instance by the Chancellor sitting in his consistory court in the diocese. There is an appeal to a provincial court and finally to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Only one major change is there, and that is that if the issue involves a matter of doctrinal, ceremonial or ritual consequence the appeal lies to a new court, of which I shall be speaking later, the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved.
The second group of proceedings are conduct cases: cases which involve breaches of the laws ecclesiastical, unbecoming conduct or serious neglect of duty on the part of a clerk in Holy Orders. In such cases, if the Bishop decides not to exercise his veto the matter is first remitted to an examining lawyer who decides if there is a charge to be answered. Then there is a trial before the Chancellor sitting with two clerical and two lay assessors who act as a jury and are judges of fact, and then there is an appeal to a strengthened Provincial Court. Different procedure is provided for the trial of an Archbishop or a Bishop on a conduct charge, and we trust that this machinery will not often be put into effect.
Finally, there are the cases in which a clerk in Holy Orders is charged with an offence involving doctrines ceremonial or ritual—reserved cases, as they are called. Here the Measure preserves the Bishop's right of veto. If he allows the case to go forward it is first examined by a provincial committee of inquiry. If it recommends that there is a case to be answered, it is to be submitted to a new
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court, the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved, which coinsists of three Bishops, and two persons who have held high judicial office, sitting with five expert advisers. From this Court the Measure suggests an appeal to a special Commission consisting of three Lords of Appeal who are communicant Members of the Church of England and two Bishops who sit as Lords of Parliament.
The Measure preserves, with certain liberalising amendments, the existing machinery for automatic deprivation consequent upon the conviction of a clergyman in the secular courts for certain serious offences and matrimonial offences. It creates a legal aid system to be financed by the Church Commissioners and the Central Board of Finance of the Church Assembly, and it provides a Rule Committee to draw up rules for the procedure of the courts. It is not to be expected that in a Measure of such length and complexity there would be no controversial elements. The surprising thing is that in fact there are so few, and what there are have been fully considered and vetted in the course of the passage of the Measure.
Broadly, there are three major matters which have caused concern, and I will comment upon them briefly. First, there is the abolition of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the final court of appeal in conduct and reserved cases. In general it is to be noted that the jurisdiction of the Privy Council is in any case of recent origin, having been introduced as late as 1832 to replace the Court of Delegates. In conduct cases under the Clergy Discipline Act, 1892, the Privy Council Judicial Committee exists only as an alternative court of appeal to the Provincial Court, and in the Incumbents (Discipline) Measure, 1947, which has been approved by Parliament, there is no appeal to the Judicial Committee. All six Commissions on the subject since 1883 have recommended that the Judicial Committee should cease to be the final court of appeal in conduct cases. This is a consolidating Measure, and when the framers of it had to decide how they would advise they had before them these alternative procedures, and they decided that this was the right way to go about the matter. So the Measure follows the Lloyd Jacob Commission in providing a strong Provincial Court as the final appellate court in conduct cases.

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The existence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the final court of appeal in reserved cases has long been a serious cause of conscientious scruple in the Church, for it is widely felt that in the interpreting of the doctrine of the Church of England there should in the last resource be access to a spiritual court. No one would for a moment question the prestige and the authority of the Judicial Committee, but we cannot disregard the undoubted fact that much of the trouble of the last 100 years has been due to the inability, on conscientious grounds, of a great number of churchmen to accept the authority of a court the members of which need not be members of the Church of England, or, indeed, Christians at all, as the final arbiter of the faith and practice of the Church.
As the Lloyd Jacob Commission said, even a court composed of lay judges who are members of the Church of England will not meet the real needs of the Church. In addition to such judges a final court must also consist of judges who both by their office in the Church and by their training have authority to speak on doctrinal, liturgical and spiritual issues. Only the judgments of such a court will command the confidence of the Church. Accordingly, the Measure provides, as the final court of appeal in reserved cases, in place of the Judicial Committee, a Commission under the Great Seal consisting of five persons appointed by Her Majesty, three of whom shall be Lords of Appeal who are communicant members of the Church of England and two of whom shall be Bishops who sit as Lords of Parliament.
I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that there is no attempt here to remove these matters from the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Courts. The Commission will be one of great eminence, and also it should be noted that the lay judges will be in a majority of its members. Rightly or wrongly, as I have said, the existence of the Judicial Committee as the final court in cases involving doctrine, ritual and ceremonial has been of grave conscientious scruple for the Church of England. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that if it can reasonably be avoided, the law ought not to burden the conscience of those who are subject to it. It is a considerable
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achievement that the Church Assembly, clergy and laity alike, have come to a common mind and have accepted the Commission under the Great Seal as the proper court of final appeal in these matters. It is greatly to be hoped that Parliament will agree to provide the Church with this means of bringing peace and agreement.
In the second case, the Incumbents (Discipline) Measure, 1947, provides that no clergyman may be proceeded against by virtue of his social or political opinions. This Measure continues the defence of political opinions, but no longer allows social opinions as a defence. The reason for this is that the framers of the Measure were advised that the term "social opinions" is so vague as to be incapable of definition, or alternately, it is so wide as to admit a defence in almost every possible charge. The 1892 Clergy Discipline Act does not admit such a defence as this, and therefore the framers of the Measure had to decide the best way of dealing with it. Your Lordships will remember that there are many safeguards in this—the Bishop's veto and the preliminary investigation—so it is not likely that a clergyman would ever be charged in a frivolous way under this heading. And so it has been thought wise to preserve the defence of political opinion, but to go no further.
The last major area of disagreement concerns the retention of the right of the Bishop to veto proceedings in a reserved case. I stress the word "retention" because it is sometimes suggested that this is an innovation in the Measure. In point of fact, it has ancient origins. As the Lloyd Jacob Commission commented, in old days no criminal suit could proceed unless the promoter had first secured leave of the judge for his office to be thus promoted, since, as Lord Stowell said in Maidman v. Maltless in 1794:
"The criminal jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts was not to be exercised without discretion, or to be left entirely to the judgment of passions of private persons."
The judge had a limited power of refusing leave; but it is from this power of refusal which the judges had in criminal suits that the modern Bishop's veto in clergy discipline cases has developed. The procedure, both in criminal and civil suits, was not that

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of the Common Law courts but an adaptation to the needs of the Church of the procedure of Roman civil law.
In point of fact, all the Discipline Acts and Measures since 1840 preserve the Bishop's right to veto the proceedings, if he sees fit, in both conduct and reserved cases. It is true that the Lloyd Jacob Commission recommended the abolition of the Bishop's veto in reserved cases; but it made an important reservation: it presumed that the introduction of the new courts would coincide with a revision of the law of worship. Again, may I quote its exact words:
"We Welcome what has already been achieved in the revision of the canons towards ending the divergence between law and practice in public worship.
"It is conditional on this work being carried to completion that we recommend the adoption of the procedure set out in the following pages, for the correction of ritual and ceremonial as well as doctrinal offences, and the consequent abolition of the procedure contained in the Church Discipline Act, 1840 and Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874. If, in spite of what has already been achieved in the new canons, the Church decide that the time is not yet ripe for any further action towards ending the divergence between law and practice in public worship, we can see no useful purpose in at present including in our proposals any but doctrinal cases. There will remain for ritual and ceremonial cases the provision of the Church Discipline Act, 1840 and the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874. In this event, the only safeguard against the enforcement of a law which is repudiated daily in the practice of the Church will be the veto of the Bishop."
That revision of Canon Law and of the law of worship has not yet been possible; and therefore, without the veto, the door would be wide open to frivolous and vexatious prosecution because of the vagueness of the present law of worship. In such cases as may come before the Courts Ecclesiastical the clergy are in a most vulnerable situation. They are to be tried for offences which are not chargeable in the case of the laity in the secular courts—for instance, adultery or heresy. If found guilty, they may lose their office and their means of livelihood. In conduct cases they are particularly subject to malicious gossip and tittle-tattle. In reserved cases, since every word of the Book of Common Prayer is the law of the land and every departure from its strict letter is a breach of the law, the clergy are laid wide open to vexatious prosecution. The power of
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the Bishop in exercising his pastoral office to veto further prosecution is an essential protection for the clergy, whatever tradition they may follow.
I am sorry to labour this aspect of the Measure, but I must do so in view of the representations which have been made to Members of the House and of recent correspondence in the Press. These imply that the retention of the Bishop's veto in the Measure is an innovation and represents an increase in the power of the Bishops. I hope I have convinced the House that this simply is not so. I have examined these representations as sympathetically as I can and, frankly, I am unable to understand what those who object to the veto expect to gain if they should succeed in persuading Parliament to take the grave step of withholding consent for this Measure. Should this Measure not become law, then we are back where we started, with the Bishop's veto operative as it is to-day in every Act and Measure affecting clergy discipline. Nothing will have been gained, and the clergy and laity alike will be deprived of the many liberalising elements which are unquestionably of benefit in the Measure. The abolition of the Bishop's veto in reserved cases was tested on amendment in the Church Assembly. There was a long and careful debate in the Assembly and the amendment to remove it was decisively defeated without resort to a Division. In this way the Church has clearly expressed its mind.
I must apologise to the House for having spoken at such length. Your Lordships will appreciate that behind this Measure lies not only the thought and labour of the last ten years or so, but the investigations of eight Commissions since 1883, which have devoted their attention wholly or in part to the reform of the Church courts. At last we have something to present. At every stage in the framing of this Measure we have consulted with Government Departments, the Bar Council, the Law Society and other interested and eminent bodies. We have had the benefit of advice and experience of such eminent men of law as Sir Thomas Barnes and the late Sir Alan Ellis. We believe that this Measure will make a substantial contribution to the better ordering of the

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life of the Church. I commend it with confidence to this House, for its approval.
Moved, to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 this House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Chester.)
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, might I ask the right reverend Prelate about the composition of the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved, which he said was to have a predominance of lay lawyers? Which section covers this?—because looking at Section 5 it seems to be the other way round.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: The Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved has a majority of Bishops: it comprises three Bishops and two persons of high judicial experience. The final court of appeal, which is the Commission under the Great Seal, reverses that situation and has three Lords of Appeal and two Bishops.
LORD CHORLEY: Could the right reverend Prelate tell me where this appears in the Measure? I cannot find it.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: On page 8, in Clause 11(4).
4.14 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The Question has been put, and therefore I rise to speak to the Motion and to give notice that at the end I intend to move an Amendment to adjourn the debate for the time being. I am very sorry to have to do this. It is true that the Motion was on the Paper, but in the turmoil which we in Opposition have been suffering in arranging Business in the last fortnight—which any Member of the Front Bench opposite would agree has been the position—this matter has hardly been in our thoughts at all. If there has been any inconvenience to the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester because of what I have to do now, I regret it; but in view of the importance of the Measure, which he has no more than outlined to-day—if I may say so; he has given a highly skilled summary of this Measure—there are those of us who have to consider the actual effects of this,
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not from the point of view of discussions in Convocation but of the effect on the people of this country as a whole.
What is to happen to certain rights which civilians have in regard to some processes of law which must necessarily be laid down and, I hope, followed in conjunction with what is, after all, a State Church? Since it is connected with the Constitution of the country, the only Constitution, with Her Majesty as its head, there is an implication that we must have it properly governed in the interests of the only piece of statutory Constitution of the country as a whole that I can ever find (the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, will correct me if I am wrong), and that is the Act of 1689, which is the only piece of Statute we have which preserves the Protestant succession. I am bound to say that in this connection I have very grave doubts as to what is in the minds of some people—not all—in the Church as to what the future of the Church in relation to this matter will be.
The right reverend Prelate said in the course of his speech that it was not intended to do this or to do that, but that some of these alterations were necessary. Let me take one point which is very prominent in my mind. There are civil rights in the community, in connection with both Church ecclesiastical law and Church practice, which a civilian has. We are, whether we like it or not, in law a Protestant State. I have not enjoyed very much the opinions which have been expressed in previous debates, such as that on May 10, 1961, and I do not enjoy having to engage in them. But I was born into the Church of England as a baby, I was brought up in it until I was 22; I sang in the choir for many years; and I have said more than once in this House that I love the Prayer Book of the Church of England, I have a great affection for it. In my Nonconformist preaching I often use great passages from it, and I do not suppose there is any other document in my mind which can possibly compare in richness, in humility and praise with the General Thanksgiving in the Prayer Book.
I am also aware of the fact that the Prayer Book is not being followed by ministers. Probably a majority of the

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clergy in the Church of England to-day deliberately ignore the decisions of Parliament in 1927 and 1928, in spite of the trenchant comments in the Report of the Royal Commission in 1906 that the existence of such a state of affairs was a public scandal. Nothing seems to be done about it, or to make sure that the Prayer Book is being properly used and expounded and loved as it should be. If I and high members of espiscopacy take it into their minds to go and deliver sermons at services or meetings which support the clergy in doing these things it becomes an even greater abuse. I cannot understand how a metropolitan Bishop, or the Lord Bishop of Colchester, whom I know slightly, will go and preach in a Church of England, or at a Church Conference, or an Anglo-Catholic Conference, at a Celebration of High Mass, when the trenchant Articles of Religion clearly lay down that it is the belief of the Church of England that the Mass is a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit.
You must not expect that all the members of the Church of England can be in Convocation or in Church Assembly, or that there is not a very considerable number of the members of the Church of England who are not in agreement in all respects with the kind of Measure which is now proposed—although I am quite sure that the great majority of Church of England members will welcome many of the milder reforms which are in this Measure. But before Parliament can really make a decision on a Measure of this kind, surely it is entitled to have time to study all its legal implications and what may be its results. I doubt very much whether any lawyer in the House at the present time, unless he is a very confirmed member of the Church who has been interested all the time in the meetings of Convocation and the Church Assembly, could tell me the meanings of every clause in this 89-clause Measure. Nor have we had anything like a detailed explanation by the right reverend Prelate, who spoke so well but in summary. This is a Measure which requires real legal delving into before what is likely to be the result can be fully appreciated.
Now let us look at the reason why I think it is necessary to postpone it for a full debate. I noted all that the noble
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Prelate said about the question of the Bishop's veto. I noticed that he said that it was a retention, and in no sense an expansion. However, it is perfectly true that there are very well respected clergy in the Church of England who are nervous about it; and before I had a chance even to see it at that time I was present at a meeting at Caxton Hall as recently as May 7, at which the Reverend Paul Johnson, a very able speaker and a great preacher of the Gospel, and the incumbent, I think, of that famous church, St. Mary's, Islington, was the principal speaker. To-day I have got hold of a copy of the English Churchman magazine, which reports that meeting, and it picks out in block type words which the Reverend Paul Johnson used. He said:
"Britain's national church is in danger of becoming an episcopal sect".
That is one comment upon it. It goes on to say:
"The New Testament pattern of the local church is in danger of being replaced by a system of diocesan …",
and so on. It goes on to say—I am sorry my sight is not good enough for me to read quickly on this matter; it is purely a question of sight at the moment:
"The doctrinal basis of the Thirty-nine Articles is in danger of being undermined by the sanctioning of services which are anti-Reformation and unscriptural."
For all the years I have been in London there has always been a ministry from St. Mary's, Islington, of great dignity, great honesty, always basing itself, perhaps primarily, as I think it should, upon the authority of the Word of God as being the prime authority to which to turn. The Reverend Maurice Wood, the predecessor of Paul Johnson, was a very charming man and able to get on with most people, but on these matters he was equally firm.
The first real publicity which came to the general public, as distinct from those who were specially interested in meetings of the Church alone in the Church Assembly or in Convocation, was published—and I am glad they did it—by the Daily Telegraph yesterday in a letter from the Editor of the Churchman. I am sure all the right reverend Prelates present will agree with me that the Churchman is a good paper. It is, I

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think, the official organ of the Church Society, which is known to be, of course, quite Protestant in its views, but which contains large numbers of very faithful members of the Church of England—very faithful—and not only clergy but also laymen of that Church. The emphasis laid in that letter was no doubt one of the things which the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester had in mind when he was answering on this question of the veto of the Bishops towards the end of his speech.
But then I see that that is followed up by a circular to all Members of Parliament of both Houses, signed by six lawyers. I do not need to go through the whole list of six; I would take two as being amply sufficient evidence of their capacity and integrity. One is Professor Anderson, who is the Professor of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London, and the other is Mr. Roche, Q.C., whose reputation at the Bar and whose capacity as a counsel I am quite content to leave in the hands of the noble Viscount the Leader of the House or the noble Lord who sits upon the Woolsack, for them to give their opinion. There is no doubt about their opinion as to the result of the proposals in this Measure with regard to the veto. This Measure extends it.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: It extends it in no way whatsoever, my Lords.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: That is my view, at any rate, from the brief time I have had to look at it. I will go back again to my studies. I do not want to contradict the right reverend Prelate at all. I will look again at it; but that is the impression in the mind of the Editor of the Churchman, and it is the impression, obviously, in the minds of the six learned lawyers who wrote their circular to Members of both Houses of Parliament—and I have looked at that very carefully.
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: I do not think so, my Lords. I think the impression the lawyers were trying to give was not that the episcopal veto was being extended, but that it was a bad thing in principle and ought to be abolished.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Perhaps one or two phrases might be read in that connection, but I think that the general weight of the letter is that it is a Measure which ought to be most carefully considered by Parliament—most carefully considered. The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester was present, I think, at the meeting which prepared the Report of the Ecclesiastical Joint Committee; and I think that Report now says that there are two matters only, outside the other matters connected with the courts and in relation to the veto of the Bishops, that are really important. They are—I speak from memory—in Clause 45(3) and Clause 48(5) of the Measure. I take this as referring to the question of the future of the access to the Privy Council Judiciary. That is now to be put in such a way that cases connected with doctrine, ritual and ceremonial can be excluded altogether. In part (from what the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester said) in some respects some of these matters have already been restricted in certain matters of appeal; but in this case they are deliberately provided for to make the law of the future what is outlined in the two subsections which I have mentioned.
How does that really work? I do not know exactly. What I suspect is that, to some degree, part of it has been put in because it is believed that only foolish or highly hysterical people would raise matters in these connections in a charge against an incumbent or other persons or against a Bishop or any Archbishop. That is not so at all. I am President of the United Kingdom Council of Protestant Churches; I am a Vice-President of the International Council of Christian Churches; I am a Vice-President of the Protestant Truth Society. I have a pretty wide circle of contacts and of experience of being able to assess what is in people's minds. In all those organisations we have very many people representative of the Church of England. Some of us are Nonconformist, including Congregationalist. Perhaps to-day the Church of England strongly rue that they ever had them expelled in 1662. They rue the expulsion from the Church of men like Richard Baxter and his like. What a pity that was! I find that in these large and joint Protestant organisations, these people are very reasonable. But always they have

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the firm belief that from the moment the Church of England became a reformed Church, following upon the Reformation led by Martin Luther, then matters changed for this country; and the actual progress and development of this country, and its world influence, have largely been based upon the principles of civil and religious liberty which came only with the Reformation of the Church of England as well as the reformation of other Churches. That is the opinion.
They like to feel to-day, in the Protestant sections of the Church of England, that they have the authority of the Prayer Book which is loved, but which is not always kept. They love the service which was prescribed, and which sometimes is varied in a somewhat sensational manner. I will not comment upon that, because I have not myself heard these sensational services; so I do not know much about them. But there is a feeling in the Church of England, among these members with whom I am acquainted, and whom I respect and admire, that we are tending to fall away from the great high principles of witnessing that we had in the reformed Church of England. That would be a very great pity. The whole state of the world at the present time, I think, would be all the better if there were complete unity in the Church of England on the basic Protestant doctrines which are inherent in the Constitution of our reformed State Church.
It seems to me that if there is a continuing breaking-away from that, then no longer will there be a really fundamental ability to establish the rights of the Church of England alone to be the State Church. That is why I said yesterday, and I say again to-day, that in dealing with laws likely to affect the civil population (as I think they will be affected by the break in the right of appeal to the Privy Council) then, if that break is there, I think you are getting into very dangerous situations. The question of a civil right being taken by means of a part of a Measure published under the authority given by the 1919 Act and having a general effect on the rights of the citizens in this matter is a constitutional concern of the first importance. I do not want to take an unreasonably long time to-day; but in my view it would be very much better if, having heard the summary, which was put in a skilful way by the right
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reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester, we were now to postpone for the time being the rest of the debate and proceedings on this Bill. Perhaps someone would be willing to take up the offer I made, and we could have a joint agreement between the leaders of the Parties and representatives of the Church so that we could give a whole day at least to a discussion of this matter. When those discussions come, I would suggest that consideration of the constitutional implications of the changes as I see them—where a constitutional change affects not just the Church but the citizenship of the country—ought first to be held not in your Lordships' House, but in the elected Chamber as constitutional business.
I have a lot more in my mind to say. I do not want to delay the House any longer but I think I have made a case that there is grave disagreement in some parts of the country about the proposed changes, and that the people of the country in general have not yet had the opportunity of studying it. The Measure itself, which I have before me and which I see was ordered to be printed by Parliament, could not be bought in Her Majesty's Stationery Office any time this week by any of my friends. They were turned away and sent to the Church Information Office in order to obtain copies. It is only after those people who could get hold of the Measure from about May 4 or 5 have had time to go into the matter in detail that you get the kind of communication published in the Daily Telegraph yesterday and a circular from the lawyers to us—and many more will come. I beg the House to agree that we should postpone further debate on this matter. I will certainly do my best to assist in the arranging of a whole day for discussion in your Lordships' House. At the same time perhaps the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester will consider whether it would not be wise after all, to place this Measure for debate first of all in another place. I beg to move.
Moved as an Amendment, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Earl Alexander of Hillsborough.)
4.39 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the last thing I ever imagined was that I would wish to speak on a matter of this kind. But I feel impelled to support my noble friend for two reasons. Normally I have always regarded these Measures which

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have come from the Church Assembly as domestic Measures which this House is asked to approve as a matter of form, and I think the matter has been treated in that way. But after the explanation of this particular Measure from the right reverend Prelate, it does look as if there are certain matters of principle to which this House will be asked to agree, and I think that in these circumstances the assent of the House should be a real one. It is true that the Measure has been on the Order Paper for ten days. My noble friend says that copies of the Measure were not actually obtainable until quite recently. Be that as it may, I think that most of us who saw it on the Order Paper regarded it as one of the normal Measures which come before us and are passed, after explanation, as a matter of routine.
There are at least two matters which some of us would like to think about and discuss with others perhaps more qualified to express a view than we are ourselves. I am not going to enter into any doctrinal discussions, because I am not qualified to do so. The first point is, as I understand the Measure, that in certain circumstances there is to be a tribunal set up which will consist in part of three High Court Judges, all of whom should be confirming members of the Church of England.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: Lords of Appeal.
LORD SILKIN: Yes, my Lords. There may conceivably be a good case for that. But one would like to think about it. I am bound to say that, with my knowledge of the English Constitution, I have never come across a case where a court is built up on the basis of the religious beliefs of the Judges. We pride ourselves that we make no inquiries about the religious beliefs of Judges, and we have Judges of all kinds of religious belief, and possibly of none at all. That a person should hold one particular religious belief or another we do not regard as prejudicial to the holding of high judicial office.
In fact, in the past, we made great sacrifices for the freedom of religious belief and for the avoidance of any kind of bar to holding any kind of office on the basis of religious belief. And in the
high office which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor holds, there have been men of various religious beliefs, including the late Lord Reading, who was a Jew and not a Christian at all, and he held office with high distinction. While, as I say, there may be a case for this particular court to be composed in the way in which it is proposed, it is a matter which I think this House should not approve lightly or without full consideration, and we have not had an opportunity of that consideration.
Then it is proposed to end the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in certain types of case. The right reverend Prelate told us that this was of fairly recent origin, going back only to 1832. But that is quite a long way back and, in fact, it has been the law for 130 years. Again, it should not be lightly abolished. I am not saying that there may not be a case for it, but I would submit to the right reverend Prelate that before Parliment is asked to agree to this, it ought to have a proper opportunity of considering it. The right reverend Prelate has explained quite clearly and fairly what this Measure is, and he has rendered great service to the House in telling us of the substance of the Measure, but, of course, we have not had an opportunity of examining it.
I think that, with the right reverend Prelate's explanation and the Measure before us and a little time, when we are less pressed than we are to-day, we should have a better opportunity of judging whether these revolutionary proposals should be accepted or not. I would appeal to the right reverend Prelate, having made his speech, not to press us further to-day and to give us an adequate opportunity of considering the matter. If the right reverend Prelate presses us, I imagine that he will have his way, but, if I may respectfully say so, he would be ill-advised to do so.
4.47 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 34; Not-Contents, 66.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Allendale, V.

Champion, L.

Alexander of Hillsborough, E.

Carrington, L.

Chesham, L.

Chorley, L.

Henderson, L.

Melchett, L.

Devonshire, D.

Henley, L.

Mersey, V.

Dudley, E.

Inman, L.

Ogmore, L.

Effingham, E.

Jellicoe, E.

Shepherd, L. [Teller.]

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Lansdowne, M.

Silkin, L.

Faringdon, L.

Latham, L.

Sinha, L.

Ferrers, E.

Listowel, E.

Stonham, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Lloyd, L.

Summerskill, B.

Grantchester, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.)

Walston, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Dundee, E.

Margesson, V.

Albemarle, E.

Eccles, L.

Merrivale, L.

Aldington, L.

Exeter, L. Bp.

Meston, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Exeter, M.

Mills, V.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Fortescue, E.

Milverton, L.

Ampthill, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Molson, L.

Astor, V.

Gage, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Goschen, V.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Beauchamp, E.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Newcastle, L. Bp.

Bessborough, E.

Hanworth, V.

Newton, L

Blackford, L.

Hawke, L. [Teller.]

Onslow, E.

Boston, L.

Home, E.

Poulett, E.

Brentford, V.

Horsbrugh, B.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Bridgeman, V. [Teller.]

Howe, E.

Salisbury, M.

Chester, L. Bp.

Ilford, L.

Saltoun, L.

Colgrain, L.

Jessel, L.

Sandford, L.

Colyton, L.

Killearn, L.

Somers, L.

Conesford, L.

Kilmuir, E.

Soulbury, V.

Craigton, L.

London, L. Bp.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Davidson, V.

Long, V.

Suffield, L.

Denham, L.

Luke, L.

Twining, L.

Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Winchester, L. Bp.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, this means that we can go back now to discuss the merits of the Measure, because it has not been fully discussed, and I hope that any Member on any side of the House who has views about it will not let this Measure go through by mere default of proper examination and debate. We have moved, and succeeded in getting people of all Parties into the Division Lobby, in favour of the Amendment for Adjournment and I think at this stage I should like to leave the debate to other noble Lords, if they will join in.
4.57 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, it really is a matter of sincere regret on my part that I find myself in opposition to this Motion, first, because I know it is always a great mistake, as well as a matter of personal regret, to find myself on the opposite side of debate to the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester; and secondly, because I am exceedingly conscious of the immense need for a reform of the Ecclesiastical Courts. I am equally conscious of the tremendous amount of work, effort, thought and
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prayer which has been put into the consideration of the reform of the Ecclesiastical Courts over the last ten years. There is so much in this Measure which is good and of which I would whole-heartedly approve that it is, as I say, a matter of exceedingly deep regret that I find there is one point in it which precludes me from voting in favour of its passing.
There are quite a number of points in this Measure which I would prefer to see amended or altered, but there is only this one point which, to me, is fundamental and which causes me to adopt this rather drastic course of voting against it. That point is the one to which the right reverend Prelate addressed himself at considerable length, with great fluency and very convincingly—namely, the question of the retention of the Bishop's veto in reserved cases. There was one point upon which I should like to comment in what the right reverend Prelate said in regard to the debates in the Church Assembly. He repeated very faithfully the history of how the debates went; but I think it is fair to say that when a decision was taken in the Assembly on this particular question of the Bishop's veto, the overwhelming majority of the House of Clergy, not

1455
unnaturally, voted for, or expressed themselves in favour of, the Bishop's veto, and in the House of Laity there was a substantial minority which expressed themselves as being opposed to it.
The basic reason why I am opposed to the Measure on the ground that it retains the Bishop's veto in these reserved cases is that, by so doing, it departs from the basic principles in the Lloyd Jacob Report. There is one thing that I should like to take up with the right reverend Prelate, and that is as regards this being a retention. Of course it is a retention in the sense that in the 1874 Act the Bishops have a right of veto, but I think I am correct in saying that they were able to exercise that right of veto under that Act only with full publication of what they were doing and why they were doing it, whereas in this Measure the right of veto by the Bishop is an entirely private thing, and he is under no obligation, by virtue of the Measure, to impart anything but his decision to anybody at all.
Nor is he under any obligation to give any reasons or causes which have led him to arrive at the decision. If I may refer your Lordships to the Report of the Lloyd Jacob Commission, they say on page 74:
"In the correction of the kind of offence which we have placed in the reserved category there must be some authority with power to decide whether or not the case is to go forward for trial. Even if there is a prima facie case against the accused a trial in a court of law may not be the best means of dealing with the matter, but whether or not the case is allowed to go forward for trial the complainant has every right to have a full inquiry made into the act of which he complains, since it may affect his faith and his part in the services of the Church, and in the event of the case not being allowed to go forward he has a right to know the reason why. The full inquiry, and the decision whether the case should be tried or not, should be made by a body which is more widely representative of the Church than the Bishop of the diocese where the case has arisen, but the Bishop as a pastor will have his own particular knowldege of the circumstances and should be allowed an opportunity of pastoral action before the inquiry stage of making appropriate representations at that stage."
The vital importance of that quotation is, I think, that the full inquiry should be made by a body which is more widely representative of the Church than the Bishop of the diocese, because it may well be understood that it is only in that way that it is possible
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to obtain the uniformity with regard to the three points which come up for consideration under this Measure, namely, the questions of doctrine, ritual and ceremony. Following upon this quotation, the Report goes on at the bottom of page 76 to make the definite recommendation
"that the Bishop should be informed at the outset that the complaint has been made, and that he should be given an opportunity of settling the case by pastoral action. For this he should be allowed one month. The Bishop will not be able to veto the proceedings or to try or sentence the accused clergyman. His action is to be that of a pastor. By talking the whole matter over with the complainant and the accused he may be able to bring both to such a frame of mind that the complainant may decide to withdraw his complaint."
That is the recommendation of the Lloyd Jacob Report, which has been departed from in this particular Measure.
The Commission go on to recommend that there should be a court of inquiry, and the provision with regard to the inquiry is that it should be by a Convocational Committee which would be representative of the whole of the Province. This recommendation was adopted by the Measure and the Committee was also given power of veto, and, therefore, in the Measure as it stands at the present time any complainant has to overcome two hurdles before he can even get his complaint raised in the courts on an action or trial. First of all, he has to overcome the Bishop's right of veto and, secondly, he has to overcome the right of veto of the Committee of Inquiry. Both those rights of veto are entitled to be exercised on exactly the same grounds, namely, that the matter is a trivial one; that it would not be in the interests of the Church of England for it to be pursued, or that the cause arose through extenuating circumstances. In any of those three events, not only is the Bishop given the right of exercising his veto upon the initiation or continuation of the proceedings, but the committee of inquiry is similarly given the same right.
One argument I think the right reverend Prelate put forward for the retention of this right of veto was that it was hallowed by the passage of time, having been exercised by Bishops since early in the last century. But I would pray in aid another argument which

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my noble friend used himself, and that was with regard to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He pointed out that that Committee had been hearing appeals in these cases since 1834 (I think it was) but, nevertheless, that was not any longer hallowed by the length of time in which it had been exercised. When an alternative means of appeal, superior, in my noble friend's estimation, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, came to be discovered, then it was right and proper that the Privy Council's rights of hearing appeals of these cases should be done away with. What is just for the Privy Council is surely just for the Bishop's veto, and if it is found that the Bishop's veto can be superseded by some superior method, then I submit to your Lordships that it is right and proper that the Bishop's veto should go. I submit that this alternative method proposed by the Lloyd Jacob Committee is a superior method.
The right reverend Prelate also indicated that one necessary reason for the Bishop's veto was to put an end to the possible raising of frivolous complaints, for which it was hardly worth while to bring together the superior machinery of this Provincial Committee of Inquiry. I do not attach any importance whatsoever to that argument. To begin with, complaints under Section 19 of the Measure can be made only by an authorised person—that is to say, some person in the parish who has been authorised by the Bishop to make the complaint, or by six members of full age, whose names are on the electoral roll. Those people are going to be sensible and responsible, and they are not going to bring forward a whole host of frivolous complaints, such as was rather indicated might be the possibility and which might lead to the need of the Bishops' veto.
But there is another argument, too, in favour of letting the Committee of Inquiry deal with this matter direct, and that is, that the Committee of Inquiry have the power of ordering a frivolous complainant to pay the costs of the application; and that, I submit to your Lordships, is a very valuable sanction and is certainly going to make people think twice, if not thrice, before they introduce any frivolous complaints.
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I do submit to your Lordships that the Bishops' Veto is bad because, among other things, it enables a Bishop to prevent the enforcement of ecclesiastical law with which he may personally be in disagreement, and I think it might put several of the right reverend Prelates into a position of very grave difficulty if they were called upon to decide whether or not to exercise their right of veto in regard to an infringement of the law which they themselves have regularly practised in the days before they were translated to the Upper Bench. But, in any event, such a procedure would inevitably result in the very grave danger of a lack of uniformity in the enforcement of the ecclesiastical law in the law of this country.
I believe that the inclusion of the Bishop's veto derogates very strongly indeed from the fundamental principle which is implicit in the Report of the Lloyd Jacob Commission, that reserve cases which deal with doctrinal, ritual or ceremonial, and may therefore well affect the whole Church, should be dealt with only at a Church, national or provincial level. This I differentiate from conduct cases, because conduct cases are very largely of a domestic character and can perfectly well be dealt with in the diocese and through the diocesan Bishop himself. But these reserve cases are of infinitely wider importance and wider application to the Church of England as a whole.
My Lords, I will conclude with one quotation, if I may, from a book written and published this year by the Archdeacon of Hastings entitled The Church of England: its members and its business,—and he has noted with dissatisfaction how, as a result of Church Assembly legislation,
"the diocesan Father in God and pastor, with a limited constitutional reign over his diocese, is being replaced by the prelate with the powers of an administrative autocrat. Almost annually some new Measure of the Church Assembly adds to his power of veto and consent in administrative matters. In England the trend is away from constitutional episcopacy to a monarchical Bench of Bishops …. Yet these anomalies have been created by Church Assembly legislation. It may therefore be supposed that the Assembly is not aware of the full effect of some of the Measures of which it approves."
I submit that the Bishop's veto would be a further instance of this anomalous trend, which, by increasing the Bishops'

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autocratic prerogative, can in the end only weaken their pastoral authority. Neither the trend as a whole, nor this particular instance of it, seem to be in the best interests of the English Church, and I therefore submit to your Lordships that we should not pass this Measure.
5.15 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I think it is a very long time since I have seen our Bishops' Bench in your Lordships' House so well and so worthily occupied, headed by the most reverend Primate himself. In spite of that fact, I cannot help thinking that this Measure which is proposed to your Lordships is something of a curate's egg; parts of it are quite excellent but there are one or two parts on which I should like my mind to be clear before I give a vote of consent to it. In my lifetime, the ritual practice of the Church of England has altered very much indeed. I very much suspect that its doctrine has also altered a good deal, but that is only a suspicion because I am not such a fool as to engage in doctrinal arguments with my parson. I was brought up ferociously plain, and I defy anybody to call the ritual that is practised in the Church of England to-day ferociously plain. I do not mind: it does not matter to me what other people do; other people please themselves. So long as they do not molest me, it makes no difference to me.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, if I can interrupt my noble friend for one minute—I know perfectly well that within a mile of your Lordships' House he will find at least one place of worship which he would call ferociously plain, and others which are the other extreme. In the Church of England we have to try to find the one we like among many different types.
LORD SALTOUN: I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, because he anticipated me in making exactly the point at which I was going to arrive, because my view of the Church of England is that it is a national Church. It ought, therefore, to accommodate as many varieties of people as it possibly can within its arms, and my feeling always is that of Erasmus, in that you should define doctrine as little as possible in order to embrace all men in Christianity. For that very reason, I am very much disturbed at the proposed abolition of the jurisdiction of the Privy Council
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in doctrinal matters, because doctrine is a matter very largely of definition and I am perfectly certain that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is very much more highly efficient in defining the philosophic meaning of terms than would be an ecclesiastical body—for this reason. The ecclesiastical body must necessarily be orthodox, and, therefore, its mind is occupied by certain definite interpretations, whereas the Judicial Committee will have a very much wider scope.
The quarrel in this matter is really the quarrel of authority against logic, and I will remind your Lordships of a very old story which most of the right reverend Prelates who are listening to me will probably remember. It is of the case of Bishop Colenso, who denied entirely the existence of Hell, and so, of course, was guilty of heresy because Hell is mentioned in the Apostles' Creed, which is enjoined by the XXXIX Articles. He was condemned of heresy and he appealed to the Privy Council. The Privy Council absolved him and let him go clear, and the evening papers of the day announced the fact in glorious headlines, saying, "Hell dismissed with costs". For these reasons, I should be very sorry to see the jurisdiction of the Privy Council abolished.
There is another point in this document which gives me considerable concern, and that is that it is proposed that the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved should take powers to try the most reverend Primate. What would they try him for? I presume it would be for heresy. I have met with an 18th century case of an Archbishop who was tried for heresy by a conclave of Bishops. He was the Archbishop of Lima. The conclave sat, and I believe his body is said to be beneath the central aisle of the cathedral of Lima; and that was the conclusion of that case. But I think it is utterly wrong that a court should take powers to try, on any ecclesiastical charge, the most reverend Primate. If they did so, what would be the effect? The most reverend Primate is chosen by Her Majesty. A congé d'élire goes to the Chapter and they elect him. On election and consecration he becomes, after the Princes of the blood, the principal subject of Her Majesty in this land and a leading Member of your Lordships' House.

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Supposing he was condemned in heresy, what would be the result? He could walk in here exactly the same. It would have no effect. It would be a most absurd procedure, and in any case I think it would be most indiscreet. To take power to commit an indiscretion is a very stupid thing. What is heresy? Every lively church is full of heresy. One of the saddest, if most amusing, episodes in the 19th century, to my mind, is that Cardinal Newman left his Church and went to Rome because he could not make sense of the XXXIX Articles. Well, my Lords, who can make sense of some of the XXXIX Articles? If you could make sense of them they would not be fit to be articles of religion, because the world and the ordering of the world, in spite of all the Church does, is still a large question mark. And the very fact that you cannot make logical sense of some of the XXXIX Articles is that which fits them for their place, because it is reverence for the things you do not know.
Therefore, to me, the only charge conceivable on which the most reverend Primate could be tried by this new court is that of heresy; and to try him would be absurd. And as I hope that not only my noble friends the right reverend Prelates, but the most reverend Primate himself, are very often guilty of heresies, because it shows that their faith is alive, on that ground, too, I would urge an alteration in this Measure. For those two reasons I think the Measure should be taken back and reconsidered, and I hope that many of your Lordships will agree with me.
5.25 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I think most of the Members of the House who have taken part in, this discussion this afternoon have been practising members of the Church of England. I do not speak from that point of view. The Church is, in fact, the Established Church, and every citizen is therefore entitled to consider all measures of a constitutional character with which it is concerned. Also I have been asked by friends who are strong members of the Church and lawyers to put the point of view, or, rather, to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" of the remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford.
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Therefore, from that point of view, too, I should like to take up a few minutes of your Lordships' time.
I think the main argument against this Measure is the problem of the veto, which has been well put before your Lordships. But before adding a few words on that matter I would cross swords with my noble friend Lord Saltoun, because I think he got the Colenso case a little bit wrong. I agree that the Colenso case is a very strong argument for the view that the jurisdiction of the Privy Council should be retained in cases of this kind. Colenso was the Bishop Barnes of his time from many points of view, because he was, in fact, one of the most eminent mathematicians of mid-Victorian times, just as Bishop Barnes was one of the most eminent mathematicians of the earlier part of this century; and he was, for his own time, very heretical. I do not think he denied Hell: what he said was that punishment was not eternal. He said that it was not consistent with his conception of the Deity and any really proper conception of the Deity to believe that punishment could be eternal. In mid-Victorian times that was a very unorthodox doctrine. He had, of course, been made Bishop of Natal; and, as I recollect it, the Metropolitan of South Africa, Cape Town, proceeded to remove him from the bishopric. And the basis of his appeal to the Privy Council was not really that doctrinal point at all, but on the basis that the Metropolitan of Cape Town was exceeding his jurisdiction in removing him from the See of Natal. It was on that point the Privy Council ruled.
I think that if the noble Lord will refer to the books on the subject, he will find that, although the Lord Chancellor of the day, who presided in the Privy Council, was popularly said to have "dismissed Hell, with costs", the Privy Council did not, in fact, rule on the doctrinal point at all but on the question of jurisdiction. The value of the case is that it needed the objective consideration of these facts by the Privy Council to deal with this matter in a just way. But heresies which now are held by many very devout Christians, including Bishops, had raised such a feeling of emotional passion, not only in South Africa but also on the part of members of the Church of England and Bishops in this country, that they were not able to take an objective

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view and deal with this matter dispassionately. That, I suggest, is one of the compelling reasons why the Privy Council should be kept in this position in regard to matters of this sort, because they are matters which arouse passions of the most virulent kind, as anybody who has made any sort of study of religious history knows. I think the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, is quite right in saying that the Privy Council's jurisdiction should be retained, even if he did not get the historical facts exactly right.
This question of the veto is a very important one. The arguments set out by these six lawyers, mostly men of considerable eminence in the law and strong churchmen, have been sent, I think, to all Members of the House, and I do not want to go over that ground again in detail. But it does seem to me that there is a strong case against the Bishop coming in, so to speak, as a legal officer. Surely the Lloyd Jacob Commission were quite right when they said that the Bishop ought to be in these cases as a conciliator, as a higher pastor, so to speak, who sees the complainant and discusses the problem with him and, if it seems to be frivolous, tries to dissuade him from going on with it. But that is hardly compatible with the position of being a judge which is then put upon him. He cannot really do both these jobs, and it is not fair to him to require him to do so. No judge who was on terms comparable with those on which a Bishop should be with the priest in his diocese, would do such a thing.
Quite apart from that, in many cases they are on terms of personal friendship, and probably were at college together. Whether it is a case of an allegation of immorality or heresy, how can a Bishop possibly bring a really objective and fair mind to deal with the situation of deciding whether or not to exercise his veto? Suppose it is a question of ritual; he may be a strong ritualist himself. In those circumstances, some bishops would probably say, "This is a silly objection to ritual; I am going to veto it". Others would fall over backwards, in order to try to show that they were being fair, and would go to the other extreme. The great difficulty in a situation of that kind is exercising a judicial function at all.
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In this House there are many of your Lordships who are justices of the peace, and you know perfectly well—I have had it happen to me—that if a case comes before the bench in which you know the accused you immediately say, "I cannot sit on this case; I know the accused". Yet here there is exactly the opposite position: a Bishop knows the accused as one of the priests in his diocese—a man who may be one of his oldest friends—and he is called upon to exercise the veto. Really, my Lords, it is not good enough. Surely the Lloyd Jacob Commission took the only proper view in this sort of situation. As we have heard so often, justice should not only be done but should be seen to be done. This is emphatically a case, where if this proposal goes through, that important principle will be broken.
There are many other points in regard to this matter which are predominantly ecclesiastical. The composition of the Reserved Court itself. It is true that in an exceptional case where there is a petition to the Crown there may be three bishops and two laymen; but in the ordinary case, as I pointed out when asking the right reverend Prelate about Section 5, the tribunal is predominantly ecclesiastical and not lay; and that is so in regard to other points, as pointed out in this Memorandum by the lawyers. So there are really quite a number of serious objections to this Measure as it comes before your Lordships this afternoon. They can be quite easily put right if the Church would take the Measure back and correct it. As most of it is unexceptionable, I am certain that there would then be no difficulty in persuading your Lordships to accept it.
5.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, I wish to say a very few words in general support of this Measure. I do not think it is fair to say that it has been rushed on this House. It is the result of a very long period of thought, deliberation and prayer, and it is not necessary for one to have read Church literature—it is enough to have studied merely the responsible Press—to have followed how, over the past two years, this Measure has been worked out. There has been ample opportunity to know its contents.
I think the cause which is closest to the hearts of most Christians to-day is

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the reunion of the Christian Churches. We know that it may not take place in our lifetime, but we also know that in the last few years there has been a change extending through the whole spectrum of Christianity to an increase of charity and a desire for unity. One of the obstacles to unity has been the fact that it is hard for Churches to get together when one of them is subject to essentially political control—a control that may be exercised by Governments which have a very small Christian element in them. That fact was recognised in the Report of the Commission of the Church of England and the Methodist Church sitting under my own diocesan Bishop, the Lord Bishop of Oxford, when the Church of England representatives frankly acknowledged that one of the reasons why the Nonconformists had separated from the Church was that they had objected to the fact that there was a political control (political in a broad sense) over what should be a spiritual society, and that in the long run the Church would have to become again a spiritual society rather than a part of the temporal structure of a political country.
That is equally true in the international sphere. One cannot imagine that if there is to be reunion of Christianity it will be easy to fit in Churches which depend on the Government of some particular country. It can be done only on a universal basis. If that is so, this Measure surely is a tentative but proper step in that direction. With an immense number of safeguards it allows the Church to be more mistress of her own house, but while there has been a great lay element in it, an element appointed by the Crown in this Act, it is moving towards giving more control over its own affairs, becoming a more self-governing spiritual society and less dependent on Parliament.
After all, we know, I think, that one of the reasons why Parliament controlled it was that, at the time of great ecclesiastical fighting, when the aim was to make a line and to say "This is the line you have got to follow"—after the days of the great civil wars, and so forth—was to prevent moves to the right and to the left, if I may use those terms. Now that has changed. Far from trying to be restrictive, the Church is trying to extend hands both to the right and to the
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left towards reunion. I know how strongly some noble Lords, for whom I have the greatest respect, feel on this matter, but those of us who have been brought up in this century have always felt that one of the greatest obstacles to our minds and consciencies was to see denominational strife. Those of us who have lived some time abroad in countries where the Christians form a small minority have always thought it a most awful thing to see the Churches of Christ, instead of loving each other, always pulling at each other and rivalling each other.
Equally those of us who were brought up not in the age of the last century, when everybody was assumed to be Christian, but in the twentieth century, where Christianity has had every form of intellectual and materialistic, agnostic and atheist attack, the Church can no longer, if it is to hold out against attack, afford the luxury of internal denominational strife within the Church. In the end, if it is to play its role it must be an international spiritual society not dependent on Governments; and this Measure is, I think, with great respect, a move in that direction. Obviously if any of us had to draft it, we could each have done it better. But in the end, my Lords, I think it is right that the Church, which has spent such a long time on this, should have the support of this House. The amount of opposition is extraordinarily small, considering how wide and independent the Church is, and it is right that this House should express its confidence and support this Measure.
5.40 p.m.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, has spoken as he has done, because he has been the first to bring out the wider implications of this Measure. This is why I regret that we did not have a greater opportunity to consider these implications and discuss them, and I hope even now that this Measure may be withdrawn to-day and brought up for fuller discussion when these matters can be more fully dealt with.
The right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chester, showed great skill in introducing this Measure but he made no reference to its far-reaching implications—he did not even mention them. What are these implications? Surely this

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is the first step in an attempt to bring the government of the Church within its own jurisdiction. Whatever the merits of this wish—and I agree largely with what the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said in this matter—the question of Establishment could become involved. It seems to me, therefore, that much longer time should be given for the consideration of this first move in what is really only one of a series of Measures which are being prepared before we are asked to accept it to-day.
5.42 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, I cannot share the view of the noble Lord who has just sat down that the right reverend Prelate did not give a perfectly clear, full and complete exposition of this Measure. I cannot really share his view that this Measure is the beginning of an attempt to bring the government of the Church within its own jurisdiction as a step towards Disestablishment. It really is no such thing. You have only to look at the Measure to see that.
One interesting thing about this debate has been that no one has challenged for one moment the need for the reform of the ecclesiastical courts. That appears to be completely common ground. I entirely support the view that the time has come when there should be large-scale reform of the existing courts. The right reverend Prelate, in moving this Motion, referred to the fact that there had been full consultation with all Government Departments. I know that there was full consultation with my predecessor at all stages. If there be, as I think there is, an unanswerable case for reform of the existing machinery so far as ecclesiastical jurisdiction is concerned, then it must be a matter for the Church Assembly to tackle. That is their function; Parliament has delegated it to them. It is quite clear, from what the right reverend Prelate said, that they have spent a great deal of time and have gone to infinite trouble to try to devise a satisfactory form of procedure for the modern world and for the modern Church.
I do not say that if we had this Measure before us as a Bill and were asking for a Second Reading there would not be a long and interesting debate on various
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points in that particular Bill—the kind of point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, and many other points. Views on those will differ. But Parliament has delegated to the Church Assembly the task of producing this kind of Measure, which is a most important Measure. I do not think any of us would wish to minimise its importance. But, having done that, then surely when we are asked to approve it we cannot subject it to the kind of examination to which we subject a Bill on Committee. We have to look at it broadly and to say whether or not we are in favour of the principle which is embodied in it; and I certainly am in favour of reform of the ecclesiastical courts.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor? While I agree with the general opening of his speech, I really cannot hold with that last argument, if we have a Motion to resolve, either for or against its approval, and there is no right to amend, however favourably we might amend it, that is quite unreasonable.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, that may be quite unreasonable, but it is the present position with regard to the law.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Exactly.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The law is, our having delegated this function to the Church Assembly—and no one can suggest for a moment that the production of this Measure is not within the powers of and, indeed, part of the task of the Church Assembly—under our Constitution it is then for Parliament to say "Aye" or "No" whether it approves of the Measure. I do not think there is any dispute between the noble Earl and myself about that.
The point I was making was that we must go to the substance of the matter. There may well be in this important Measure different points on which there are different points of view. Indeed, it was interesting to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, say that there were a number of points on which he felt doubt. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, said the same. But both of them fastened really on the one point, the point of principle which led them to the

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conclusion that this Motion should not be carried. There was no real criticism, I think, from either of them as to the constitution of these courts. There was some criticism from the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, of the fact that the Judicial Committee would lose its jurisdiction, but of course there will still remain on the court which takes the place of the Judicial Committee three Lords of Appeal constituting the majority of that court.
The point of principle on which so much weight has been placed in this debate is what has been referred as the Bishop's veto. I do not speak as any expert in this particular field, but I have had experience over a number of years of having to try to deal and cope with vexatious litigants—people who have a firm belief in the rightness of their case and who will pursue it over the years to the bitter end. We have in our own courts, in our own judicial system, a procedure whereby we can stop vexatious litigants. I have often had to put it in use. It is a painful process, because those people who are vexatious litigants so often believe most sincerely in the righteousness of their cause.
I, myself, believe that if you are going to have this new system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction there must be some veto upon what I would call ecclesiastical vexatious litigation. I do not believe it can be dismissed out of hand, as it was by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, who referred to the categories of people who would make complaint, because you can get feelings running high over the most trivial matters, and again they are pursued to the bitter end. If someone is going to have the veto—if that is accepted—in whose hands should the responsibility for its exercise rest? That, I imagine, is the question which gave the Church Assembly a considerable amount of difficulty, and to which a considerable amount of thought has been attached, and their decision is that it should be exercised by the Bishops. If you are going to create this particular system of courts supported by the Bishops, I find it difficult to believe that they, because of any personal views of theirs, would stop any proceedings from coming before these new ecclesiastical courts for the resolution of some particular difficulty.
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I did not intend to speak for very long on this because I am not really fully qualified to do so, but I should like to conclude by saying this. This Measure is the result of many years of effort on the part of many people. It commands, I think I am right in saying, a tremendous amount of support. The real criticism of it has been on account of the Bishop's veto. I think that there must be some veto, and if that veto is wrongly or improperly exercised I think that we can leave it to the Church Assembly to bring in an amending Measure.
5.50 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate who has introduced the Motion has already made my apologies for absence during part of the debate on account of an urgent engagement; and I especially regret having missed the concluding part of the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I know that he will forgive me. I always listen to him with great admiration for the depth of his Christian convictions. He and I differ in many things, but when we both go very deep down we find that the things which we share matter far more than the things on which we sometimes have argument.
I should like to ask your Lordships to step back a little and see the matter in rather larger historical perspective than has been mentioned hitherto in this debate, because the particular need of the Church with which this Measure is concerned is connected with a number of other needs of the Church which have been very evident for some time. If we go back to the year 1906, there appeared in that year the Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, a weighty Report which dealt comprehensively with many aspects of of the life of the Church. The findings of that Report were, in their main aspects, twofold. First, it was urged that there should be a restoration of order and discipline in the Church. Second, it was urged that there should be reform of the Church's law on public worship so as to make that law more contemporary in view of the Church's living needs. Those two things, in the judgment of the Royal Commission, went together then, and go together

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still; and I do not believe that they can be separated.
The task given to the Church by letters of business consequent upon the Report of 1906 was a very formidable task involving a long process. In that process there were a number of frustrations. I need not recount the history of these frustrations. The years 1927 and 1928 are a sufficient symbol of what those frustrations were. However, after the last war the Church of England, under the leadership of my predecessor, Archbishop Fisher, set about a comprehensive process of reform dealing with a number of needs of the Church which cannot really be separated. One of those needs is the establishment of workable courts, and the Measure before your Lordships' House deals with that. A second parallel need is for the reform of the law of public worship. That is a complicated matter, and it is our intention to bring before Parliament measures to enable that reform of public worship to take place, not by the method of a comprehensive revision all at once, as in 1927, but by the method of experimental variations for which we will ask for Parliamentary sanction—the sanction for such variations to be made for experimental periods under the Convocations, and, be it noted, the House of Laity as well.
These matters, in a way, all go together—with this difference. The reform of the courts, though it is as complicated in appearance as the Measure now before the House, is far more simple in that it is a thing that, if rightly done, legislation can carry out on one occasion. The reform of public worship is, however, a very much slower and more complicated process, a process that will be spread over a good many years. None the less, the two matters of the reform of worship and the reform of the courts go together in the sense that it is no use having up-to-date courts which litigants are going to use unless you also have an up-to-date law to be worth while using. Equally, it is not much use having, an up-to-date law of public worship unless you have courts with the necessary sanctions behind them. But it is just because it is very difficult to correlate these two things, and because the reform of worship is a very much longer process, that the difficult matter
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of the Bishop's veto has come into the field.
What is the real point of the proposal about the Bishop's veto? The real point, I think, is that until there is a total and complete reform of the law of public worship many things will go on being illegal, both serious things and minor things; and the Bishop's veto is a necessary institution to prevent really vexatious, and perhaps trivial, litigation from occurring in the parishes. I believe that that veto will greatly help the process of order and reconciliation, a process which must always be partly legal and also partly pastoral. It is impossible for it to be wholly one or wholly the other. I believe that the Bishop's veto will maintain that true character for it.
One more thing to which I would refer is this. The noble Lord opposite me referred to the question of Establishment; and, if I understood him rightly, he hinted, if he did not actually say, that this Measure was one of a number of things which might progressively lead to the Disestablishment of the Church. I believe that that is a misreading of the situation. I believe, on the contrary, that this Measure is one of several things which are a necessary condition for the effective continuance of Establishment and the connection of Church and State in this country. Establishment will continue if certain modifications are made in its working, and I believe that this Measure imperatively embodies one of those modifications. I would conclude with a reference to the powerful plea made by the noble Earl, the Leader of the Opposition, and say that, if your Lordships are moved by his plea to reject this Measure, the law and order which he so greatly desires in our national Church will not be improved by one whit, but will, indeed, be greatly hindered.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I have not asked for your Lordships to reject this Measure to-day. I have moved that the debate be adjourned for the specific reason that I might then have consultations with the Leader of the House, who I hope will consult with the Bishops, so that there may be adequate time for study and, afterwards, to debate the issue.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: All that is true, but I am sure, my Lords, that we were in no doubt whatever as to the view of the noble Earl on what ought to happen to this Measure—no possible doubt whatever, in words and arguments, if words and arguments mean anything.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I just put this point? I supported my noble Leader, but it was not as the most reverend Primate has said. I supported him entirely on the question of procedure, and I do not wish to be identified with the remarks that he has made.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I referred personally to the noble Earl, partly because of my very great regard for him and partly because of the great power of the speech he made this afternoon. But let me retrace my steps and speak in reference to all those who have opposed this Measure, or have argued for its rejection or delay. To them, my answer would be that by rejecting or delaying this Measure you will not be promoting law or order in the Church by one whit. On the contrary, you will be frustrating a number of the other processes also, which, altogether, are needed for the restoration of law and order and efficiency. The other thing I would say is that by passing this Measure I believe your Lordships will be passing something which embodies one of those conditions upon which the connection of Church and State cart effectively be continued for the good of the country and also for the co-operation of all the Christian Churches in, our land.
6.2 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, those of us who have the welfare of the Church and its good order at heart will be very grateful indeed for the serious way in which this House has debated this Measure. I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the detailed points that have been made, because I dealt with many of them in my opening speech. I can assure the House that as we in the Church Assembly went through this Measure, clause by clause, day after day, all these matters were raised, there was a very free expression of opinion, and we came to a mind on each of them. If we were to go over all of this again,
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there would be reasonable and legitimate differences of opinion and we should have to try to find some way through them. We believe that this Measure does so.
I think I ought just to make one point about the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved. In the past, these doctrinal cases have been bedevilled by the fact that they took place in a criminal atmosphere. We are hoping that this court is going to lift the whole thing up into quite a different sense and feeling, so that these matters of doctrine and ceremonial will be treated more as in a court of arbitration than a man upon his trial for misdeeds. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, who made such a reasoned speech, will realise that that is our hope for this court and that now that we have got this court of inquiry which will look into the matter if the Bishop allows it to go forward, the Bishop will be much less inclined to impose a veto except on something which is of very minor importance.
I think we are all extremely grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for the note which he struck in his speech. What we want from this Measure is peace in the Church; and we also believe, as he pointed out, that it will lead also to peace with other Churches, eventually. We have wrestled with this matter, we have worked upon it and we bring it now to Parliament in the firm conviction that this is going to bring into the Church that peace and order which the noble Earl so earnestly requires. We hope, therefore, that your Lordships will overwhelmingly give it your consent.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, before the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor puts the Question, in view of the way things have been put to me by the most reverend Metropolitan and the Lord Bishop of Chester, may I say a word? I think that I have a right to speak on the Motion.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I understood the noble Earl to speak after the Motion had been moved by the right reverend Prelate. I thought that he spoke to that Motion, and at the end of his speech put his Amendment. I am young as a Member of this House, but I should myself have thought that the noble Earl, having spoken then, had already spoken to this particular Motion.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I do not agree. We had a Division upon our Amendment to postpone the debate, and it was in order to get support for that Amendment, which support came from both sides of the House in the Division Lobby, that I made the speech I did. However, I am not going to make a speech, but would say just a word in reply to the points that have been raised by the most reverend Metropolitan and the Lord Bishop of Chester. We are asked this afternoon to approve, without amendment, this Measure as a whole. We do not wish to hold up the Measure at this stage, in view of what has happened, because none of us has had sufficient time to study the matter in order to be able to give a sensible vote. I will take no further action at this stage, but it must he obvious that those of us who have spoken, not on behalf of our particular Party but upon our own individual views, will have to ask for time to have the matter discussed.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

LONDON GOVERNMENT BILL
6.7 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10:
Traffic regulation in Greater London
10.—(1) Subject to subsections (4) to (7) of this section, the Greater London Council (hereafter in this section referred to as "the Council") may by order make provision for controlling vehicular and other traffic (including foot passengers) on roads in Greater London, being—

(a) roads other than trunk roads; or

(b) trunk roads with respect to which the Minister of Transport has consented to the making of the order in question,

and in particular, but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing words, for any of the purposes, or with respect to any of the matters, mentioned in Schedule 4 to the
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Road Traffic Act 1960 but no such order shall contain any provision for regulating the speed of vehicles on roads, and paragraph 16 of the said Schedule 4 and section 62 of the London Passenger Transport Act 1933 shall cease to have effect.
(4) Before making any order under subsection (I) of this section otherwise than in pursuance of a direction given by the Minister of Transport under subsection (7) there of, the Council shall consult with the appropriate commissioner of police
(8) The Greater London Council as well as the Minister of Transport shall have power to make an order under section 11(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1962 (which relates to speed limits on roads other than restricted roads) as respects any road in Greater London other than a trunk road.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD moved, in subsection (1), to omit all words from and including "being", down to the end of paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Lindgren, I beg leave to move this Amendment. The purpose of this Amendment is to delete from Clause 10 of the Bill the reference to trunk roads. In effect, this would mean that the Greater London Council would be responsible for all roads within their area. The position at the present is that the Minister retains the control, the authority, for trunk roads; the Greater London Council will be responsible for metropolitan roads; and the boroughs will be responsible for the local classification. The Royal Commission, as the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will be aware, recommended that the traffic authority (which in this case is the Greater London Council) should also be the highway authority. Therefore, we have the fact that, in this Bill, the Government have departed from those general recommendations by having, in effect, three different road authorities.
Last night I spoke of the need for a strategic plan to take into account the development within the Greater London area and the development outside. On that occasion I stressed that what I conceived as a plan was something not necessarily fixed but something which should be flexible. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in his reply, referred to the five-year plan of the London County Council. He also said that it would perhaps not be appropriate to require the Greater London Council to adopt a blueprint or plan for the Greater London area, because,

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as he said, it would not be possible for the Greater London Council as a traffic authority to plan what in five years' time might he required as a one-way street or something else. I would refer the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, to the point I made (and I recognised this difficulty) when I described the need for strategic and tactical planning. Tactical planning obviously would be something that would have to be adapted perhaps month by month or season by season. Certainly I did not advocate that there should be a fixed plan to such an extent that no changes were possible.
At present within the London County Council area, the central part of London, we have no trunk roads. The main and arterial roads in the centre come within the orbit of the boroughs, with the London County Council as the improvement authority. The trunk roads that will come within the definition of Clause 10 are trunk roads that are in the boroughs of the counties that are now going to be brought into the Greater London area. The extraordinary position within the Greater London area is that we will have some of the main trunk roads under the Minister which, as soon as they enter the present London County Council area, immediately come under the Greater London Council. I frankly do not understand this.
I do not see why, at this stage (taking into account the fact that the road is the same; it carries the same type of vehicle) there should be a clear division between the Minister's responsibility and that of the Greater London Council. I quite recognise that the Minister has undertaken that consideration will be given to the transfer of these trunk roads to the Greater London Council. But this is no firm promise; it is an indication of what is in the Minister's mind and is subject to correction. If the Minister maintains the trunk roads in the Greater London area and the Greater London Council does so in the central part, the present London County Council area, we may have the strange position of the Minister of Transport widening and developing the trunk roads in the existing county areas with the Greater London authority perhaps doing nothing. We will then have the case of wide roads up to one point entering into a narrower type.
This type of development, if it can be called development, can be seen on
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many of our main roads in different parts of the country, not only in London, and they depend on the authority who is responsible for the roads. This type of sudden narrowing is a very grave risk to traffic and a cause of accidents. Above all—and this is what we are interested in to-day, if we want a fast, free flow of traffic—it is essential that the character of the road remains the same. I would suggest that there is no likelihood of a uniform development of trunk roads with this division of responsibility. I would suggest you have a choice here: trunk roads and arterial roads in the area should either come within the Minister's responsibility or that of the Greater London Council. I would suggest with all sincerity that there is no case for a division.
I could amplify this by an illustration. I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that he should look at the development in Holland, where there are really wonderful roads. There you will find that the main roads, even though they drive right through the main cities, are the responsibility of one authority. There is no division. When one sees the fine motorways in Holland and elsewhere in Europe, I would suggest one appreciates there is an overwhelming case for us to adopt the same system in London; that is, one authority. The Committee must make up their mind whether it should be the Minister of Transport or the Greater London Council.
I would now raise with the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, the question as to the cost of these roads. At the present moment the Minister, I believe, makes a 100 per cent. grant in relation to trunk roads in the counties. If the Minister agrees to handing over to the Greater London Council the existing trunk roads within the area, is the burden to be placed upon the ratepayer in the Greater London area—or are these roads still to continue to receive the 100 per cent. grant which the authorities now receive for this type of road? I would suggest, in fairness to the taxpayer of London, that there is a very big case for this class of road to be a national cost. These are, in fact, national roads. They are the roads on which the traffic, commercial and private, seems to centre. As I have said, all roads seem to lead to London.
I would suggest that, if these roads are to be developed to carry the kind of heavy traffic they are carrying to-day and will undoubtedly carry in the future, the cost of this development should be borne by the nation as a whole. I would agree that, in the Bill, it would be possible for trunk roads to become metropolitan roads; that is, if the Minister agrees. But supposing we wish to turn an existing metropolitan road—a road that is classed as a class 1 road and is at present, within the Bill, to be the responsibility of the Greater London Council—into a trunk road. Supposing that road has to be developed to take the type of heavy national traffic that existing trunk roads carry. Will it be possible, with the Minister's consent, to transfer that class of road into the category of trunk road in order that the full grant will become available to the Greater London Council? As I see it, such a provision is not within the Bill. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, knows more about this particular section than I do. I have had to look at the Bill broadly. But I have not been able to detect whether it would be possible to turn a metropolitan road into a trunk road in order to receive the full grant.
I would beg the Government to remember the words I spoke last evening, even though we lost our case in the Division: the Greater London Council, if it is to produce a strategic plan and to develop, must have within its control those roads which are suitable and can be developed to carry the heavy traffic which we know will grow up in London. I beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 44, leave out from ("London") to the end of line 3 on page 11.—(Lord Shepherd.)
6.20 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: I was very relieved to hear the noble Lord stress, towards the end of his speech, his understanding of the true position of trunk roads as roads of overall national importance, because that is the whole point. It is part of the inherent concept of trunk roads that they are of national rather than of local importance—and I use "local" there in quite a wide sense—and, therefore, it has always been accepted that the Minister should not only build and maintain them, but also
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control their use by traffic. The Minister has power to regulate the traffic of trunk roads elsewhere in England and Wales, wherever it may be, and, quite frankly, in general, I still do not see any special reason why he should not have that control in London.
If, as he says, the noble Lord fears that there will be some kind of different approach on the planning of future roads between the Minister and the G.L.C., I can give him an assurance here and now that the Minister would certainly consult the G.L.C. before he carried out any trunk road improvements. That is the kind of consultation which goes on with the L.C.C. at present on co-ordinating plans. The A.2 is an example of that; and it is taking place in regard to other proposals. I assure the noble Lord that it is not a question of two independent authorities not working together in these matters. These roads are at the moment, as he said, constructed and maintained 100 per cent. at Government expense. Merely as a technicality, I would observe that it is not a question of 100 per cent. grant aid; it is paying for the work, because they are the Minister's roads.
LORD SHEPHERD: The authority builds them.
LORD CHESHAM: Yes; the authority builds them. It is a slight technicality, because it is not just a question of changing rates of grant. That is why I have made what is rather a small point. If in the normal way trunk roads were de-graded (if that is the right word) to become metropolitan roads, the grant would become, in common with that for other metropolitan roads, 75 per cent. If the argument is that they should attract a grant of 100 per cent. from the Minister, then I think perhaps the argument might also be that they ought to remain trunk roads. I do not think it is right that in the case of trunk roads the G.L.C. should, even theoretically, be able, for instance, to prohibit their use by a class of vehicle for which perhaps they may well have been designed.
I think it will help—I hope the noble Lord will not mind—if in assessing this problem I go a little further into the actual detail of what we are talking about in this problem of trunk roads. As drafted, the Bill proposes no alteration

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in the pattern; and it is that pattern with which I am concerned. At the moment there are about 130 miles of trunk roads, all of which are in fact, as the noble Lord said, outside the present L.C.C. area. But they are, of course, within the proposed area of the G.L.C. I am thinking of roads like the North Circular Road, the Cromwell Road extension, Western Avenue, Eastern Avenue, and so on. For the moment they will remain the responsibility of the Minister; but it is by no means the Minister's intention that this pattern should necessarily remain unchanged. When the results of the survey are available, there will be a review as to how the pattern of trunk roads should relate to the metropolitan roads, which will be the responsibility of the G.L.C. That review will, therefore, have to be carried out in conjunction with the G.L.C., which will naturally be closely involved with it. They will have to consider the question of the financial responsibility mentioned by the noble Lord.
The sort of pattern which the Minister feels may well emerge is that there should be trunk roads into and as far as the North Circular Road and South Circular Road, when it comes into being. It is also possible that it may be felt better that the trunk road should terminate further out—at what, for instance, will be the North and South Orbital Roads. That might be a better pattern when we get a little nearer having them. I suppose we might even end up by not having any trunk roads in the area at all, although I should regard that as unlikely. All in all, it seems better not to try to settle now once and for all where the trunk roads should go, because changes, either one way or another, that the noble Lord asked me about, can be made under Section 7 of the Highways Act, 1959. That power is not in this Bill, because it is in that Act.
The noble Lord told us that what was in the Bill was contrary to the recommendations of the Royal Commission. According to the copy of the Report that. I have here, that is not quite correct: because on trunk roads in the area they have this to say under conclusion (6) on page 119:
"The Minister of Transport should settle after consultation from time to time whether any or if so which roads should remain or become trunk roads."
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That is exactly how the Bill has been drafted. In view of what I have said, I hope noble Lords will think that to leave the Bill alone is the best way to proceed.
LORD SHEPHERD: May I refer the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, to paragraph 779 of the Report of the Royal Commission? My case is that the Royal Commission recommended that there should be one highway authority and one traffic authority. In paragraph 779 they say:
"We have no doubt that all these matters should be the responsibility of the Council for Greater London, and that these powers should apply to all streets and roads whether main roads or otherwise, the Council being free to use Boroughs as its agents for the execution of works of this nature. We can see no other solution."
They go on:
"If it is not adopted, the alternative seems to be for central government to assume dictatorial powers."
In a later paragraph, dealing with planning and housing, they say quite clearly that the responsibility for constructing, improving, maintaining, lighting et cetera should be with the same authority as for traffic. I submit, as I said yesterday, that the Government have adopted not one authority, but three authorities: the Minister for the trunk roads, the Greater London Council for those metropolitan roads defined in Schedule 7, and the boroughs.
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said that I need have no fears that there will not be conformity between the Minister's development of the trunk roads within the Greater London area and that of the Greater London Council. I hope that will be the case. But the evidence is in the Report of the Royal Commission where there was—I will not say a dispute, but a difference of opinion in regard to the Hammersmith flyover. That was a case where the Minister wished to proceed with the development of a trunk road system, and the local borough council were not prepared to proceed because they felt that the cost would be too high and too heavy upon the local ratepayers. If the Royal Commission are correct the London County Council did not feel that they were in a position to press the Hammersmith borough to proceed with the work. How many years did we have to wait until the Minister was able to go ahead with the Hammersmith flyover?

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This is a fact, and I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, can give us the assurance that there will not be similar delay in the future. But we have had this evidence, and there is other evidence throughout the country of what happens when the Minister does not see eye to eye with the local authority, or the other way round.
I still believe—and to me this is a matter of principle—that if we are going to develop these main strategic roads through London, they should be under the control and under the developing power of one authority. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, is right, although I had a little doubt—or I may have taken his words wrongly. I understood that it was the Minister's intention to hand over these trunk roads in the existing counties to the Greater London Council. I thought that in his speech the Minister gave an indication that that might not be the case. He said that he might retain the trunk roads to the North Circular Road. That would still be well within the Greater London area. True, in the case of the South Orbital Road, that again would be well inside the Greater London area. If the area which the noble Lord gave this evening covers the North Circular Road, it is clear he does not intend to hand these trunk roads over to the Greater London Council. If I am wrong, perhaps he will correct me; but that was my understanding. I think this would be utterly wrong. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has anything further to say.
LORD MOLSON: I cannot think that the provisions of this Bill should make any fundamental change in what has been the generally accepted principle of the administration of roads in this country. Ever since the Act of the '30s introduced by Mr. Hore-Belisha there are certain roads which are regarded as being of great national importance, and there are trunk roads which are the responsibility of the Minister. It has been generally accepted by Ministers of Transport, of both political Parties, that there are other roads which are more suitably administered by, and which are the responsibility of, the local authorities. All that is being done in this Bill is to apply the same principle in the case of the new authority that is being created.
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Of course there are certain difficulties which arise where a road comes from one part of the country into a built-up area, and there is a change in its responsibility. That is a problem which has been with us for the last 25 years. The fact that the Minister exercises final authority by being able to withhold the grant results, in the last resort, in his being able to insist that the policy of the local authority is acceptable to him. I suggest that there is no fundamental change in this respect; that it has worked reasonably satisfactorily in the past, and that it should continue to do so under the provisions of this Bill.
LORD CHESHAM: I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. I have only a short word more to say, because I think the noble Lord would agree that we do not want to get into a prolonged argument as to the precise meaning of the Royal Commission's Report on this Amendment. Apart from the fact that the South and North Orbital roads come outside the Greater London Council area—this is just for the record—
LORD SHEPHERD: South Orbital?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes. They do not exist yet. I said the South and North Orbital roads.
LORD SHEPHERD: I thought the noble Lord meant the South Circular Road.
LORD CHESHAM: The point I wanted to make is that the noble Lord must be sure about the differentiation he is trying to make between traffic authority and highway authority in these recommendations. The Royal Commission recommended that there should he in the area an overall traffic authority: that the same authority should be the highway authority for what we now call metropolitan roads, and that the highway authority should be the borough in which it lay. I think the noble Lord must agree that that is so. They then added a further recommendation about trunk roads, which I read out. Therefore, I think I am right when I say that this Bill is drafted strictly in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Could the noble Lord tell us the distinction between a "circular road" and

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an "orbital road"? As this is language which has cropped up since I left the Ministry of Transport a long time ago, I do not know the difference.
LORD CHESHAM: They are the names of different road schemes. It is as easy as that. I do not know whether the noble Lord wishes to go into the etymology and derivation of words, but he knows, I presume, where the North Circular is.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Yes; and the South.
LORD CHESHAM: The South and the North Orbital Roads are planned roads in a great are round London, further out than the Circular roads. I do not know quite how to differentiate, except that an orbit is usually taken to be rather wider than a perimeter. At the moment, there, is a gentleman up there who could tell us more about that.
LORD SHEPHERD: Will it be possible, with the consent of the Minister, for a metropolitan road to be converted to a trunk road because it is a national road? If it becomes a trunk road and the Minister retains his powers, then it would receive the full grant.
LORD CHESHAM: I thought I had answered that point, but perhaps I did not make myself clear. As I understand it, the Section 7 power in the Act to which I referred would enable the Minister to do that; and, naturally, he would do it by agreement. If he then took it over, he would have to pay 100 per cent. for it.
LORD CROOK: I thought I knew what an orbital road was, but now I am not very certain. As I understood it, the North and South Circular Roads were roads used by people to get around London without going through the middle. As I understood the original conception, I thought the orbital roads were roads which would never permit traffic to come into this city, but would take it around. As I understood it, the orbital road would go right round London. It might even feed the Dart-ford-Purfleet tunnel and so on. Is that the kind of thing? I think it is rather important to know, because some of the arguments which my noble friend has
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advanced on the chargeability and the relationship might turn on that definition.
LORD CHESHAM: It would not, because it is not intended to be a definition; it is the name of an actual planned road scheme. It is to take the traffic around London, without going through swiftly and efficiently. There is no magic in this word "orbital". It just happens to be the name which was given to that road: it is not a classification or category of road. It might have been called the Outer Circle or some other appropriate name; but it was thought appropriate to call it the North and South Orbital road. There is no more magic to it than that.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I do not want to go into this fascinating discussion on whether a circle is a circle or an orbit an ellipse, or what kind of thing it is. I want to ask a simple question of the Minister. Speaking as a Londoner, and in view of what the noble Lord has said about the responsibility for road planning and for deciding the trace of new roads in the London area, what happens if the inhabitants of a certain London borough object to the surgical operation needed for a trunk road to be taken through their neighbourhood? Where there is a conflict between local interests and the Ministry of Transport how is the matter discussed, and who decides?
LORD CHESHAM: That is a very hypothetical question.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: Not at all, it has happened continuously.
LORD CHESHAM: It is a hypothetical question because the noble Lord heard what I have been saying about trunk roads: that the question of bringing roads through London is extremely unlikely to arise.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Good!
THE EARL OF LUCAN: The trunk roads entering the Greater London area must deliver their traffic somewhere. There must be roads sufficient to carry that traffic to its destination. Those roads may involve considerable building of new roads or straightening of roads in London. What happens when the local inhabitants

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do not want to be disturbed for a major road to be driven through their area?
LORD CHESHAM: They make representations to their borough in the normal way.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: And to the Greater London Council, or to the Minister?
LORD CHESHAM: It depends on the road. As I say, it is extremely unlikely
Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
LORD SHEPHERD: The purpose of this Amendment is to obtain an explanation from the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, as to the effect of the words in Clause 10, page 11, lines 23 and 24. They read:
"and shall be exercisable by order made by statutory instrument instead of by regulations".
I have made one or two inquiries in many quarters of this House, and also taken expert opinion, and I have been told that there is in fact no difference between a statutory instrument and a regulation. If that is the case, I wonder whether there is some subtle meaning in this expression in the Bill. Perhaps the noble Lord will inform us, in regard to a statutory instrument, whether it will be dealt with by Affirmative or Negative Resolution.
that they will find a trunk road coming through. It may be a question of the improvement of a metropolitan road, which is the responsibility of the Greater London Council. It would then be for the borough to make representations to the G.L.C.
6.44 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 109) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 13; Not-Contents, 58.

CONTENTS

Burden, L. [Teller.]

Longford, E.

Strabolgi, L.

Champion, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Summerskill, B.

Chorley, L.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Walston, L.

Crook, L.

Shepherd, L.

Henderson, L.

Stonham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Dundee, E.

Lothian, M.

Ailwyn, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Luke, L.

Albemarle, E.

Exeter, M.

Margesson, V

Allerton, L.

Falmouth, V.

Mills, V.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Ferrers, E.

Milverton, L.

Auckland, L.

Fortescue, E.

Molson, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Newton, L.

Bessborough, E.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Perth, E.

Boston, L.

Hanworth, V.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Carrington, L.

Hastings, L.

Salisbury, M.

Chesham, L.

Hawke, L.

Sandford, L.

Colgrain, L.

Hertford, M.

Sandys, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Home, E.

Somers, L.

Conesford, L.

Howe, E.

Strang, L.

Craigton, L.

Ilford, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Craven, E.

Jellicoe, E.

Suffield, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Jessel, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Denham, L.

Lambert, V.

Wolverton, L.

Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Lloyd, L.

Perhaps the noble Lord could give us this information. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 23, leave out ("statutory instrument instead of").—(Lord Shepherd.)
LORD CHESHAM: I will endeavour to do just that. I had imagined from the electrifying effect this Amendment would have on the drafting of the Bill that it had been put down in a search for information rather than anything else. First of all, I will say this. In case there is some curious meaning in this context attached to statutory instruments which I too have not apprehended, I will double check the matter to see there is not one. But I know of no magic or curious connotation of the words in this respect. The position at the moment is that the Minister exercises most of his powers as a traffic authority in London by making

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regulations which are laid before Parliament and are subject to Negative Resolution. Incidentally, I do not know that I can say for certain there has never been a Prayer against one, but I know there has not been one recently.
The Minister is handing over his powers to the G.L.C. who will be making their traffic arrangements by order, subject to the reserve powers that the Minister has. These orders will not be laid before Parliament, because I think it is always implicit that when a Minister hands over powers to a local authority there must be some diminution of Parliamentary control, and they will be making orders which will not be laid. That will leave the Minister with not very much to do under Section 34. He will want to make orders for three things, for the regulation of traffic on trunk roads in Greater London; for use in connection with his reserve powers, his last resort power to vary or revoke the G.L.C. orders; and, thirdly, for securing the object of a direction From him with which the G.L.C. has failed to comply.
I do not think there are any logical grounds for laying before Parliament the ordinary day-to-day orders with regard to traffic matters on the trunk roads, which are very similar to those on the other roads made by the G.L.C. which are not laid. It is hardly necessary to lay the second power, to vary or revoke, because it is exactly the same as obtains in the rest of the country for which it is not laid. And the third one, making an order if the G.L.C. should fail to comply, is really purely ancillary as an absolutely last ditch power. It is very unlikely that the G.L.C. would refuse downright to comply, but if they did he would need this purely ancillary power to back up the direction he had given. The intention of this clause is purely that the Minister can "do his stuff", as it were, by order and not have to lay regulations. If there is something peculiar about the drafting, I will certainly have it looked at again, but I know of nothing.
LORD SHEPHERD: I will leave it like that this evening. Perhaps the noble Lord will look at it. It looks peculiar to me, and I was wondering whether there was an ulterior motive. The noble Lord shakes his head. Naturally I accept that, but perhaps he would look
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at the drafting. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved to add to subsection (4):
"And the London Borough Council oar Councils concerned or as the case may be, the Common Council."
The noble Lord said: Subsection (4) of Clause 10 of the Bill makes provision for consultation by the G.L.C. with the Commissioner of Police before that Council makes an order dealing with the regulation of traffic inside Greater London. We think that is understandable, because the Commissioner of Police has powers under the London Hackney Carriage Act, 1850, to appoint cab ranks. The actual physical control of traffic in London must inevitably fall to the police. It will be their job to enforce the various measures which have to be taken.
Perhaps what is not quite so understandable is the omission in the subsection of a mention of the Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner, who, under the 1960 Road Traffic Act, has power to fix bus stopping places. We have not mentioned him in our Amendment, but it seemed a little strange to single out the Commissioner of Police for mention in this particular subsection and not the Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner. Certainly I think the fixing of bus stops is extremely important in this connection. You might in fact do very much more to stop traffic by a bad siting of your bus stops than by a bad siting of your cab ranks. So it seems to me, at any rate, as though the Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner ought to have been brought into this subsection, if indeed there is any necessity to bring in the Commissioner of Police.
No express provision, however—and this is the main point of our Amendment—is made for consultation with the councils which are directly concerned, namely the London borough councils. Under the set-up projected in the Bill the 32 borough councils are able to be much more important bodies than the metropolitan borough councils have been hitherto. Throughout the whole of the progress of this Bill and the debates both here and in another place, that has been part of the justification for this Bill. Their decisions will be taken on local matters a little nearer the ground than was the case under the London County Council

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and the Middlesex County Council. The local electors will be stimulated, the Government say, by that fact into taking a much deeper interest in the local government of London. They say that local democracy will function very much better as a result of this Bill. If that is so, then this matter of traffic regulation should clearly be not directly within their jurisdiction but something upon which these borough councils should have a say.
If, for example, the Greater London Council feels that the unloading or loading of goods in a street within the area of a London borough council ought to be banned in the interests of an improved flow of traffic during prescribed hours, obviously the local people ought to be consulted before such a ban is imposed. They should be consulted as to the effect on local traders and everyone else who would be affected by such a ban during such hours as the Greater London Council might decide. If, to use another example, the Greater London Council feels that the only way in which to get traffic moving in a certain area is to cause the removal of a street market, this surely is a decision which should be taken only after the most careful consultation with the councils concerned. I am sure the noble Lord will know many street markets in London and will know instances where, if that street market were removed, the traffic might flow a little better, and the Greater London Council might consider from now on bringing about the removal of that street market in order that traffic might flow more smoothly in that particular area. But surely the local people who benefit from that market, or the councillors who represent them, should be consulted before any such decision is taken. I am sure that many other noble Lords who know London very much better than I do can cite many other cases in which the new London borough councils should be consulted.
In answer to a similar Amendment moved in another place, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport urged that these consultations would be held in any case; that this is more or less common form, that it is always done; that measures of this sort are never brought into being without such consultation; that no county council would ever dream of making such an
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order without first of all consulting the local people. If that applies to the borough councils, surely it must apply also to the Commissioner of Police, who is specially singled out in this subsection of Clause 10. Under the Statute, the Commissioner of Police would have to be consulted. It seems to us to be odd to single him out and to leave out the important borough councils who are directly representative of the people living in the area. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 45, at end insert—
("And the London Borough Council or Councils concerned or as the case may be, the Common Council.")—(Lord Champion.)
7.6 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: I am only too delighted to have the opportunity to explain the points which the noble Lord has raised and about which he tells us he has doubts which have given rise to the Amendment he has moved. The Amendment is to impose, as he told us, the necessity for a requirement to consult formally with the borough councils or the Common Council as the case may be. First of all, I want to explain to the noble Lord what are the objections to the statutory obligation, which becomes an inflexible obligation to consult in all cases in this way. A formal consultation, by its very nature, may well require consideration by the council or by a committee of a council exercising the power that the council has delegated to it, and this is bound to take time. It is likely to take more time than ever, perhaps, in the summer when the council is in recess, and it could even take several months unless the chairman of a committee has been authorised by delegation from the council to consider any traffic matters which the Greater London Council might have to consult about․but one cannot necessarily rely on the fact that such will be the case. Sometimes it is necessary to consult on these matters and to do it fairly quickly, as I think the noble Lord will agree. There are a lot of minor things in which quick consultation is the essence of success in getting the traffic moving. It creates difficulties there, because if one is going to have a formal consultation with a council it is necessary that the consultation shall be about a specific proposal, and that proposal must be worked out in considerable detail.

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I do not want to take up the time of the Committee and perhaps weary the noble Lord, Lord Champion. I have here some judgments of cases which very much affect this question of consultation, land unless it is held at a pretty advanced stage there is a possible risk, although it may be remote, that the legal interpretation of the order might be open to challenge in the court. That is a slightly legalistic, but nevertheless valid, point that I ought to make. There is another point. If, having consulted on the scheme, there are some trivial changes, it probably means that the consultation has to be carried out all over again. There may be hundreds of almost trivial and certainly uncontentious cases in the courts, and this formal necessity for consultation is likely to impose a very time-consuming burden if it is a statutory necessity. As I have said, it can involve serious delay, and I think the Minister's own experience of having formally to consult the London and Home Counties Advisory Committee has shown in the past how serious these drawbacks can be. Parliament, in fact, released him from that obligation in 1960. His advice will certainly be that the Greater London Council should not be burdened with the statutory obligation to consult.
In the case of the police it is some-what different, because it is no good making an order unless that order can be enforced, and it is the police who have the job of enforcing. As the noble Lord told us, they themselves have some statutory responsibilities for traffic regulation in London, and they are of course, in close, continuous and day-to-day contact with traffic schemes and all kinds of traffic problems. Basically, apart from the necessity to keep them in the picture, the difference from the enforcement point of view is that in that case you are not having to consult a collective body which meets periodically; the police are there for consultation 24 hours a day, and the requirement could be met by quick contact. Up till now, what the Minister, as traffic authority for the London Traffic Area, has done, is invariably to consult the local authorities concerned before making traffic regulations. There is no statutory obligation on him to do so, but he has done, and it works.
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If you do it that way, all the cases I mentioned—and they are going to be many—which do not justify formal consultation by the whole Council or perhaps even by a Committee, have been worked out to everyone's benefit by discussion between an official of the Ministry and the Chairman of the Committee, often at quite short notice. I am sure that the G.L.C. will, in practice, consult the borough councils and any other affected bodies just as fully as the Minister has done up to now. I do not think that they can hope to live a successful life unless they adopt that practice. I think that unless they work together with the boroughs, life is going to be very difficult indeed.
Supposing that the G.L.C. adopt an intransigence about this and do not consult, and the practice it sets up is not satisfactory. Then the Minister has powers under Clauses 10 and 11 to direct the G.L.C. as to procedure. He could perfectly well, and most likely would, use those powers to require the Council to consult specified bodies, and he can also include provisions about the manner of consultation, or timing, or anything else about it. I realise the feelings of borough councils in this matter. If they consider that their views are not being properly taken into account by the G.L.C. even after consultation—and even formal consultation does not necessarily mean that they are fully taken into account; I think the noble Lord would agree with that—then they can make representations to the Minister that they were not being properly consulted and had not been properly brought in; and if those representations were good, he could, as I say, use his powers to direct that consultation should be properly carried out. In brief, we think that that aspect of the Minister's reserve powers actually gives the boroughs better protection than a statutory obligation to consult such as the noble Lord suggests. I honestly think that is the better way to do it.
LORD WOLVERTON: May I ask the Minister this question? If there is feeling in the local area, will the G.L.C. hold a local inquiry or not before they make an order? This causes quite a lot of feeling locally. I have some experience of this as I have been on the roads and bridges committee of West Suffolk for some time. There we often

1495
have the problem that the borough asks for one-way streets. We are under the jurisdiction of the county council, and I think we have to get authority from the Ministry. Often the initiative comes from the borough council, and we then hold an unofficial local inquiry at which the local people make representations to a sub-committee of the roads and bridges committee. I took the chair at one myself the other day, at Sudbury; it lasted all day. We reported back our feelings to the roads and bridges committee, and we made some modifications with a view to helping the local people. This was put up to the full council, because the matter has to be passed by the full council, and then to the Minister for his confirmation. This is a much bigger thing than the matter I am referring to, but I think there ought to be some local inquiry if people feel aggrieved about a proposed Order.
7.15 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: I feel that the principle behind my noble friend's Amendment is absolutely correct, and that there should be consultation with the local authorities. But I must say that I was impressed by the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, about certain matters being too minor to go through the whole paraphernalia which is necessitated by formal consultation, and also in particular with regard to the need, in certain cases, for speed. I imagine that Christmas traffic regulations might come under the sort of thing he has in mind. Would it not be possible to fulfil the main objectives of my noble friend Lord Champion, but at the same time to overcome the real difficulties that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has pointed out, by giving power to the Greater London Council to initiate schemes of the sort laid down here on a temporary basis for, say, three months, after which, if they wish to proceed with them on a permanent basis, then they will have to consult? That would mean that if they decide that they are in fact going to be permanent, they could still act quickly in case of an emergency. If it is obviously a trivial matter, the consultation will not take any time at all during that three months, whereas if it is a more serious matter arousing a good deal of local feeling, there would be ample time in which it could be done.
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I do not know whether that would meet with the approval of my noble friend or not. It seems a common-sense way of doing it.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I think that my noble friend Lord Walston has hit upon an idea that may be useful to the Minister and to my noble friend Lord Champion. I appreciate the point that if it is an unimportant and temporary matter it may not be a case for making it obligatory on the Greater London Council to consult the borough, council. On the other hand, if the case I that my noble friend Lord Champion mentioned is involved, the possible abolition of an open air market in the interests of getting a traffic improvement in the area of that market, that is a matter of importance. The Lewisham Borough Council has such a case in mind, at the clock tower. It is a highly controversial matter, and I should not like to presume to guess who is right or wrong. However, that is Lewisham's business. There is nobody to consult except the local traders, which they have done, and they have had an opportunity of expressing their views.
These local markets raise a big question. You get a case such as the Ministry of Transport is landed with—I think two of them: one was at Archway Road in Highgate, for the use of heavy road haulage traffic going to the docks. There was trouble in Islington. As a matter of fact, a row is now going on about making the Rotherhithe and Blackwall Tunnels, before the improvement of Blackwall Tunnel, both one-way routes. In two cases, at least, the Minister has had to give way. The noble Lord opposite who spoke of urgent local inquiries is, I think, going too far, because they can be longwinded affairs and can involve undue delay.
The Minister says that in practice the borough council will be looked after by the Ministry if they complain that the Greater London Council has not adequately consulted them, or if they come to a conclusion which differs from the opinion of the borough council. That seems a long-winded way round to get at the same result. These borough councils, the metropolitan boroughs particularly, like to have a statutory right to be consulted about important things. They are a little offended if they do not get it.

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My noble friend Lord Walston raised the point that if between now and Report we could get some revision of this clause, whereby unimportant things are distinguished from important things, or temporary, seasonal things are distinguished from permanent things, that might solve the problem. I do not ask the Parliamentary Secretary to commit himself as to what he will do at this stage—I know the difficulties of giving hard and fast commitments in advance on what is a complicated matter—but if he would undertake to have the matter looked into between now and Report, without prejudice to our right to raise it on Report, to see whether he could bring up a clause which might substantially meet the points raised by my noble friend Lord Champion, at the same time taking into account the points raised by Lord Walston, my noble friend Lord Champion might perhaps be willing to ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD CHESHAM: Naturally, I am willing to look at that one. I do not want to adopt a dogmatic attitude about it at all. I agree with the noble Lord in what he said about local inquiries. It is possible for one to be held if that is desirable, but any statutory procedure on that would he going too far and would be even more cumbersome. So far I have not been convinced that I should alter my view. Lord Morrison of Lambeth picked on the Highgate affair, a very good example of how informal consultation actually worked. Representations were made—there is no obligation on the Minister to consult—and, having looked at it as an experimental measure, a good deal of change was made. So there is nothing wrong with putting that forward as an example of the possibilities of informal consultation; in other words that the thing does work. That is all that I am trying to claim: that it works perfectly well. I still have very considerable reservations about the question of a statutory obligation to consult, but I should be glad to look into the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, between now and the later stage, although, as Lord Morrison of Lambeth kindly appreciated, I can enter into no commitment at the present time.
LORD CHAMPION: We recognised when we put down this Amendment that there was bound to be a question of the
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balance of advantage as between speed of action and democratic consultation. I think the Minister has made a number of excellent points on this subject, but I do not propose to answer them all. I should like to comment on the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Walston. As my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth said, clearly one could not permit an order to be operative for three months in the case of a street market. The job would already have been done; you would remove the market and the order would be operative. Therefore, the suggestion for the three months' operation of an order, and then perhaps its ending after consultation, would clearly not work. It seemed to have some merit, as between the truly important and perhaps the unimportant, from the point of view of local interest, and so on. The points of local interest could be cleared up by the unofficial consultation which at present takes place—that is, before the initial order is made.
I see the difficulty which was raised about having a statutory right to consultation, which will mean the convening of meetings, ensuring that the matter is on the agenda, reference to the appropriate committee, bringing it back again to the Council for a ratification, et cetera. Nevertheless, we feel—and I hope the Minister will consider this between now and Report—that the local people must come into the matter of having their amenities and their way of life badly interfered with, as could happen by the introduction of a badly considered order. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CHESHAM: I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, could move the next Amendment after the dinner adjournment. I think the hour is convenient.
LORD SHEPHERD: I think the hour has come.
LORD CHESHAM: I beg to move that the Committee be adjourned during pleasure until 8.35.
Moved, That the Committee be adjourned during pleasure.—(Lord Chesham.)
LORD HASTINGS: On the Motion to adjourn this Committee, I should like to make a statement. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, stated earlier this afternoon that I had misled the Committee on an earlier occasion, and I should therefore like to take the first opportunity to put the record straight. I said that the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee had specifically asked for London elections to be advanced from the autumn of 1964, as proposed in the Government White Paper, to the spring of 1964. On this point I now find that I was misinformed, and therefore have no hesitation in offering my profound apologies to the noble Lord and also, of cow-se, to all your Lordships for unwittingly misleading the Committee.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for that statement. It was a mistake, and an unfortunate one, but Parliament is always good to a noble Lord, or to a right honourable Gentleman in another place, who will confess that he has made a mistake and apologises. But what can you do about it, except thank him very much for taking that course—which is a perfectly proper Parliamentary course? Therefore the noble Lord can be sure that I will not pursue it any further. It worried me because I could not imagine that the Standing Joint Committee would do it, and I had appropriate inquiries made. It was not only bad from the point of view of myself and other noble Lords who had raised the point, but rather rough on the reputation of the Standing Joint Committee. If it had been true, I thought that they had gone haywire—which would be a pity because they have a Labour majority. I am grateful to the noble Lord, both for myself and on behalf of the members of the Metropolitan Joint Committee, for his statement. But, if I were he, when he gets back to that funny Ministry of his I should, so to speak, put somebody across my knee, whoever it was, and give a good spanking. If civil servants go wrong you must knock them about!
On Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended at half-past seven and resumed at twenty-five minutes before nine o'clock.]
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD moved in subsection (8) to leave out "as well as the Minister of Transport". The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment, to obtain an explanation from the Minister. In Clause 10(8), it is provided:
"The Greater London Council as well as the Minister of Transport shall have power to make an order"
in regard to speed limits. Of course, the Minister has this power under other legislation, and I question whether it is necessary for it to be re-emphasised in this Bill. Therefore I have two questions I should like to put to the Minister. The first is whether the Minister will regard the particular power he has under the 1962 Act as in the category of a reserve power—in other words, that, having granted the Greater London Council power to make orders as regards speed limits on certain types of road, which power the Minister also has, the responsibility will in the main rest with the Greater London Council, and the Minister will exercise his power only where he feels it is absolutely necessary and, perhaps, where the Greater London Council may have failed to use their power. That is the first point.
The second point is this. I wonder whether the power that the Minister has could not in fact be included in the provisions in subsection (2), which would then bring it within the reserve power—in other words, it would be clearly defined. I hope the Minister can give us some information in this matter. I think he recognises the feeling on this side of the Committee, and perhaps in other quarters of it, that we should give as much responsibility as we can to the Greater London Council, the Minister not exactly sleeping but merely using the powers in the last resort. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 25, leave out the said words.—(Lord Shepherd.)
LORD CHESHAM: I am very happy to give the noble Lord the assurance that he seeks. In point of fact, the words which he has moved to leave out make no difference to the Bill at all. They are included merely for clarification, and the Minister derives no power whatsoever in this matter from the Bill. So, from the point of view of the Bill, it makes little difference whether they are put in or left out. If they are left out,

1501
the Bill is less clear than if they are left in. The Minister's power in this matter derives, in fact, not from this Bill at all but from Section 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1962. That applies to limits other than 30 m.p.h. limits, and mostly, of course, to 40 m.p.h. limits.
The idea is—and I am happy to give the noble Lord the assurance he seeks—that this is intended to be entirely a reserve power, in exactly the same way as it is used in the rest of the country. The Bill has been deliberately drafted, and this wording has been used, to make sure that the position on speed limits in London is exactly the same as that in the rest of England and Wales. It would not be quite appropriate to put it in subsection (2), as the noble Lord queried, because there is this difference—and it is something which your Lordships have often brought forward and recommended. It is that there should be a uniformity of application of speed limits on various roads; and we agree that it is most important that there should be this uniformity of application. It is not a question of a uniformity of powers for its own sake, but it is vital in road traffic to-day that speed limits should be properly applied and respected. As the noble Lord knows, a review is going on at the present time over the whole of the country to try to make certain that this is so. I have to admit that, even with the reserve power, it is not yet so, but we hope it will be, because it is most important in regard to the application of the new penalties, and that they should be fairly and properly enforced. So I am able to give him the assurance that this is a reserve power in the interests of seeing that the speed limits are applied with the same criterion all over the country.
LORD SHEPHERD: I am grateful to the noble Lord. In the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHAMPION: We have in this Bill mention of trunk roads, metropolitan roads and a variety of other reads; and to-night we have heard about orbital and circular roads. I should like to know the meaning of the term "special
1502
road", which appears in subsection (2)(c). I do not know that it is used anywhere else in the Bill and, frankly, I do not know what a special road is. I think the Committee ought to know and I should be grateful to the Minister if he would be kind enough to explain this to us.
LORD CHESHAM: I am pleased to be able to do this. I thought I had made it clear that orbital and circular roads were names and not classifications. "Special road" is an accepted term arising from elsewhere and it means a road on which a particular type of traffic is restricted. I suppose, briefly, it means a motorway. Special roads are restricted to various forms of traffic. As the noble Lord may know, some forms of traffic are barred on motorways.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I was glad that my noble friend raised this point; I was going to raise it myself. The Ministry of Transport are getting a lot of descriptive names which people do not understand. They will need to publish a glossary. In earlier days the classifications were "I", "II" and "unclassified", and people knew what these terms meant. Now there are circular roads, orbital roads, special roads, and in London there are to be metropolitan roads, borough roads and special roads. It is all getting rather complicated. Is the purpose of the Ministry to invent these terms so that nobody will understand what they are getting at? Do they want to mystify everybody? It seems like it. If we do not know or do not understand—and we are used to politics and public administration—what about the poor ordinary citizen outside? He must be positively mystified.
I wish that the Parliamentary Secretary would pass a friendly hint to the Minister, if he dare, and ask whether he can get away from these numerous descriptions of roads so that the citizen, who after alt has to pay for them, can understand more easily what it is all about. I confess that I did not understand what some of these numerous things meant. And why "orbital"?—it sounds like a space flight. That is something orbital, I think. They must have borrowed it from some suggestion of going into the

1503
universe and thought they might apply it to the roads. Surely simplification of these terms is worth thinking about. I should have thought that a special road could be called a restricted road—that is what it means. But life is getting more complicated.
LORD CHESHAM: I take note of what the noble Lord says. I have explained twice that the North Orbital Road and the North Circular Road are names and not classifications of road. I think, perhaps, I ought to recommend to my right honourable friend, whom I am not in the least afraid of approaching, that possibly we ought to call one of them Morrison Avenue and the other one Chesham Street.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I should think not.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Experimental traffic schemes.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): This Amendment is consequential upon the removal from Clause 9(3) of the statutory obligation on the Greater London Council to appoint a director of traffic. That simply means rephrasing this subsection in the way set out in the Amendment. I beg to move.
Page 13, line 14, leave out from ("whereby") to ("or") in line 17, and insert ("a specified officer, or some person authorised in that behalf by a specified officer, of the Council, if it appears to that officer").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Parking accommodation in Greater London.]
8.46 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved, after subsection (4), to insert:
"(5) The powers of the Minister of Transport and the Council under the said section 85 shall not be exercised in the area of a London Borough or the City without either the consent of the Council of such London Borough or the Common Council as the case may be, unless such exercise has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament."
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The noble Lord said: My Lords, we now come to Clause 13 which from subsection (2) onwards deals with parking meters on the highways. I think we all know that, properly used, parking-meter schemes can make a useful contribution to solving the problems of London; but we also know that, wrongly used, they can inflict very great injury on residents and, indeed, in other cases, on traders.
It is perhaps useful to remind ourselves how great a change in the ordinary law of the land such parking-meter schemes involve. The normal position, in the absence of any parking-meter scheme, is that the householder in a residential street has the right to the uninterrupted access to his house from the highway. Vehicles can come to his front door, including even, occasionally, his own vehicle. In most cases, if he is the freeholder, he owns the subsoil of the road; and if he is the lessee he is entitled to the rights of his lessor in the subsoil. On the other hand, the rights of the public on the highway are simply to pass and repass on the highway and not to use it as a parking place or as a garage. If, however, a parking-meter scheme comes into force the whole position is altered. The householder can be deprived of direct access to his home, and strangers to London can occupy the space in front of his house the whole time. The Statute allows that; and, of course, I do not question it, in a proper case. But clearly, I think, the whole Committee will agree that the strongest safeguards are required to see that such schemes are imposed in the right places and not imposed in the wrong places.
My contention—and I think, perhaps, noble Lords in all quarters may agree with me—is that the best judges of whether a parking-meter scheme should he imposed in London is the authority of the London borough of the area concerned. The London borough is directly conscious of the interests of its own inhabitants, whether residents or traders. If the London borough desires the parking-meter scheme, then in a proper case let it have it if the Greater London Council or the Minister approves. But I submit, with some confidence, to the Committee that such a scheme should not be imposed on the London borough, either by the Minister or by the Greater

1505
London Council, against the wishes of the borough.
This is a startling change in the ordinary legal position. It can be done under the Statute, but if it is wrongly done, in the wrong place, it can completely remove the amenities of a residential street; it can inflict great harm on traders; it can transform a place in London in which it is pleasant to live, and make it a mere convenience or a deposit ground for the cars of people who come into London daily. I made a considerable point, in my speech on Second Reading, of the extraordinary folly in the management of traffic and planning powers in London and so using those powers that a place in which it was pleasant to live became a place in which it was unpleasant to live; and I am glad to say that my noble friend Lord Hastings, in replying to the first day's debate on the opening of the second day's debate on Second Reading, assured us that Her Majesty's Government were in complete agreement, and they desired that the places in London in which it was pleasant to live should remain so. Indeed, they would be very foolish if that were not the case, because there is not a single problem before the Government which would not be made more difficult to solve unless such a principle were observed.
That is the object of my Amendment. It does not alter the position where the London borough itself desires the parking meter schemes but it does ensure that a parking meter scheme, which can do immense injury to the residents and others if it is imposed upon them against their will, shall not be imposed in any part of London against the wishes of the borough, unless the Minister obtains an Affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament. That is the scheme, and the object is to preserve the use of parking meter schemes where they can make a good contribution but to prevent their use in cases where they can lower the value and the amenities of a London street, spoil a part of London as a place for the enjoyment of its inhabitants and generally injure the public interest. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 35, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Conesford.)
LORD SALTER: I should like to support the Amendment moved by my noble friend. I do not propose either to duplicate or emphasise his general argument, which seemed to me not only persuasive, but conclusive. However, I should like to add one or two general considerations. The first is this. The object of this Bill, after all, is to make local government more efficient and to qualify it to carry heavier responsibilities. We all hope that that object will be achieved. Many of us, I think, have felt for a long time that the tasks put upon the central Government, upon Whitehall, have been regrettably heavy, and that it would be a good thing if some of the responsibility could be transferred to local authorities. Indeed, the only justification for some of the powers given to the central Government has been—if there is a justification—that the local government system as it existed could not carry out those duties. Here is a case (if you take this in relation to Section 85) where actually more power is being given to the Ministry of Transport of the central Government as compared with the local government system. I think it is regrettable. I think the movement ought to be in the other direction.
The other consideration is this. Within the sphere of central Government itself, the responsibilities, interests and objectives of the Ministry of Transport are, of course, often in conflict with hose of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I think many of us feel that when this conflict arises the balance has been tipped too much in favour of the Ministry of Transport. Traffic has tended to run roughshod through the interests of amenities and the planning of housing. Here again, I think, is a reason for doing anything we can to transfer some of the power and responsibility from the sphere of central Government to local government, and within the central Government to tip the balance a little more in favour of the Ministry responsible for the preservation of our amenities as compared with the authority responsible for accelerating traffic.
LORD ILFORD: I desire to add only one or two very brief observations in support of the Amendment which has been moved by my noble and learned friend. He based the case for his

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Amendment upon a statement of the law which is sometimes forgotten and, I think, sometimes overlooked. He pointed out that the frontager is in fact the freeholder of the subsoil of the road, and is regarded as having dedicated the surface of the road as a public highway. My understanding of the law of highways is that my noble and learned friend is quite right in his statement of what happened. But, of course, the situation has been obscured by innumerable statutory enactments which give some public authorities the right to take up the surface of the road and remake it and, indeed, place upon them an obligation to maintain the road. Other statutory bodies have the right to break up the surface of the road and to lay mains of all sorts, and so the ownership of the frontager has come to be obscured.
People do not appreciate that, after all, the frontager on the road is the owner of the road itself, and all that has happened has been that the surface of the road has been dedicated as a public highway. My noble and learned friend said, I think rightly, that the rights of frontagers ought not to be further invaded without at least the safeguard of the approval of the local authority in the neighbourhood where the property is situated. I think that must be a point of view which will appeal to all your Lordships. If, in fact, the rights of the frontager have been already considerably invaded by public enactment, this is a new invasion. It may be a very necessary and desirable invasion, but it is not an invasion which ought to be made lightly and without the consent of at least the public authority who are responsible for the particular road.
9.0 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: I find myself in almost complete agreement with the ideas underlying the speeches made by my noble and learned friends Lord Conesford and Lord Salter, but I am bound to say that I feel great doubt about the wisdom of this particular Amendment. In so far as noble Lords have urged that greater attention should be given to the preservation of the amenities of London, and that something more should be done to try to prevent the peace and tranquillity
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of dwellers in London from being steadily eroded by increasing motor traffic, I am entirely in agreement with them. But when they propose an Amendment which is going to impose restrictions upon parking-meter schemes, I ask myself what benefit the residents are going to derive from the carrying out of this Amendment.
it is not that a parking-meter scheme endangers the privacy of an area of London; it is not a question that if there are no parking meters provided, there are going to be no cars parking. Quite the contrary. The whole purpose of the parking-meter schemes was to try to prevent cars from being parked for the whole day on the Queen's highway, which is, in fact, an abuse of the use of the highway. The value of the parking-meter schemes—and I think public opinion on the whole has supported them, and certainly there has been a great decline in the opposition to them from even the motoring community itself—has been that motorists are able to park for a reasonable period of time at a certain charge, but not to occupy a particular part of the road from early in the morning when they arrive from the country until late at night when they depart.
Therefore, I am unable to support this Amendment, because I do not feel that it would have the effect which my noble friends have in mind. It would merely mean that the congestion which existed before parking-meter schemes would again be restored and there would be some people who would abuse the right of parking by staying there all day. Therefore, while I have in almost all respects dealing with traffic a great deal of sympathy with those who are trying to restore the amenities of London, I could not, as at present advised, support this Amendment because I cannot feel it would have the effect they have in mind.
LORD STONHAM: It seems to me, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, that he missed the whole point, as I understand it, of this Amendment. This Amendment is not on whether or not there should be parking meters, but whether or not they may be imposed on a local authority. That is the whole question that has to be decided. I should have thought that this was a most reasonable and sensible Amendment if we really believe in local government, and one

1509
which the Committee and, I hope, the Government will support.
I do not know, in fact, who makes some of the decisions with regard to parking-meter schemes which so obviously have gone wrong, whether it is the local authority or Lord Chesham's Department; but certainly I should have thought that in most cases the local authority, if they feel particularly strongly about parking meters in a particular place, would be the ones in whose judgment I would place the greatest reliance. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell me who is responsible for the parking meters on Victoria Embankment which are almost universally deserted by possible users in the middle of the day; and also for the parking meters in the Borough of Shoreditch, which are almost completely deserted and cannot possibly earn their keep. I do not say that they were imposed on the local authorities, but certainly they were quite mistaken to put them there. It seems to me that this is a most reasonable Amendment which I hope the House will support.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: With all deference to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, I think he has misunderstood the purpose of the Amendment. He said that the purpose of the Amendment was, as I understand it, to enable the local authority to be the final deciders as to meters or no meters. The purpose of the Amendment was to make London a pleasanter place 10 live in, and the real question is whether leaving the decision to the local authority would do that or not; and I, like my noble friend Lord Molson, am very uncertain. I am not opposed to this Amendment if my noble friend Lord Conesford thinks it would do good and the Government think it would do good. By all means let us try it. I myself live in a street which has not got parking meters, and I have to wage a war of attrition, and have done for years, to be able to leave my car anywhere near my house. Therefore I do not think the absence of parking meters is a cure for all our ills.
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps this would be a convenient moment for me to come in on this matter, because there are one or two points that I think I should very definitely make. The first point is that this Amendment is concerned basically with the reserve—I emphasise "reserve"—power that the Minister has which it is intended to pass on
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to the Greater London Council. I listened with interest and a good deal of sympathy to what was put forward by my noble friends Lord Conesford and Lord Salter, and I certainly should think it wrong to argue a number of the points of principle which they raised.
In view of what has been said, I must be a little detailed in explaining exactly what the position is, because I must show that the fears which the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, in particular expressed are in fact exaggerated fears in regard to the operation of parking-meter schemes as they are brought in. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, very briefly that in no case yet has the Minister used his reserve powers. All parking-meter schemes that have been brought in have been brought in by the local authority. My right honourable friend, I admit, has made suggestions here and there, which have been adopted in some cases and not, in others. But what I am saying is that in no case has my right honourable friend imposed a parking-meter scheme on anybody. In every case it has been brought in by the local authority.
LORD SALTER: The noble Lord will agree that a suggestion made by somebody known to have the power to enforce is rather different from a suggestion made by somebody who has not that power.
LORD CHESHAM: I quite agree. It must be true. But a suggestion made depends very much on the spirit in which it is put forward. If you have a pistol and are known to have a pistol, you can still make a perfectly normal suggestion without pointing it. The suggestion falls into a different lie if you pull out the pistol and point it. I think that is also a distinction worth making.
I think that in its application to the Minister this Amendment is not all that far remote in principle from No. 103 which my noble friend Lord Conesford put down before. That, too, was concerned with the exercise of the Minister's reserve powers of traffic regulations, as this is in another context. I do not want to weary the Committee, and my noble friend in particular, by repeating the arguments I then made. My noble friend said that this solution for the earlier problem perhaps went a little far, and I am going to try to show that in my view it goes a little too far in this case as well.
LORD CONESFORD: It may be that my noble friend is going to deal with this, but I should like to know whether he says that my Amendment, if adopted, would not be effective in preventing these parking schemes from being set up without the leave of the London borough.
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps my noble friend will not mind waiting until I have developed my argument. In its application to the Greater London Council this Amendment puts a further sanction, as the noble Lord explained to us, on their reserve powers the same as it does on the Minister's reserve powers. We must consider for a moment what is the normal operation of Clause 85 in Greater London. The normal operation of that is the making of parking-meter designation orders in the appropriate zones, or rather it will be the normal operation by the Greater London Council on the application of the London borough councils or the Common Council if it is a City one. That is exactly the same as the present position. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport makes the order on the application of the borough councils.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: May I ask a further question? Has the application been made, or has there been any case of its being asked for, by the Commissioner of Police?
LORD CHESHAM: No, my Lords, it is made on the application of the council concerned.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: If I may repeat my question to the noble Lord, has there been any known case of the Commissioner of Police asking for parking meters?
9.13 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: If the Commissioner of Police wishes to ask for parking meters he will approach the council concerned and endeavour to persuade them to apply for an order. That will be the procedure. The borough council or the Common Council applying for the order have to advertise the proposals, and the Greater London Council will be in the position of having to take into account any objections which are made to it.
It seems to me that, under this Amendment, if the Greater London Council wanted to make any alterations to a
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borough council's proposal, either as a result of the consideration of the objections or for any other reason, such as that they thought perhaps it was wrong in some respect, they would have to seek and obtain the consent of the borough council concerned, or if they could not get that they would have to obtain the approval of Parliament by an Affirmative Resolution of each House. That is surely taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, if anything ever was. I should have thought it would entirely weaken the Schedule 10 procedure which in this Bill is the one under which they would proceed, because the requirement that there is on the Greater London Council to take objections into consideration surely implies that the Greater London Council will strike a fair balance between the applicant authority's proposals, on the one hand, and objectors, on the other. If, in short, they are to refer the objections for the consent of the council that put forward the order the council are being put in the position of being judge and jury in their own cause, and the Greater London Council has really no decisive factor left to it. In other words, it should remain in exactly the same position as the Minister is now.
Under Section 85(5) as it is applied to Greater London by Clause 13, the G.L.C. will be able—this is what worries the noble Lord—to make a designation order without application to a borough, if they consider it necessary to do so. That is exactly the same reserve power as the Minister has to-day. They would operate that power only if, after consultation, they had failed to persuade a borough council to apply for an order in respect to the area in question; and it is almost impossible—at any rate, most unlikely—that they could ever operate that power with the consent of the borough council concerned, because if they had failed to persuade them to apply for one off their own bat, the borough surely would not then give consent to the use of the reserve power. That is my whole point, or rather the major part of the point of the noble Lord's Amendment.
Therefore, the noble Lord's Amendment really makes any reserve power to the G.L.C. completely negative, unless of course they come to Parliament for an Affirmative Resolution of each House.

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But may I ask your Lordships to consider this: before they did that, they themselves would have to go through the process of advertising the proposed scheme and of considering any objections to it. I do not see, though, how in the circumstances the G.L.C. can take an irresponsible attitude in this matter. As I have just said, they would have to advertise their proposals and consider objections, among which, no doubt, would be that of the borough council concerned, and they would themselves have to set up and administer any parking-meter scheme that was organised in that way until they could hand it over to the borough council with, if they ever got it, that council's consent.
If, by some quite remote chance, the G.L.C. acted less responsibly than one would expect, there are still available the Minister's reserve powers under Clause 13(2), which in effect gives Parliament some indirect control. One of the main reasons for the Minister's having those reserved powers is that he will be able to use them to intervene on behalf of a borough council, should he feel it is right to do so, in just the kind of circumstances as my noble friend envisages to be a great worry. I think that in fact if we were to accept this Amendment, the protection which the boroughs would have against some—I think the word used was "overbearing"—action by the Greater London Council is actually less than by leaving the Bill as it is. I hope that my noble friend will see the force of what I have said and, therefore, will not wish to pursue the Amendment.
LORD SHEPHERD: I am afraid that the noble Lord has rather laboured a weak case—
LORD CHESHAM: I simply explained the case.
LORD SHEPHERD: I know the noble Lord has gone through a careful explanation; but, frankly, as he went on the weaker and weaker the case appeared, at least to those on this side of the Committee. Are the facts not just two? First of all, the Minister to-night has admitted that he has not so far had to use the powers he already has. He has used threats—at least he has given reasonable notice to local authorities of what is wanted, of what the Minister himself would like to see done, and some of the
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local authorities have conceded, under pressure.
But that is not the strongest case against the Government. The strongest case is found in the very words used by the Government. They wish to create these new strong borough councils; they wish to see local authorities strong. We know that the amenities within the borough can be seriously affected by traffic and parking. The meter system, whether it is right or wrong, is part of the parking system. It is absolutely right, if one accepts the Government case for making local authorities strong and responsible, that before an order is imposed on them they should have the right to accept or refuse it; and if there is any difficulty in the matter and the Minister wishes to impose that regulation, then they should come to Parliament.
I freely admit that this is a restriction on the Greater London Council. I would always stand up for the Greater London Council in this respect, but the borough authorities must not be overlooked. They have a responsibility to their own local community, so do not at this stage deny them the opportunity at least to object if an order is being made to which they are opposed.
9.22 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: First of all, I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that I think he has accurately understood the underlying idea behind my Amendment. I have so frequently supported my noble friend Lord Molson, and he has so frequently supported me, that I am sorry that he has so completely misunderstood me tonight. I think it must have been because I failed to make myself clear. I agree with him, as I said in moving this Amendment, that these schemes have a useful part to play; and this fact can be quite as obvious to the London borough as to anybody else. They are much better able to judge both whether in one case it would be a good thing, and whether, in another, it would be a bad thing. I do not object to their having to get the approval of either the Greater London Council or the Minister—that may be right. It may be right that where they want such an order, and where there is some slight amendment which is rightly desired by the Greater London Council, my Amendment

1515
in its present form may not be absolutely in the best form for providing the right remedy.
But the position I want to meet is the very different position where the local authority—that is to say the London borough—does not want such a scheme at all. I say that where the London borough does not want such a scheme at all in its area it should not be compelled to have it by anybody below Parliament. If Parliament wishes to make it have it, well and good; but nobody else—because they are the best judge—should have that power.
My noble friend Lord Salisbury spoke of his street, which I know very well: it is not far from mine. He and I both have the experience that we can have the roads in front of our houses almost perpetually blocked by other people's cars although there is no parking-meter scheme. But let me tell him, if it interests him at all, that he is not at the moment completely without a legal remedy. There is such a thing as a law of obstruction and a law of nuisance: but, if there were a parking-meter scheme, those remedies would not be open to him. Now I admit that my Amendment may be imperfect, and it may want modification; but in contrast to the present position I say that my Amendment is good. It makes it reasonably clear on the face of the Statute that it is the metropolitan borough and nobody else who shall, in the ordinary case, decide whether or not to apply for such an order. I propose to press that to a Division.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I should like to say one word in view of what my noble friend Lord Conesford has said. In his first speech he made great play of the importance to the inhabitants of London of having a pleasant life. That was a great argument in favour of the boroughs: that the borough authorities would be, as it were, a sort of "nanny" to the inhabitants of those boroughs; that they would see that they did not suffer any actual inconvenience where that could be avoided. It is not so, in fact. They do not do anything of the kind. The house of my noble friend Lord Conesford, my house and the houses of hundreds of thousands of people all over London are inconvenienced in spite of the fact that they ought to be looked after by the boroughs. Nothing that he has said now
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makes any difference to me on that particular point.
He says that I ought to know about the law of obstruction. I challenge him to say whether, if I brought an action against somebody for obstruction by leaving a car outside my house, I should be likely to win it. I do not think in the least I should. Therefore, if he is telling me that the purpose of this Amendment is to strengthen the boroughs as against the central authorities, I accept that; but if the argument is that it is going to be any improvement for us who live in London, I do not believe that to be true.
LORD CONESFORD: May I just answer my noble friend? I had a car left for three weeks outside my house. Actually, in the end, I got the police to prosecute by deciding to set down a Motion for debate in this House. The prosecution was successful, and I have been less troubled since. I shall advise my noble friend privately.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: But will the noble Lord advise the many other thousands of people in London to adopt that course? They cannot.
LORD CONESFORD: Indeed they can. On another occasion I shall be very happy to bring to the attention of Members of the House how very negligent the police are in allowing people to leave their cars for months on end about the streets of London, and doing absolutely nothing about it. I shall be happy to do that. But all I would say to my noble friend—because I agree with him—is that, even though a borough authority does not, perhaps, protect us as much as it would like and as much as it might, in many cases it is very much more eager to protect the amenities of its citizens than is the Minister of Transport.
LORD CHESHAM: If I may be allowed another word, there is just one point to which I should like to address myself. A good deal has been made of the desirability of the boroughs concerned—the noble Lord has just said it—running their own affairs in this matter. As I tried to explain—perhaps I did not do it very well—the power to do these things is somewhere about 95 per cent. in the hands of the borough as it is. We are talking of reserve powers, and I was a little surprised that noble Lords opposite, who all along have

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been arguing in favour of the greater concentration of power in the hands of a single authority, should have vociferously cried "Hear, hear" to the suggestion that this particular power should be decentralised.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Does not the noble Lord realise that this is proof of our objective impartiality between the Greater London Council and the boroughs? This is to our credit.
LORD CHESHAM: I must still be allowed my own opinion on the matter. That is how it struck me. Frankly, it still does. It seems to me, if I apprehend things correctly, that what my noble friend Lord Conesford has principally in mind is that the potential villain of this piece is the Minister of Transport. That is what I understood him to say.
LORD CONESFORD: I am sorry that you are so anxious to find a villain. What I am anxious to try to point out to the Committee (and I think many members of the Committee have grasped my point, however badly expressed) is this: that this legalised power of taking away the rights of frontages and obstructing the streets is a very exceptional thing under the law and that it should therefore be sparingly used and should only be used where those best able to judge—namely, the London borough—says that it ought to be used. I am not looking for a villain; I am saying they are the best judge. What I do say is that I leave the reserve power in this way: that if some miracle, some utterly exceptional case, occurs in
which the Minister is convinced that, notwithstanding the view of the local authority, this very exceptional power ought to be given, then I think he should ask Parliament for it.
LORD CHESHAM: I see that point, but I am bound to say that if we are to have this Amendment we are creating a position whereby the reserve power can be used only subject to the consent of the borough council. If you are going to ask a borough council to consent to something, it would only be if they had already refused to do it, because it would be used in no other circumstances, and this Amendment, to my mind, makes nonsense in that respect. It means, in fact, that this reserve power can be used only by an Affirmative Resolution of Parliament, and I think that is going too far in the circumstances—that is all.
LORD CHAMPION; The noble Lord has just twitted the Opposition with supporting this Amendment or appearing to do so. He said that throughout the whole of this Bill we have done certain things. His memory is very short. Does he not remember that just before the adjournment of the Committee we moved an Amendment which would cause borough councils to be brought into consultation in the matter of traffic orders under traffic regulations? I think it is unfair.
9.35 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 114A) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 24; Not-Contents, 40.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Auckland, L.

Glentanar, L.

Salter, L. [Teller.]

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Grenfell, L.

Shackleton, L.

Champion, L.

Henderson, L.

Shepherd, L.

Colville of Cuirass, V.

Ilford, L.

Stonham, L.

Conesford, L. [Teller.]

Longford, E.

Summerskill, B.

Crook, L.

Lucan, E.

Terrington, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Mersey, V.

Wilmot of Selmeston, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Denham, L.

Lothian, M.

Albemarle, E.

Dundee, E.

McCorquodale of Newton, L

Allerton, L.

Falmouth, V.

Margesson, V.

Beauchamp, E.

Ferrers, E.

Mills, V.

Blackford, L.

Fortescue, E.

Milverton, L.

Boston, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Molson, L.

Chelmer, L.

Furness, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Chesham, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Newton, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Hanworth, V.

Poulett, E.

Coleraine, L.

Hastings, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Colgrain, L.

Hertford, M.

Sandys, L.

Colyton, L.

Ingleby, V.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Craigton, L.

Jessel, L.

Wolverton, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved, after subsection (2), to insert:
"( ) Notwithstanding anything contained in sections 64 to 101 and Part VI of the Highways Act 1959, before any London Borough or the Common Council carry out any works in pursuance of the powers granted by the said sections and Part, they shall first obtain the consent in writing of the Greater London Council."
The noble Lord said: I think I ought to warn your Lordships straight away that this is a deadly dull subject, certainly having nothing of the liveliness of the last debate, because it is on the highly technical matter of the relationship between the new borough councils and the new Greater London Council, affecting particularly the power of the borough councils to close roads either for works or for certain improvements. As I understand it, Clause 16(2) extends the Highways Acts of 1959 and 1961 to the Greater London Council area, and would enable the borough councils and the Common Council to carry out improvements to stop up and divert roads for which they will become highway authorities under this Bill. If the Greater London Council is to function efficiently as the authority for traffic management in its area, it is essential that the Council should be aware of such projects and that their consent to them should be given in writing; otherwise, such works and the stopping up of roads could not be co-ordinated with the requirements of traffic management generally, related as it must be to metropolitan road improvements. For example, a borough council might propose to stop up a street for local traffic purposes which the Greater London Council might require for a one-way traffic scheme, or a number of local improvements might have a direct bearing on traffic on a metropolitan road and affect the question of its improvement. At present, I am advised that no metropolitan borough council may carry out a street improvement scheme without the consent of the London County Council.
This Amendment was put down in another place but, owing to the operation of the guillotine, it was never discussed, so up to now we have been unable to discover the Government's attitude to this matter. It might be argued that the provisions of the Highways Act, 1959, are
1520
sufficient for the purposes that we have in mind here. Section 137 of that Act provides for the preparation of half-yearly programmes of repair and improvement to roads, but under that section these programmes would be insufficient to enable the Greater London Council to safeguard the position of the traffic management authority, whose principal interest would be to ensure that the permanent effects—and I emphasise the word "permanent" here—of the boroughs' improvements should not militate against the proper flow of traffic on metropolitan and other roads.
Section 137 of the 1959 Act affects only the programming of road improvements, and could be wasteful of the boroughs' efforts in preparing schemes which the Greater London Council may veto or delay, perhaps indefinitely, if such a scheme were considered undesirable on traffic or traffic management grounds. The Amendment we are here proposing would obviate that, and I hope the Minister will find his way to accepting it, because it has been suggested to us by people who are very knowledgeable in this matter of the flow of traffic and the relationship which ought to exist between councils and the authority which has to do the work. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 47, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Champion.)
LORD CHESHAM: I quite see what is in the noble Lord's mind in moving his Amendment, and I am pleased to be able to reveal to him our thinking on this matter. I am sure he will not mind if I draw this differentiation once again. I think he made it clear (but I do not want there to be any misapprehension about it) that of course any of the activities on the part of the borough to which he refers as possibly being detrimental would be on the highways side only. That would be in connection with the highways side of their work, and not the traffic side, because the Greater London Council are the traffic authority for the whole lot.
As the noble Lord told us, the Amendment follows the lines of the requirement which there is at present on the metropolitan boroughs to get the consent of the London County Council to any works of that kind which they carry out on the roads. This would

1521
extend what is a special London arrangement to the whole of Greater London. As I see it, the Amendment runs counter to the recommendation—which is really quite a clear-cut one—of the Royal Commission, that there should be one overall authority responsible for through routes, and that of other roads should be the responsibility of the London boroughs. The noble Lord is as familiar with that recommendation as I am by now. I think he would agree that there will be many road schemes in the boroughs which will be of no conceivable interest to the G.L.C., and I think that the boroughs would feel a little badly about an obligation to obtain the G.L.C.'s consent to them.
At the same time, I am not trying to say that the noble Lord has not got force in his argument, because he has, and they will certainly have an interest, the amount of which I cannot specify, in the work on the borough roads. I think that interest can, in fact, be met because if certain road works have to be carried out as part of a traffic scheme, the G.L.C. then have the power to require a borough to carry out works which do not involve the actual widening of the highways; but they do involve such matters as altering the kerb line, the erection of bollards and that kind of thing, and they have default powers to do the work themselves if necessary.
I do not quite agree with the noble Lord about the requirement that there is to submit the six months' programme of proposed road works to the G.L.C. I think that will have a higher value than he put on it and they will be able to know in advance. I am sure that I am right in thinking that they are in fact going to have a more or less continuous consultation, and there should be no problems in that respect. When you look at the kind of work that can be carried out by the boroughs under the sections of the Highways Act that the Amendment specifies, I should not have thought that the likelihood of an overall or large-scale harmful effect on the trunk interest seems high enough to justify an overall and complete statutory supervision of the kind that the noble Lord seeks. I should have thought they would have been on terms of sensible co-operation, and the boroughs would normally find out the value of the
1522
schemes that they had in mind before the schemes were started.
There is one thing, though, that occurs to me, and I think the noble Lord will probably agree that this is perhaps one of the most important matters. It is the possibility that there might be difficulties created by a borough building a new junction on to a metropolitan road or increasing the flow of traffic at a particular point. I think there could be harm there. I think that it is possible that that situation could be dealt with on the lines of the obligation which is placed on local highway authorities in Section 26 of the Highways Act to obtain the consent of the Minister before constructing a new highway which will connect to a new trunk road
In view of what the noble Lord has said, I think I ought to consider, which I will do, whether that requirement could, and should, be extended to the London boroughs and the G.L.C. in respect of the metropolitan roads. In my view, if I may say so, that the Amendment as a whole goes too far, but I think, in the major respect, that I ought to consider, which I will do, whether there ought to be action in that particular way.
LORD SHEPHERD: Information to the Minister or to the Greater London Council?
LORD CHESHAM: I said, "on the lines". At the moment the consent of the Minister has to be obtained when you make a new entrance into a trunk road. In this case, the G.L.C. would be the authority for the metropolitan road and it would, therefore, be the consent of the G.L.C.
LORD SHEPHERD: I hope the Minister will consider that. Here, the Minister has acceded that there may be a case of an increased flow because of an opening but, as noble Lords know, you can also increase the flow of traffic by the stopping of a local road some half-mile or three-quarters-of-a-mile away. As the noble Lord knows, like water, it will find its way. If you put a stop on it traffic will find another way, and therefore if a borough did put a stop on a particular road for one reason or another—perhaps quite a valid reason—it might well create a different trend of traffic and extra congestion; and

1523
obviously in such a case the Greater London Council should be aware of it in order that they could make the necessary arrangements. I think the noble Lord should consider a little further than merely putting a junction on a road. The Greater London Council should be aware of any change of arrangements made within a borough that might materially affect the movement of traffic on a metropolitan road.
LORD CHESHAM: I thought I had dealt with that point. Perhaps I did not make it clear. A road can be stopped up, and traffic diverted, only on traffic grounds: only the G.L.C., as the traffic authority, can do it. I said that the borough council would have to give notice ahead of their proposed road works, so that if they proposed to close a road the G.L.C. would know in advance and the matter could be discussed between them.
LORD CHAMPION: The noble Lord has clearly met some of our points. I would agree with him that in some of these roads the G.L.C. would have no conceivable interest whatever. But there must be some of those borough roads where anything the borough council proposes to do, either by way of immediate works or by eventual improvement, might affect the traffic engineering problem of the Greater London Council. All we were suggesting was that the borough council should obtain from the G.L.C. consent in writing, and I should not have thought this would mean any great delay or anything of that sort, but would be a useful measure in order to ensure that money is not spent wastefully. But it is my intention to read very carefully what the noble Lord has said to us and, if necessary, return to this on Report stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 16 agreed to.
Clause 17:
Metropolitan roads
17.—(1) The following shall be metropolitan roads, that is to say—
(a) subject to subsection (2) of this section, the highways specified in Schedule 7 to this Act;
9.59 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved, in subsection (1)(a), to leave out "the high-
1524
ways specified in Schedule 7 to this Act" and insert:

"(i) any highway in Greater London classified by the Minister of Transport under the Ministry of Transport Act 1919 in Class I or any class declared by him to be not inferior to that class for the purposes of the Highways Act 1959;

(ii) route number B.304 from the junction with A.3212 at Chelsea Embankment to the junction with A.3220 at Battersea Bridge Road;

but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision, none of the following bridges, that is to say, Blackfriars Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Bridge and Tower Bridge, and no highway carried by any of those bridges, shall be, or become, such a road."
The noble Lord said: I nearly lost my notes. That would have been a disaster, because, like the last one, this Amendment is pretty technical, and therefore I prefer to stick fairly closely to my note.
This Amendment seeks to define metropolitan roads as all the existing Class I roads and including, as I shall explain later, the Albert Bridge, but excepting the bridges mentioned in the Amendment. If I may deal first of all with the inclusion of the Albert Bridge under sub-paragraph (ii), I have to say that this bridge is on route B.304, and it presents structural problems of considerable difficulty which would justify the Greater London Council having it under its supervision. I cannot pretend to have any particular knowledge of that bridge, or of the difficulties which the experts foresee and envisage, so I must leave that aspect of it to some of my noble friends who do know this bridge and would have some immediate and perhaps local knowledge of it.
A similar Amendment was moved in another place. On that occasion Mr. Hay, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, explained the government selection of 60 per cent. of the Class I roads and 4 per cent. of the Class II roads to be metropolitan roads under the Greater London Council. He said, in column 167 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee:
"I believe that it is better that the metropolitan roads should be selected on the basis of being the roads which axe mainly used by through traffic. That is the criterion that we have adopted in constructing the Seventh Schedule. We have taken as metropolitan roads the roads which are mainly used by

1525
through-traffic and have left to the boroughs all the other roads which are principally used by domestic local traffic."
So he set up two definitions: the first is through-roads as metropolitan roads, and domestic local traffic as borough roads. It seems to us that one can talk of "through" traffic only after defining the area through which the traffic passes. Clearly the Government are not considering "through" traffic in Greater London, because only 3 per cent. of the traffic entering the area passes right through from one side to the other; but if the Government mean traffic through new boroughs, then there is much more "through" traffic than the selection of the metropolitan roads would suggest.
The following have been given to me as examples of "through" traffic for which no metropolitan road is provided. There is much traffic from Sydenham, Penge and Beckenham into central London through Camberwell, but the roads used by this traffic are not proposed to be metropolitan roads. To use a metropolitan road this traffic would have to go round through either Tulse Hill or Lewisham, which is absurd. The second example is that there are through routes from Wandsworth into the South Bank area. Two of them are to be metropolitan roads but the shortest, Battersea Park Road, is not. One of the main roads from the North, via Finchley Road, suddenly ceases to be a metropolitan road at Marylebone Road; but, quite clearly, through-traffic continues down Baker Street and back through Gloucester Place.
On the analogy of Class I roads in the country as a whole the classification by the Ministry of Transport of roads as Class I roads in London is intended to mark those roads which carry traffic from one borough to another, often through an intermediate borough, while the lesser roads in London carry the "domestic local traffic" referred to by Mr. Hay in Standing Committee. Even the selection of the existing Class I network is bound to be arbitrary unless through-traffic is defined in relation to a specific area, and unless a minimum percentage of through-traffic is laid down as a qualifying standard and the figures of a complete traffic survey are available.
Last night, and again to-day, the Parliamentary Secretary told us much about the traffic survey now taking place, and pending the completion of that vast survey it is surely better to use the present Class I roads, which are re-classified from time to time, as a basis for the new metropolitan roads rather than those set out in Schedule 7 to the Bill. He said to-day that the survey might change the pattern of trunk roads. Surely the same thing is bound to apply to these metropolitan and other roads in the Greater London area. We had intended to deal with Schedule 7 later, but I imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, when he comes to reply, will have to make some reference to this, and this might cause us not to move the Amendment to delete Schedule 7. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 22, leave out from (" section ") to the end of line 23 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Champion.)
LORD CHESHAM: I do not know whether I am right or not, but I read this Amendment in conjunction with Nos. 117 and 123, to which the noble Lord has referred, because I could not see how they could be successfully considered in isolation; and true enough, I shall in a moment talk about Schedule 7 and the reasons for it. If this Amendment were to be accepted, we should, as the noble Lord explained, get as metropolitan roads all Class I roads in Greater London, whenever they were classified as such before or after 1965. I am quite prepared to understand that a small error might have crept in, but by the drafting we could also get most of the rest of the roads in London, including Class III roads. I feel that that was probably not intended. I will make nothing of that point. If it was unintentional it could be cleared up.
The second Amendment, which I think must be considered at any rate with this one, deletes from the clause the provisions for altering the selection of metropolitan roads, on application by any London authority to the Minister, who then of course has to consider the representations of the other authorities affected before he comes to a decision. Since there would then be no way of altering the selection once made—I imagine that what noble Lords opposite wish is that it be an almost once-for-all selection over

1527
a wide scale—the only way that a change could be made would be by way of a change of the classification of the road. That is the only way it could be handed over to a borough. If it were to be declassified, I do not imagine that the borough would welcome that much, because it would automatically mean that the grant available for that road was reduced from 75 per cent. to 60 per cent. Therefore, I should have thought the chances of a borough being pleased to accept any road on this basis would have been rather small.
Perhaps I may make the point that I do not think that noble Lords opposite ought to pin too much faith on classification in their argument, because roads have been classified since 1920, which is now 43 years, and the currency of classification has in some ways become a little debased. There have been a lot of changes in function and loadings of roads, and their classification is not always kept up to date. If we start them again now—in a way that is what we are trying to do—the picture would be rather different. But we made a first shot and, as I shall show in a moment, there are means and opportunity for modifying it.
What the noble Lord has put forward is all very well, but my right honourable friend believes that he has interpreted the views of the Royal Commission more correctly than have noble Lords opposite in framing their proposals; that the more limited selection that we are proposing in the Bill will mean that the G.L.C. is the effective highway authority for all the important through roads, leaving the responsibility in the boroughs for all other roads which, even when they are carrying heavy traffic, are more local in character.
I think it is important not to confuse mere weight of traffic—I am rather echoing my honourable friend's words in another place—on a road with the value of the through traffic. There is in our proposals a simple and effective procedure for altering the selection of metropolitan roads which I have already mentioned, and which the new authorities can use when they come into office, and as traffic conditions change. Indeed, it would be highly suitable for dealing with the kind of case which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, mentioned to us. It would be perfectly possible if there was something wrong there for it to be put
1528
right under the procedure in the Bill. The roads adopted by the Minister in his selection under the Bill follow the definition of the Royal Commission that they should be "routes used by through traffic". They are roads forming a continuous network comprising a continuation of the trunk road radials into the centre of London, the routes to the river crossings, the important ring and cross routes, and the main routes to the docks.
In Schedule 7 there are some 500 miles of class I roads dealt with, as compared with the total of just over 800 miles in London as a whole. Also there are some 30 miles of class II and class III roads. It may be surprising to find them in there, but they are roads which in fact have not been reclassified over the years although they are carrying an increasing volume of through traffic. Among them in fact is the Albert Bridge, which I think we are all agreed should be the responsibility of the Greater London Council.
The main difference, therefore, between our proposals and those of noble Lords opposite is how to treat these 300 miles of class I roads that we do not propose should be metropolitan. We do not want the Greater London Council to be responsible, for two reasons. One is that the Royal Commission were not in favour of using the existing classification of roads in London as a means of settling which roads should be the responsibility of the Greater London Council. They recommended that it should be the responsibility of the Minister, as recommendation 4, on page 119, said, to determine, after consultation from time to time, which roads or streets should be metropolitan ones. It is in the light of that recommendation that the Bill has been drafted as it has.
Although class I roads have been given that classification because they are important for through traffic, we have to recognise that there are different degrees of importance for through traffic among roads of that class. There are certainly some which, on balance, are more appropriate to be under the authority of the borough and not the Greater London Council. The powers that the Greater London Council has, amongst others, include powers of direction in regard to planning applications which affect metropolitan roads. That is bound to create a certain amount of extra work and delay

1529
and on that ground there is no reason for them to consider planning applications where their road interest is insufficient for them to do so.
The Minister's selection is not intended to be final, as the selection would be if the Amendment were to be accepted. There have already been a few changes in the composition of the Schedule as a result of the representations made. In fact, I shall later move an Amendment which is the latest of them. Other changes can quite easily be made later under the procedure in Clause 17(2) and (3). I think that our proposals are very much closer, if I may say so, to the recommendation of the Royal Commission. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will keep the Bill as it is and not accept this Amendment.
LORD SHEPHERD: Could the noble Lord say on what sort of criteria the Government made their decision as to which roads should appear in Schedule 7 and which roads would remain within the borough? My understanding of the Royal Commission Report was that the through roads—that is, the roads which carry traffic from one borough to another, or from the outskirts to the centre—should themselves be metropolitan roads. My understanding as that there are many roads which come within the classification which I have mentioned; roads which obviously, subject to improvement, could well be developed to increase the free flow of traffic from one borough to another, from one side of London to the centre. And yet, so far as I know, we have no idea on what basis the Government have made up their mind.
The Government, with the London County Council, are spending £600,000 on a survey. This information is vitally necessary. In fact, I believe that it is one of the first surveys, if not the first, undertaken for many years. This obviously will produce information upon which the strategic planning of the Greater London Council can be carried out. I think it is quite wrong to lay down in this Bill this fixed definition of what roads are metropolitan and what are not. As I said earlier, yesterday and again to-day, in my judgment all the roads of the London area should, in the initial stage, be placed under the Greater London Council. That was rejected. My noble friend has therefore moved this
1530
Amendment, which I support. It does not go so far as I personally should like in these early stages; but at least it would say (and this is the point) that the Class I roads, which are, in the main, the better-class roads carrying the heavy through traffic, should in their total come under the Greater London Council.
Is it, perhaps, that the Government have given 40 per cent. of these roads to the boroughs as a sort of little offering to them for taking over all the second-class and third-class roads? I wonder whether that is not the case. It may be. The noble Lord shakes his head, but, so far as I know, he has not given any definite reason as to how this division was made. He has talked about through traffic and such like, but he has not said whether this division is based upon the amount of traffic that is following through at the present time or whether future development has been taken into account. I should have thought that that latter part was perhaps the most important for the future. In my view, those roads on which the development will take place should from the very beginning be under the Greater London Council. I will support my friend if he decides to take this Amendment to a Division.
LORD CROOK: I would support my noble friend. I had intended to say something about the Albert Bridge, but this is a very late hour and I do not want to keep the Committee if in fact I followed correctly what the Minister said. He used, I think, the words, "We are all in agreement about the Albert Bridge." Perhaps he can just say what it is we are all in agreement about. I must say that I remember when Lambeth Bridge was built, very like the Albert Bridge, and when, in the Great War, we had the "break-step" rule for the troops laid down. We also had the "break-step" rule for the Albert Bridge. We have very real structural difficulties there, and I know the L.C.C. have been concerned about them. I do not want to make a speech about the Albert Bridge, but route B.304, which is mentioned in the Amendment, is the Albert Bridge approach. When the Minister says. "We are all in agreement about the Albert Bridge", if he would tell us what we are in agreement about I might not need to make the speech I might otherwise have had to make.
LORD CHAMPION: Is the noble Lord going to respond?
LORD CHESHAM: If the noble Lord did not understand, let me say—we were in agreement that the Albert Bridge should be the responsibility of the Greater London Council.
LORD CHAMPION: It was mentioned in the Amendment because it used to be a Class II road. That is the reason for its inclusion here. I must say I cannot accept the noble Lord's explanation as being satisfactory. It is true the roads were classified as Class I a very long
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD had given notice of Amendment to leave out subsections (2) and (3). The noble Lord said: Before I move this Amendment, I wonder whether I may have some assistance from the Government. I do not move that the debate be now adjourned in any sense of mischief, but I am sure the Committee will appreciate that some of us have been four days in Committee and are getting to feel the weight of it. As an example, I found that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, was speaking to an Amendment which was on the Order Paper and which, in fact, proved to be a little bit of nonsense and I had not intended to move it. But he spoke of it and rather used it as a case against us a few
time ago, but it would not have mattered if some little further delay in classification had taken place until such time as we have the results of the survey now going on so assiduously; and the report will not be very long delayed. However as the noble Lord regards the Amendment as unsatisfactory, I hope we shall divide.
10.22 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 116) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 13; Not-Contents, 51.

CONTENTS

Champion, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Summerskill, B.

Crook, L.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Walston, L.

Henderson, L.

Shackleton, L.

Wilmot of Selmeston, L.

Listowel, E.

Shepherd, L.

Longford, E.

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Denham, L.

Jessel, L.

Albemarle, E.

Dundee, E.

Lothian, M.

Allerton, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Luke, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Exeter, M.

Margesson, V.

Bessborough, E.

Falmouth, V.

Merrivale, L.

Boston, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mersey, V.

Chelmer, L.

Fortescue, E.

Mills, V.

Chesham, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Molson, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Furness, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Coleraine, L.

Glentanar, L.

Newton, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Perth, E.

Colyton, L.

Grenfell, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Conesford, L.

Hastings, L.

Salter, L.

Craigton, L.

Hertford, M.

Sandford, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Ilford, L.

Sandys, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Ingleby, V.

Wolverton, L.

Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

moments ago, and I am afraid I was not alive to it in order to deal with it. That is an illustration of what some of my noble friends are now going through. We have not got all that amount to do in the way of Amendments, but some of them are quite serious Amendments. With the time available next week and the added time the Government have provided by the arrangements that have been made, I should not have thought it unreasonable to suggest that the Government should agree that this Committee stage should be now adjourned. We will certainly do what we can to see that this particular part is dealt with as expeditiously as possible on Monday.
EARL ST ALDWYN: As your Lordships know, I had hoped that we should finish this Schedule to-day. If I may say so, there has been a general feeling throughout the Committee to get on with the Bill, but it has been delayed by one thing or another. I wonder whether noble Lords would consider carrying on, say, for another 20 minutes. I appreciate that noble Lords have trains to catch, and that many of these cease to run at 11 o'clock. I do not know whether noble Lords opposite would be prepared to carry on for another 20 minutes and take a little more out of this List before Monday. I appreciate that we have a little extra time on Monday, but I would ask noble Lords to agree to this.
LORD SHEPHERD: My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth, to my great surprise, has suggested that we should take the advice of the Government Chief Whip. Wonders never cease! I suppose I have not much option but to take that advice. But ten minutes to eleven is ten minutes to eleven.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: I assure the noble Lord that I will move the Adjournment at that time.
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clause 18 [Delegation or transfer of functions with respect to metropolitan roads]:
10.33 p.m.
LORD ILFORD LORD ILFORD moved to leave out subsection (1) and insert—
("(1) Where the council of any London borough or the Common Council by notice given to the Greater London Council before 1st October, 1964, or before 1st July in any subsequent year so require the Greater London Council shall as from 1st April in the calendar year next following that in which the notice is given delegate to the council which has given such notice the functions of the Greater London Council with respect to the maintenance and improvement of, and other dealing with—

(a) so much of any metropolitan road as lies within the borough or, as the case may be, the City;

(b) any land which does not form part of a metropolitan road but has been acquired by the Greater London Council in connection with such a toad under section 214(5) or (6) or 215(2) of the Highways Act 1959.

upon such terms as may from time to time be agreed between them or, in default of agreement, as may be determined by the Minister of Transport.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is concerned solely with questions of maintenance and upkeep of the metropolitan roads. It has nothing to do with road planning or road policy. Your Lordships will recall the arrangements which the Bill makes about the maintenance of metropolitan roads. The trunk roads remain with the Minister, and nothing turns upon them. The metropolitan roads are the responsibility of the Greater London Council, and all other roads become the responsibility of the London boroughs. The London boroughs will thus be responsible for a length of roads which will very much exceed the length of metropolitan roads within their areas. That means That the boroughs Will inevitably have to establish and maintain a large and strong works department, equipped with the heavy plant needed for modern road construction and able to employ the specialist personnel required.
No one disputes that the Greater London Council should be responsible for planning and for the design of the metropolitan roads. This Amendment is concerned solely, as I have said, with the question of finding the most convenient and economical method of maintaining these roads. Clause 18 of the Bill, which deals with this matter, provides that the Greater London Council may agree to delegate or may require the London boroughs to maintain the metropolitan roads within their areas. But the boroughs have no power to require the Greater London Council to delegate to them the metropolitan roads, although they will possess, as I say, a works department within the borough which will be well able to undertake the maintenance, both of the borough roads and of the metropolitan roads.
This Amendment proposes that the London boroughs should be able to claim from the Greater London Council delegation of their responsibility to maintain the metropolitan roads. There is nothing novel in that proposal. The Amendment will place the London boroughs in substantially the same relationship to the Greater London Council which the county districts bear to the county councils in the provinces. Most of the county districts outside London can claim from the county council the maintenance improvement and upkeep of the county roads within their

1535
boundaries without any agreement on the part of the county council. This arrangement has been accepted for many years and, so far as I am aware, works in a satisfactory manner.
The practical importance of this proposal is perhaps more substantial than might appear at first sight. The boroughs must in any case maintain a strong works department, well able, as I say, to maintain the metropolitan roads as well as the roads within their own boroughs. We ought not to encourage the duplication of these works departments. I do not suggest that the Greater London Council, when it comes into being, will necessarily adopt an extravagant or uneconomic mode of administration. I have no doubt that in most cases it will delegate the maintenance of the metropolitan roads to the London boroughs. But these things happen somehow in local government, and we ought to guard against them now in this Bill.
The arrangement which I propose works well in the country outside London, and there seems to be no reason why it should not work equally well in London. I do not anticipate that the noble Lord is likely to accept this Amendment, but I hope he will be able at least to give me some encouragement that at a later stage something of this kind will be considered. This is something which the present boroughs are anxious that their successors should have, and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give some prospect that they may be able to get something like it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 32, leave out subsection (1) and insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Ilford.)
10.40 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I hope the Parliamentary Secretary's brief is marked, "This Amendment should be resisted." I do not think that this is a wise Amendment. The Bill as it is leaves the door open for free negotiation between the two sides of local authorities, and I think it is best left there. They can negotiate on the basis of equality and try to come to a free decision. I forget whether the Minister in the background can arbitrate between them, but I should be surprised if he cannot. I should expect it in the circumstances.
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But this Amendment, on the other hand, puts it the other way way round: that if the borough claims delegation, it must have it. I do not think that is fair as between the Greater London authority and the London boroughs. But, as I read, the Amendment, if they claim, they get it, and the only way in which the Minister comes in is that they get it
"… upon such terms as may from time to time be agreed between them or, in default of agreement, as may be determined by the Minister of Transport."
So the Minister comes into it only as upon the terms on which they shall have the delegation.
I think it is not a fair Amendment. I think the Bill as it is is more fair because the two authorities can argue and begin on a basis of equality. The other thing I do not like too much, and which a lot of local authorities will not like, is this term "delegation". It means that if they delegate the Greater London Council is going to be "top dog" about finance all the time. There has been a lot of delegation in Middlesex about education, and it has led to a great deal of conflict between the county council and the county districts. I think if the borough is able to do the job, the thing is to transfer to them clear, and they then carry the financial responsibility, subject to such grants as are forthcoming to them from the Minister of Transport. For these reasons, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will find it right and expedient that he should resist this Amendment, which I think it would be unwise for the House to adopt.
LORD CHESHAM: Swaying slightly on my feet with amazement, I am, of course, in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth. I know that the boroughs have large maintenance organisations existing and they want to be sure that they are not wasted and, in particular, duplicated by the possibility of the G.L.C. setting up a large works organisation of their own. The Government agree that in practice the G.L.C. ought to delegate this maintenance work and, in fact, they will be encouraged to do so. The Minister will normally delegate maintenance work on trunk roads to the boroughs and not to the G.L.C., but it is one thing to say that it is desirable in practice but another matter to impose the requirements on the G.L.C. to delegate that maintenance. In

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practice, I do not believe they are going to set up this large maintenance organisation of their own, because their 550 miles of metropolitan road is scattered widely over the whole area and it would not seem at all anything like an economic proposition.
I do not think it is right to compare the position in certain counties like Middlesex, Essex and Kent, who maintain, though not perhaps all, the county roads in their respective areas, because they have a greater mileage themselves over a relatively smaller area than the G.L.C. And, apart from Middlesex, in any case they have the onus of looking after all the classified roads in their rural areas as well, so they can justify their larger organisation.
I think your Lordships ought to know that it is my right honourable friend's general intention that the county highway depots and equipment in Greater London should be transferred in due course, by order made under Clause 87 of this Bill, to the boroughs, and not to the G.L.C. To impose this requirement to delegate maintenance on the G.L.C. is, I think, going too far, when we consider that a body of this kind, when it has this responsibility as a highway authority, should be compelled to delegate. In particular, I think it must be wrong in principle for the G.L.C. to be left with the legal responsibility as highway authority while being compelled to delegate, and thus be forced to rely on the boroughs for maintenance and improvement. It does not happen anywhere else under the Highways Act, 1959. The Minister as highway authority for trunk roads retains his discretion throughout about delegation, and so do county councils for classified roads. I do not see why the G.L.C. should be different. The noble Lord, Lord Ilford, mentioned claiming authorities in the country as being a good example to how it works. There is a vital difference, and that is that the claiming authority when the claim is successful becomes also the highway authority, which is a definite contrast to what would be the position of the G.L.C. compelled to delegate only the maintenance.
There is one other point. Apart from the maintenance off ordinary highways, there are questions of special structures in the metropolitan network, such as
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Thames tunnels and bridges. It would be sensible for the G.L.C. to retain the maintenance of those itself, as the L.C.C. now does. They have a very expert team of inspectors who look after this work. They have no large works department for this because it is done by contract. But they have this expertise which it would be wrong to be compelled to delegate. In view of what I have said about the undesirability, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, will feel a little happier about the position, and not wish to press the Amendment.
LORD ILFORD: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HASTINGS: This Amendment is consequential on the removal of the Surveyor from the Greater London Council's statutory list of chief officers. I would only explain that the Amendment was moved in another place and they did not pass the consequential one. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, dine 21, leave out ("their surveyor") and insert ("some officer of the Council").(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 19 and 20 agreed to.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Amendment as from 1st April, 1965, in Highways Act 1959]:
LORD CHAMPION: Having regard to the lateness of the hour, I do not propose to make the two-hour speech I had prepared on this important Amendment. I will reduce it considerably and try to squeeze it into a very few words. Section 10(1) of the 1959 Highways Act deals with delegation by the Minister of Transport of certain authority with respect to trunk roads. One of the councils to which this delegation may take place is, of course, the County of London; that is, the L.C.C. The words "including the County of London" which appear in that section of that Act are to be repealed by Clause 17 of this Bill, and it follows, therefore, that unless the Amendment is accepted the Greater London Council will be the only highway authority in the country to whom the Minister would, be

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unable to delegate functions respecting trunk roads. This would be a Gilbertian situation, and I cannot imagine that the Government would wish this to take place as a result of the Bill now before us. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 142, line 22, after the words ("In section 10(1)") insert ("for the words '(including the County of London)' there shall be substituted the words 'with the Greater London Council and'").—(Lord Champion.)
LORD CHESHAM: When I have got something I can accept I get overanxious; and I can accept this, my Lords. The real point as we see it, the value of acceptance, is to use the expert facilities which the Greater London Council will inherit from the London County Council in regard to structures. The work of the inspectorate which we have just been talking about will be very valuable in connection with complicated fly-overs like the one to be built at Brent Cross, and I think we ought to have that expertise available. We should use this power of delegation only in special circumstances, and it is not intended to be regarded as fostering a desire of the Greater London Council to build up a vast maintenance organisation to do this work. It would be used only in special circumstances when their special expertise could be put to good use, and it is expertise which the boroughs could not be expected to have. If they had it we should probably use theirs.
LORD CHAMPION: I am bound to thank the noble Lord for accepting this
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Amendment. I read in the "Day by Day" under "The Stars" column that this was my day to make friends and influence people. I am glad to say that the stars have proved correct.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHESHAM: This is a drafting Amendment for clarity. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 144, column 27, leave out from ("road") to second ("the") in line 28.—(Lord Chesham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHESHAM: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

FELIXSTOWE DOCK AND RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (IMPROVEMENTS) BILL LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned at seven minutes before eleven o'clock.