LONDON GOVERNMENT BILL

HL Deb 23 May 1963 vol 250 cc449-545

4.6 p.m.

House again in Committee.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is consequential on making the Greater London Council the authority for naming streets. It has the effect of allowing the Council to spread over the whole of the Greater London area the expenses incurred thereby. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 9, after (" Acts ") insert (" which do not extend to the outer London boroughs ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is drafting. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 30, at end insert (" and references to the Acts of 1930, 1935 and 1939 shall be construed as references respectively to the London Building Act 1930, the London Building Act (Amendment) Act 1935 and the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act 1939 ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 33, leave out (" London Building Act ") and insert (" the Act of ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 35, leave out (" London Building Acts (Amendment) Act ") and insert (" Act of ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 37, leave out (" Part II and ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

This Amendment in the name of my noble friends and myself has been met, in so far as it refers to Part II of the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act, by the Government Amendments which have just been passed. But the question of Section 131 remains outstanding. This is the section which deals with projections, which I had to apologise for raising at the wrong time. We had the right thing said at the wrong time, and I do not think that I need repeat the right thing. It is important that a procedure which has long worked very well should not be torn apart by the way in which the Bill is now drafted. I think that the Government are somewhat anxious about this also, because they have tried to come to some arrangement with the L.C.C. about it and it would be very helpful if the Minister could tell us where we have got to now. What is desired to be done is to keep the code dealing with projections—that is to say, shop fronts, windows and various things that project beyond the building line—in being and not to tear it up. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 37, leave out (" Part II and Sections 128 to 131 ") and insert (" sections 128 to 130 ").—(Lord Wilmot of Selmeston.)

LORD HASTINGS

This is a complicated and purely technical subject, but I will do my best to explain it to the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, and to the members of the Committee. As the noble Lord said, Section 131 of the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act, 1939, allows certain types of projection, provided they do not exceed defined sizes, to be constructed beyond the building lines without specific permission. The noble Lord would like to see that regulation, which the L.C.C. operates successfully, continued. We should have no objection to that if it were possible to do it under existing legislation after the passing of this Bill. The difficulty is that we cannot take this section of the 1939 Act separately from Part III of the earlier 1930 London Building Act, which contains a number of provisions on building frontages and says that no building or structure shall be erected or brought forward beyond "the general line of buildings" without the L.C.C.'s permission and the "general line" is defined where necessary by the L.C.C.

The difficulty is that Section 131 is, as we have heard, a relaxation of Part III of the 1930 Act, and Part III of the 1930 Act is being repealed on the extension of the general law of highways to the whole of Greater London. Then we come to the Highways Act, 1959, which contains its own provisions on building lines, and therefore it is necessary to consider whether the relaxation given by Section 131 of the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act, 1939, could be fitted into the different requirements on building lines contained in the Highway Act—that is to say, different from Part III of the 1930 Act. Under the Highways Act. 1959, there is a much more comprehensive treatment of building lines, and it provides for no fewer than four different kinds in Sections 72 to 75 of that Act. We have four possible building lines under the general legislation, and it is possible for more than one to apply at the same time in the same street. Therefore, as a practical proposition, it is impossible to apply a general relaxation such as under Section 131 to differing lines in the same street without getting special permission, because one would not really know from which line Section 131 was to give an exception. That is the whole difficulty.

Really, why we are not accepting this part of the noble Lord's Amendment and erasing Section 131 from the Bill is that we shall be losing the present provision which gives automatic permission in certain cases. Permission can still be obtained, or will be able to be obtained, but special application will have to be made to the highway authority, whoever the highway authority may be in that particular case. That is how the position stands after discussion of the matter with the L.C.C. They have been informed that we cannot see our way out of this difficulty for the reasons I have given.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

I am sure we are all indebted to the noble Lord for making dark places clear, and I congratulate him on his speech. He has, as I understand it, clearly set out the position and in doing so has made a moving appeal, in my opinion, for a codification of the London building laws. This is one small part of them. Heaven help the poor citizen who wants to know what kind of building he is entitled to put up!There is no way of finding out which any ordinary man can turn to, and even the experts spend much time and money making up their minds. Perhaps between now and the Report stage some attention will be given to a comprehensive new clause which will embrace this matter and clear it. Heaven help us if it makes it even more complicated!It is long overdue, in my view, that the London building procedures should be codified and clarified, and I hope that what we have done today may lead in that direction. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD HASTINGS

This is a consequential Amendment to Amendment No. 159A. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 37, leave out ("London Building Acts (Amendment) Act ") and insert (" and 156 of the Act of ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 43, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 44 agreed to.

Schedule 9 [Modification and re-enactment as from 1st April 1965 of enactments relating to sewerage and drainage]:

4.18 p.m.

LORD CROOK moved, after paragraph 2, to insert: 3.—Nothing in this Act, or in any other enactment, shall be deemed to render unlawful the continuation by the Greater London Council of a discharge from a sewer, pumping station or sewage disposal works vested in them by virtue of section 35 of this Act in any case where that discharge was lawfully being made prior to 1st April 1965 by a county council. Authority or Board referred to in subsection (1) of the said section 35.

The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friends and myself. It is an Amendment which refers back to an Act part of which is being repealed by this Bill—I refer to Section 28(1)(a) of the Public Health (London) Act 1936. In this Act there is an implied power to discharge sewage into the River Thames where it is not reasonably practicable to avoid such discharge. The sewers in the County of London, as some of your Lordships are aware, are combined sewers; that is to say, they receive storm water as well as sewage. It would be quite impracticable to have sewers of such size that the huge volume of flow in times of storm could be carried to the outfall works at Barking and Erith. In order to prevent flooding, the sewers are, and must be, relieved of flow in excess of the capacity by means of gravity outfalls, or by pumping, into the River Thames. It would also be out of the range of practicability to construct a new series of foul and storm water sewers in London.

The 60 separate storm flows to the River in the present London County Council area must, therefore, of necessity, contain sewage (although, let it be said, considerably diluted) and it follows that the right to discharge sewage must, in the opinion of the London County Council—and this is a view which we share— continue. Unless, however, an Amendment is made on the lines that I am proposing on behalf of noble Lords on this side of the House, such a discharge could be rendered unlawful, and so would discharges from the outfalls at Barking and Erith. These, researches with the London County Council show, would be under the provisions of Sections 30, 31 and 331 of the Public Health Act, 1936, which will apply to the whole of Greater London by virtue of the Bill.

When the Act of 1936, to which I have referred, was passed, a special saving was included in Section 336 for the then existing powers and duties of the Middlesex County Council as a sewerage and sew age disposal authority. There is, in our view, an unquestionable need for a comparable saving to secure the continued operation of this highly complex sewerage system in London so that what happens may not be declared or rendered unlawful. Your Lordships will probably know, with respect to London, that this system has grown under the authority of special London enactments, and it cannot suitably be brought under the general law in all respects on all matters.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government agreed in Standing Committee in another place to look into the legal aspects of this point more closely, and then to put down an Amendment if necessary. The Amendment now proposed has been drafted by the London County Council—in the absence of an Amendment from the Government—in such a way as they think and we think will be as unobjectionable as possible. What it seeks to do is merely to retain for the G.L.C. the existing powers to discharge effluent and storm water without, however, pronouncing in any way on what those powers are. The London County Council inform us that they attach great importance to this point, and they suggest that the Government should face up to the fact that the discharges in question will almost certainly become unlawful if the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1936, are applied to the Greater London Council in the manner which is at the moment proposed in the Bill.

We learn from our researches that if, in consequence of the situation, the Greater London Council closed, or was ordered by the court to close, storm water outlets, a dangerous degree of flooding would take place in several parts of London in times of storm. We understand that many basement properties would be particularly seriously affected. We have had enough past experience of what storm damage and flooding can do. These powers ought to be left, and I hope the Government will be able to announce in the speech of the Minister that they are ready to accept this rather carefully phrased Amendment of the London County Council, aimed at securing agreement. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 161, line 32, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Crook.)

LORD HASTINGS

This again is a rather complicated and technical subject. The noble Lord has referred to the Public Health Act, 1936, and to a special provision of it, in Section 30, among others, which says: Nothing in this Part of this Act shall authorise a local authority to construct or use any public or other sewer, or any drain or outfall, for the purpose of conveying foul water into any natural or artificial stream…until the water has been so treated as not to affect prejudicially the purity and quality… I think that is the section the noble Lord is worrying about. Of course, under the general law, there is always an absolute prohibition against causing a nuisance in the exercise of sewerage powers to which the London County Council itself is subject, as are all other authorities throughout the country. It is this specific clause which is causing noble Lords anxiety.

We feel that this is not such a strong point as it may be made out to be. Storm water overflowing might contravene Section 30 of the Act which I have just quoted, and might make the Greater London Council liable to legal proceedings by the Attorney General for breach of that section. I do not think it could be subject to legal proceedings by anybody else. That would be done under claims for damage under the general law, to which all these authorities are in any case subject. Therefore, we feel, there is no risk that the Attorney General would, in practice, institute proceedings in respect of a storm water discharge by the Greater London Council which was clearly accidental and not due to their negligence in carrying out their duties, since it is fully recognised that sewers cannot be constructed large enough to take any overflow as a result of the storm. That is, in fact, what the storm water overflows are for, so that the sewers need not be of an unnecessary size.

So, for all practical purposes it seems that, as the Bill stands, the Greater London Council will not be under any greater liability in respect of their sewage discharges than, for instance, the London County Council are now. In respect of the saving clause which the noble Lord mentioned, I am informed that the Middlesex saving in the 1936 Act is being repealed. It applied to specific powers of discharge, and there is no further need for it.

To continue with the argument, we feel that storm overflows are obviously varied in size and character but they are not by any means bound to break the law. I do not think any provision which appears to accept that they are bound to break the law, and that it is inevitable that they will cause pollution, is to be encouraged. We feel that special protection is neither necessary nor desirable, and I would suggest to noble Lords that their anxieties are not really well founded, and that it is better to bring the Greater London Council into conformity with the rest of the country in respect of storm water outflows, on the ground that it is unnecessary for them to have special protection.

LORD SHEPHERD

That really is an extraordinary speech—extraordinary because the noble Lord obviously has not taken into account (if he has received it, or has asked for) the advice of the engineers. My understanding is this. The main sewage canals through London flow from West to East, and they are so constructed that they can take six times the dry-weather flow. But it is well recognised that a big storm can raise that flow—if the sewage drain is big enough—30, and sometimes even 100 times. It is quite possible, in fact, it is not uncommon, that a big storm takes place in London and that the overflow has to be brought into effect.

The noble Lord then said that he saw no reason why, in the case of London, the position should be any different from that in different parts of the country.

LORD HASTINGS

I said legally.

LORD SHEPHERD

I will come to the legal point, but we have to look at the factual point. In the case of Leicester, which the noble Lord quoted, this is not such a large built-up area, and if there is a heavy rainfall much of the water can be absorbed naturally into the ground. This is because the area there is not so solidly built-up as is London, where artificial drainage is necessary for the dispersing of our water. Therefore, the comparison of what is possible by local authorities in Leicester, Glasgow, and so on, with London is quite irrelevant. The position is that the Greater London Council (the London County Council as it now is) definitely must use the overflow and, regrettably, allow sewage to seep into the river.

The noble Lord then said that he did not think that the new authority would be in a worse position legally than is the L.C.C. to-day. I would refer him to the Public Health Act, 1936, which requires the London County Council to prevent sewage from passing into the Thames, "as far as practicable". These words are well-known to the noble Lord. They are words that we have to insert from time to time, because we well know that there are circumstances when the law of responsibility cannot be applied but this has always been brought in to relieve the authority in the event of legal proceedings. As I understand it, under this Bill it will become unlawful (the noble Lord will not quibble at that, I hope) for the Council to permit any sewage to enter the River Thames. Am I or am I not right that it is unlawful?

LORD HASTINGS

It could be considered unlawful.

LORD SHEPHERD

We cannot quibble; it is either lawful or unlawful.

LORD HASTINGS

As in the rest of the country.

LORD SHEPHERD

It is unlawful in the rest of the country. Their circumstances are quite different; the pressure on their drains is not so great. Here we recognise that the Council will from time to time have to permit the seepage of sewage into the Thames. The alternative would be the flooding of sewage into the streets or basements of houses. That is the case. Is it not a fact, therefore, that we have a clear case? The noble Lord smiles, but this is a very serious matter.

It is quite wrong for this Committee to recognise that if the Council places sewage into the Thames it is breaking the law. If we recognise that, is it right that we should let these words continue, recognising that the authority will have no option but to break the law, to permit sewage to enter the Thames, or, as an alternative, to allow it to seep on to the streets? It seems to me completely ridiculous for the Government to take their attitude on this matter. Is it right that we should put an authority into a position that they break the law and that the Government are prepared that they should break the law? It is right? Of course it is not. Therefore, I hope my noble friend will press this matter.

LORD HASTINGS

We are not really arguing or disagreeing at all about whether sewage will or will not be discharged through these storm-water outflows. We are arguing purely on a legal point.

LORD SHEPHERD

Yes.

LORD HASTINGS

Noble Lords should, I think, realise that the L.C.C. has agreed that the only greater risk the Greater London Council may be under is of an action by the Attorney General for breach of Statute, and we are sure that this is only a theoretical possibility.

LORD SHEPHERD

No; it is a certainty.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

I do not think we can leave a matter of this importance in this most unsatisfactory state. Here, in the vital matter of the treatment of London's sewage, the new Greater London Council is put in a position, to use the words of the legal advice which they have sought, that the Council will, from the moment of its creation, be faced in storm conditions with the choice of either breaking the law or of shutting its storm overflows and creating the dangerous flooding of the sewers of London ". Is it right that Parliament should deliberately place the new Greater London Council in the position that either they will have to break the law, and deal with the storm water and sewage in the only practical way, or they will have to force it through manholes, and through houses and basements, which is the alternative? I do not think it can be left like this; and if it is a legal point, surely we ought to have the Government's Law Officers here or, the Lord Chancellor to tell us just what the position is. I cannot believe that the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor would lend his authority deliberately and knowingly to put the Greater London Council in this impossible legal position.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

The Lord Chancellor ought to be here.

LORD WILMOT or SELMESTON

I agree; I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor should be asked to attend the House and give us the benefit of his advice, because the whole legal position of the Greater London Council is involved, and I think it is of the utmost importance. The Council will lose the protection which it now enjoys under Section 28 of the Public Health Act, 1936, which requires the Council to prevent sewage from pasing into the Thames only "as far as practicable"—and that would seem to me a very reasonable provision—and they will have become, instead, subject to additional restrictions under Section 30 of the Public Health Act, 1936, which prevents them from constructing or using any sewer or outfall for the purpose of conveying foul water into any stream or watercourse. In the opinion of the Council's own advisers, as I have said, this will mean, unless the Government are prepared to accept the Amendment which has now been moved, or some Amendment to the same effect, that the Council will have the choice, to put it very simply, of breaking the law or poisoning everyone. It seems to me that we cannot leave the matter in that state, and that the view of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor should be placed before the Committee.

4.38 p.m.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned in order to enjoy the presence and the benefit of the advice of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. This is really monstrous. The Minister of State, Home Office, and the Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, have had a very heavy burden to deal with, and I think they have done their best. But it is curious that the Lord Chancellor introduced the Bill—he is the Minister in charge of the Bill—and that about all he has done up to now has been to attack the Opposition for doing its Parliamentary duty and to threaten us; but when wanted, he is not here. We have no Attorney General or Solicitor General in this House, and I think therefore (although, no doubt, the Lord Chancellor may have had reasons for being away, but he has been away most of the time), as a matter of gravity, both to him and to the House as a whole, the Committee ought to adjourn pending the presence of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor.

LORD CROOK

I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Lord Crook.)

LORD HASTINGS

I think in the circumstances, rather than continuing the detailed argument, which I could have done, I should say that it is quite clear that noble Lords opposite would like authoritative legal advice on this matter. Perhaps in the circumstances it would suit the convenience of your Lordships if I were to ask my noble and learned friend to consider this matter possibly between now and Report stage.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

The Lord Chancellor is the Minister in charge of the Bill; he brought it in. I cannot believe the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would have brought in a Bill unless he understood it. Therefore he must be ready to answer this legal point, and I think he should do so now.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE)

I am perfectly ready to answer any legal point of which I am apprised, but I am afraid that, owing to my temporary absence, I am not apprised of this point. The noble Lord says I should have been here. He always reflects on those who are absent. I have been here a great deal.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

Perhaps I may put the point on which we asked for the noble and learned Lord's view. May I say at once that there was no direct or implied disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, who has given his careful attention to this matter with the utmost courtesy and clarity; but we cannot expect him to give the authoritative legal view of the Government on a Bill which was introduced by the Lord Chancellor. The point is this. It is on Amendment No. 167, Schedule 9. We are advised that the legal opinion tendered to the London County Council by their legal advisers is that unless Amendment 167, or something like it, is accepted, the Greater London Council will from the moment of its creation be faced in storm-water conditions with this choice: either they break the law—because they have lost the protection of the escape clause in the Public Health Act, 1936, and they will now become liable to the restrictions of Section 30—or they must close the outlets which let the water into the river, and let it find its way through sewers into basements, up manholes and drains, and create a poisonous situation in London. It is upon the point whether they will be breaking the law that we seek the Lord Chancellor's views.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I gather from what the noble Lord says that he has received legal advice with regard to this question.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

I said the London County Council received legal advice, of which they apprised us.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I was condensing it somewhat shortly. I imagined that that was what had happened. I gather the matter has also been considered by those responsible for giving legal advice to Her Majesty's Government on questions of this sort, and I am told the advice is that the choice is not between breaking the law and shutting the overflows. I do not think it would be right for me, in view of the legal advice which has been given upon this, to express an opinion "off the cuff" with regard to it. I should have thought myself that the chances of any legal proceedings ensuing were extremely remote, because at the moment I think they would have to be instituted by the Attorney General. But, however that may be, one obviously does not want to set an example of law-breaking by the London County Council or otherwise. If the position is as the noble Lord has said, it should be covered in the Bill. I should like to have an opportunity of giving further consideration to it. It does not emerge clearly from the Amendment. Therefore, if the noble Lord would like to withdraw this Amendment I will certainly give it further consideration.

LORD CROOK

I am sure we are all obliged to the noble and learned Lord for returning to give some advice to the Committee. We are very appreciative of what he has had to say. On the other hand, it does not do anything to remove the disturbed minds we have had. It means, since he has helped us so much, that we cannot go on with the Motion that the House do now resume, which Motion I ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw; after which I expect the Committee to accept our advice to go into the Division Lobby on the original Amendment.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD SHEPHERD

I understand that the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, gave a firm undertaking that this matter would be looked at.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I was not aware of the moving of the Motion, That the House do now resume. I thought Amendment No. 167 had been moved. My undertaking related to Amendment No. 167, and I should certainly like to look at the question; and it was on that basis I invited the noble Lord to withdraw the Amendment. It will not stop him from putting it down on Report stage. If there is really serious ground for thinking the law is as the noble Lord has been advised, I should certainly like to see our intentions made clearer, because I do not think the position ought to remain that a great authority such as the Greater London Council is going to be, should be faced with any such choice.

LORD CROOK

In those circumstances I have obviously no option but to accept the offer of the noble and learned Lord and reserve our position at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD HASTINGS

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 164, line 17, leave out from (" In ") to (" shall ") in line 18 and insert (" section 30 the reference to Part II of the Public Health Act 1936, and in section 31 the reference to the foregoing provisions of the said Part II ").—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD SHEPHERD

Can the noble Lord say to what it is a drafting Amendment?

LORD HASTINGS

It corrects a slight inaccuracy. That is all.

LORD SHEPHERD

I think the Committee is entitled to know what the inaccuracy is. There may be a major change slipping through without our knowledge.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think it right to say—it was certainly so in the other place—that when a Minister says an Amendment is drafting, that is, in my experience, almost invariably accepted. I think the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, would accept that that is the practice. I have never known either Party in office say an Amendment is drafting when it is not. If the noble Lord really wants the technicalities of drafting explained on this particular proposal, I am sure my noble friend will do so.

LORD SHEPHERD

I was not suggesting any impropriety at all. It was being moved as a drafting Amendment and I was asking what it affected, purely for information. If the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, is not in a position to reply, I shall be happy to leave it and look at it and perhaps have consultations. I merely asked, as I think I am entitled to, the effect of the Amendment.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CROOKmoved, after paragraph 18, to insert: 19. Section 330 shall not apply in the sewerage area of the Greater London Council. 20. Section 333 shall not apply—

1. (a) in so much of the sewerage area of the Greater London Council as is situate in any inner London borough, the City or the Temples; or
2. (b) in any other part of that area as respects works to which paragraph 4(1) of Part III of this Schedule applies."

The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friends on this side of the Committee, I beg to move Amendment 168. I ask leave of your Lordships to take in with that discussion, to save the time of the House, Amendment 169. These are very closely interrelated to another sewage problem. Section 29(2) of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, to which reference has already been made, prevents the London County Council from executing any sewerage or draining works, as it says, on the banks, beds or shores of the River Thames, which may interfere with the navigation of the river, unless the Port of London Authority have given a certificate stating that they approve the plans and that the works will not interfere with navigation. Section 78 of the same Act requires the London County Council, or a metropolitan borough council, if concerned, before executing any sewerage or drainage works which will interfere with a railway or canal, to serve notices on the company concerned. It also provides for arbitration in cases of dispute.

These two sections will be repealed by this Bill as it now stands, and Section 333 of the Public Health Act, 1936, will apparently apply in their stead. That section requires the consent of a dock undertaking before a local authority executes any work in, across or under any dock, harbour, basin, wharf, quay or lock, or any land belonging thereto held or used by the undertaking". It also requires the consent of the railway company before executing any works either along, across or under a railway. Consents are not to be unreasonably withheld, and provision is made for arbitration and compensation payments.

Your Lordships will note that both of the sections of the London Act which I have quoted refer to and use the one word "interference"; but the general Act requires consent, whether or not there is interference. Whether any particular work would or would not interfere with navigation or with the railway might well be open to technical argument. In practice, a certificate from the Port of London Authority has always been sought, and notice to a railway has always been given by the London County Council. Agreement on safety measures has again always been freely reached. After all, the safety of the workers and the interests of both parties are not separate issues; they really are one and the same. On the other hand, claims for easements and payments, and even that the railway engineers should supervise the work while proceeding, have had to be resisted by the London County Council.

Many sewers have been constructed under the present law in London, as the Government will, I am sure, agree. It is not at all obvious to us or to the London County Council why the powers of the Greater London Council in this connection should be more circumscribed than the powers of the present Council; or why the powers of the Railways Board should accordingly be increased. Even if it is considered that a railway undertaking should be in a position to demand payment as a condition of consent to a sewer going through their land, it is not obvious why they should have this advantage over any other bodies. It is, as those of us who know our London appreciate, almost impossible to construct any sewer in London without crossing a surface or underground railway. Usually, there are several crossings of different lines involved in any one job in sewer work, and if in future it is to be necessary to obtain all these consents before crossing a railway, the construction of sewers in London is bound to be delayed. Accordingly, these Amendments seek to retain the present London law in this connection and hold it to the Greater London Council. It is a law that has always worked satisfactorily, and is well understood by all the parties who have been concerned in the past.

In addition to the matters that I have dealt with so far, the first section of the first Amendment would prevent the application to the sewerage area of the Greater London Council of Section 330 of the Public Health Act, 1936. That section—no comparable provision exists at present in London—empowers railway companies, dock undertakings and land drainage authorities to alter sewers vested in a local authority by substituting equally effectual sewers—I emphasise the words "equally effectual sewers" because it does not state there that these must be equally effectual in the opinion of the local authority, though it is true that the matter can, in the ultimate, be referred to arbitration. Your Lordships do not need me to remind you that expert opinion is always liable to be divided on what is "equally effectual", and differing views may cause considerable trouble.

It seems wrong that a great body like the Greater London Council proposed to be set up under this Bill which, of all councils, will have at its service some of the most expert opinion in the country on sewerage matters, should not even have the right to approve any proposals for the alteration of its own sewers. As an example, inverted syphons might be likely to be proposed as a method of diverting a sewer, although in the case of many of London's existing sewers such a proposal would be resisted at present by the present London County Council. It would be resisted on a number of grounds, particularly that efficiency would be reduced and that the cost of maintenance would be considerably increased. It is considered by the London County Council—this is a view with which my noble friends on this side of the Committee agree—that the application of the section to which I have referred to London's vast, complex and interlocking drainage system could drastically affect the overall efficiency of the whole sewerage system of London. Therefore, we would strongly resist the application of Section 330.

When similar, but rather wider, Amendments were considered in Standing Committee in another place, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport asked the Committee to give him the opportunity to consider the matter further. He suggested that, with a view to his taking steps at a later stage of this Bill to put down an Amendment containing the substance of what had been suggested, while at the same time securing reasonable uniformity. The Committee agreed to let the matter go. That is what has happened. He suggested that if he could be given a little more time to look at the matter again he hoped to be able to arrive at the satisfactory solution that many Members of the Committee wanted. In the absence of any Government Amendment, we have put down these Amendments on behalf of the London County Council. I beg to move them, and I hope that we may learn from the Government that they are ready to accept them, or, if not, that they will say they have their own equally effective Amendment which they propose to put forward on the next stage.

Amendment moved— Page 165, line 19, at end insert the said paragraphs.—(Lord Crook.)

LORD CHESHAM

I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, for having spoken to these two Amendments so clearly, and so fairly. He has really taken some pains to point out both sides of the argument, and therefore it is really unnecessary for me to say any more. It boils down to the fact that, on the one hand, there are the arguments in favour of uniformity in such matters throughout the country, and, on the other hand, the special considerations which undoubtedly exist in London. Briefly, those are the two factors.

The noble Lord referred to my honourable friend's undertaking in another place. The examination which he said he would undertake is partly, but not sufficiently, completed. What has happened is that there has been discussion with the Port of London Authority, and correspondence with the London Transport Board, the British Railways Board and the British Waterways Board, in order to establish their precise interests in the matter. The other part of the examination, which is a very important part, is consultation with the L.C.C. which has not yet happened, but I can tell your Lordships that the discussion with the L.C.C. together with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and my own Department, as well as the various undertakers, has been arranged for May 28. I certainly hope that agreement in this matter can be reached before Report stage. I only want to say now that if as a result of that further consultaion there is a strong case for doing what the noble Lord, Lord Crook, advocated should be done the Government will most certainly look at it sympathetically and, if it seems appropriate, take action at the Report stage. Naturally, it will have to be a very good reason, but I can give the noble Lord that undertaking. I therefore hope, in view of what I have said, that he will be willing to withdraw his Amendments on this occasion.

LORD CROOK

I am obliged to the noble Lord for the reply which he has given me, and I thank him for the nice things which he has said. We are glad to learn that there are to be discussions with the L.C.C. in the course of the next week, and also to learn that discussions have already gone on. In all the circumstances, it would be wrong of me to press an Amendment of this kind at this stage. I shall look forward to learning from the noble Lord in due course what the Government's proposals are. I hope that those proposals will prove effective from our point of view, that they will be able to go on the Marshalled List for the Report stage, and that they will be acceptable to us. We shall be left in the position that, if we do not like it, then we can always move the adoption of some other words. I therefore ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD HASTINGS

It is not considered that the Greater London Council needs, or should have, quite such an overriding power to construct sewage disposal works as paragraph 1 of this Part of the Schedule appears to confer. The same considerations apply to their construction in London as elsewhere, and it is thought that the same provisions—those of Section 15 of the Public Health Act, 1936—should apply to the construction of sewage disposal works, as distinct from sewers, in London as elsewhere. This Amendment achieves this. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 165, line 29, leave out from (" sewer ") to end of line 30.—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

5.4 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS moved, in paragraph 1(2), to leave out "The foregoing sub-paragraph" and to substitute: Where the Greater London Council propose in the exercise of their powers under this paragraph to construct a sewer which will cross or interfere with any watercourse or works vested in, or under the control of, a land drainage authority other than the Council or the council of a London borough or county district, they shall before adopting plans for the construction of the sewer give notice of their proposals to that authority: and if that authority within twenty-eight days of the giving of the notice to them serve on the Greater London Council notice of objection to the proposals, the Council shall not proceed with the proposals unless all objections so made are withdrawn or the Minister after a local inquiry has approved the proposals with or without modification. (3) Section 31(2) of the Land Drainage Act 1961 (which requires the consent of a river authority to the erection, alteration or repair of structures in, over or under watercourses) shall not apply to any work executed under this paragraph. (4) The foregoing provisions of this paragraph ".

The noble Lord said: Under the Bill as it stands the Greater London Council are exempt from the provisions of Section 15(2) and (3) of the Public Health Act, 1936, which requires a sewerage authority proposing to construct a sewer that will cross or interfere with any watercourse or works vested in, or under the control of a land drainage authority to give notice to that authority, who may object to the proposals. Any dispute is to be settled by the Minister. It has been represented by the Kent and Essex River Boards that the Greater London Council ought to have the same obligations as other sewerage authorities, and this Amendment substantially achieves this. In effect, it applies the provisions of Section 15(2) and (3) of the 1936 Act to the Greater London Council. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 165, line 36, leave out (" The foregoing sub-paragraph ") and insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD CROOK

I am bound to say, on the explanation given by the noble Lord, that this type of Amendment seems reasonable enough. On the other hand, the noble Lord has not mentioned in connection with this Amendment the very thing he mentioned on the last one: consultation with the Greater London Council to find what kind of views the present Council have on this matter. Whilst it is perfectly true that this is placing powers in the hands of the new Greater London Council, if it was sensible in regard to the question of interference with sewer passages, railways, canals or docks or quays to have talks with the P.L.A. and with the London County Council, would it not be a good idea to do so also on this matter? We do not want to oppose this Amendment, but if the noble Lord could give an undertaking of that kind and then take this Amendment away and come back on Report stage with another Amendment, it might be more advantageous.

LORD HASTINGS

I think that possibly the noble Lord has overlooked some words in the Amendment: …the Greater London Council propose in the exercise of their powers under this paragraph to construct a sewer which will cross…any watercourse or works vested in, or under the control of, a land drainage authority "— them, and this is the important point: other than the Council or the council of a London borough or county district… ". So that they are not going to be interfered with. It is only the people outside that district who have asked for the Greater London Council to be put under the same obligations as other sewerage authorities.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is consequential on No. 168B. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 165, line 40, leave out from (" 1950 ") to end of line 43 and insert— (" (5) Except where notice has to be given by the Greater London Council in pursuance of sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph or of any requirement mentioned in sub-paragraph (4) thereof, no notice need be given by them of any exercise of the powers conferred by this paragraph.").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This is a drafting Amendment. The Minister of Transport has taken on certain functions exercised by the Board of Trade at the time when the 1936 Act became law, and this Amendment puts right this minor error. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 167, line 4, leave out (" Board of Trade ") and insert (" Minister of Transport ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 9, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 10 agreed to.

Schedule 11 [Modification and re-enactment as front 1st April 1965 of provisions of Public Health Acts]:

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is consequential on Amendment 159A. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 180, line 1, at end insert— (" 2A. Sections 160 and 171 shall not apply to Greater London ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment also is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 180, line 5, leave out paragraph 4.—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is again consequential on 159A. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 180, line 23, leave out (" 80 and 81 ") and insert (" 21 and 80 and so much of section 81 as relates to the Town Police Causes Act 1847 ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is similarly consequential on No. 159A. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 180, line 28, after (" 5 ") insert (" 17 to 19 ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS moved, in paragraph 13(1), to leave out words after "perform the" down to and including "refuse whatsoever;" and to insert: following services throughout their district:—

1. (a) the services mentioned in section 72(1);
2. (b) the removal under section 73(1) of trade refuse of any kind whatsoever at the request of the occupier of premises; and
3. (c) the cleansing of streets under section 77(1)".

The noble Lord said: Paragraph 13 of this part of Schedule 11 says that it shall be the duty of the local authorities in the inner London area to undertake certain cleansing services which, throughout the rest of the country outside the London County Council area, become local authority functions only if the council undertakes to provide those services. The Amendment sets out in more detail exactly what those services are, and, in so doing, it makes two minor changes to the paragraph as drafted. First—and this is a matter of drafting—it makes it clear that trade refuse has to be collected by the authority only at the request of the occupier, and, secondly, it excludes the watering of streets from the obligatory functions of the local authorities.

Amendment moved— Page 180, line 45, leave out from second (" the ") to (" and ") in line 3 on page 181, and insert the said new words.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This is consequential on the last Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 181, line 7, leave out ("services mentioned in those sections ") and insert (" said services ").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

This is essentially a drafting Amendment to give full effect to the present paragraph 13(2) which it replaces. Sub-paragraph (2) seeks to preserve, for inner London, the present requirements as to refuse collection, which are rather more stringent in the L.C.C. area than in the rest of the country. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 181, line 8, leave out sub-paragraph (2) and insert— (" (2) Section 72(2) shall not apply in relation to the removal of house refuse in Greater London other than the outer London boroughs, but the following provisions shall have effect therein instead:—

1. (a) the local authority shall appoint, and give sufficient notice of, the times for removing house refuse from premises within their district;
2. (b) where house refuse is not removed from any premises at the time appointed for those premises, the occupier of the premises may serve on the local authority a notice requiring the authority to remove the refuse;
3. (c) if the local authority fail, without reasonable excuse, to comply with the notice within the period of forty-eight hours beginning with the service thereof (exclusive of Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday, bank holidays and any day appointed for public thanksgiving or mourning), the occupier of the premises may recover summarily as a civil debt from the authority the sum of five shillings for every day during which the default continues after the expiration of that period.")—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

Like the existing version of paragraph 14(1) of this part of Schedule 11, the amended version makes it clear that the Greater London Council shall be the sole authority for the disposal of refuse in Greater London. The change made by this Amendment is to allow the borough councils and the City, who will be responsible for the collection (as distinct from the disposal) of refuse, to install plant for sorting and baling waste paper where this is collected separately from other refuse. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 181, line 19, leave out sub-paragraph (1) and insert— (" (1) The powers exercisable by a local authority under sections 74(2) and 76(1) shall be exercisable throughout Greater London by the Greater London Council to the exclusion of any other authority, except that the powers conferred by section 76(1)(c), so far as they relate to the provision of plant or apparatus for sorting and baling waste paper collected separately from other refuse, shall be exercisable concurrently by the authority collecting the paper and the Greater London Council; and

1. (a) any reference to a local authority in the said sections 74(2) and 76(1) shall be construed accordingly; and
2. (b) any reference to a local authority in section 76(3) so far as that subsection relates to material deposited in a place provided for the deposit of refuse shall be construed as a reference to the Greater London Council and not to any other authority.").—.(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

The London Borough Councils will have power to sell refuse (that is, salvage) under Section 76(2) of the Public Health Act, 1936, as applied by Clause 40(1) and (2). The Amendment makes it clear that their power to sell refuse is not restricted by paragraph 14(3), the previous Amendment about which we have just been talking. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 181, line 39, at end insert (" except any refuse sold by that authority under section 76(2).").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD STONHAM moved, after paragraph 16, to insert: 17. Section 82 shall not apply to an inner London borough, the City or the Temples.

The noble Lord said: I hope it will suit your Lordships' convenience if I discuss with this Amendment also Amendments 171 and 173. In fact No. 173 is the main Amendment. Briefly, it seeks to give the Greater London Council powers to make by-laws as respects the inner London boroughs and the Temples, first, for prescribing the times for the removal or carriage by road or water of any offensive or noxious matter in or through the said boroughs or Temples, and for providing other safeguards; secondly, with respect to sanitary conveniences, ash-pits, cess-pools, incinerators and so on.

Important new refuse and drainage bylaws for London have recently been agreed between the London County Council and representatives of the metropolitan borough councils, following some twenty years of discussions, and these are now awaiting the formal approval of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. These by-laws have been made by the London County Council under the powers contained in Sections 84(2) and 107(1) of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936. They contain requirements as to the storage, removal and disposal of refuse and as to drainage. Some of the provisions of these by-laws, in effect, form part of the London Building Code which it will be the duty of the Greater London Council to administer in the inner London boroughs.

In the existing paragraph 3 of Part II of Schedule 11 which my Amendments seek to expand, this fact seems to have bean recognised because the powers of Section 107(1) of the 1936 Act are included in the by-law-making powers of the Greater London Council, which are to continue to have effect in inner London. In my Amendment No. 173, which is the main Amendment of the three we are now considering, we accordingly seek to extend these powers so as to incorporate the substance of so much of Section 84(2) of the Act of 1936 as it is considered necessary or desirable to re-enact.

So far as sub-paragraph (a) is concerned, it is obviously desirable that standard times and constructional requirements for vehicles should continue to apply in connection with the removal of refuse by road in inner London. This control is also important from the point of view of traffic management and uniformity. I think it will be perfectly obvious that this is essential if these arrangements are to be made, not only properly in the administrative sense but, so far as timing is concerned, in such a way as not to be offensive to the people of London.

The matters specified in sub-paragraph (b) merely re-enact the present paragraph 3, which contains the substance of Section 107(1) of the Act of 1936, to which I have referred; but there is the addition of the word "incinerators", which are at present regulated under the bylaw-making powers of Section 84(2). When this matter was discussed in Committee in another place the Minister of Housing and Local Government said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Standing Committe F, 5 March, 1963; col. 605]: The Greater London Council will, of course, inherit by-law-making powers under Section 107(1) of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, and it is simply a question of whether those powers are as wide as those under Section 84(2)…which is being repealed. I will gladly undertake to discuss whether the powers being inherited by the Greater London Council are as wide as those they will not inherit, and make an alteration it it seems suitable. Later on he undertook to look at the point about incinerators, and I notice that Amendment 174, which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, will be moving later, covers that point. Therefore, he could argue that my sub-paragraph (b) is covered in an Amendment which he hopes the Committee will accept later; but although this meets the substance of that sub-paragraph, it certainly does not cover the very important matters referred to in sub-paragraph (a), which is set out in Amendment 173, about the times. I think it is clear that the Government do wish the Greater London Council to inherit powers that are sufficiently wide for the efficient administration of these important health functions, but in my submission they will not do so. The powers will not be wide enough—and certainly the London County Council do not think so—unless this Amendment is accepted. I am sure it would meet the general wishes that this point—quite an important one—should be adequately covered, and I therefore hope the Government will accept it. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 132, line 16, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Stonham.)

5.22 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS

Paragraph 17(1) of this Part of the Schedule replaces Section 84(2)(a) of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, and gives all the new London boroughs a permissive power to make by-laws under Section 82 of the Public Health Act, 1936 (not the London Act), to prevent nuisances arising from the carriage of offensive matter or liquid by water, as well as by road. The noble Lord's Amendment would preclude the inner London boroughs, the City and the Temples from making such by-laws. I think that possibly the noble Lord is worried—and he said so—particularly in regard to the timing of these operations; that different inner London authorities might impose different conditions, so that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for anybody to operate the services from central London conveniently, or to the satisfaction of the public. But, in point of fact, I do not think this is ever going to arise, even under the present arrangements. Of course, we are concerned only with the efficiency of the system.

The Ministry of Housing and Local Government have a model by-law under Section 82 of the Public Health Act which suggests certain conditions, including hours, and almost all authorities are very willing to accept this. Furthermore, all by-laws under this section require confirmation, and it will be a simple matter for my right honourable friend, when confirming these by-laws, to ensure that there is sufficient uniformity throughout the area to make the removal of such matter a simple and inoffensive operation. In those circumstances we feel that there is no particular justification for departing from the general scheme of the Bill: that the London boroughs should have the functions normally discharged by boroughs, and county boroughs in the provinces. In respect of the point the noble Lord made about incinerators, that, of course, is referring to the building codes, and will be looked after, as the noble Lord pointed out, in the Government's Amendment No. 174. I hope that, with that explanation, the noble Lord may feel that his anxieties are not well-founded.

LORD STONHAM

I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Lord, and I find it difficult to agree that his arguments are well-founded. He has agreed with me that Amendment No. 174, which he will move later, meets the substance of part of my Amendment. Therefore, the noble Lord is conceding that in that particular it is necessary for the Greater London Council, and not the Minister, to approve model by-laws for the other boroughs. I find it very difficult, therefore, to understand why this much more cumbrous machinery should be set up—namely, that each inner London borough will study the Minister's by-laws, will mull over them and get out their own version, and will then send them to the Minister for his approval. And we have to hope that the timings will be all right, and that all the arrangements will be made in the early hours of the morning, or whatever times are decided, all over inner London, although in the area of several different boroughs—and in some of them transport will have to cross the boundaries of different boroughs, because they will not all be disposed of in the area in which they are collected.

Notwithstanding all this, the noble Lord suggests that that arrangement will achieve a result as satisfactory as one in which the Greater London Council makes all the by-laws. I do not for one moment think that the result will be as satisfactory. It is absolutely certain and self-evident that it will take much more time and be much more cumbrous, and that there will be much more chance of a difference in times and of a lack of uniformity. I cannot for the life of me see why this Amendment should not be accepted, because there cannot possibly be any difference between the noble Lord and myself on the objective.

We are agreed on that, and all we are disagreed about is the method of achieving it. He knows that it is quite demonstrable that the method he has suggested is much more cumbersome, and will take longer.

Therefore, unless there is some innate prejudice—and there has been a suggestion of that at other times—against giving the Greater London Council these powers, there is no reason for refusing this Amendment at all, and certainly we should not be prepared to withdraw it, unless, of course, the noble Lord agrees to have another look at it in the light of this discussion.

LORD HASTINGS

There is just the difference that the building codes, which we come to in a later Amendment, are really being left more or less as they are at the moment, because this comprehensive review, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, referred on a previous Amendment, is to be carried out, and we do not wish to disturb it meanwhile. In this case, though, we can go direct to the system we want to see at the very start; that is, to give the London boroughs the functions they should normally have.

5.29 p.m.

On Quesion, Whether the said Amendment (No. 170) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 23; Not-Contents, 63.

CONTENTS
Addison, V.	Hughes, L.	Sinha, L.
Alexander of Hillsborough, E.	Inman, L.	Stonham, L.
Attlee, E.	Latham, L.	Summerskill, B.
Burden, L. [Teller.]	Lawson, L.	Walston, L.
Champion, L.	Longford, E.	Williams, L.
Crook, L.	Lucan, E. [Teller.]	Wilmot of Selmeston, L.
Faringdon, L.	Morrison of Lambeth, L.	Wise, L.
Henderson, L.	Shepherd, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Ailwyn, L.	Clwyd, L.	Goschen, V. [Teller.]
Aldington, L.	Coleraine, L.	Grenfell, L.
Amherst of Hackney, L.	Colgrain, L.	Hailsham, V. (L.President.)
Ampthill, L.	Colville of Culross, V.	Hanworth, V.
Balfour of Inchrye, L.	Conies ford, L.	Harcourt, V.
Bethell, L.	Cranbrook, E.	Hastings, L.
Bossom, L.	Denham, L.	Hereford, V.
Boston, L.	Devonshire, D.	Howard of Glossop, L.
Braye, L.	Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Howe, E.
Brocket, L.	Dudley, E.	Jessel, L.
Buchan, E.	Ebbisham, L.	Long, V.
Carrington, L.	Elliot of Harwood, B.	Lothian, M.
Cawley, L.	Ferrers, E.	Luke, L.
Chesham, L.	Fraser of North Cape, L.	Mansfield, E.
Margesson, V.	Monk Bretton, L.	Saltoun, L.
Massereene and Ferrard, V.	Newton, L.	Soulbury, V.
Mersey, V.	Perth, E.	Suffield, L.
Mills, V.	Poulett, E.	Swinton, E.
Milverton, L.	Remnant, L.	Teynham, L.
Molson, L.	Rochdale, V.	Wellington, D.
Monck, V.	St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]	Wolverton, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. Noble Lords will recall that on the Second Reading of this Bill many of us addressed ourselves to certain aspects of the Bill in which we had a special interest. I was particularly impressed by the fact that the Government had brought a Bill to your Lordships' House which involved a transfer in a very limited period of the administration of the health services to the boroughs. Apart from your Lordships' knowledge of this Bill, I am sure that you will agree that public health in this country over the last, let us say, 25 years, has been enlarged in a manner which, so far as the administration is concerned, has impressed us all very much.

I shall deal with some of the details in a moment, but I am very disturbed by the thought that this important service in London, serving millions of Londoners, should be transferred in a period which I consider so short as to make it impossible to do it efficiently and with justice to the service; and I anticipate a dislocation. People afterwards may say, "I told you so. It went well." Public health is so detailed that nobody but those concerned with it who know the technicalities in terms of medicine involved would recognise that more time should be given to this important matter.

May I just refresh the memories of noble Lords? Under Clause 45, the local health authority for each London borough will be the council of the borough, and for the City the Common Council following upon the abolition of the London County Council. Let me remind the Committee also of the timing of this. The new authorities for Greater London will be elected, as to the Greater London Council in April, 1964, and as to the boroughs in May, 1964. Both will take over the local government services on April 1, 1965.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am seeking to follow the noble Lady's argument, but I am wondering whether we are really on the right Amendment. I was under the impression that Amendment 171 was consequential on the Amendment we have just discussed dealing with the by-laws made under Section 82. Therefore, I wonder whether the noble Lady has not perhaps slipped into an error about this?

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is not much more than drafting, but I should like to explain it briefly. It takes out paragraph 24, as Sections 313 to 317 are already looked after under Clause 84(7), which was put into the Bill in another place. Section 314 refers to the port health authority for the Port of London, which will have its function assigned by an order under Clause 41(1) of this Bill. But there is a small part of Section 314—Section 113 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891—which does not fall under either Clause 84 or Clause 41, and therefore must still be left in. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 183, line 20, leave out paragraph 24 and insert— (" 24. No order shall be made under section 314 after the passing of this Act as respects the port health authority for the Port of London.").—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment is consequential upon Amendment No. 174. The sub-paragraph which we are leaving out is incorporated in paragraph 5 of Amendment No. 174. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 185, line 40, leave out sub-paragraph (3).—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD HASTINGS

This Amendment, referring to incinerators, has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. Following the debate in another place, the Government promised to consider whether any of the powers in Section 84(2) of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, which is to be repealed, relating to the building of incinerators, should be preserved for the Greater London Council in respect of inner London. As the result of this examination, my right honourable friend is sure that the powers in Section 84(2) include power to deal with incinerators for the disposal of refuse. Therefore, the object of this Amendment is to enable the Greater London Council to inherit the powers to lay down in by-laws requirements for the construction and use of incinerators in inner London boroughs. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 185, line 50, leave out from (" 1965 ") to end of line 51 and insert:— (" 4. The Greater London Council shall make byelaws with respect to the construction and use of incinerators for the disposal of refuse in the inner London boroughs, the City and the Temples, being incinerators which are, or are in the nature of, buildings or structures or which form part of a building or structure. 5. It shall be the duty of each local authority to enforce in their district any byelaws under paragraphs 2 to 4 of this Part of this Schedule which are in force in their distriot.").—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD STONHAM

We welcome this Amendment as giving something of what we asked for on the previous Amendment, but it is likely that we shall return to the other half at a later stage.

Schedule 11, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 45 [Local health authorities]:

5.45 p.m.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "subsection (3)" and to insert "subsections (3), (4) and (5)." The noble Baroness said: I was thinking with regard to my previous remarks that I must be suffering from auditory hallucinations. The noble Lord, the Deputy Chairman called me and I do not know why I should be blamed. I still think that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, was at fault. Men, every one of them, look around for a woman to blame. I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his kindness. I was surprised—or, rather, I was gratified—to find that he is following this Bill so closely that at least he of the noble Lords opposite was conscious of the fact that I was addressing myself to the wrong Amendment.

I will not weary the Committee by repeating what I have already said. For this transference of health services there will be less than 13 months from the inception of the 33 new authorities to the day on which they must begin to administer the services which are now the responsibility of some 100 authorities. The object of this Amendment, and of the other three dealing with this matter, is to provide that the Greater London Council shall assume responsibility for the local health services for the inner London boroughs and the City for a five-year period from April 1, 1964, and shall provide an adequate period during which the services to be run by the inner London boroughs and the City can progressively be delegated to them and the transfer completed by the end of that period.

I would recall that, when the Bill was discussed in another place, the case for school children was put to the Government. The Government had second thoughts and decided that for a period of five years they would allow education to be administered by the inner London boroughs. I am appealing here to noble Lords to reconsider this, to see whether the sick should not have the same consideration as they have given to school children. I think that here there is an unanswerable case. The enormity of the task can be grasped only when I tell your Lordships that these are the services that will have to be transferred in eleven months: child care in nurseries, health visiting, family planning, maternity and child welfare, chiropody, problem families including special case work services, recuperative holidays, domiciliary midwifery, home nursing, home help, mental health, tuberculosis after-care, B.S.G. vaccination, vaccination and inoculation.

May I illustrate the importance of this work and the details involved by explaining to your Lordships the midwifery service of London. I should think that this is perhaps the first time in the history of your Lordships' House that the midwifery service of London has been explained here in detail. It is something of which we should all be proud. Of course, as hospital treatment becomes more sought after, the service becomes more detailed. The running of the domiciliary midwifery service has never devolved on the seven divisional health officers of the L.C.C., for the reason that a small number of confinements are undertaken in many divisions and that one-third of all confinements in London are undertaken by eleven district nursing associations and ten hospitals. Moreover, some of the teaching hospitals have no defined practice.

May I summarise all this by saying that, since nobody can predict when a baby is going to be born, exactly in which month, or where—for example, an expectant mother may go to her mother's for her baby to be born—the L.C.C. say that this service should be centralised. With these various services that I have mentioned—the domiciliary midwifery service, the district nursing associations, the hospital service and so on—the work is allocated from a central point. So if a woman has to change her arrangements at the last moment (perhaps in one area there is a shortage of midwives), the centre can say: "Let us change the working area of the midwives from South of the Thames to North of the Thames". This is being done every day. As we have sat here, while I have been speaking for six minutes, six babies have been born—I suppose that a baby is born every minute. In order that there should be this efficient service, there must be some body at the heart of the organisation arranging the work of the midwives, discussing the matter with the hospitals and ensuring that these women suffer as little as possible. Of course, this has led to few midwives being directly employed by the Council in some divisions, with the result that relief arrangements for midwives have generally been planned on a basis wider than that of one division.

It is not news to your Lordships—because I have said it before standing at this Box—and it is not news to the country, that our midwives are grossly underpaid and grossly overworked. It is a job which calls for physical health, patience, steady nerves, endurance and capacity to get up in the middle of the night with a smile. For that I think we pay them something which equates possibily to what our dustmen get. For this reason, of course, there has been a passive revolt of the midwives. Time after time Ministers say: "After you have married, come back and work". This has always amused me, because at other times they will say that no married woman should work because she is taking a man's job. But when it comes to midwives, there is this constant appeal, because we have not enough of them. So this wonderful little group of women working in London, first South of the Thames and then North of the Thames, anywhere they are called to go, are invaluable.

The Government propose that this wonderful midwifery service should be put on a borough basis, a limited basis. And, somehow, they are going to do this with a limited number of midwives—and more will be needed when the service is put on a borough basis—within eleven months. For the sake of the mothers of London, if for nobody else, I ask the Government to pause and think about this. In speaking about the limited number, I would remind noble Lords that these women must have time off, and we need more of them so that they may have their weekly, monthly and annual leave, and sick leave. To secure that an adequate number of midwives are on call at times when they are not on duty, it has been necessary to bring midwives into self-supporting groups. This is how it is done. They have a group of eight or twelve midwives, and these relief arrangements probably account for the Council's ability to recruit sufficient midwives from all parts of London. But no guarantee can possibly be given that this situation could be maintained if the service were fragmented into twelve boroughs. And that, of course, is what is intended.

Moreover, central control has also been essential for coping with such matters as emergency calls at night and at weekends. Maintenance of a 24-hour supervision is essential in London, because the large floating population for whom last-minute arrangements have to be made bring frequent calls for assistance. These calls go on day and night, from doctors, police, ambulances and the general public. When this service is placed on a borough basis, I find it difficult to see how these midwives can be arranged in groups. And the group attracts the midwife, because she realises that she will be carefully looked after. I understand that only two maternity hospitals in London are aiming to limit bookings of maternity patients to define a catchment area which would not overlap other hospitals' catchment areas. This is a complication. It would be better for all maternity hospitals not to define a catchment area, and for them to operate as midwives operate and be prepared to take mothers from anywhere and to serve any district. Therefore, it is a complication, especially when an increasing number of hospitals are planning schemes for the maternity nursing at home of patients discharged forty-eight hours after delivery.

While noble Lords are listening with great sympathy to this case, I should like to talk about that aspect of midwifery to-day. I think it is deplorable that there is such a shortage of midwives and a shortage of maternity accommodation. We heard the Minister of Health on the radio last night telling the country that everything was well; yet the shortage is such that the women of London have to come out after their confinement forty-eight hours after delivery. Schemes of this kind will increase the turnover of maternity beds. That is the whole purpose. We are so short of beds that we have to introduce schemes of this kind. This facilitates booking in advance by hospitals of more mothers who now have to rely on the Emergency Bed Service for a bed after labour starts. Last year in London there were 2,162 women in labour who had nowhere to have their babies, and who had to telephone for emergency beds. What I am describing now is a service operated by the L.C.C. I fail to see how, in a London borough, a service of this kind which will meet such emergencies can possibly be introduced in eleven months.

The unique London position is illustrated by the fact that the estimated number of midwives needed for a reasonable domiciliary midwifery service in London (this is given by the Royal Commission on Local Government) is double the actual number employed in London. I think that makes my case. In no circumstances do I exaggerate; if anything, I am guilty of under-statement. The Royal Commission say that we want double the actual number employed in London. Now it is proposed to fragment the service. Where the midwives are to come from, I do not know. I suppose that what will happen is what always happens in this field where these women serve so selflessly, and where there is such an acute shortage that it is impossible to meet the needs, leading to the adoption of methods such as I have described, which means turning women out of hospital within forty-eight hours: I take it that we shall double their salaries. That, I suppose, is the only way of increasing the numbers at the moment, and to attract younger women in.

I have dwelt on the midwifery service in order to emphasise my point. The other service I want to talk about is the mental health service. With the exception of one borough, the metropolitan borough councils have never exercised responsibility for the mental health service. In the area of the administrative County, personal health services have been developed on a county basis, and facilities such as training centres, hostels for the mentally subnormal and for the mentally ill, hostels for infective tuberculous men and the recuperative holiday homes, are not available to the proposed new boroughs on any kind of geographical basis. Here, again, services are available for the mentally ill; and again one may say that in one area there will be people who suffer from some mental disability, and perhaps there may be more in another area. Once more I want to emphasise the importance of having somebody at the centre directing these people to these various hostels.

I have mentioned, for example, infective tuberculous men. No doubt noble Lords know that tuberculosis is now being found in much older men with chronic coughs, which the doctors have dismissed by saying, "He has a cough because he smokes too much." Now further examinations are being made, and we have found that there are in our midst a large number of infective tuberculous men. As a result, special hostels have been set up for them. We have not got these hostels in every borough, and therefore I believe we should postpone these arrangements for, let us say, five years, while we plan for these various groups.

Noble Lords may say, "Let us try." But, of course, we have tried before. This is not something new. I would remind noble Lords that we tried in 1930 and in 1948, when there was integration and not fragmentation; when the transfer to authorities already well-established meant that everybody felt confident that things would go well. But that was not the fact. There was tremendous difficulty about transferring these functions in 1930 and 1948; and if these stages under the proposals of the Bill are carried out to a timetable there will be a grave risk of a breakdown in the local health services in the inner London area. In the short time allowed under this Bill, eleven months, entirely new authorities would require to have ready for work a whole pattern of standing orders and committees. They would have to recruit and retain staff, without the advantages of central allocation and training establishments.

May I say this on the subject of recruiting and retaining staff? I put a specific question to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, the other day on the subject. I asked whether, in this whole field, he could tell me of one service, from the home-help to the more technically trained worker, where there was any redundancy. In the whole of these services that I described there is a shortage of workers of every kind; and so when the boroughs come along and advertise for people for all these various jobs—and they are not very pleasant jobs—where will they come from? Surely we should anticipate this legislation. Surely at this stage we should invite the boroughs to get their staff. We should invite them to make all the preparations and then, when the time is ready, make the transfers. I ask noble Lords to recognise that there should be a little marking time at this stage. Let us pause and consider the situation. If this work is to be undertaken efficiently, it should be recognised that it is of paramount importance that central control is maintained for an initial period. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 63, line 21, leave out (" subsection (3) ") and insert (" subsections (3), (4) and (5).").—(Baroness Summerskill.)

6.5 p.m.

LORD NEWTON

The purpose of the noble Baroness in moving these four Amendments is to provide more time for the inner London boroughs and the Common Council to assume the powers and duties of local health authorities. Under the Bill as it stands they will do so on April 1, 1965. What I want to try to do is to convince your Lordships that there is no real need to provide for a delay, as the noble Baroness thinks there is. It is implicit in these Amendments that all the London boroughs shall become local health authorities eventually: on that point there is nothing between the Bill as it stands and the Amendment. It is merely a question of when the inner London boroughs—and the inner London boroughs only—shall become the local health authorities, because these Amendments refer only to the inner London boroughs.

I suggest that there is no reason, so far as we can see, for distinguishing in this way between the inner and the outer London boroughs. Of course, a changeover of this size presents problems—I do not for one moment deny that. It would be surprising if such a change did not present problems. But the problems are essentially administrative ones, and do not affect the services as they are received and appreciated by the beneficiaries.

LORD SHEPHERD

Would the noble Lord include in "administrative" the sharing out of staff? Does he regard that as administrative?

LORD NEWTON

Yes; I would say that that was administration.

We feel that the new boroughs will be able to face these administrative problems and overcome them, and that there will be time enough for the necessary formal arrangements for transfers to be made between the election of the new borough councils in May, 1964, and April 1, 1965. Indeed, there is much preparatory work which can be done before the new borough councils come into existence. In fact, preliminary consultations with the present authorities about the problems of the transfer of health and welfare functions have begun, and outlines of the transfer can be worked out in discussions on the joint committees of existing authorities, including members appointed by the existing county councils which are provided for in Clause 83 of the Bill.

The London boroughs will be taking over the services as a going concern with all their premises, and with the skilled staff working in them. Clause 45(2) of the Bill places on each of the London boroughs, and the Common Council, a duty to continue to provide on and after April 1, 1965, local services—apart, of course, from the ambulance service—corresponding to those provided immediately before that date by the present local health authorities. The London boroughs are not required to introduce suddenly, on April 1, 1965, something different from what will exist on March 31, 1965. Nor are they required to produce new formal proposals for the running of the services on April 1. They will be able to frame them later, after they have had some experience of running the services under the existing approved proposals.

The development of the services on a true borough basis, with all that that implies for the authority's capital building programme and future plans is, I would suggest, a matter to be dealt with after, and not before, the changeover. The full range of personal health services (and we are talking about personal health services now) is not completely provided at present in each of the new London borough areas. But this is not a new problem. It is due in part to the fact that some of the health services—and I am thinking particularly of the mental health services—are still at a relatively early stage of development.

The problem in inner London will be similar to that of outer London and in other conurbations in the country. The answer to it lies in the local health authorities reaching agreement among themselves to sharing or other joint use of staff and premises as is necessary. This kind of arrangement for mutual aid has always been found useful in the National Health Service and, indeed, explicit provisions for it exist in Section 63 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, which enables a local health authority to permit its premises, furniture and equipment to be used by another local health authority on such terms as may be agreed. Clause 5(3) of this Bill supplements this power by giving London borough councils and the Common Council wide general powers to reach agreement with one another on the joint use of staffs, plant and equipment. Some specialist staff may hold joint appointments with more than one local authority or with a local authority of a hospital. Sharing of this kind is a recognised feature of the Health Service in many parts of this country to-day.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

Does the noble Lord think that these joint authority arrangements for mutual borrowing of staff, with all the possibilities of friction in the circumstances of a more or less continuous built-up area like London, is as well done with all these clumsy mutual arrangements as with having a straightforwardly-operated service that can be broken up within itself? Is it not a fact that it is silly to go on like this with boroughs going on jointly borrowing from each other? Is it not merely that the Government have such an utter prejudice against the Greater London Council.

LORD NEWTON

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, feels strongly about this and distrusts the Government's intentions and even their motives.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

I do.

LORD NEWTON

But I just do not agree with the noble Lord that the sharing arrangements will cause friction. They are common throughout this country today and they work well. That is why we are providing for them in this way in this Bill.

LORD SHEPHERD

Where is there a similar example in the country to what the noble Lord proposes?

LORD NEWTON

I could give the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, a list of the sort of sharing arrangements which exist now.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

Tell us now.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

This is a very interesting point. If there is a comparable, huge, built-up area with services shared in this way we should like to know which one it is.

LORD NEWTON

The point is that the degree of development, shall we say, in the areas which co-operate with each other and have shared services is, quite honestly, immaterial.

LORD SHEPHERD

You just said that you are basing your case on practical experience.

LORD NEWTON

May I be allowed to continue with my argument? What I am saying is that throughout the country there are sharing arrangements for certain services which, because they are specialised services, cannot reasonably and do not need to be provided by each local health authority. That is the same in a wholly urban area or an area which is partly a town or a city and partly rural round about.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

May I ask the noble Lord about the midwifery service? He has spoken about the sharing. Could he just tell the Committee how a borough proposes to get a midwife? If the London County Council which now give these services find it difficult to get midwives, how are these twelve boroughs going to get them?

LORD NEWTON

That is quite another problem.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

It is not.

LORD NEWTON

If there is a shortage of midwives—and I would not agree with the noble Baroness when she stresses this so much; they have been coming along in increasing numbers every year; but, for the sake of argument, let us assume that there is a shortage—there will be a shortage irrespective of how the local authority health services are organised.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

Surely the noble Lord will agree with me that if there are twelve boroughs working as self-sufficient units they will take more midwives than the group of eight or six which the L.C.C. establish, which will go into these twelve boroughs.

LORD NEWTON

I do not think we had better go on arguing about this. The number of people at any one time in any one part of the country needing the services of midwives will not be affected by how the service is organised. The noble Baroness said in her speech that nobody can predict when a child is going to be born.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

That is the whole point. If you have a centralised service and a confinement is booked for a hospital (shall we say?) in the south of London or for a domiciliary midwife to undertake, and it just happens that the woman is a month premature and is visiting someone in the north of London, she telephones the L.C.C. and a midwife is then sent to her wherever she may be. So the noble Lord cannot really talk about this as an engineering feat or a piece of exact science. Having babies is something which has to be provided for by a central authority.

LORD NEWTON

We do not agree about this.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

You have never had a baby.

LORD NEWTON

We are in fact debating an Amendment the purpose of which is to distinguish the inner London boroughs from the outer London boroughs, and they will be approximately the same size whether inner or outer. What the noble Baroness does in her Amendment is to say that there will be a period of delay in inner London but not in outer London, and what I have partly been trying to do up to now is to suggest to the Committee that there is really no good reason for distinguishing between the two groups of boroughs. The noble Baroness is proposing a gradual process of delegation and transfer. I should like to suggest there is a danger that if that process were adopted then personal health and welfare services might be fragmented temporarily. What we want to see—and this is one of the arguments for the Bill—is that the administration of the health, welfare and children's services, housing and environmental health should all be concentrated in the hands of one authority, because we consider that it is within this sort of administrative framework that the domiciliary team can best develop, and that it would be a great pity to delay in any way the development of this vital concept of the domiciliary team.

There is a second disadvantage, as I see it, in these Amendments, that they will prolong still further, over quite a long transitional period of five years, the personal uncertainties about their future which many of the staff of these services may already be feeling. Thirdly, I think that to transfer gradually all the staff which would be necessary under these Amendments would have undesirable effects on the efficiency of the services. Staff, including headquarters staff in the health departments of the present authorities, should, in our judgment, go where they are needed at the outset and should go with full responsibility. If, to begin with, health functions were only delegated to the new boroughs and not fully transferred the Greater London Council would need a headquarters staff of its own through whom it could exercise its general responsibility for the services; and it would be known that such arrangements were temporary and that they could not last for more than five years. I should have thought that this would be a confusing situation which would operate against efficient administration as well as being very unsettling for the individual members of the staff concerned.

The Greater London Council will itself be a new body, whose members and officers, though with long experience of county council work, would still be settling down to work with one another to carry out the new body's functions. It would have only a temporary responsibility for the health services, apart from the ambulance service, and as caretaker it would have less incentive, in our judgment, than the, new boroughs to develop the services well and actively. We believe that a temporary arrangement, a mixture of upper-tier administration with a temporary period of gradual delegation over five years, as proposed, would not be in the interests of the best development of the services or of the staff who have to operate them. It is for those reasons I must advise the Committee they should not accept the noble Baroness's Amendment.

6.21 p.m.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

While we all thank the Minister for the painstaking attempt to defend what is proposed here, I cannot say that to me he has carried the slightest conviction. There are 33 new authorities called upon to provide this complex range of vital public services, all of which are working now, not wholly satisfactorily because they want more staffs, but with a degree of excellence which is admirable. The new authorities are not elected until April, 1964, and these new functions devolve upon them within a year. Everybody who knows about this problem, everybody who has had actual experience of the work and remembers the previous transfer of functions, will know that that is not enough. If it is not enough, the services will break down or partially breakdown, and if they do break down we have only to look at the list of things they purport to do to realise the horrible degree of hardship to which pregnant women, mentally ill people, sick people, children, all the most deserving and most needing of care, are going to be submitted. Why? Not because of any overriding, physical, compelling reasons, but because the Government will not now allow adequate time for the new arrangements to function. I think if the advice of the great authorities, such as the London County Council and other authorities, who have carried this heavy responsibility for so long, is to be wantonly disregarded on purely Civil Service reasons of better administration—

LORD SHEPHERD

It is not for Civil Service reasons.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

For bureaucratic or possibly political reasons. I do not like saying that, but some think they are political reasons. All these services are to be jeopardised, set back and crippled, and the Government will find it very hard to defend themselves to the country. I cannot believe it is not likely that a year hence the Government will be forced to come to Parliament to ask for time to delay the full operation of these provisions. I beg the Government now, at this time, to look at this all again, to consult with the great authorities whose services we have been enjoying, to think again and find time to redraft these clauses, so that there is time, at any rate, to do all we can do to see the services function.

LORD SHEPHERD

As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, my mind went back to the three aircraft that during the war defended Malta—"Faith", "Hope" and "Charity". Faith and hope appear to be the Government case, but the mantle of charity I think must fall on the Opposition for not attacking the Minister, as I think in many ways we should be entitled to do. My noble friend Lord Wilmot of Selmeston suggested that this was a Civil Service arrangement. I corrected him. I do not believe it is a Civil Service arrangement; it is a political arrangement, which we have said time and time again. I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Newton, this: has there been any consultation with the civil service of the local authorities as to whether the Government proposals could, in the time specified in this Bill, be carried out efficiently, and that in no way will the services to the community be detrimentally affected? Can the noble Lord say that? My information is that the officers of the local authorities are gravely concerned on how the provisions of this Bill will be implemented.

We are not dealing only with health. That is the subject we are dealing with this evening, but within the time specified in this Bill the local authorites will be called upon to take on many other duties. The resources of the boroughs will be strained. These men are merely human. They also have a private life. I believe, not only in justice to the community, but also in the interests of those who have to administer this Bill, the Government should take advantage of the Amendment that has been suggested by my noble friend. We do not suggest postponement for five years. What we have said, if my understanding of the Amendment is correct, is that the transfer of these powers shall be effected by five years, and that the local authorities, with the Greater London Council, will decide the time and the place for the transfer.

I said earlier that the Government's case rested on faith and hope. The Minister did not give one good example of how these provisions can be effected within twelve months. He said there were throughout the country regularly recognised examples. He then, on being challenged, said that there are special arrangements. What we are now dealing with are not special arrangements; they are occurrences that happen every day—as my noble friend Baroness Summerskill said, every minute and every hour. Therefore we must see, when we have the arrangements suggested by the Minister that boroughs will be able to share the facilities that are available, that those resources are being used to the maximum capacity right through the day, right through the week.

I believe that in the case of the midwives the resources, even of the strong borough, will be so strained that they will not be able, even if they are willing, and I believe they will be willing, in an emergency to come to the aid of the weaker borough. They would not have the staff or the facilities available. The noble Lord said he disagreed with my noble friend Lady Summerskill that there were insufficient midwives. The facts are clear. There is a grave shortage of midwives in London if we are to provide the right service to which the community is entitled. The noble Lord may contradict me. Let us have the figures. My information is that there is this weakness, that the midwives are very much overworked, and that they have great difficulty in responding to all the calls upon their time. I say to the Government, you are embarking on these proposals; you believe in them. If you go forward and have a serious breakdown of administration, the responsibility, the smear, will be on your name and your Party for ever.

6.30 p.m.

LORD WALSTON

The noble Lord has been trying to convince the Committee that it is more efficient for the midwifery services to be carried out in relatively small units rather than from the larger centralised units, as is at present the case. When he returns to his Ministry he will be reminded there, if he does not remember it already, that his own Ministry has, in the interests of the efficient carrying out of medical services, been amalgamating various hospital groups so that the smaller hospital groups become larger in the interests of efficiency. I think that if anybody challenged the noble Lord on that latter plan he would easily be able to defend himself, because, in spite of certain difficulties of administration and of grouping these hospitals together, with their local loyalties and personalities and so on, it is undoubtedly a far more efficient way of administering the Health Service, particularly with the shortage of staff from which all forms of medical service suffer. It is not surprising that he has found the greatest difficulty in coming here this afternoon and trying to persuade the Committee that the exact opposite is the case in this particular region of maternity and midwifery services in the London area, because it is manifestly against all the experience of people with any knowledge of administration of any kind whatsoever.

Why is it that in industry we see firms growing larger and larger? We do not see them splitting up in the interests of efficiency. We do not see people de-pooling their transport because they find it cheaper and they have available more cars and lorries. Of course that does not happen. We all know that, if you are short of any particular material (if I may refer to a midwife as material "), within reason the larger the unit you have the more efficient will be the use that you can make of that particular unit, either as a person or as a piece of machinery. The noble Lord, I believe, has some experience of agriculture. He would certainly agree with me that it is much easier to run a farm of 1,000 acres with five tractors, than to split that farm up into five groups each of 200 acres, with one tractor on each. That does not need any argument. How is it possible, then, for him to come along and try to persuade your Lordships that it is going to be more efficient to run this service when it is split up into a series of smaller units?

As is well known, we on this side of the Committee feel strongly that the whole concept behind this movement is bad and wrong. We could, I suppose, have been obstructive over the matter. We could either have said that we will oppose tooth and rail every single one of these proposals, with a point-blank counter-proposal opposite, negative; or we could have washed our hands of the matter and said: "This is the way you want it; get on, and do it the best way you can; and get out of your own mess when you have got into it, as undoubtedly you will." But we have not said that. Unhappily, and unwillingly, we have accepted tie fact that this Bill will, presumably, become law, and we are now doing our best, not for the sake of the Government but for the sake of the people who are going to suffer under these new regulations, to see that the inefficiencies and the hardships which undoubtedly and inevitably will stem from these proposals are reduced to the minimum.

For that reason, my noble friend has put forward this most modest and essentially reasonable proposal that time be given for this most difficult transition from the established to the new, something which is not automatically bad but is always difficult—a transition away from the larger centralised group to the smaller decentralised group; away from the method which, in each industry and in every walk of life, is universally accepted as being the best and most efficient, to the one which is universally accepted as being the worst and the least efficient. All we are asking is that time be given now so that that difficult transition can take place with the least possible dislocation to those people who are engaged in this essential servile, and with the least possible hardship to those who should be benefiting from it. I do not think that that is a great thing to ask. I think it is the least that we can possibly do. I sincerely hope that if the Government still remain adamant, still refuse to budge on this purely administrative and helpful Amendment, at least there will be sufficient noble Lords opposite who will support us, not in the interests of the London County Council, not in the interests of any particular Party, but solely in the interests of the women and of the midwives themselves.

6.36 p.m.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

I thought that perhaps one noble Lord opposite was going to rise to reply, but as that did not happen I should like to add some words to this debate, in the hope that then we shall have a further reply, although I know that there has already been one on behalf of the Government. This is a simple issue: whether all these services must forthwith, in April or May, 1965, whichever month it is, become the services of London borough councils, or whether, as under this Amendment, they should be put under the Greater London Council, with a transition period during which their functions will be exercised by the borough councils, in order that they can be organised in an enlightened and progressive way. Because otherwise the boroughs are going to find themselves suddenly landed with all these functions; their Committee system will not be properly operating; their standing orders will not have been properly made, and there will be considerable difficulties over administration. In fact, I think there is going to be such a lot of chaos in London local government under this Bill that, whoever wins the first local authority election stands a good chance of losing the second. I mean that. I do not know whether it will be a good thing to win that first election or not. But we cannot stop the Labour Party from trying to win; they are bound to try, and they have already had a great amount of success.

I said in the early stages that this Government was mad. That was before the Bill came before the House. I should like now to use a stronger word and still be in order. But they really are the last word! Here is the poor Minister, Lord Newton, having to speak for the Government. I do not know whether the Government have forced this policy on their advisers in the Department—I suppose in this case the Ministry of Health—or whether the Department, the higher civil servants in the Department, have, persuasively or otherwise, imposed this policy on the Government. Nobody really seems to be able to defend it. Either the Ministers have badly briefed the civil servants, or the civil servants have badly briefed the Ministers.

The Minister of Health last night appeared on television. He did not say anything about this. How wise he was! He said, more or less, "I will leave this to my poor Parliamentary Secretary in the Lords." He kept clear of it. He did not receive any question about the effect of the London Government Bill on the Health Service. He dodged it. Yet here was his chance to defend in public the destructive character of this Bill. Some of these services were offered for inclusion as metropolitan borough council services; some were not. I think the mental health service is really inappropriate for the London borough councils. So, I think, is the midwifery domiciliary services and probably the problem families, and maybe some other things as well. The Government have a prejudice against the present London County Council merely because it has a Labour majority and merely because the Government wish to gerrymander, which they are doing; it is true that they hate the London County Council because it has a Labour and Socialist majority. The Tory party think it is entitled to complete possession of the metropolis, not only the Common Council of this ancient City but the whole of it.

The curious thing is that when the Conservatives had a majority in the House of Commons—I am not talking about this place; they have always had a Conservative majority in this place, so far as I know, and as things are going they probably always will—and on the London County Council, nobody could stop them from conferring the new powers in nearly every case on the London County Council. They did not confer them on the metropolitan boroughs, because half of them or more were Labour while the County Council was Tory. Political bias again. As a matter of fact, when the Local Government Bill of 1929 was under consideration—that very great Bill for which Mr. Neville Chamberlain was responsible—I led a deputation of London Labour and municipal people and the London Labour Party executive to meet Mr. Neville Chamberlain. Far from this story that we are the enemies of the boroughs, which is not true, we urged the case then, in view of its individual and personal character—which, heaven knows, it was—of public outdoor assistance. If anything was individual and personal, it was that, as the poor souls have cause to remember, under Tory boards of guardians. We had a scheme whereby it could be administered under the metropolitan boroughs with appropriate provision for equalisation of the rates, so far as it was possible to get it. Mr. Neville Chamberlain rejected the suggestion. I am not wishing to be overcritical about his decision because there was something to be said for it. He did not want the borough councils to administer outdoor assistance and he insisted on transferring that function to the County Council.

Why are this Government walking around, saying they want the personal services to be under the borough councils when the history is that formerly when we had a Tory Government they said, "All power to County Hall"? If ever there was a personal service it was this outdoor relief, but the County Council managed it. They appointed a public assistance committee and then they cluttered themselves up with about 99 co-opted area committees and subcommittees, which in due course we removed and for which we substituted adjudicating officers with a policy settled by the Council but with a right of appeal by the applicant against the adjudicating officers, which enormously simplified the administration.

We really are good at administration. We really know about local government, which is more than any of these Ministers do. The Lord Chancellor is afraid to come into Committee on this Bill that he introduced. The noble Viscount the Leader of the House is afraid, because he is funking it and he is leaving it to these poor souls, together with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport earlier on, to take on the heat and burden of the day. I sympathise with them. They are having a rough time, and I apologise. We like to be kind to people, but what can we do? They are the only ones we have to shoot at. We cannot have the civil servants here, and therefore we must have a go al: these poor souls.

That administrative scheme worked until the National Assistance Act took over and it became a State function. I am not sure that this Amendment does not go too far.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Ah!

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

I mean too far in the wrong direction, not in yours—well, a little bit in your direction. However, we are willing to compromise when it is necessary and therefore the provision is a five years' transitional period and then it goes to the London boroughs. On the whole we agree with this Amendment, but some of these services, at any rate, ought to go to the Greater London Council and stay there. Some of the health administration of the London County Council, in so far as it is doing health administration, is done directly from the centre, such as, I think, the midwifery service; but a lot of it is done from the nine divisional officers whereby one gets administrative decentralisation with sub-committees of the welfare committee sitting in areas of this sort, and thereby there is an appropriate decentralisation. It is not fair to assume that the London County Council is an over-centralised bureaucratic machine. It is not, and I am sure that the Greater London Council will be open to the same kind of considerations—perhaps even more so—because of its bigger area.

These provisions in the Bill are utter insanity; sheer, selfish, Party political obstinacy on the part of the Government, and history—especially the history of public health administration—will say some hard things about the Ministers who defended these provisions; and I hope that the Ministers here (the only ones I can talk to) will think of these things at night when they go to bed, and I hope that their consciences will allow them to sleep.

6.47 p.m.

LORD NEWTON

I certainly think about these things before I go to bed at night, and as a result of it I do sleep rather well. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, for his sympathy. He said that I am a poor soul; I may appear to be one, but I do not feel one. I am glad the noble Lord intervened, because the whole purport of his argument was to show that in his view the London boroughs should never at any time—

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

No.

LORD NEWTON

Oh yes it was—should never at any time he made local health authorities. That was what the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was arguing; and that is a point of view which I know he and many others hold.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

What point of view is that?

LORD NEWTON

The purport of the noble Lord's argument, as I listened to it, was that at no time should the inner London boroughs, or the outer London boroughs for that matter, become local health authorities.

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

What are we to do with a noble Lord who talks like that? I have told the Committee before that the London County Council offered years ago to transfer to the metropolitan boroughs maternity and child welfare and some other services, and I said this afternoon that some of these services might be suitable for the local authorities and some better done by the Greater London Council. I want to be nice to the noble Lord, and I was considerate to him in what I said; but why does he get up and talk such sheer nonsense within about three minutes of the time I have been saying the exact opposite, and charge me with wanting to take over the health functions? It is not true.

LORD NEWTON

What I concluded from the noble Lord's remarks was that he did not think London boroughs should be local health authorities at any time. This Amendment does not provide for that: it provides that by November 1, 1970, the inner London boroughs shall be the local health authorities. What I was concerned to argue in my first speech was that if it is agreed that the London boroughs should become the local health authorities, it is better that they should become so at once; that they should take on responsibility for all the health and welfare services at the same time; and that if it is done piecemeal, gradually, there will be a danger of fragmentation of the various services, which cannot be a good thing. If the Committee believe, as I believe and as the Government believe, that it is desirable that all the personal services—that is to say, the health and welfare services, housing and education—should be exercised by the same authority because they are intimately related (because the housing conditions in which a child lives affect his ability to learn at school, because how he gets on at school affects his health and because how his health is cared for affects his ability to get on at school), then you are forced to the conclusion, as was the Royal Commission, that all these personal services should be administered by the same authority.

LORD SHEPHERD

If the noble Lord—

LORD NEWTON

No; I must be allowed to make one speech without being interrupted. If one believes these things, as we do, then I say now, as I said in my first speech, that it is desirable that the local authorities concerned should take them all on at once. May I repeat, as I said earlier, that the inner London boroughs will take on these services as a going concern from the London County Council, with all their premises as they are and with the skilled staff working in them. Discussions about the transfer are starting, because the London County Council is now cooperating in considering solutions to the problems of transfer, and there is good reason to expect that very good progress will be made from now on in identifying and solving the problems of transition. I can only say again, as I said in my first speech, that I have no doubt at all that it will be possible, between now and then, to make the necessary arrangements.

LORD SHEPHERD

I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord—he has been very good; he has taken it in very good part—but he said, if my hearing was correct, that health and education all play their part. Is that right? He said that the education of a child depends upon the health of the child. That is correct, I understand. We have never dissented from that. But what are the Government doing in regard to education? They have said, "We will not fragment it now; we will keep the inner boroughs together under a new education authority, under the Greater London Council."

LORD NEWTON

I talked about it for a great many hours on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

LORD SHEPHERD

But if the Government accept it in the case of education, why do they reject it completely out of hand here? Because there is undoubted concern among those who are going to be called upon to administer these services, the officers, whether they will be able efficiently to carry them on, with this break-up in such a short time. We do not ask for the change to wait for five years: we ask for a period within five years.

LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON

I think it is most necessary that we think carefully before we finally part with this matter. I have supported these Amendments in the hope of getting some general improvement in the Bill, but the Bill, in my view, goes in some regards too far in the wrong direction. If one looks down this list of services one finds there are some that are pre-eminently suitable for central administration, and that is true of none more than the midwifery service, the maternity service and child welfare. Here is an elaborate pattern of midwifery, hospitals and one thing and another, all integrated and run by the central authority, and yet with local antenna; going out to where the service is needed. This kind of service is admitted in the Bill to be suitable for central administration.

Take, for instance, the service with which I was so long connected—the London Fire Service. Fires occur in all the different parts of the Greater London authority's area. But it is not proposed to fragment this service and to have it run as it used once to be, by small local borough authorities. It is retained as a centralised, integrated service, operating in the regions from the local stations. Surely, the same should be true of the maternity and child welfare services. They need a central control with immediate powers to transfer people as quickly as possible where they are wanted. Although at first sight it may seem to be a strange parallel, in fact the administrative problems are very similar. You maintain your services in the localities, you have a centralised administration, and you are able to give aid where it is wanted in the

Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

7.6 p.m.

LORD STONHAM moved, in paragraph (1), to leave cut subsection (3) "and insert "subsections (3) and (4)". The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 163A and I hope it will suit the Committee's convenience if I discuss with it Amendment No. 166A, which is in fact the main Amendment. During the debate we have just concluded the noble Lord, Lord Newton, reminded us, quite rightly, that in that Amendment we were asking merely that the services to which the Amendment referred should not go to the London

quickest possible time because you have someone in the centre to whom all know they can apply. I ask the Minister, before we part with this Amendment, to represent to the Government that further examination in detail of the very varied services which are at present maintained by the London County Council should be made and that they should be considered in their nature before they are broken down in this way.

7.0 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 163) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 19; Not-Contents, 53.

CONTENTS
Alexander of Hillsborough, E.	Lawson, L.	Shepherd, L.
Archibald, L.	Listowel, E.	Stonham, L.
Attlee, E.	Longford, E.	Summerskill, B.
Burden, L. [Teller.]	Lucan, E. [Teller.]	Walston, L.
Champion, L.	Morrison of Lambeth, L.	Williams, L.
Crook, L.	Shackleton, L.	Wilmot of Selmeston, L.
Henderson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Abinger, L.	Ellenborough, L.	Mersey, V.
Albemarle, E.	Elliot of Harwood, B.	Mills, V.
Amherst of Hackney, L.	Ferrers, E.	Milverton, L.
Ampthill, L.	Fraser of North Cape, L.	Molson, L.
Balfour of Burleigh, L.	Goschen, V. [Teller.]	Monck, V.
Bossom, L.	Hailsham, V. (L. President.)	Newton, L.
Boston, L.	Hanworth, V.	Remnant, L.
Boyd of Merton, V.	Harcourt, V.	Rochdale, V.
Brocket, L.	Hastings, L.	St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]
Chesham, L.	Hereford, V.	Soulbury, V.
Coleraine, L.	Hertford, M.	Suffield, L.
Conesford, L.	Howard of Glossop, L.	Swansea, L.
Cranbrook, E.	Howe, E.	Swinton, E.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L.	Ilford, L.	Teymham, L.
Danham, L.	Lloyd, L.	Tweedsmuir, L.
Derwent, L.	Lothian, M.	Wellington, D.
Dilhorne. L. (L. Chancellor.)	Margesson, V.	Wolverton, L.
Dudley, E.	Massereene and Ferrard, V.

boroughs for a period of five years but that eventually they should go to the inner London boroughs, even under our Amendment, just as they will with the Greater London boroughs now.

The Amendment I am moving now deals only with mental health services and it does not propose a limited period; it proposes that these mental health services should remain with the Greater London Council indefinitely. There is that very important difference. We feel very strongly that, whatever justification there could be for some of the services we have discussed going to the London boroughs, there can be no doubt at all that the mental health services must stay with the larger local authority if they are to be as good as they should be from the point of view of the people who make use of them; if they are to be administratively efficient; and if they are to be economic from the point of view of the taxpayer.

The mental health service in its present form is a new and developing service in the community. One of the main effects of the 1959 Mental Health Act is that people in very large numbers are coming out of the mental hospitals and into the community. Unfortunately, about 80 per cent. go back again rather too quickly; but that merely reinforces the argument now being put forward that this service would be greatly hampered by fragmentation among the inner London boroughs. The Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London points out that while mental health is moving away from hospitals towards community care, that care must nevertheless be closely linked with the hospital services. The Report demonstrates the need for large authorities.

I will quote briefly from the Report: So many changes have taken place since 1948 in the medical and local aspects of the care of parsons suffering from mental disorders, and so many more are about to take place as the result of the 1959 Act, that it is difficult to assess the position of the local authorities. The trend, as in other fields, is away from hospitals towards community care, and much will depend on local authority co-operation in the transitional period. Local health authorities have had considerable experience in the care of mental defectives but little in the care of the mentally ill. In many areas welfare officers have also acted as "duly authorised officers" or mental welfare officers or both. The 1959 Act requires local authorities to appoint mental welfare officers with a wider range of duties, but this is likely to take a considerable time to achieve if they are to have suitable training. The expert medical staff required by the local authorities will best be secured by appointments of consultant psychiatrists jointly with the hospitals. For this reason, combined with the need for different types of residential units, training centres and day centres, it would seem to be desirable for mental health work that the local health authorities should not be too small or too numerous. The noble Lord was talking about authorities sharing services. I did not on that occasion interrupt him, but the English counties came into my mind—Devon, for example—where all kinds of mental services, which we are now discussing in regard to the Greater London Council and London boroughs, are organised by the county council. If we go through England, we find that it is largely the position that the county councils provide this whole range of community services, with the exception of the major cities.

The Mental Health Act, 1959, did not generally alter the character of the service, except in the direction of the provision of residential places by local authorities. The old classification of persons of unsound mind and mental defectives went, and the mental health services are now charged with the care of the mentally subnormal and the mentally ill. In providing for the effective care of the mentally subnormal, it is essential that the hospitals and local authorities must work closely together. Difficulties are created when there are several local authorities in the catchment area of an individual mental hospital.

One of the big difficulties about the Bill is that in many cases the mental hospital will be nowhere near the borough which is its catchment area. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Newton, is aware that the catchment area for Long Grove Hospital, in Epsom, is in the East End of London, the boroughs of Shoreditch, Finsbury, Hackney, Stoke Newington and Poplar, which are 18 to 20 miles away. These boroughs will be in three of the new London boroughs. I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Newton, to deal with this specifically. How can these three boroughs deal efficiently with a mental health service when the catchment area is 25 miles from the hospital? People come back from hospital to these three boroughs, not a single one of which has the service to deal with them. It is all very well for the noble Lord to say, as he said earlier, that they will take over the premises and the staff. In some of the London boroughs, even some of the bigger boroughs, there are no premises and no staff at present. I think the noble Lord is aware that I am President of the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association. With the help of the L.C.C., we have to find places for people, who come into the community from mental hospitals and still need continuing care. It is no use saying that the premises and staff are there, because they are not.

I am also much concerned about mentally subnormal children. Their number is small compared with the educationally normal, but it is a large number in the aggregate. When they are spread between all these boroughs, it is impossible, from the staff point of view, from the premises point of view and from the cost point of view, to have a proper service for all these young people. They have to be educated in small classes under the specialised care of a dedicated teacher, and if they make some progress they are passed on to a senior training centre. Eventually they are able to do jobs and take some sort of place in the community. The noble Lord is not going to tell me that any one of the boroughs which it is proposed to set up is going to have all these facilities within its confines. The noble Lord may say that they can be transferred, and transport will be provided. I will deal with that later, because there is no provision for transport. The new boroughs will attempt to put these things in watertight compartments, so as to find more and more money from the ratepayers and to get more grants in order to try to comply with the requirements of the law.

These boroughs cannot run a dozen or more different, complete services for all the varied needs of the mentally afflicted. Perhaps there are not more than 250 psychotic children in the whole of Greater London—thank God for that!—but how is it going to be possible for individual boroughs to set up a whole service to deal with the six or eight such children they have? Of course, they will not do so. They need the large-scale organisation of the L.C.C., which already has the facilities and is using them through its nine divisional officers. That is all I am asking for in this Amendment, and we are going to insist upon it, because it is of vital importance. People who know the service that is required—the parents of these children, their teachers and anyone who has had, as I have, years of experience in hospital administration—know that it cannot be provided by an authority in which the population is 170,000 to 250,000.

Another aspect which I want to put to the noble Lord is the question of emergency service for the mentally ill outside office hours and at week-ends. At the present time, the nine divisions of the L.C.C. run an emergency service on a rota. I think he will agree that it would be extremely wasteful for every borough to provide such a service, since it is clear, from the total number of calls over the whole county, that if each borough arranged for one officer to be on duty at night and over the week-end, he would be unemployed for the most part of his time.

It might be argued that the situation could be met by having staff on a rota on duty at their homes, so that they could be called, in much the same way as in hospitals at the week-ends we call on a radiographer. That is an unsatisfactory business, and it sometimes takes them six or seven hours to get there. These arrangements really never work satisfactorily. There are often long and inevitable delays. In a service which makes such heavy demands on the nervous energies of the staff, it is inadvisable to interfere in this way with their off-duty time. Apart from this, there are practical difficulties in applying a rota system to London, because few, if any, of the staff would be likely to reside within the borough boundaries, and this would make stand-by duty at home quite impracticable. Even if they resided in the area, the total number of mental health staff needed by any one borough would be so small that they would have to be on stand-by duty so often that their off-duty time would be seriously restricted. The net result, therefore, of the fragmentation of the service as indicated in the Bill would be that more officers would perforce be engaged on this work in order to provide a 24-hour coverage, and their community work would suffer.

Then, on the question of premises, up to the present time the distribution of premises, such as training centres and hostels, has depended on the availability of sites rather than on a precise estimate of demand in any particular area. So there are 9 junior centres, 8 centres for adult women, 4 centres for adult men and 3 industrial training centres for men that we now have. They are very unevenly distributed throughout the county. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said: "The premises are already there. We shall take them over." But supposing out of 25 centres all told 12 are in the area of, say, two boroughs, which is the case supposing, as would be the case, that the boroughs have not each got one of the centres required; it would mean that some boroughs would have none of these facilities at all, and other boroughs would have more facilities and premises than they would actually need for the residents in their own borough. That would be the position, as I am sure the noble Lord knows. It would be no good saying that the facilities are there and ready to be taken over, because they could be taken over only in the areas where they are, which do not correspond with population or need.

The only way of really dealing with this matter satisfactorily is in the manner suggested in the Amendment. I heard my noble friend Baroness Summerskill make a strong and moving case with regard to the midwifery service, but I think the case for the mental health services to remain under the Greater London Council is stronger than any other that I can think of, because we are dealing with the most helpless members of the community, many of whom will need help of this kind throughout their lives. This is not a short spell or an emergency; it is something which has to be provided for all the time.

I hope that on this occasion we shall not get the kind of reply that we had before, however sincerely it was delivered. This is a service which cannot be fragmented. If it is, it will cause acute distress to the tens of thousands of mentally afflicted and mentally subnormal people who rely on us and whom we have in our care. I hope that the Government will not take such a tragic step, but if they do oppose these Amendments, I hope your Lordships will support me in the Division Lobby. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 63, line 21, leave out (" subsection (3) ") and insert (" subsections (3) and (4) ").—(Lord Stonham.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This might be a good moment to adjourn until half-past eight. I beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until that time.

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

[The Sitting was suspended at twenty-six minutes past Seven o'clock and resumed at half-past Eight.]

8.30 p.m.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

I was going to say that this is the smallest audience I have addressed in my seventeen years here. The noble Lord, Lord Latham, was with us, but now we have lost him. We have a total of seven. Whilst the last thing any one of us wishes to attempt is to filibuster, your Lordships will understand if perhaps for a moment or two I may be allowed to collect my thoughts so as not to waste my arguments. I was saying that this is about the smallest audience I could recall in my time in the House.

LORD SHEPHERD

It is the quality that really matters.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

That is the nicest thing that has been said on this side during these days of arduous debate. It seems to me that we have reached a rather dangerous stage in these discussions where we produce arguments which are well premeditated and which are replied to by, in this case, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, also well furnished with ideas in advance, and then there is a vote and that takes a fairly predetermined form.

Where the handicapped children are concerned—and if I speak about them I will explain why I do so particularly, but this clause refers to the mentally disordered as well—I should hope that we feel there is a special case for looking at the matter, apart from what might be called the general period of noble Lords opposite. If I speak about the mentally subnormal as distinct from the mentally sick, who are also covered, it is because for some years—in fact until just the other day—I was Chairman of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children. It may be that others will speak of the mentally sick. I am proud to think that I was able to hand on the rôle of Chairman of the National Society to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who has worked in the hospital field for far longer than I have been concerned with the subnormal, and who put the case for this Amendment so powerfully and, I should have thought, irresistibly before we adjourned.

I believe that on one occasion (I cannot trace the occasion but perhaps some learned noble Lord opposite—the Lord Chancellor or somebody else—will tell me when it was) the great Edmund Burke made a very powerful speech, and at the end someone rose to support him, with the single comment, "I say ' Ditto ' to Mr. Burke." I do not quite know where that comes from, but I believe it is history. In a sense I should be inclined to make that sort of speech. It would, I am sure, be to the relief of the Committee. I would say "Ditto" to Lord Stonham; because all the main points were made by him with a great deal of strong feeling, in addition to the arguments. But I have some thoughts of my own after this period as Chairman of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children. Some of them overlap with those of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, but I hope the Committee will allow me to speak from some personal experience.

I would submit to noble Lords that they are, in this Bill, proceeding on a theory—if they want to dignify it by the name of philosophy I cannot quarrel with them, but I think myself that that is more than justice. They have decided that it would be good for local government, in a rather abstract way, if the boroughs were made the primary unit. In a sense, no one in any of these arguments can prove or disprove a proposition of that sort, as you prove or disprove a proposition of geometry. We assert; noble Lords counter-assert; we reassert and they re-counter-assert. That is a general proposition. I challenge noble Lords opposite to produce any evidence—they failed to do so at Second Reading and during these particular discussions—to support the contention that any of these services would be better run by the boroughs.

There are two ways of looking at this question. You can say that the services might not be better but it would be good for the councillors or the community. Someone might say—and it must have been said in these arguments—that self-government is better than good government. Whether it is to be in that way, it seems to be part of the philosophy of noble Lords opposite. I myself would think that that was a very dangerous view to be applied to any of these services, and particularly dangerous, even if it were true, if applied to the services for the mentally handicapped, who, as we all know, cannot in any way help themselves. Just in passing—I must not make a Second Reading speech—I would say that there is no evidence at all for the view that local government in London has been less lively in the boroughs or in the centre than elsewhere. Noble Lords have not seriously tried to provide evidence to show that there is something decaying or moribund in the local boroughs or elsewhere. Even if it were generally true—which we certainly do not accept for a moment—that it would be good for local government, in some rather abstract way, that the services should be transferred to the boroughs, I do ask the noble Lord opposite, who I know is humane (I know that from the indulgence he extended to me when he was my pupil; that is a sign of great humanity), to consider and, if I may say so, to consider seriously before deciding that his job is simply to inform us what has been decided in advance as to whether or not the mentally handicapped—I am speaking about them, but really it is an argument which refers to the mentally disordered generally—have a strong case for special treatment. In other words, even if you are going to break up the L.C.C., which we regard as a crime, and transfer a wide range of functions to the boroughs, I would ask the noble Lord—and I particularly ask the Lord Chancellor because his position, of course, is a great deal more responsible as he is a member of the Cabinet and in charge of the Bill—to consider whether he must automatically decide, in a general transfer to the boroughs, that the mentally disordered should fall into the group who are to be transferred.

If I am asked how I would distinguish between the mentally handicapped, for example, and others who benefit from these various services which are rendered in different ways in London, I place one or two points in front of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. In the first place, they are the most helpless section of the community, as my noble friend Lord Stonham said. I have been concerned, as have other noble Lords, with many weak vessels: prisoners, young people, old and sick people of various sorts, but if there is one section which is absolutely helpless it is the mentally handicapped. It is a tragic thought that they can never speak for themselves. To take some of those who have been referred to in these discussions, such as the mentally ill, they may have a complete breakdown and be put for years in some kind of mental hospital, or what used to be called an asylum. When they come out they can write about it; and people have in fact written about experiences in mental hospitals. But nothing, of course, in the nature of things, has been or can be written by the mentally handicapped. They are the silent sector of the community. They are there. We must assume that we are doing what is best for them; we must, at any rate, assume that we are trying to do what is best for them. But they cannot tell us, even their parents cannot discover and cannot tell us, what is in their minds. There they are, the most helpless section.

I ask the noble Lord—and I say this without offensiveness, though that may creep in later, but I hope not; it certainly would not be personal offensiveness—whether he is prepared to experiment on these helpless people. When all is said and done, this is an experiment. Even the most audacious member of the Government would not come along and say it is perfectly obvious that the services under the Government's plan will be much better run than hitherto. No one is stupid enough to say that. These things are very uncertain, in the nature of things. At the best the noble Lord will hope they will be better run. He can hardly, I think, hope that they will be better run in the first few years, but his case must be that in the long run so much more local enthusiasm will be built up by transferring affairs to the boroughs that local government will be healthier and everything better. But I do not think the noble Lord will say that in the next few years the human services will be better. He cannot believe that. If he believed that, I should not pay him the high respect which I do.

We know the main arguments for this Bill are arguments about traffic and planning. It is hoped, after reorganising the whole area on these traffic and planning grounds—wrongly, even in that sphere, so we believe—that these human services will at any rate be no worse. That is, if I may say so, the intelligent defence put forward for the Government scheme. Even if that be true, which we do not accept, is he going to say that for reasons of traffic and planning he is going to experiment and conduct an act of vivisection on these mentally handicapped, the most helpless people in the community? I hope he will address himself to the particular case of the mentally handicapped and will not deal entirely with the issue on general grounds of promoting health or something like that. There are these handicapped people. They are the one section who will never be able to speak for themselves. Yet they are as precious in the sight of the Almighty as any of us.

There are other very important factors, some of which were touched on by my noble friend Lord Stonham. There is undoubtedly a revolutionary change going on. Whatever noble Lords do, whatever Ave do, a very great change is coming over the national treatment of the mentally afflicted, and it is a change for the better. Like all great human developments it contains elements of danger. In the first place, it stems from the idea of those who have laboured hardest in the field of healing that mental disorder should be placed on the same footing as physical disorder. That is where it all starts. But, following from that, it seems to me that thought raises its own problems. That is a clear irreducible gain, the conception of the removal of the stigma. There is the further thought that we must somehow supplant treatment in Government institutions by community care.

As I have said before in debates here, as indeed has my noble friend Lord Stonham, that idea, while it is an advance if properly handled, contains its own perils, because as long as the Government accept a certain responsibility, the Government can be attacked here and in another place and can be held responsible for what happens. But once you transfer the responsibility, under this idea of community care, to the community, while I think that should be a step forward you may be in fact endangering the children. I hope you will not, but you will be endangering the children unless the local authorities do as much as the Government are doing, and, in fact, much more, because they must do as much as the Government would have done as time passes and national wealth increases. So, when we talk of community care, this is an ambiguous phrase: it suggests the idea that all of us in the community are going to help—which is right, too—but in particular, of course, in this connection, it means that the local authorities will do things that would otherwise have been done by or would otherwise have fallen to the lot of the central Government. So this places a heavy responsibility on local authorities. This is a revolutionary development in the field of mental health for which, so far as I know, there is no counterpart in the other services. This provides another reason why one has to be particularly careful during this period of transition and inevitable experiments, whether noble Loris carry on those experiments to extreme lengths or not.

There is another consideration that I should like to place before the noble Lord, still hoping that he will accept the submission that this is a special case, or, at any rate—I do not say that there is no other case which is so strong—a case which has marked features of its own. If one looks at the Government plan for the future of health and the future of the community services, and if one looks at that booklet which has many excellent features, in so far as I have been able to give it proper attention (it was published not long ago) one finds that the calculations about the future for the mentally handicapped are extremely, and perhaps inevitably, vague. Nobody knows how many mentally handicapped there will be in a few years from now. I am talking of the country as a whole, but it applies also to London.

It is thought that, with the improvement in the various services, the number might be diminished. On the other hand, I hope that a great many people will be able to live who otherwise would have died; and many people perhaps will be discovered to be mentally handicapped who might otherwise have been hidden away. So no one has any idea how many there will be, or indeed, how they are to be treated. I think that is not an unfair statement if one looks at the Government long-term plan. In all the other features of the plan there is an element of certainty, in so far as there can be certainty in these human prophecies; but here it is really all left uncertain, and perhaps inevitably so. All that being so, does the noble Lord seriously consider that there are no stronger arguments here for holding his hand before conducting this particular transformation?

Let me now place another point before him. I am not going to say that this is a unique factor, although I cannot for the moment think of other examples which are quite so obvious. But as the noble Lord will have discovered in the course of his ministerial duties in his own Department, the differences of treatment, the differences of performance between the various local authorities, are quite staggering. I do not know whether that is as true of other services. I challenge the noble Lord to produce examples where the differences are as great as they are in dealing with the mentally handicapped. I have not come here with statistics, but there are readily available figures of those who are in training centres per thousand of the population, and the differences between one authority and another are fantastic. Our authority, East Sussex, was on the lowest rung, as the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, was good enough to point out. Although that caused great irritation it was of great value. The noble Lord rendered great service in that respect and although I thought that I should he lynched in my own county, the net result is that they axe going ahead; and for the first time in East Sussex we look like getting something better in the way of services, especially as a result of the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, and to a lesser extent my own poor effort.

These discrepancies are an important factor in this discussion. They are far more material than they were in regard to education, which we were discussing yesterday, and, I should think, than they are in any other service. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has pointed out that the record of the London County Council and of Middlesex is splendid. That is not questioned. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, would not question that. It is not for me to say that it is the best record in the country. I am sure it is as good as any. It would be argumentative to say that it is the best. That is a controversial statement. It is certainly vastly better than the record of almost all the other authorities. Now the noble Lord comes along and tries to lay his hands on it. Of course, when I say that, he knows that I do not hold him personally responsible, except for the answer he is about to give us, and there he must accept responsibility. I do not hold him responsible for the murder. I regard him as a counsel for the defence who perhaps in some circumstances should refuse the brief, but no doubt the Lord Chancellor would tell us about the ethics of the Bar in that case. If the noble Lord is coming down to us and saying that there should be this transfer, he must recognise that he is breaking up a service which has a very high reputation and he is throwing it into the unknown. Whatever his theory and whatever some clever fellows in the Ministry may think, there has been no evidence whatever to suggest that it could possibly be better in the field of the mentally handicapped, and we are sure it would be worse.

Various attempts have been made by the Society, but I should hasten to say that when I was Chairman of the National Society until the other day, I abstained from any political connection with this because I thought they must make up their minds for themselves, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will adopt that view. Certain efforts were made by the Society to obtain assurances, and, having seen the correspondence, I think it is fair to say that it was impossible to obtain assurances from the Government that the services conducted by the boroughs would be as good as they had been in the past. I am not sure that I blame the Government there. I am not sure that my friends in the National Society were not a little innocent to think that they could obtain such assurances. Perhaps it may be counted to the righteousness of the Government that they were candid. If this Amendment is carried, if it is accepted, as possibly it could be by the noble Lord, logically, without destroying the basis of his Bill, he and his Leader in the House, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, will have shown a moral fibre which I do not deny them. It is possible that they will show it. If they do not show it here they will show it nowhere, because the case is overwhelming. I beg to support the noble Lord, Lord Stonham.

8.53 p.m.

LORD NEWTON

What these Amendments seek to do is to transfer to the Greater London Council responsibility for the functions of local health authorities in relation to the care and after-care of the mentally disordered in the area of inner London only. It does not concern outer boroughs, and once again I must start by pointing out, as I did when I replied to the noble Baroness, that I just cannot see that there is any reality in trying to distinguish between the inner and the outer London boroughs in this way. The other point I wish to make right from the start is that whether the noble Earl, Lord Longford, would call it a principle or a philosophy, it is nevertheless our view that it would be a mistake and a disaster to separate responsibility for mental health from the other parts of the local authority health, welfare and child care services.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

Did the noble Lord say it was impossible to distinguish them?

LORD NEWTON

No, I said I thought it would be a mistake and a disaster to separate responsibility for mental health from the other parts of the local authority health, welfare and child care services. In his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, quoted paragraphs 613 and 614 of the Report of the Royal Commission, but he did not quote the last sentence of paragraph 614. The penultimate sentence of paragraph 614 ended like this: …it would seem to be desirable for mental health work that the local health authorities should not be too small or too numerous". I think the noble Lord stopped there, but if he had read the next and last sentence of paragraph 614, he would have read this: On the other hand it is essential that the mental health service should be integrated with the other personal health services provided by the local authority. That is the view of the Royal Commission, and it is our view.

LORD STONHAM

The reason why I did not quote that sentence was that it made such utter nonsense of all the arguments they had used previously, and if the noble Lord cares to read on after that paragraph he will see that the Royal Commission did not deign to give any reasons for this extraordinary conclusion they had reached.

LORD NEWTON

I am not complaining because the noble Lord did not read it out: I am merely pointing out that the Royal Commission did say that, and that it is a view that we accept. In fact, we really think it is the most important principle of all. Although the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said that this Amendment is acceptable, I am afraid it is for that reason that it is not—because we do think it would be wrong to separate these services.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

May I—

LORD NEWTON

May I please reply to the noble Earl? I want to go on and say this to him. He said in his speech that we are in fact proposing an experiment, and he asked me whether the Government were prepared to experiment with mentally-handicapped children. It is in fact this Amendment which is proposing an experiment. It is proposing the experiment of divorcing responsibility for the care and after-care of the mentally-handicapped from responsibility for all the other health and welfare services. At the moment, everywhere in the country the responsibility for all those services rests upon the same authority. It does with the London County Council to-day.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

Am I allowed to interrupt, or are we in church?

LORD NEWTON

Certainly.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

I want only to put one point to the noble Lord, not to distract him from his flow, which I gather must not be interrupted. He is saying that we wish to bring this forward solely in relation to the L.C.C. area. That may well be the basis of a discussion, but if he is going to make a great deal of that argument I suppose that on Report stage he would consider sympathetically a suggestion of a wider character.

LORD NEWTON

The noble Earl is fully entitled to put down any Amendment he likes on Report, but what I was trying to do was to reply to his argument that the Government are proposing an experiment. What I wish to point out is that it is, in fact, this Amendment which proposes an experiment, because it is only in recent years, and especially since the passing of the Mental Health Act, that the barriers between mental health and the rest of the health services have begun to be broken down. This Amendment would be an obstacle, and a big obstacle, to further progress in this direction; and we believe, as the Royal Commission believed and said, that there should be the closest possible links between arrangements for the mental health and maternity and child care services, and services for the physically-handicapped and for the elderly.

Many mentally-handicapped children, and adults, too, are also physically-handicapped, and it is in the child welfare clinics of the local health authority that the signs of mental retardation may often be observed first. Advice to mothers on the care of mentally-handicapped children is often given best through the health visitors and the child welfare clinics. Services for elderly, mentally-infirm people are part of the general services for the elderly in many areas, and even where they are not they undoubtedly should be linked closely with them.

The basic social problems of mentally disordered persons and of their families living in the community have much in common with those of other handicapped groups and their families. Your Lordships may recall that the Younghusband Report looked forward to an integrated service of general social workers equipped to deal with a wide range, rather than a narrow range, of problems and working with highly qualified specialist officers such as psychiatric social workers. This is a long-term aim, as the Report recognised, but it would be wrong and against the interests of a good-quality service to patients to erect administrative barriers in any part of London to the eventual attainment of a unified cadre of social and welfare workers in London.

There ought not to be any such thing as a separate mental health service. The special needs of mentally disordered people of all kinds and ages should he met within an integrated personal health and welfare service which also meets needs which they share with the rest of the population—people who are not handicapped in the same way as they are. To meet the special needs of the mentally disordered in the local authorities, a health service with specially-trained staff and some special premises are necessary. These can be organised more efficiently and economically if the population served is fairly large. There is no doubt about that; nor is there dispute between us here. That is one of the reasons why the Government decided to make the London boroughs larger than was proposed by the Royal Commission in their Report. Even the smaller of the inner London boroughs will have a population of over 200,000. Each borough, whether an inner or outer London borough, will obviously need to employ at least one medical officer specialising in mental health and a staff of social workers, of psychiatric workers and, perhaps others not quite so well qualified, in order to ensure proper organisation and supervision for the training of students, and to have scope for leave for study purposes. These are still-growing services in London as anywhere else and, like other authorities throughout the country as a whole, the new boroughs, both in inner and outer London, will have to build up their staffs over the next ten years. Meanwhile, it may be suitable for some of the L.C.C.'s present senior medical officers with special experience of mental health to be employed by several of the new boroughs in a variety of capacities.

The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that there were too few handicapped children for each borough to provide a service for them. I think this is probably true of psychotic children—that is, children who are mentally ill—but they are cared for mainly by the hospitals. The London County Council has a centre for these children and they will certainly need to continue to serve several more boroughs in London. But handicapped children, on the other hand, those who are sometimes called subnormal, need, according to the Report—which is accepted in the Blue Book, Health and Welfare, to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford referred—approximately 0.4 training centre places per 1,000 population which is about 80 places for a population of 200,000. That works out, I think, at two centres at least in each borough. Of course, this is not yet provided in London; but this is the provision towards which the local authorities will have to work, and they would have to work towards that whether this Bill was before your Lordships' House or not.

LORD STONHAM

The noble Lord said that the number of psychotic children is not sufficiently large for separate units in boroughs and that they were mainly looked after in hospitals. That just is not true. Would the noble Lord care to mention any London hospital which has particular care of psychotic children and how many such children there are in the hospital?

LORD NEWTON

I certainly cannot give the noble Lord any answer to statements without notice. If he wants definite information on points like that, he must ask for it. Of course, training centres and residential hostels are not evenly distributed in the L.C.C. area and it would be necessary to make some of them serve a catchment area wider than a single borough until the time comes when every new borough can provide for its own needs. This situation also exists in outer London and it is a reflection of the present emerging state of the local authority mental health service throughout the country. It is not a flaw in the proposal to give these functions to the new borough councils throughout the London area.

When the Bill comes into operation there will be the same premises as before, serving the same total population, with plans for development which are set out in the Blue Book to which I referred and which are revised annually. It is a mistake, we believe, to suggest that services for the mentally disordered can be efficiently run only by an authority large enough to be self-sufficient in all respects. Neither in inner London nor in outer London need the boroughs work in total isolation from one another. Indeed, throughout the country as a whole, mutual aid is a feature of this form of health service, both as between one local authority and another and between local authorities and the hospitals. Staff and premises may be shared, wherever this may be found to be mutually beneficial. Our experience of the present local health authority in inner London, the L.C.C., is that both staff and, no doubt, members continue to be at the service of the inner London boroughs, and the Government are confident that the new London boroughs, as well as the boroughs in outer London, will do all that is necessary to develop their services to meet the needs of their populations.

The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, talked about difficulties presented by the location of some psychiatric hospitals. It is true that co-operation between the local authorities and the psychiatric hospitals in the London area is complicated by the fact that most, though not all, of them are on the outskirts of London. In spite of this, the staff of the hospitals have good links with the L.C.C. medical officers and their social workers, and there is no reason why this should not continue in the manner in which it does now. If some rearrangement of the hospital catchment areas would help in this respect, this is a question of administration which can be considered, and will be considered, if necessary. Incidentally, the plans for future development of hospital services will also ease this problem by providing more psychiatric beds in general hospitals within the London area itself.

The noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred to the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, of which he was Chairman until recently when he was succeeded by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I have the greatest respect for what they do and I had the pleasure not so long ago of seeing some of their work. I know that the Society take the view that the services for mentally handicapped children in London should be run by the Greater London Council in the inner London area, because the I.L.E.A. will be a special committee of it. The argument put forward, as I understand it, is that if the training centres of schools come under the same authority, that will make it easier for a child attending a training centre to move to a special school if he is found to be suitable for education in that school.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

I should not think that was the only reason.

LORD NEWTON

Perhaps not; but that is the major reason which I think has been presented to us. The answer to that is that these children present primarily a health, rather than an educational problem, because the probability is that they will need the local health authority's supporting services throughout their lives and not only while they may be being educated in the school.

Moreover, the Bill makes provision in Clause 32 for the integration of the professional staff of the school health service and the other personal health services, and we discussed that at great length on Tuesday. The Education Act, 1944, as amended by the Mental Health Act, 1959, provides for appeal against any decision that a child is unsuitable for education, and for subsequent reassessment at the request of his parents or the local health authority. In all probability it would be the doctor acquainted with the child's development and progress in the training centre who would advise the I.L.E.A. on such occasions. So I do not think there is any reason to fear that any disadvantages will flow there.

Those are the reasons why I must advise your Lordships that this Amendment is unacceptable. As I said at the beginning, the main reason is that we are absolutely convinced that all the health services of the local health authority should be kept together in the interests of all the people who benefit from them. Because this Amendment would split them up and divide them, we think it is wrong.

9.13 p.m.

LORD SHEPHERD

My noble friend Lord Longford spoke of the silent sector of the community. Whereas in the previous debate there was slight bitterness and a biting debate—justifiable from our point of view, in that an existing service which has given great benefit to the community was being destroyed—in this case, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, will agree, we are dealing with a relatively new side of medical attention and medical health. We on this side of the Committee would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newton, that all sides of medicine, preventive or the other, whether clinical or mental, should be kept together.

We have fought bitterly on the previous Amendment to ensure that, so far as the inner London boroughs are concerned, the responsibility for that side for a period until it could be reasonably handed over to the boroughs, should remain with the Greater London Council. In the case of mental health, we are dealing with something rather different. It is a new science, and I think the noble Viscount the Leader of the House would agree that the problem of mental health cannot be divided as we divide children's illnesses, such as measles, scarlet fever and the like; there are many border cases. At the moment, doctors are only finding their way through a problem of which until recently there was little for them to understand, except that the child was not the same as others; but we hope that we shall move forward.

The first question I would put to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, because he is concerned with this matter—I am not being unfair; the Party fight is over for the moment, and I hope it will keep out so far as this matter is concerned—is this: do you really believe that you can give the service, the opportunity, to these handicapped children, within the narrow confines of one, two or three boroughs? Or should you try to create an organism by which the maximum knowledge, the maximum information, the maximum science, instruments, research and the like, can be put on to the various sections of mental health? The noble Lord Lord Newton has again referred—and I will not attack him, but I must point it out—to the boroughs getting together. I do not believe that boroughs, when they are dealing with mental health of children, would say, "Well, that is your responsibility; we will have nothing to do with it." That is probably not so. But where you have these divisions you create an obstacle, an artificial barrier.

I look at medicine rather in the same way as in the old days of the knights fighting the dragon, where the doctors must go out and try to fight disease. Colour does not come into it; race and language do not come into it. They go out together to try to fight disease. I do not believe there should be barriers. That is one of the reasons why, on this particular subject, I think the Government are absolutely wrong to try to bring this artificial barrier of a borough of 200,000 or 300,000 persons between what may be an exciting new era, an exciting period of discovery of knowledge, and, above all else, the permeation of information and the use of information in dealing with children. It may well be that in the borough of Wandsworth a doctor may have a child who is handicapped, and somehow finds a little germ, a little bit of light. If he is in one organisation with its proper stream of information, that information may well go to the top and may well then be disseminated among all the other sides in the service.

I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, with his knowledge of this subject, whether he really believes that this knowledge will go through from one borough to another with the same speed and the same conciseness. I rather feel that it will not. I would that it were not so. The noble Lord. Lord Newton, has made a great case on this Amendment and on the other, that our Amendment relates merely to the inner London area.

LORD NEWTON

So it does.

LORD SHEPHERD

The noble Lord must be fair in this respect. Here we are dealing with an existing unit, an area that has until the present time been administered as one county unit. It is one service; it has one head; it has one organism, and it has one ideal. In the outer boroughs it is different. Some were in the county of Surrey—and they are being drawn across. We are not trying, therefore, to create something in the new areas where the organism does not at present exist. What we wish to do is in this particular case to retain the present organism as a living body, with all the knowledge it has been able to garner and the experience that it has available for this silent sector of the community.

My noble friend Lord Longford suggested that the Government were committing an experiment. It could be an experiment. I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, would not wish to embark upon something which he believed to be wrong. But, of course, when a departure is made from what is already proved, it becomes an experiment. When the Government propose to depart from something which we know has worked and has been of service to the community and to embark on to something new, which is rather a mystery and perhaps offers a future, surely we must have more evidence as to whether the Government are right. They have offered us little except faith and hope in their decisions. They can give us very little concrete evidence that what they are asking this Committee to approve is right or fair. I believe that there is a case to use the advantages, the skill, the dedication, of the officers that already administer within the inner boroughs, to use these known facts, these known persons, before embarking on something which may, in the Government's eye, appear a new horizon. But there are false horizons—we know that from our own experience—and I have a dreadful feeling that the one which the Government now sees is a very false horizon.

LORD GRENFELL

I know that I lack in eloquence, but I can speak with sincerity and I should like just to say a few words before we finish this debate. I have thought very carefully about this problem, and I am convinced that this Amendment, would mean that the inner London boroughs would come into a central control and the outer London boroughs would be on their own. As my noble friend Lord Longford said earlier on, I have spoken up in favour of some of the outer county councils, and to the detriment of others, but I believe that we have to open up into a new era. I have already said, quit e frankly, that I should prefer all the services to be under the Greater London Council; but if one does that one has to put the old, the young, every single service, under that Greater London Council. But I am prepared to accept the fact that the children and the adults (those of whom I am speaking, perhaps we may say, are still children) should become the responsibility of the Greater London boroughs. I shall be the first—and I know my noble friend Lord Stonham, who is now the Chairman of the society to which I belong, will be alongside me—to keep a very close eye on them. We will speak up for those who are doing well, and we will speak also of those who are not doing well. I think it would be a mistake to make divisions in Greater London: and I believe that this Amendment would not be the right solution. I trust that the future of this young and virile new understanding for the mentally handicapped will follow the right lines, and I will do all I can to see that it does.

LORD STONHAM

I am quite sure the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, will do all he can and that he will speak up; but I feel, and my noble friends feel, that the most important time to speak up is now when we are convinced that the Government are about to make a serious error which will affect the mentally handicapped and the mentally subnormal children; otherwise speaking up can be done only after the damage is done. My noble friend Lord Longford, to whom I am extremely grateful for an outstanding speech, said that Lord Newton was not personally responsible for the reply that he would make. I am quite sure the noble Lord, Lord Newton, would not agree with that, because in all these matters whenever we get up to speak in your Lordships' House we are all personally responsible for what we sax, and I think in a matter of this kind we are all acutely responsible not only for what we say but for the way in which we vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said, quite rightly, that in this Amendment we are dealing with inner London only, why should we not deal with the whole area to be covered by the Greater London authority? The reason is quite simple. Though I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, I should prefer the whole thing to be under the Greater London Council. The reason is that the only county organisation which is at present dealing with the mentally afflicted on a county basis is the London County Council, and the purpose of this Amendment is to ensure that what is in existence and doing wonderful work shall not be destroyed. There is at the moment nothing to destroy outside the area of inner London in the sense of being on a county basis. So the noble Lord, Lord Newton, was not really on a point at all; he was not being fair on this.

LORD GRENFELL

May I interrupt the noble Lord? Surely the Middlesex County Council were dealing with it.

LORD STONHAM

Not in anything like the same organised degree. There are in many of the existing boroughs in the area of Middlesex services which do not exist in the inner London boroughs, the metropolitan boroughs, in the field of mental health, as the noble Lord is fully aware. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said that we in our Amendment are proposing to divorce responsibility for mental health from responsibility for all other health services. Just prior to my moving this Amendment my noble friend Lady Summerskill moved a somewhat similar Amendment in respect of all the health services, which the Government rejected. We are now putting this forward as a special case because we regard mental health and mental sub-normality as a special case.

The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said when I interrupted him that psychotic or autistic children are mainly cared for in hospitals. If I may say so with respect, that showed how much his information on this subject is divorced from reality. I interrupted and asked him to name the hospitals, the units in London, and he did not reply for the very good reason that he could not, and he could not get any help from the Officials' Box on that occasion because they could not answer either.

In 1951, when I was personally responsible in the South-West for 17,000 mentally afflicted and mentally subnormal people, I saw for the first time a psychotic child. I was so affected by that that I went to my friend the late Aneurin Bevan and said, "There is no unit for psychotic children in the whole of the West of England. We must have one". There is a unit now—and there was in 1952—for twenty psychotic children. I was astonished the other day to find that it is exceptional. It is famous as one of the few in the country. They do not exist. What the noble Lord, Lord Newton, is apparently not aware of is the extraordinary position of children of this kind. He has not talked to their parents; he does not know the tragedies. Apparently, he does not know that, with proper treatment, these extraordinary children—they call them "dream" children—can be—

LORD NEWTON

May I interrupt the noble Lord? Is he referring to the centre run by the London County Council for psychotic children? If so, I specifically referred to it in my speech and said that it will certainly be necessary for it to continue.

LORD STONHAM

The centre I referred to was in the West of England. It is called "Merryfield" and it is near Taunton. I referred to that centre merely as being one of the few in the country. But even in the London County Council centre for psychotic children it is impossible to care for all, even the comparatively small number of such children. But the noble Lord has emphasised my point—he has referred to the one centre in the whole of the County of London, the whole of the area covered by the inner London boroughs. That centre is in one borough. It is not available, or will not be available, to other boroughs which are to be created, and they will not set up such centres.

I could go through the scale of mental sub-normality and mental affliction and mention a number of different special cases of this kind. I know that the noble Lord will not do it, but it would be idle for him to pretend that each of the inner London boroughs will set up a complete service for the mentally afflicted. He mentioned that he agreed that psychiatric hospitals are on the outside of London, but with the co-operation of the London County Council the link which existed between those hospitals—Claybury, Goodmayes, Long Grove—with their catchment areas far away in inner London, would continue. How can it continue when the Government are intent on destroying the London County Council? They are going to destroy it, whether it is right or wrong. The noble Lord then claims that co-operation will continue even after the London County Council has ceased to exist.

LORD NEWTON

Certainly.

LORD STONHAM

I cannot believe that in reason, and I am quite sure it is not going to be the case in fact. It is the unhappy truth. Please understand that we are not going to leave it here tonight, whichever way this Division goes. We are going to fight this through right to the very end, because we know we are right and because we know that we are fighting for people who cannot fight for themselves. That is the important thing. It does not matter about Civil Service answers and things of that kind. I saw the Report of the Royal Commission come along here, and I knew the exact sentence which was coming from the Box and which the noble Lord was going to provide. Of course I did. But I am not so foolish as to be impressed by a sentence like that, with no facts at the back of it. Of course we know the facts of the situation, and of course we know that the proposals of the Government are, to a large extent, going to sacrifice these children and to some extent are going to sacrifice their parents; and if noble Lords opposite or in any part of the House are not aware of these things, then they should not vote against us on this issue. If they are aware of them, then they will vote for us, because we are all agreed that this is not a political matter. In

Clause 45 agreed to.

Clause 46 [Accommodation and welfare of disabled and old persons, et cetera]:

9.44 p.m.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD moved in subsection (1) to leave out "The council of each London borough shall as respects the borough and the Common Council shall as respects the City", and to insert: (1) Subject to subsection (8) of this section, the Greater London Council as respects the area of the inner London boroughs and the City, and the council of each outer London borough as respects the area of the outer London boroughs, shall—".

The noble Earl said: With the leave of the Committee, I will not move Amendment No. 175, not because we do not stand by it but because it is really a paving Amendment; it leads on to Amendment No. 178. So I would ask leave not to this matter we are fighting to continue a service which is essential to these unfortunate people, which is now in existence and which we believe will not be, and cannot be, carried on in anything like the same degree if it is broken up.

9.35 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 163A) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 16; Not-Contents, 53.

CONTENTS
Archibald, L.	Lawson, L.	Shepherd, L.
Burden, L. [Teller.]	Listowel, E.	Stonham, L.
Crook, L.	Longford, E.	Strabolgi, L.
Henderson, L.	Lucan, E. [Teller.]	Summerskill, B.
Champion, L.	Morrison of Lambeth, L.	Walston, L.
Latham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Abinger, L.	Dilhome, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Lloyd, L.
Ailwyn, L.	Drogheda, E.	Lothian, M.
Albemarle, E.	Dundee, E.	Margesson, V.
Aldington, L.	Ellenborough, L.	Melchett, L.
Amherst of Hackney, L.	Elliot of Harwood, B.	Mills, V.
Ampthill, L.	Falmouth, V.	Monck, V.
Balfour of Burleigh, L.	Ferrers, E.	Newton, L.
Boston, L.	Fraser of North Cape, L.	Perth, E.
Boyd of Merton, V.	Goschen. V. [Teller.]	Poulett, E.
Carrington, L.	Grenfell, L.	Remnant, L.
Chesham, L.	Hailsham, V. (L. President.)	Rochdale, V.
Coleraine, L.	Harcouurt, V.	St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]
Conesford, L.	Hastings, L.	Swansea, L.
Cranbrook, E.	Hereford, V.	Tweedsmuir, L.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L.	llford, L.	Waleran, L.
Denham, L.	Jellicoe, E.	Wellington, D.
Derwent, L.	Jessel, L.	Wolverton, L.
Devonshire, D.	Lansdowne, M.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

move No. 175 at this stage, in order that the discussion should take place on No. 176. This Amendment, No. 176, covers a great many of our fellow citizens, and I am sure the Committee will not wish to dispose of it quickly. There are six Amendments which are concerned with the same issue. They arise at page 64, line 37; page 65, line 14; page 65, line 35; page 66, line 1, and page 66, line 14. I do not know that the Committee will be interested in the drafting aspect of it; but the object of this suggested Amendment is perfectly plain. It is to ensure that the Greater London Council shall assume responsibility for these various welfare services during a five-year period. It is hoped that during that time the services might be gradually delegated in an orderly fashion to the new authorities, and that the transfer would be completed by the end of that period. We believe that such an arrangement would be practicable and could be achieved within the ambit of schemes submitted to and approved by the Minister from time to time.

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, will not argue that this is some concession on our part. If he likes, it is a withdrawal from the position which we should like to occupy, but a withdrawal under duress: it can be taken as a second-best arrangement, that the transfer should not take place for the five-year period. We should have preferred that it did not take place at all, but that does not mean that we should not consider this a great improvement on the actual proposal in the Bill. Perhaps we ought to glance for a moment at the heading of Clause 46, in order to know what we are talking about.

In the index to the Bill we see that Clause 46 is concerned with "Accommodation and welfare of disabled and old persons etc." "Et cetera" is a slightly inhuman term; but there are a number of people in difficulties who need assistance and are covered by this clause. They are the people with whom we are concerned under the general heading of welfare services. We suggest the services that the community is trying to provide for these people should be rendered for five years by the Greater London Council. We feel very strongly—and this will be no surprise to the noble Lord in view of our previous argument—that the fragmentation of the existing country-wide welfare service is likely to result in deterioration in the quality and extent of these services.

We are certain that that must be so in the years immediately ahead. We believe it will be so in the indefinite future, but it must be so in the years just in front of us. Even if we take the most optimistic view of the prospects; even if we assume the most willing co-operation between the authorities; whatever assumption is made about the new authorities and the Minister—whether of this Government or of another; but hardly of another because a Minister of another Party would be doing something more fundamental to put things right—one is faced with a number of fundamental problems if this clause in its present form becomes law. The noble Lord. Lord Newton—I was going to say that he was being deserted by all of his colleagues, but I see that they are doing a "Sidney-Newton" act and have brought him a glass of water—

LORD NEWTON

Can I offer the noble Earl some?

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

I will prove my confidence in the noble Lord by accepting it without claiming I might be safer with that on this side.

There are a number of topics here which we must cover. The questions of residential accommodation for old and handicapped people, of the allocation of councils' small and large homes among new authorities, present a serious problem. It is doubtful whether any allocation conducted under this Bill can have suitable regard to the different categories of residents the healthy old people, the physically infirm, the chronic sick, the senile aged, the blind and the sighted handicapped. I am sorry to use these expressions, but, as the noble Lord realises, there are the human beings behind the labels. Am I right in addressing the noble Lord, or is it the noble Earl who is going to reply?—I am not sure that the noble Lord does not deserve an Earldom, if he comes through this intact.

So far as we can see, there is no way of safeguarding the essential interests of the individuals under this fragmentation unless we set up some sort of central control or all-London controller. I do not know whether that is the idea of the noble Lord: some sort of controller to conduct allocation after fragmentation. I will give way to the noble Lord for a moment, for him to tell us whether that is correct.

LORD NEWTON

I think the noble Earl had better continue his speech.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

I suppose that means the noble Lord does not know the answer. My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth is a great deal more charitable than I am. He has just said that that is to be understood; but perhaps there is not an answer. But I am entitled to submit to the Committee that at this moment of time—9.53—the noble Lord does not know the answer to it. At 10.3, without assuming that I shall finish by 10.3, the answer may be available. But I put the question to the noble Lord: is the allocation to be, effected by an all-powerful individual, a sort of local dictator, who is going to decide how people are going to be distributed between the different homes? It would seem that some arrangement of that kind will be necessary, and I must ask the noble Lord to deal with this seriously when he replies.

I do not suppose that he will exactly welcome a scheme of that kind. Yet how otherwise are these old people to be allocated between the various homes? Maybe in future some other system will be worked out; but in the first few years a person of that sort seems essential. We all know that when old people enter into a residential home and give up independent living there is a period of very painful adjustment. It is likely that the noble Lord has read Mr. Townsend's powerful book. I wonder whether, in fact, the future of old people who are not actually sick really lies in these homes. It may well be that they would be better off in the community, unless they are literally incapable of looking after themselves or have no relatives to help them. At any rate, when old people find themselves in residential homes there is this period of great strain and adjustment, and it would be intolerable if, in addition, they found themselves ordered about against their wishes, compelled to go from the home where they live into some other home, merely because it was administratively convenient in the view of this dictator, or because the borough in which they happened to be refined to be responsible for them.

I am sorry the noble Lord has not risen—he seemed to think that I was putting a sort of trap question, and that there was some dialectical trick in putting the question. But this question of how they are to be allocated affects the future of a large number of old people. Under the present arrangements, London's old people can be admitted to homes outside London, and old people living outside London can be admitted to homes inside London. I put this second question to the noble Lord: and I hope he will deal with it. Will these arrangements that are now made between the London authority and the areas outside continue in the future? Will the boroughs be expected to undertake the same sort of arrangements? Supposing they were to take a more parochial view of the problem, would there be any force or any persuasion brought to bear on them? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us how that can be achieved.

Then there are the homeless. I will not deal with them in any detail, not because theirs is not the most poignant of problems, but because an Amendment concerned especially with them is to be moved later by my noble friend Lord Walston. However, I should point out that the County Council provides temporary accommodation for some 1,000 homeless families, and the net accretion of new cases is at the rate of 14 families a week. This is obviously a problem of Greater London as a whole, rather than of individual boroughs. I will not say more about that, for the reason I have mentioned.

Leaving the old, I will come to those many classes of handicapped people under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. The services rendered to these people are to be transferred to the new London boroughs. Again we are confident, not just for personal reasons but because of all our expert advice, apart from our own experience, that there will be a deterioration in these specialised services. Again, I say we are sure, so far as we can be sure of anything in this world, that the services will deteriorate over the next few years, and we believe that they will be either inferior in the indefinite future to what they have been or inferior to what they might be or might otherwise be.

I should like to say a word or two about home visiting and community care. The more important aspect of these services is their development away from home visiting only towards communities. I said earlier that the words "community care" can contain their own ambiguities and dangers, though it is a progressive concept. Here the work of the social rehabilitation centres provided by the council has been very valuable. Probably the most valuable individual service which can be rendered to handicapped people is the provision of social rehabilitation centres and transport to get them there and back. We have a special Amendment down on transport, but, in passing, I want to say a word about it. This provision of centres and transport is part of the council's plan to bring the handicapped back into the life of the community. It is part of the plan to convince the handicapped that they can acquire personal skills. All this is vital, not only to enable them to render service to the community, but to help them to live a life as human beings.

There are thirteen such centres in London, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, and others are planned, but, by the reallocation to the new centres, it would appear to be certain that some areas will be deficient in this provision and the service will fall short, at least for some time. Again, I pause to ask the noble Lord how he is going to make sure that these thirteen centres, which are certainly not arranged so as to fit thirteen boroughs, will in fact be appropriate for the new task. Perhaps he will deal with that when he comes to speak. As I said just now, a transport service must be provided to get people from their homes to the centres. At present, the Council has fourteen specially designed coaches, and three Utilibuses, and the total fleet may be expected to be nineteen coaches and seven buses by March 31, 1965. Is this fleet going to be divided among the new authorities? There must be occasions, if it is split up in that way, when the coaches will fail to arrive, and then there will be severe disappointment. I should like to ask the noble Lord how he proposes to deal with this fleet of coaches and buses which at present serve so well the interests of handicapped people.

Then there is something about which I have not personal knowledge, but I would place it before the Committee and the noble Lord—that is, the Court of Protection. In some 250 cases, an officer of the Council's Welfare Department has been appointed by the Court of Protection as receiver to manage the property belonging to a person incapable of managing his own affairs. The officer's expenses are defrayed by the Council. These powers will be transferred to the new London boroughs, but separate court orders will be necessary in every case to transfer the receivership to an officer of the new authority. This will all take time and cause a great deal of trouble and difficulty. So perhaps the noble Lord will say something about the Court of Protection.

Then we come to the rehabilitation of the newly blind. For many years the only specialised service directed to the rehabilitation of the newly blind was provided by a voluntary organisation by means of residential courses at either Torquay or Bridgnorth. Experience showed, however, that a majority of London cases were unable or unwilling to leave their homes for several months for this purpose, and there were other difficulties. To meet this need, a three-monthly full-time non-residential rehabilitation course for newly blind persons was set up, and is now well-established in London. About 36 persons from all over London attend each course. I should be glad if the noble Lord would tell us whether he agrees that the London method has many advantages as compared with residential rehabilitation. Would he not agree that it would represent a serious deterioration in the services for the blind if this all-London service were to disappear at short notice?

There is another point with which I hope he will deal. Where will they go? Who will be responsible? Will they be split up, or will they be dealt with by some sort of co-ordination? I am bound to inform him that, unless he can provide a good explanation, most of us regard that as likely to prove a serious setback. We on this side are convinced—certainly the London County Council are; though we do not take it parrot-like from them—as are others who have looked into it, that a balanced and coherent devolution of the countywide welfare services to thirteen separate authorities cannot be achieved by March 31, 1965, without serious detriment to the services. When one talks about these services, it sounds as if one was concerned with some abstraction, or thinking of those who render the services—and they certainly deserve to be considered: but we are thinking primarily of the unjustified hardship to the old, homeless, handicapped and other people for whom the Council are under a statutory duty to provide.

The County Welfare Services have been organised during the last fourteen years since the passing of the National Assistance Act on a county-wide basis. There has been practical experience of the complexity and difficulty of the transfer of functions which took place in 1930 and 1948, and in the time allowed by this Bill entirely new authorities would need to have a whole pattern working of standing orders, committee, departmental and establishment structures. They would have to recruit and retain staff, apparently without the advantages of central allocation of training arrangements. All that would, of course, involve a great revolution in the arrangements.

So I say to the noble Lord that this is not a case which can be disposed of by saying that there are boroughs of a certain size in some other parts of the country which seem to manage to provide these services. That is an issue which we have discussed more than once in this Committee in the last fortnight, and before that. But we are saying something additional, that here is something, if you like, which is not in direct conflict with the views of the noble Lord. We are saying, whatever opinion he and his colleagues have formed about the far distant future, that it would appear that the problems of the kind I have mentioned will for a number of years to come involve grave risk, to put them at their lowest, to these elderly and handicapped people. So the object of the proposed Amendment is to make sure that during the next few years at least the responsibilities for these services at least will be shouldered by those who have proved well able to bear them.

I apologise if I have taken a certain amount of time. I should like to repeat to the noble Lord that I have put a number of specific questions to him which I hope he will answer either this evening or on some other occasion; and I should like him to feel that behind all these administrative words we are deeply concerned about the future of these old and helpless people and that we are gravely anxious about their future. We believe that the noble Lord and his colleagues are likely to do them a great mischief but, at any rate, we do ask noble Lords opposite, without repudiating their philosophy, at least to take the practical step of trying to make sure over the next few years that the awkwardness and the dangers of the transition are reduced to the minimum. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 64, line 37, leave out from beginning to end of line 39 and insert the said words.—(The Earl of Longford.)

10.7 p.m.

LORD NEWTON

The effect of adopting these Amendments would be similar to that of the Amendments on Clause 45, relating to the health services, which were moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and which were discussed at considerable length. The general arguments against delegation and the eventual transfer, after a period of five years, apply to these Amendments as they did to the Amendments moved by the noble Baroness. Again, the implication of the Amendments is that there will be a distinction drawn between the inner and the outer London boroughs; and, as I have said before, we do not accept that there is any validity in this distinction. I must emphasise that the welfare services, as they exist in inner London at the moment, will be taken over as a going concern by the London boroughs, and those who benefit by these services will not be affected in any way. The old people will stay in the homes in which they are now living.

LORD LATHAM

Surely you cannot take them over as a going concern if you are going to split them up first?

LORD NEWTON

The premises will be there; the homes for the old people will still be there; and the old people will still be in them. There is an obligation on the London boroughs to take over and continue as they are the services which they will receive until they have produced their schemes for future development, have submitted them to my right honourable friend and have had them approved by him.

I would also emphasise that under Clause 5(3) of the Bill the new London boroughs will have very wide powers to make arrangements with one another for sharing the use of premises and staff, and so on, whenever this is necessary either on a temporary or a permanent basis, and I think the fact that these powers are there, and undoubtedly will be used, means that the difficulties which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has envisaged will not in fact arise. After all, mutual aid between local authorities is a very well-recognised feature of the welfare services as they exist to-day throughout the country.

LORD LATHAM

Can the noble Lord say how they can take over workshops for the blind?

LORD NEWTON

They will be taken over like anything else. It will be agreed either that one authority will be responsible or that several will have joint use of them, or that one will provide them on an agency basis for the others. There are several possibilities.

LORD LATHAM

Is the noble Lord saying that ad hoc bodies are to be brought into existence to deal with these things?

LORD NEWTON

Certainly, if necessary; there is ample provision in the Bill for that to happen.

We consider that the small homes for old people which will replace the former public assistance institutions in inner London should be sited where they are needed by the populations of the new boroughs which they will serve. And in our view the best way to ensure this in the future is to give responsibility to the new boroughs at the earliest possible date, not to put it off in the manner in which these Amendments require. As primarily housing authorities, which the London boroughs will be, their councils will be well placed to set aside sites for homes in areas of new development.

Where homes are small it is easier to group together residents with special needs and to create an atmosphere in which old people can grow older without losing their individual interests and their links with their friends and relatives. These homes will be built not simply to meet present needs but to serve the needs of old people in the later decades of the century, and it is therefore vital that they should be designed as soon as possible with an eye to the future; and we consider the people who will be responsible in the future should as quickly as possible get on with the job of drawing up plans.

As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, there are some homes in the London area and outside which cater for Londoners and others with special disabilities such as those who have recently become blind and special classes of handicapped. The catchment area is not limited to the inner London area, and we certainly expect these highly specialised homes to continue to serve a much wider area than that of the boroughs in which they are situated. Social centres for the blind and social centres for the handicapped normally serve a relatively small area, and even in the counties social workers for the handicapped and home teachers for the blind normally work as part of the health and welfare domiciliary team based on an area office or divisional office. We think it is most important there should not be any obstacle in the way of this comprehensive team work by the domiciliary team being fragmented or disrupted in any way by piecemeal delegation, as proposed in these Amendments, or any other sort of division of responsibility. The transfer of these services to the boroughs will also have the advantage of concentrating responsibility for the handicapped in the same hands as responsibility for housing.

The difficulty of finding suitable houses and arranging for any special adaptations of houses that may be necessary may be a major problem for people with special handicaps. It is obviously a problem which can be more easily solved if a single authority is responsible for housing and welfare. In addition to having the disadvantages which I have already mentioned, this Amendment, if it were carried, would also mean there would not be the positive advantages of the provisions in the Bill as it now stands. Therefore I am unable to advise your Lordships to accept this Amendment.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

With great respect to the noble Lord, I cannot feel that he has gone far to answer the specific questions I have put to him. It is clear, I think, that we will have to return to this matter in some form on the Report stage of the Bill, but it would be unhelpful to pursue it at this time of night; therefore, I wish to press it to a Division.

10.16 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 176) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 14; Not-Contents, 49.
CONTENTS
Alexander of Hillsborough, E.	Lawson, L.	Shepherd, L. [Teller.]
Archibald, L.	Listowel, E.	Stonham, L.
Champion, L.	Longford, E.	Strabolgi, L.
Crook, L.	Lucan, E,[Teller.]	Walston, L.
Latham, L.	Morrison of Lambeth, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Abingar, L.	Darwent, L.	Jellicoe, E.
Ailwyn, L.	Devonshire, D.	Jessel, L.
Albemarle, E.	Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Lloyd, L.
Aldington, L.	Drogheda, E.	Lothian, M.
Amherst of Hackney, L.	Dundee, E.	Margesson, V.
Ampthill, L	Effingham, E.	Melchett, L.
Balfour of Burleigh, L.	Elliot of Harwood, B.	Mills, V.
Boston, L.	Falmouth, V.	Moyne, L.
Boyd of Merton, V.	Ferrers, E.	Newton, L.
Carrington, L.	Fraser of North Cape, L.	Perth. E.
Chesham, L.	Goschen, V. [Teller.]	Remnant, L.
Coleraine, L.	Grenfell, L.	Rochdale, V.
Colville of Culross, V.	Hailsham, V. (L. President.)	St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]
Conesford, L.	Harcourt, V.	Tweedsmuir, L.
Crambrook, E.	Hastings, L.	Waleran, L.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L.	Ilford, L.	Wemyss, E.
Denham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I beg to move that the House do now resume—

LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH

The most useful thing you have done to-day!

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

—because I think it a little unlikely that we shall be able to dispose of the next Amendment in five minutes.

Moved, that the House do now resume.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.