Lords Sitting of 12 February 1964

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON GRANTS FOR OVERSEAS SPORTS
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state the names and composition of the Advisory Committee set up under the chairmanship of Sir John Lang to make recommendations for grant-aiding teams taking part in overseas sports events; and which members of the Committee have voting rights.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH): My Lords, the membership of this Committee comprises, in addition to the Chairman (Sir John Lang), the General Secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation, Mr. Walter Winterbottom, and the General Secretary of the British Olympic Association, Mr. K. S. Duncan, with representatives of the Ministry of Education and the Scottish Education Department. A representative of the Scottish Council of Physical Recreation will attend in appropriate cases. The Committee does not proceed by way of voting, so that the last part of the Question does not arise.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, in thanking the noble Earl for that information, which I know he has gone to a great deal of trouble to obtain, may I ask him whether I am correct in assuming that, although there is no voting as such on this Committee, applications which come in and are considered would be considered by the
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Chairman, Mr. Winterbottom and Mr. Duncan and two representatives of the Ministry of Education?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, the answer to that question is, Yes. But I think that I should add that, of course, the ultimate decisions on grants will rest with the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office, according to whether the visit is to a foreign country or to a Commonwealth country, because the expenditure will be borne on the Fund of either Department. But it was thought undesirable that these Departments should be actual members of the Advisory Committee which examines applications for grants. Representatives of the two Departments, however, are associated with the Committee and they take part in the discussions about individual applications in a consultative capacity. I am most grateful to the noble Lady for allowing me to make this reply, as there has been a little misunderstanding.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Earl will not be grateful to me much longer, because although I do not know whether he realises it, he has just made a terrible statement so far as the sporting organisations are concerned. I am being quite serious. Before dealing with the more serious aspect, may I ask him this: when it was the intention of this House, and I thought of the Government, to set up a Committee dealing with the grant-aiding of teams taking part in amateur international sporting events overseas, that this should be done by individual people, such as Mr. Winterbottom, Mr. Duncan and the Chairman, why should the Ministry of Education join them? Does the noble Earl not realise that the whole purpose of the Lord President being in charge of this was not to have any individual Ministries joining in at this stage? Could the noble Earl answer that point first?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Yes, my Lords, certainly. The answer to the noble Lady, for whom I have a great admiration and affection, as I am sure all your Lordships have, is that the Education Departments are represented on this Committee because they provide the official members of the Committee, for the reason that their work particularly through Her Majesty's

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Inspectors, give them the greatest experience of the work of national sporting bodies.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I am so sorry; I feel horrid; but I have to go on with this matter. May I ask the noble Earl whether he does not realise that what I imagine the House must take from his reply is that the question of whether or not we are to grant-aid teams taking part in international sporting events overseas has nothing whatever to do with athletics, but has to do with the political aspect as covered by the Commonwealth Relations Office or the Foreign Office? If that is so, is the noble Earl aware that, quite irrespective of Party, I should think that noble Lords on both sides of the House, and certainly the sports organisations, will rend the Government limb from limb? Could I have an answer to that point?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I do not think that at the moment the Government are in the position of being rent limb from limb, and certainly will not be on this particular issue. I do not think that there is anything more that I can add. This Committee has been set up under Sir John Lang and has on it the representatives whom I have mentioned. I am afraid that I do not understand why the noble Lady should think that this Committee, with its advisers from the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office, should not function in an appropriate manner.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, in view of the great contribution of Wales to sporting events, ma y I ask the noble Earl why there is no representative of the Principality on the Committee?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I will look into that for the noble Lord, but I am certain that the Ministry of Education do, in fact, cover Wales.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I will leave the matter now, but, with your Lordships permission, may I ask one final point? In your Lordships' House on November 14 [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 253 (No. 3), col. 124] we were told that
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"British teams going to the Olympic or Commonwealth Games will be dealt with separately."
If that is the case, why on earth have we to have people dealing with that aspect on this Committee? Are they on both?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think that the answer to that is that there are obviously sporting events which do not necessarily come within the range of the Commonwealth Games or British Olympics.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether this Committee will have amateur status or will they be paid expenses?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: No doubt Sir John Lang will be deciding that point.

HYDE PARK
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—

(1) When it is expected that work will be finished on the partially restored lodge between the East Carriage Drive in Hyde Park and Park Lane; and

(2) When that part of Hyde Park which was closed when the underground garage was constructed will be reopened to the public and the collapsing fences removed.]

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, in reply to the first part of the Question, I would remind your Lordships that this lodge was removed from its original site at Grosvenor Gate, as a necessary part of the Park Lane Improvement Scheme. The London County Council agreed to pay for its re-erection on a new site inside Hyde Park. Discussions on the detailed arrangements are still proceeding between my right honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works, the London County Council and the Westminster City Council.
In answer to the second part of the Question, the Westminster City Council are responsible for ensuring that the land

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above the underground garage is restored to the satisfaction of my right honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works. It was originally planned that this work should be complete by the end of 1963. There has, however, been a setback, in that the growth of the new grass has not come up to expectations. The Council are considering what further remedial measures are necessary. I can assure the noble Lord that his solicitude for this area of the park is shared by my right honourable friend, and that it will be opened to the public as soon as the land is properly restored.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that full reply; but may I put two supplementary questions? The first is: Why was it that the lodge was partly rebuilt where it was, and then not finished? Secondly, would it be possible, as the rest of the Park cannot be opened, to put back the fences, which at present are falling down?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord's second supplementary, I should like to bring that question to the attention of my right honourable friend and have it looked into. Frankly, I do not quite know the answer to the noble Lord's first supplementary. I think it is that, for a number of reasons, the cost of restoring the lodge, or of moving it from its original site to the new one, has proved a great deal more expensive than was originally anticipated but again I should like a chance of looking into the point.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl.

KENSINGTON GARDENS
2.39 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is the policy of the Ministry of Public Building and Works to use the St. James's Palace sub-depôt in Kensington Gardens as a dump for old lamp-posts and worn-out metal fencing. If this is not so, whether these could not in future be placed in some less conspicuous and popular place.]
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the area in question has been used in this way in connection with the Park Lane Improvement Scheme. But this was a temporary and exceptional measure. My right honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works intends to clear the area completely this spring. Tenders will shortly be invited for the sale of the old gas lamps, and the remainder of the material will also be sold in the near future. Thereafter, no more items will be stored there and the Ministry's depôt will be in the adjoining magazine buildings. As a result, the present depôt yard will be considerably reduced in size, and the surplus land returned to the Park.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that Answer to my Question. I am afraid that I have no supplementaries to put.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am extremely sorry to hear that.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, as he is keen that this area should be kept in proper order, he does not think it is now time for the rectangular-shaped pill-boxes which are to the front and rear of the main building to be removed, too?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, it is certainly the intention, as was implicit in my reply, that this area should be kept in proper order. I am not quite as intimately acquainted as my noble friend evidently is with the area, but I will look into the question of the pill-boxes which he has quite rightly brought to our attention.

TRAINING OF COMMONWEALTH LAW STUDENTS
2.42 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that law students from overseas Commonwealth States are receiving the requisite training in Great Britain to fit them for practice in a single fused legal profession in their own countries.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, the Council of Legal Education provides courses for members of the four Inns of Court who are reading for the examinations for the Bar. In the same way, persons who are proposing to take the Law Society's qualifying examinations can attend training courses provided by the College of Law which has the support of the Law Society. I must make it clear, however, that there is no ministerial responsibility in the matter whatever. I do, of course, take a great personal interest in this subject as did my noble predecessor Lord Kilmuir, and I am able to give your Lordships the following information.
Until recently the Council of Legal Education has experienced considerable difficulty in securing the necessary accommodation for their lectures. I am very pleased to be able to inform your Lordships that, thanks to the generosity of the Benchers of Gray's Inn, the Inns of Court School of Law has recently been able to move into new accommodation at which vastly improved facilities are available. This has enabled the Council, in particular, to develop further the post-final practical training course which is designed to fit Commonwealth students for practice in the type of profession referred to by the noble Lord.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, while thanking the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for that Answer, and knowing full well the interest that both he and his predecessor have taken in this matter, may I ask the Government to do whatever they can to develop the postgraduate part of the tuition so that training is given in the composite profession, so to speak, which these men will be pursuing in their countries after their return, and which they have little opportuniy of learning about in this country at the moment?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think the Council of Legal Education and, indeed, the Law Society can be trusted to pay attention to that particular point. I should perhaps inform the noble Lord that the Law Society did their best to organise a post-final practical training course of the kind recommended, but they had to abandon this scheme as there was virtu-
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tually no demand for the course from the overseas students.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, is it not the fact that this instruction would best be taken during the course prior to qualification, because so many young men want to go back to their countries immediately after they have qualified? Is it not the fact that if the Bar Council and the Inns of Court could be persuaded to make this part of the tuition for qualification for the Bar, a great deal of assistance would be given to these young men?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am not sure that I fully understand what the noble Lord means by "made part of the tuition" before the Bar examination is taken. I can assure him that the Council of Legal Education, on the one hand, and the College of Law, supported by the Law Society, on the other, are fully alive to the need to give the overseas students the best possible training.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that at a suitable moment after 3.30 o'clock my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire will be making a statement on the Overseas Volunteer Service.
HAVEN MARINE TERMINAL COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and referred to the Examiners.
CHESHIRE BRINE PUMPING (COMPENSATION FOR SUBSIDENCE) BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
LIFE ASSOCIATION OF SCOTLAND LIMITED BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and referred to the Examiners.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

STAGGERED HOLIDAYS
2.46 p.m.
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON rose to call attention to Cmnd. Paper 2105 (Staggered Holidays) which demonstrates the desirability of extending the annual holiday season and of avoiding the coincidence of week-end travel and day-trips with main holidays; to the need, if this is to be done, for an initiative by Government Departments and other bodies; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an important social matter affecting the lives of the great mass of our fellow countrymen, and one which also has a great effect upon the economics of the country, and is a subject which I think it is especially suitable for your Lordships to discuss. It is a matter which is not a political issue, but it is perhaps all the more important on that account. The importance of the staggering of holidays has been apparent for a long time. It is becoming steadily and rapidly more so as the number of people able to take holidays annually increases; and with the changes which are announced in transport—the Beeching Report and so on—it is likely that we shall, in the near future, reach a crisis.
In 1937 only 15 million people in this country went away from their homes on a holiday. By 1961 this had increased to 30 million. But still there are 20 million people in this country who do not go away from home for a holiday. That is a clear indication of what will be the effect, as holiday-taking becomes more general, if nothing is done to meet the problem of congestion. Despite the great increase in the number of holidays taken, it continues to be the case that there is an acute peak. A vast number of people go away on holiday all at the same time. Sixty-three per cent. of all those who go on holiday go away in July or August, but the peak is most acute in just the fourteen days between July 24 and August 7:25 per cent, of all the holidays taken are started during that period. Seven million people congest our railways and roads in that fortnight; and another 5 million people do so in the preceding fortnight between the 10th and 24th July. This means an intense pressure upon holiday accommodation. Because the hotels, boarding houses and
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all forms of recreation have to cover their year's expenses in this short period of time, it means that prices must necessarily be higher than they would need to be if the holiday season were longer. In the second place, it also creates an acute pressure upon transport. I will deal with that point first.
The Beeching Report has indicated that, if permission is given by the Government, a very large number of branch lines will be closed down. A large proportion of our holiday resorts are on branch lines which are condemned to be closed under the Becching plan. Map No. 9 shows these closures, and I will give one example which is not an extreme example. Only two branch lines, as I understand it, will be left leading to the coast between Bristol and Land's End. In addition to this closing of branch lines which, of course, is dependent on the Government's consent, there is also to be the scrapping of some 6,000 carriages which are regarded as surplus. Of these, 2,000 are used on only ten occasions in the year, another 2,000 on fourteen occasions, and another 2,000 on eighteen occasions. The net annual loss to the railways on that is £2·9 million. I do not think Dr. Beeching requires the consent of the Minister to do away with that surplus stock, and he says in the Report that, by the end of 1965, stock will not be available for use at high peak periods. It follows that, with this policy being adopted by the railways, there must be greatly increased use of the roads.
In 1962, 74 per cent. of the holidaymakers went by road; 55 per cent. of them by car, and already that had resulted, with even those numbers, in these appalling progresses to the coast. With hundreds of cars bumper to bumper, much of the pleasure, enjoyment and benefit in holidaymaking must disappear during those long and wearisome hours on the road. Making bigger and better roads will not in itself be any solution, because even if transport to the coast and to other resorts is improved, there is the problem of where the cars are to be parked when they get there; and this, naturally, is more particularly acute when they are going to the seaside.
Superimposed on the long holidays, which are, as I have pointed out, taken so largely at the end of July and the beginning of August, there is the problem

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of daily and weekend trips—short periods taken away from home which are not included in the figures that I have given for what I call holidays. For example, August Bank Holiday—and many people go away for August Bank Holiday only, or take their holiday at some other time of the year—is superimposed upon the greatest rush period of all for the holidaymakers. It is a remarkable thing that 75 per cent. of all the holidays taken in this country begin at the weekend, and mostly on Saturday. This is the problem which we have to face.
I would suggest that the first essential step should be to try to separate the time of holidaymakers' travelling from the weekend. Providers of accommodation would welcome it if holidays, instead of beginning at the weekend, began in the middle of the week. The British Federation of Hotel and Boarding Houses Associations say:
"A greater willingness on the part of hotels and boarding houses to accept midweek bookings … if this were practised on a wider scale … would certainly help to avoid … congestion at the weekends."
Of course, they cannot be expected to welcome bookings from Wednesday to Wednesday if it is only a comparatively small proportion of all the holidaymakers who try to begin and end their holidays on a Wednesday. In isolated cases it might well mean that one booking beginning and ending on a Wednesday would result in the loss of two bookings which had begun at the weekend. The question is: is there any reason why holidaymakers should prefer to begin their holidays at the weekend? When one analyses the kind of holiday we are discussing, one finds there is really no reason for it at all.
For the normal holiday, 30 per cent. of the industrial workers in particular go away to an unlicensed hotel or a boarding house, and take their holiday for a fixed period of seven or fourteen days. It may appear to them at first sight that by starting their holiday at a weekend they gain the benefit of an extra period of holiday. But, of course, in point of fact this is not the case. They are obliged to vacate their accommodation on holiday on the seventh or fourteenth day in order that new bookings may be given. What in fact on analysis is the case is that the only advantage, if it be one, is that after
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returning home the breadwinner, or breadwinners, have a Sunday at home without work. Now from their point of view that may be an advantage. Probably from the point of view of the housewife it is actually a disadvantage because, of course, she finds that the shops are closed on that day. But it is quite clear that, from the point of view of convenience of travel and of enjoyment of holidays, it would be well worth while to alter the general scheme so that holidays begin and end in midweek.
I turn now to the question of spreading holidays over a longer period in the year. June, with its longer days, more sunshine and less rain, is the period when a great many people who now are unable to do so would wish to take their holidays. The figures are given in paragraph 25 of the White Paper. This would require a great and planned change, because most people are not at liberty to choose for themselves when they take their holidays. The main underlying cause of the present dates of holidays is the school year. In the White Paper reference is made, by implication, to the great educational difficulties in altering the school year. I have been at some pains to make inquiries as to exactly what the difficulties are, and I have come to the conclusion that, to a very large extent, it is due to the unintelligent conservatism, if there be such a thing—
LORD CHAMPION: It is synonymous.
LORD MOLSON: —of those who are engaged in organising the examinations. One thing which one must, of course, accept is that it is of the utmost importance that school-leavers should leave school soon after taking their examination for the General Certificate of Education. One is appalled to think of what the effect would be, in idleness, and worse, if there were a number of school-leavers who, having taken their examination, were kept on at school for weeks or months, without an obvious objective, before they actually left school.
But there is no reason why the General Certificate of Education examination should not be completely finished by the end of June, or even earlier. In fact, the great majority of papers are already finished before the end of June. It is only in the case of a comparatively small

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number that they drag over into July and delay the time when school holidays can begin. In Birmingham, for example, the County Borough Council has for this very purpose decided that holidays shall begin at the end of June, and the examinations have fitted themselves in accordingly. In the case of Scotland, the examination for the Scottish Certificate of Education was, until 1961, concluded by March or April, and at the present time is concluded in May. I see no reason at all why the seven or eight examining boards should not make the necessary effort to ensure that the G.C.E. examination is concluded by the end of May.
If and when the educationists have cleared the way, there will be no difficulty for industry, when fixing holidays, to take into account the possibility and desirability of starting them sooner. There are already many factories, perhaps most, which stagger holidays in order to remain in production; so they are already doing what we are anxious that they should do. There are other cases where complete factories close down, and even, in some cases, whole industries. I see that this practice is likely to start in the case of the great motor car industry, and I hone that the importance of timing holidays will be taken into account if that very large industry decides to close down completely for a period of time, as is indicated in a recent report in the Guardian.
Then there are, as those with experience of the North know, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Wakes Weeks, which are, in fact, holidays for whole towns. There, for a long time, local authorities concerned have been accustomed to meeting annually and arranging it so that their Wakes Weeks do not clash and thereby cause unnecessary inconvenience to their own people. It is quite possible to spread industrial holidays over a much larger part of the English summer (when it can be relied upon at any time) if only people are not bound by this difficulty of concluding the examinations. It does not affect merely those with children at school; obviously, when industry is considering the dates for fixing holidays for its workers, many of those who do not have children at school are obliged to go at a time that is convenient for those who have.
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The third point arises in connection with the so-called bank holidays. I am not raising the question of a fixed date for Easter: provision with regard to that is already on the Statute Book, and has been since 1928. But I am sure that a fixed date for Easter would be desirable if the whole of Christendom could agree upon a date. But it is not necessary to go into that matter. There is no religious association with Whit Monday. It could be made into an entirely secular holiday, with a fixed date at the end of May, which would be just before the beginning of the holiday season. It would, of course, be important that it should be so arranged as not to interrupt the G.C.E. examination. Similar considerations apply in the case of August Bank Holiday. It would be immensely helpful if it were at the end of August or the beginning of September, and if both were re-named "National Holidays".
I think that Parliament itself might set an example in this matter. I believe that the reason both Houses adjourn at the end of July or the beginning of August is that the "knights of the Shires" and noble Lords found it necessary to go back to their country estates to supervise the garnering of the harvests. I do not think it is always realised how many people, in the Civil Service and elsewhere, are bound by the Parliamentary Recesses as to the times when they take their holidays.
My Lords, I believe that such a change as I have indicated has long been a desirable social change, but reason and propaganda, taken alone, will be useless unless an initiative is taken by those who have the power to take it. I know that Her Majesty's Government do not control either the local education authorities or industry, but I believe that Her Majesty's Government could insist upon the G.C.E. examination being concluded at a time which would be to the general economic and social advantage of the country. I have every reason to think that once a lead had been given, industry would be most willing to cooperate. An immense amount depends, of course, upon the attitude of the trade unions, but several noble Lords will speak on that subject this afternoon, and I know that in years past the Trades Union Congress has in its Annual Report recommended a measure of this

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kind. I think that they feel, as certainly I do, that a change of this kind would be of immense benefit to those who spend many months labouring hard in industrial towns.
This is one of those reforms, like day light-saving, which for many years were obstructed, not for any good reason but simply because of the unwillingness of people in this country to take an initiative and change what had been a long-established custom. I believe that this would be of great value. I believe that all the indications are that, owing to the increasing use of the motor car and the likelihood that the railways will cut their peak-time and local services, we are approaching something in the nature of a crisis in this matter, and I hope that this afternoon your Lordships will give a lead to the Government and the country upon this matter. I beg to move for Papers.
3.11 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has introduced his Motion with such thoroughness and comprehensiveness that I find myself in some difficulty about what I am going to add to what he has said. Indeed, towards the end of his speech it seemed to me the best thing I could do was get up and say, "I second the Motion". He has dealt fully and admirably with the topic, and I say this not in criticism but rather in admiration of his performance.
However, there are a few points that I should like to stress, and in doing so I must make it quite clear that, although I speak from this Box, I am not expressing a Party point of view; nor can I be said, as a trade unionist, to be speaking for the trade union movement as a whole; for while both, I am sure, support the general proposal in principle, neither of the bodies have committed themselves to any set of proposals towards staggering holidays. I say this although, of course, the Trades Union Congress has been consulted as part of the National Joint Advisory Council, as the White Paper makes clear. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Williamson, when he comes to speak, will be able to give us a little more inside information than I have at the moment on the trade union side.
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Having made that clear, I hope, speaking as a railwayman I am bound to say that I am a very strong supporter of any reasonable proposal that would lower the peaks and raise the valleys, whether that proposal relates to the staggering of holidays or to the staggering of office hours in London, both of which cause exceptional difficulties to the railway industry. The noble Lord, Lord Molson, dealt adequately with branch lines, and he also reminded us of the fact that the Beeching Report has some forceful paragraphs on this topic of summer holidays and public holiday peaks. It says:
"This peak traffic differs from steady traffic and it is gradually being eroded much more by the growth of private transport".
Then, after giving the comparable figures between 1951 and 1961 of the erosion that is actually taking place, it tells us that in 1959 (and the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has touched upon this point) the British Railway services total of gangway coaches allocated to fast and semi-fast services numbered some 18,500. Six thousand of those were required as follows: 2,000 on ten occasions, 2,000 on fourteen occasions and 2,000 on 18 occasions. The annual cost of providing those 6,000 coaches was £3·4 million. Against this, those 6,000 coaches earned only £·5 million.
The Report says bluntly that this stock is being reduced so that by the end of 1965 none will be available for this peak traffic, and it says that all efforts will be made to control these peaks by seat reservation schemes and by a fares policy, as is the custom with the airline services. And it tells us, under the heading of the financial consequences of the plan, that the net saving it expects from all this is OA million. Whether we like this running down of this stock or not, the fact is that it is going on, and no transport users' consultatve committee, or anybody else, is brought into this consideration by representations made by the public. I say and assert that Dr. Beeching is right to do this as long as his terms of reference remain to make the railways pay. But the consequences of this will clearly have to be faced, as they will be, partly by more cars on the roads and partly by spreading the load by staggered holidays.
But we then must face what the noble Lord, Lord Molson, called the crisis, for

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crisis there certainly will be by the end of 1965; and it will be a crisis which will deepen with every passing year unless we do something. Mr. Marples, speaking in the other place on Monday, said that by the end of the century our population of 52 million will have increased to 70 million and all families who want a car will have one, which will mean 35 million vehicles on our roads, that being some three to four times the number there are now. Whatever the road improvements, no roads will be able to carry the load at holiday peaks of the kind we now have.
Clearly, the question we have to discuss is what can be done to lower the holiday peaks? I think it is obvious that this problem cannot be solved by Government action alone, although the Government can take some helpful actions. The first question arises from piling on top of the holiday peak period the August Bank Holiday traffic. This brings a tremendous pressure on all forms of transport and, of course, pressure on the resorts. I have always thought that our bank holidays are not as well spaced out over the year as they might be. August Bank Holiday is often too soon on the heels of Whitsun, and is always too far away from Christmas; the gap between August and Christmas is much too big. It seems to me that Easter and Whitsun might very well be fixed dates; although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Molson, that there may be a lot of religious feeling on this matter and that the whole thing will have to be very carefully considered and religious bodies consulted on any decision that would have to be taken, especially as it would apply to Easter. But certainly the bank holiday falling between Whitsun and Christmas ought to be fixed on either the last Monday in August or the first Monday in September, as has been suggested. That would have an immediate effect on the worst holiday congestion.
Also careful consideration ought to be given to the changing of the school terms and holidays. In this connection the G.C.E. examination is an important factor. If it is possible, the G.C.E. examination ought to be taken in the middle of June at the latest. There might be some advantage, too, in lengthening the school summer holiday,
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even if it means shortening the Christmas and Easter breaks. I believe this is done in many countries. I believe that Scotland does not suffer from the difficulty we have in this connection. But, certainly, there are no real disadvantages to be expected from such an alteration to the school holidays and the terms as we now have them.
I do not see how the Government could do much more than alter the dates of bank holidays and school examinations, except by stimulating industries and towns to consider the problem and take appropriate action. There is no single answer to this problem, for all industries and localities differ in their possibilities of bringing this about. These problems arise from the interdependence of industries the one upon the other, and the industry upon its contractors. But in many of them the problem is not insuperable, providing there is the will to tackle it.
The wakes weeks idea is not suitable everywhere. The wakes weeks were particularly suitable in the single industry towns, such as the cotton towns where they originated. They have now spread, understandably perhaps, to the mining areas, where single industries still dominate large parts of the population. The idea is spreading, and recently in my own home town the Treforest trading estate, upon which there is a variety of industries, decided upon holiday weeks at the same time. I gather that no particular difficulties have been experienced as the result of this decision.
The towns where wakes weeks are traditional can certainly help by moving away from the peak periods. I understand that Rochdale has shifted its two weeks to the second fortnight in June. An honourable friend of mine in another place, a prominent cotton union official, told me how it was done. First of all, a union ballot was held of the members, and, because cotton is no longer the sole industry of Rochdale, the engineers also held a ballot. This was a co-operative effort between the main trade unions concerned, of cotton and engineering. In the first ballot they held they asked: would members be prepared to shift the weeks to a less congested holiday period? The ballot showed that three to one were in favour of such a shift; they had become a little tired of

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finding the seaside resorts over-filled and transport difficult. The second ballot asked the members: would they agree to starting in mid-June? And two to one were in favour of starting in mid-June. As a result, the holiday last year in Rochdale was taken at this time.
I asked my honourable friend whether there were many complaints about this change after the first experience, and he said that complaints and grumbles about it were surprisingly few. The main complaints received were that there was in this period a lack of the usual seaside entertainments: they were not provided by the resorts at this time. On this point my honourable friend wrote to eighteen seaside resorts, and he received from most of these places, from the town clerks, replies which showed that the entertainments in most of them opened up in the second week of this late June period; and it was made quite clear by the town clerks and others concerned that, given a sufficient number of June visitors, they would have no difficulty at all about getting these entertainments to open earlier than was now the case.
A few of the grumblers found the less crowded resorts not to their taste. This is something that I cannot understand, but a number of people can. They like to be there with a good mob milling around. I hate it. But a number of these people complained that they do not like to be away from home and at these resorts in the comparatively lonely circumstances of that time. Surprisingly few found the G.C.E. examinations a difficulty; but there were some families who stayed at home and missed their holidays completely, as the result of their children taking the G.C.E. examination. My honourable friend explained the fact of there being surprisingly few of them by saying, "After all, the G.C.E. examination affects a family perhaps only two or three times in a working lifetime". But, of course, looked at over the country as a whole, these G.C.E. examinations affect parents and I think have an effect on this business of taking holidays after the examinations and during congested holiday periods.
Rochdale's experience seems to me to point, first, to a willingness to change to a less congested period, and secondly, to the fact that the G.C.E. examination is a limiting factor in only some cases.
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The few grumbles about the lack of entertainment facilities would easily and gladly be met if more people came earlier to resorts. What I would say to towns which have these weeks, or towns which are considering them, is that what Rochdale did yesterday many more towns and industries ought to be doing to-day and to-morrow. I greatly hope that the debate to-day will lead to Government action, in so far as it lies in the Government's power to affect the holiday period. Certainly I hope that it will lead to more thought being given by towns and industries to means of reducing the existing holiday congestion in resorts, on the roads and on the railways. I am sure that something has to be done, and it ought to be done soon. I certainly thank the noble Lord, Lord Molson, for introducing his Motion and for giving this subject an airing, which I hope will lead to action in the not too distant future.
3.28 p.m.
LORD MABANE: My Lords, I, too, think that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, deserves thanks for introducing this important subject and bringing it to wide public notice; and the Board of Trade are surely to be commended for compiling and publishing this White Paper, Staggered Holidays. I agree with Lord Molson that this is a matter of unusual social and economic importance. It affects the cost and the comfort of many millions of our own people, and it bears upon one of our major export industries. At the same time, it indicates how many of our own problems of congestion on the roads, on rail, in the air and on the sea, as well as at holiday resorts, may be eased. More than that, the realisation of the purpose of this White Paper would add many millions of pounds to national revenue and would be to the profit of many interests, both public and private. These are large claims, but I do not think they are exaggerated, for in this matter home holidays are indissolubly knit with the task of attracting visitors from abroad.
I have, of course, a special interest. Until this year I was Chairman of the British Travel and Holidays Association. On my retirement I was elected President, in succession to my noble friend Lord Woolton. I am glad to say that another Member of this House, Lord

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Geddes, has succeeded me as Chairman. During that period I learnt that travel and tourism have become one of the world's major industries. We in Britain came late into the business. Before the last war tourism and holidays in Britain were almost entirely a domestic affair. We did not rank ourselves with the traditional international tourist countries—France, Switzerland and Italy. The need for dollars after the war drove us into the business. When Mr. Harold Wilson was President of the Board of Trade, the British Travel and Holidays Association was brought into being as the chosen instrument for the two-fold purpose of attracting visitors from all over the world and not merely from the U.S.A., and of improving within Britain all the amenities calculated to be of benefit both to visitors from abroad and to our own native holidaymakers. The success, judged by the growth both in numbers and in expenditure, has been staggering.
The White Paper, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has said, shows that the numbers of our own nationals annually taking main and subsidiary holidays rose from 25 million in 1955 to 31 million in 1963. Expenditure has grown from £465 million in 1955 to £650 million in 1963. These are very large figures. The number of visitors from abroad has risen from nearly 1,040,000 in 1955 to 2,150,000 in 1963, and their expenditure within Britain and on British carriers has risen from £160 million to well over £300 million. The Association predict that numbers and expenditure, in regard to both home holidaymakers and visitors from abroad, will increase by another 10 per cent. in the present year, 1964. In fact, the amount gained from visitors from abroad now represents no less than 8 per cent. of our total export revenue; and the holiday industry has become the largest dollar-earner and the fourth largest in our category of exports.
Many people find it difficult to understand why visitors from abroad should come to Britain for pleasure. They underestimate our own assets. Britain is now one of the major tourist attractions of the world. A world-wide survey recently undertaken in the United States of America states that for the first time this year London is ahead of Paris as the "number one" American tourist
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attraction, with Rome third. This advance does not surprise me, but I know it is regarded with incredulity by some of my fellow countrymen. But facts are facts.
This immense increase in holiday travel, both by ourselves and our visitors, creates urgent problems. Increasingly, great congestion occurs at peak periods, in all forms of accommodation, in restaurants, on the roads, on the railways, in the air, on the sea, at the resorts and in the countryside. The peak periods are July and August and, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, said, they account together for 65 per cent. of home holidays, while June and September account for only 24 per cent. Then comes a strange paradox. A further survey revealed that these figures do not in the least represent the preferred times for holidays. Only 38 per cent. prefer to take their holidays in July and August. The main preference is for June and September—that is to say, 43 per cent. for June and 16 per cent. for September.
I now come to the actual purpose of this debate: staggered holidays. The Board of Trade and my Association desire, first, to impress on the country the enormous advantages, both social and economic, of spreading the holiday season more evenly over the months from May to October; and, second, to discover and suggest means whereby by legislative, administrative and voluntary measures this may be achieved. This problem is not new; nor has it lacked attention. It is not a problem peculiar to this country, although the fact that Britain is so compact makes our problem more difficult. Efforts to stagger holidays have a long history, and as the years have passed the urgency has become more acute. There have been debates and questions in both Houses of Parliament. It was raised in your Lordships' House in 1959 and 1960 by Lord Gifford. Responsibility for the initiative in this matter was placed firmly upon the British Travel and Holidays Association, and it has not been slow to face the task. The Association recognises that formidable obstacles stand in the way of staggering holidays, and, further, as the White Paper emphasises, that the possibilities of legislative action are very restricted.

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I should like to point to some of the main obstacles. Families commonly wish to take holidays together, and therefore where families include children of school age the incidence of school terms and school holidays are a controlling factor. Again, when wives as well as husbands are in employment, and usually different employments, the arrangement of holiday periods to coincide is not easy. As important is the fact that in many industries where whole plants close down for the holiday periods it is urged that for industrial convenience the second half of July and the first half of August are best.
Nevertheless, the initiative of the B.T.H.A. has never flagged. In 1950 it pressed the Minister of Education to urge local authorities to spread the holidays more widely over the summer months. Every year since then, in the recommendations made annually to the Government, this plea has been developed and reiterated. In 1954, in 1958 and in 1960 conferences were organised by the Association, attended by all interests concerned, including the Ministry of Education, and at all times there was overwhelming support for the desirability for staggering school holidays. At the same time, efforts have been made continuously, and with considerable success, to persuade towns which, especially in Lancashire (where the holidays are known as wakes weeks), close down completely for the holiday period, to move the holiday period away from July and August. Individual plants have been persuaded in some cases to do the same.
As to school holidays, in the last few years the Ministry of Education has shown great good will and has been doing its best to help. As has already been said, it has no power to fix the holiday date in most cases, nor to determine the dates of G.C.E. examinations. Now there is reasonable hope that the Ministry will press local authorities and other bodies concerned to bring the vital examinations to an end in May. In industry there has been progress, but not enough—the noble Lord, Lord Champion, mentioned some examples; the noble Lord, Lord Molson, mentioned
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others. In 1962 the Midland motor industry advanced the holiday period by one week. That has been done already. In the same year Leyland's, in Lancashire, changed its holiday from the last two weeks in July to the last two weeks in June. Rochdale, God bless them!, pioneers of the Co-operative movement, are among the pioneers in changing their industrial holiday from August to June. It is encouraging that the Trades Union Congress recently expressed views which are in close accord with those expressed by Lord Molson and myself.
Again, as has been said, an important aspect of this matter is the incidence of Summer Time and of public holidays. Year by year my Association has pressed for changes in these respects which would contribute greatly to the holiday spread. Progress has been slow, but in total it has been considerable. The first major break-through was in 1960 when Summer Time for 1961 was extended for three weeks at either end, and the change was repeated in 1962 and 1963. This year Summer Time—in case any noble Lords do not know when to put their clocks forward—will start even a week earlier. At resorts and hotels reporting to us, the extra three weeks at the end has had very great effect, particularly on secondary holidays.
What else can be done? Much, I believe, by publicity and propaganda; and not least by this debate to-day in this House. The British people must be shaken from their belief that July and August are the best times for holidays; they are not. Quite apart from the fact that these months are the most crowded and the most expensive, they fall behind May and June in sunshine, and exceed May, June and September in rainfall. The popularity of August is not a little due to that great public benefactor, Sir John Lubbock, who secured the establishment by Statute in 1871 of the first Monday in August as a public holiday—St. Lubbock's Day, as it was popularly called. For many years, my Association with very wide general support has held the view, which has also been expressed by my noble friend Lord Molson, and the noble Lord, Lord Champion, that our public holidays are wrongly situated in the calendar; and it is my personal opinion that they are too few.

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It is unfortunate that by a strange doctrinal accident Easter and Whitsuntide, to which public holidays are attached, are movable feasts. Apart from the damage done to business and industry, the movement of Easter and Whitsuntide year by year upsets the holiday season and prevents its extension. Thank heavens the Feast of the Nativity is fixed by date on December 25! Imagine the confusion and economic loss if Christmas could fall between the first week in December and the third week in January. There is no historical—I hope the right reverend Prelate will agree with me—or doctrinal reason, either, why the other three anniversaries should jump about according to the date of a purely notional paschal moon.
This is an old story. It has been mentioned already that the Easter Act, fixing Easter Day as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April, is already on the Statute Book. The Easter Act was passed by both Houses of Parliament and received the Royal Assent in 1928, but no day has ever been appointed for bringing this Act into force. Rarely has there been such unanimity in support of a Bill, as Lord Birkenhead said when commending the Bill to your Lordships' House on behalf of the Government in July, 1928. And on October 25 last year the Vatican Council, certainly to my surprise, adopted by a great majority a Resolution which if carried into effect would lead to a fixed Easter. So there is some action which the Government can take at once. They can take steps to enable the Easter Act to be brought into force now. If, however, there is not yet sufficient agreement among the Christian churches on the date for Easter, that does not prevent us from abandoning the anomalous attachment of spring and summer public holidays to religious occasions, and to banks—banks which, like the "flowers that bloom in the spring", have nothing to do with the case.
Far better would it be to abandon Easter Monday and Whit Monday as public holidays and substitute by law two, or as I would prefer three, days as spring holidays; in addition throwing in for the time being Good Friday,
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which I am advised is a Common Law holiday, for good measure. I suggest that these new spring holidays might be the first or second Monday in April and the seventh Monday thereafter. Next, what is called the August Bank Holiday should be moved to the last Monday in August or, as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, suggested, to the first Monday in September. And I personally, like the noble Lord, Lord Champion, would like an additional public holiday towards the end of October. I think that would contribute to national health, and would possibly prevent some industries from having strikes, because their workmen would not be so tired. Let us at the same time abandon the misnomer of the title "bank holiday". Banks are not holy.
It is a surprise to many to know that we have fewer public holidays than any other country in Europe. For that I blame— perhaps the right reverend Prelate will not object—the Reformation and the Puritan Revolution which deprived us of our basic holy days, the Saints' days. Your Lordships will recollect that Lord Protector Cromwell forbade the celebration of Christ Mass—a practice which I think is still observed in Scotland. Moreover, we are behind most of Europe in the matter of statutory paid holidays, although over a very wide area many public authorities and commercial and industrial concerns in Britain now add a third week's holiday to the statutory minimum. Much has been done, therefore, and is being done, both directly and indirectly, to stagger holidays, but much more can and should be done. I hope the Government will give every encouragement to such efforts, as I am quite sure they are anxious to do, and I have every reason to believe that Her Majesty's Opposition is no less willing to give support.
Holidays spread more evenly over the year from May to October, besides adding to general comfort, would have great and beneficial economic consequences. As my noble friend Lord Molson indicated, the cost of accommodation could be reduced. I have been supplied with the monthly figures of bed occupancy in representative resorts over the year, by one of our most important hotel groups. They vary month by month from under 10 per cent. in the off-season

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to over 106 per cent. in the height of the season, when, I suppose, people are sleeping in baths. This uneven spread increases costs and greatly accentuates the problem of staffing, and it increases the degree to which hotel employment is casual. It also prevents local authorities from arranging at resorts programmes of entertainment to cover six months.
Even more important when export revenue is being considered—and this is particularly a concern of mine—it is beginning to limit the number of visitors from abroad, for travel agents are now finding great difficulty in securing accommodation for those who wish to come to Britain in peak periods. We are, as it were, having to turn the customers away. For these reasons, if I may speak as one who has made an intensive study of this matter, I am convinced that spreading the holiday season more evenly over the spring and summer months, with some overspill into autumn, as my noble friend Lord Molson has indicated, would be worth millions of pounds in increased export revenue from visitors from abroad, millions in reduced costs for home holidaymakers and millions in increased profits for all who provide accommodation. These may seem large figures, but remember that in the tourist business we now talk, not in millions, but in tens and hundreds of millions. In addition there would be increased profits for the local authorities and all forms of transport undertakings.
It may seem to your Lordships that my enthusiasm in support of this Motion so ably proposed by my noble friend Lord Molson is excessive. But tourism has come to stay and is now throughout the world a great and growing element in consumer expenditure. I am delighted that this is so, for I am convinced that travel, and especially international travel, is not merely an important educative influence, but also a major contribution to international understanding at the level of the ordinary people, and therefore a contribution to the preservation of peace. I have little doubt that the Government fully accept the validity of the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord Molson, by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and, I hope, by myself, and I trust that, in reply, the Minister will give all of us some encouragement. I know the difficulty is to find ways and means of progressing along the lines of
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this admirable White Paper, so widely and rightly acclaimed, but I know that all concerned with this great industry are eagerly waiting for a lead from the the Government to translate the dream into the business.

OVERSEAS VOLUNTEER SERVICE
3.51 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, this might be a convenient moment for me to read to the House a statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of the Department for Technical Co-operation.
"In the great and urgent attack on world poverty, one of our greatest contributions is men and women prepared to work for the developing countries. Altogether about 19,000 British men and women, provided with the help of Her Majesty's Government, are serving in this cause, mainly in the Commonwealth. Of these, at present about 550 are young volunteers—newly-qualified graduates, school-leavers and industrial apprentices—who give up at least a year to this service at the start of their careers. Under plans already announced, the number will increase to 800 in September of this year. The Government are in no doubt that the scale of this effort should be further substantially expanded.
"As an immediate step, two decisions have been taken. First, for the 1965 programme the Government will contribute 75 per cent. of the British costs involved, compared with 50 per cent. at the moment. Second, the 1965 programme will be increased to 1,300 volunteers, of whom 1,000 will be graduates. This means that the Government's contribution to the 1965 programme will be about £650,000, compared with £270,000 for the 1964 programme.
"The outstanding success of the service given by volunteers from Britain has been due to their high quality and the worthwhile nature of the projects to which they have been assigned. The rate of increase will be determined more than anything else

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by our determination to maintain these high standards. Judged on present trends of requests from overseas, the increase is likely to be mainly, but not exclusively, among graduate volunteers.
"The Government are in no doubt that volunteers should continue to serve, as hitherto, under the auspices of the independent voluntary societies active in this field. The societies as hitherto, will work in close co-operation with the Department of Technical Co-operation, and will coordinate their activities through the Joint Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir John Lockwood. This system has worked with great success so far. Its independence and non-Governmental character are most welcome, both to the receiving countries overseas and to the intending volunteers in Britain.
"The voluntary societies have welcomed our target for 1965. Both they and the Government are satisfied that they will be able to expand their programme still further in later years as the demand for volunteers increases.
"If this movement is to gather force as we desire, it is necessary to arouse a high degree of public interest and support. To this end, the voluntary societies have agreed to the setting up of a new body to be called 'The Council for Volunteers Overseas'. It will receive reports from the voluntary societies and the Lockwood Committee, and advise them and the Department of Technical Co-operation on questions of policy affecting the programme. It will in no sense duplicate the work of the Lockwood Committee. The membership will include Sir John Lockwood, the chairmen of the participating voluntary societies, distinguished representatives from the educational and industrial worlds and also some past volunteers. The Council will be set up for three years in the first instance. I am very glad to inform the House that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh has consented to be President of the Council for this period."
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am sure both sides of the House will
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be equally grateful to the Government for this, what I must admit appears to be, rather overdue increase in Government support for a Service that offers the most splendid opportunity available at the present time for service and adventure overseas for young men and women from this country. May I ask the noble Duke whether it is not the case that, in spite of the increase in Government financial support foreshadowed in this statement, the British Government will be paying very much less towards the Overseas Volunteer Service than the American Government is paying towards the American Peace Corps? May I also ask him about the financial arrangements for the Council for Volunteers Overseas? We are delighted, of course, that this Council has been set up to do publicity for the Service, and we are also delighted that the Duke of Edinburgh has been willing to become President of the Council; but, clearly, this Council will have to conduct a publicity campaign in the Press, by broadcasting, and so on, and how will the work of the Council be financed? That is my first question.
May I also ask the noble Duke a question about the membership of the Council? He says that representatives will be drawn from the educational and industrial worlds, as well as some other persons. May I ask the noble Duke whether the industrial world includes the T.U.C. as well as the employers' organisations? I am sure he will agree that it is most important that young apprentices should have their attention drawn by the trade unions to this work.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, in reply to the noble Earl's supplementaries, I would first of all say, Yes, it is quite true that the contribution of Her Majesty's Government to voluntary service overseas is on a lower scale than that of the American Government to the American Peace Corps, but I think the two organisations are not quite parallel. I have no wish to make any criticism of the Peace Corps of the United States—indeed, to my own, firsthand knowledge, it does a magnificent job in many parts of the world—but it is essentially a Government service. We regard the voluntary element of voluntary service overseas as very important,

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and consider that it should be administered by a voluntary body.
On the second question as to the expenses of the Council, as I understand it the functions of the Council have not yet been fully worked out. Certainly those who serve on it will do so in an entirely voluntary capacity, as would be right for an organisation of this kind. The cost of such publicity campaigns as they may see fit to undertake will have to be explored. I believe the Council's thinking on this matter has not yet been worked out. As to membership of the Council, I am quite sure it will be drawn from as wide a field as possible, and I find myself in full agreement with the noble Earl when he says that on the industrial side the re should be representation from the T.U.C. I am sure the members will be drawn from a very wide selection, including all sides of industry.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, my noble friend prefaced his statement with the remark that this was part of a "great and urgent attack on world poverty". Seen in that light, can we really regard these proposals as at all adequate? We have a Commonwealth of 750 million people, very largely underprivileged and in great poverty and distress. We are not beginning to emulate the American efforts in their Peace Corps. I understand they will be up to a figure of 10,000 by the end of next year, and on relative strengths, both in personnel and money, we should achieve 3,000 by that time. I cannot help thinking, my Lords, that this is not a conscious, political, Ministerial decision, but is one that has been slowly worked up by the Civil Service and accepted by Ministers without much real concentration of thought and effort. I hope that is not so, but it looks like that.
Finally, may I say that, while we are all most grateful, and must be, to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh for taking on any additional obligations of State in these days, it seems a pity that the societies have invited him to associate himself with proposals so inadequate.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am not quite sure what actual question my noble relative wishes me to reply to; but I would say this. First
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of all, I hope that I made it quite clear in the statement that this figure of 1,300 for 1965 was not the final figure but, as I said, one that we wish to increase in the years to come. But, as I also said, the limiting factor is that we are determined that there shall be no slackening in the immensely high standards so far attained. It is fair to say that Voluntary Service Overseas is only part of the contribution that we make to the emergent countries. There are 19,000 men and women in different walks of life serving in the emergent countries, and it is not quite a fair picture to regard our help to the emergent countries purely on what we do in this particular field.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the confidence the Government are showing in, and the increasing support they are giving to, the voluntary societies in this field will be enormously appreciated by them? Does my noble friend also agree that the response made by these young people—and their achievements when faced with these challenges—is something about which we all ought to feel proud in this country? May I ask the noble Duke whether I am right in thinking that the proposal is that the actual administration of the schemes, which require very personal touch with the volunteers and the projects they go to work on, will still remain in the hands of the voluntary associations? Lastly, may I ask whether he agrees that in the future, as in the past, the whole success will depend on the selection of volunteers of excellent quality, and in great trouble being taken to marry-up each volunteer to a project suitable to his or her character and attainments.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for his very kind and sympathetic remarks. I can reassure him that, although the financial contribution of Her Majesty's Government is going to be increased, the administration of the scheme, particularly through the coordination of the Lockwood Committee, will remain entirely in voluntary hands. As I said, we are determined to keep up the high standards that there are at present, because one failure would undo the great deal of good that many successes bring. The key to the whole

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scheme is having the right type of young person.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, in view of the importance of this scheme, not only to the Commonwealth countries but also to the young people themselves, would the noble Duke consider inquiring from the universities whether they could arrange to allow this year to come after the boy or girl has left school and before taking up a university course? I think it is extremely valuable for young people to have this experience before they go to the university. May I also ask the Government whether they are going to remember that there is a country called Wales in the western half of these islands. We would much appreciate having a member on this Council.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am sure we are all conscious of the Principality, and I am quite sure that owing to the skill and merit of those who live there they will be represented on this Council. Regarding the first question, the number of volunteers overseas as school-leavers (that is, between the end of their school career and before taking up their university career) were 300 a year. The increase we are planning is to keep school-leavers at about 300, but we are going to have the main increase from the graduates. This is because the main demand from the receiving countries is for graduates rather than school-leavers. I have no wish to denigrate the work done by the school-leavers. V.S.O. came into being as a school-leavers' scheme. They do a splendid job and we hope that it will continue. But because the demand is primarily for graduates this plan to increase is primarily directed at graduate volunteers.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the voluntary societies referred to include the British National Council of the World Assembly of Youth, which is the world's non-Communist youth organisation and is supported by the Foreign Office to the tune of £6,000 a year in this country, and which has, of course, national councils in almost all of the undeveloped countries in which it is intended to do this work?
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am afraid—and I must apologise to the House—that I cannot give a positive answer to that question. My recollection is that it is not represented; but I cannot be absolutely certain about this. Perhaps I can either write to or have a word with my noble friend and discuss this.

STAGGERED HOLIDAYS
4.5 p.m.
Debate resumed.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN: My Lords, I hope that in this debate we shall not take too pessimistic a view about the possibility of extending the present holiday period in this country. I do not propose to say anything about the difficulties, about the fixing of Easter, to which the noble Lord has referred. Personally I do not think these are difficulties at all; but I propose to leave this matter to my brother of Leicester. Nor do I believe that the very great difficulties of changing our present educational system or social habits are insuperable. We ought to remember, for example, that both on the Continent and in the United States of America it is possible to have an educational system which is not tied down to holidays in this particular month of August. I believe that it would be possible so to re-order the school and examination year as to have a month's holiday in June and another month in September; and as has already been shown, both of these months are infinitely better from the point of view of weather.
Nor do I believe for one moment that it is impossible to change social habits. In fact, this is constantly happening. I am continually told that in country matters the opinions of village people cannot be changed. I am told that particular villages will never work together because, it is said, they fought on different sides in the Norman Conquest. I do not believe this to be true. I believe this to be a piece of romantic arguing on the part of those who do not wish for change. If there is antipathy, it rarely goes back beyond a generation or so. Incidentally, in reading the White Paper. Staggered Holidays, I have some confirmation of the fact that so many of these Reports are,

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in fact, produced by townsmen. I have read through the Paper, and I cannot find any reference to that considerable section of the community who already take their holidays either early or late—the farm workers. These are a large number of people who, of necessity, must take their holidays at a different time of the year.
In this debate it is right that we should be concerned with the practical possibilities of implementing what is clearly a growing concern about this absurd concentration of holidays; and, indeed, if we did not do this we should fall under the judgment of John Dewey, who said that ideals without techniques very quickly degenerate into mere sentimentality.
But I wish to look at the matter rather more deeply and remind noble Lords of the factor which, in my judgment, makes these changes quite imperative. What we have to remember is that, apart from quite a small percentage of the population, holidays, as we now think of them, are a modern innovation. Until recent times the only breaks in the routine of daily work and labour were associated with Sunday or those two or three festivals of the Christian year; and this is really the first, or perhaps the second, generation where men have been able to hope for something more than just keeping body and soul together. Now, thanks to human ingenuity and a deepened sense of social justice, it is possible for the great majority of people to have a sufficiency, both of time and of things, to enable them to look up and take notice and observe what is going on around them. I believe that this is something for which we ought to be deeply grateful.
We all know that, in the emerging pattern of human Life which is coming out of our industrialised society, there will be a degree of leisure quite unknown in the past; but leisure, remember, is always bought at a cost and in some way or another the cost must be paid. For most people, the cost will be work which lacks the satisfaction or the fulfilment of the older sweat and toil. It may not make such demands on physical endurance, but it does make much greater demands upon a man's nervous and spiritual resources.
There are two crying needs which come out of this situation. First, there is the right use of leisure. And I could
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not disagree more with the writer in today's Times, with his complacent suggestion that in fact there is no such problem of leisure. There is a great deal more truth in the remark of Jerome K. Jerome, that there is no fun in doing nothing if there is nothing particular to do. We have to recognise that there will be a greater number of people year by year who expect to have some period of holiday away from their homes—I would go further, who should have a period away from their homes. Most people under modern conditions need the refreshment and the restoration which comes from a complete change of surroundings. I believe that that change of surroundings has to be of a deeper kind. It has to be a change of surroundings which suggests luxury—that is to say, for a period the normal conditions of life are different, of a rather higher standard. It should be a change of surroundings in which the ordinary little things are different. It is through this kind of change that a man's inward resources are renewed and restored.
A friend of mine, a man of great business enterprise, was going for his three weeks' winter sports, and I said to him, "Are you able to forget your business undertakings?" He replied, "I shan't give them a thought. But I shall expect to get one idea by the end of the holiday which will more than pay for it." I believe this to be true of the effect of holidays in relation to the whole working life of the community. If there is a healthy and good holiday for the whole of the community, in the end this affects the whole life and vitality of the community.
There is the possibility that holidays will be infinitely varied. We have already been told about the vast increase in the tourist industry, and, of course, this is good. That many people in our day move further afield and, because of the means of communication, are able to take holidays at the other side of the world, and, incidentally, are able to take holidays at a different time of the year—all this is something to be encouraged. I am immensely impressed by the extraordinary enterprise of young people, particularly of students who have very little money, in managing to take holidays by going to the other side of the world and back. But I think that the great majority of people will

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still want the kind of holiday which carries with it certain of the associations of the traditional holiday, a holiday which is without the fear of the unknown and in which they quickly relax. Because it is important that, wherever you take a holiday, the circumstances are such that you "drop into second gear" almost right away. This is the need which must be our particular concern, because it is precisely here that organisation is needed. And I believe that we have some indication of the ways in which this is already being obtained.
If I may be allowed, I should like to illustrate this point. Just after the end of the First World War, a young soldier of the Canadian Army, while he was waiting to be demobilised in one of the holiday resorts of this country, observed holidaymakers, on a wet and miserable day, with nothing to do, simply standing about in the shop entrances. That young man saw that here was a need and an opportunity. He was Mr. Billy Butlin, who I believe has been a great pioneer and a benefactor to a great mass of people in this country by providing the kind of holiday which people need, if they are to be refreshed, in which the amenities must be such as to give this suggestion of luxury. It must not be over-organised. I stay in a Butlin camp at least once a year and it is not over-organised. A holiday must be in the framework of a community in which people easily make friends and relax. This particular way of holiday-making has already been taken up by a vast number of organisations in this country.
I think that it is relevant here to look at the way in which this has been expanding. I asked Mr. Butlin how he had tried to expand the holiday period within his organisation, and these are the figures he gave me. By the end of this month, all the accommodation in the Butlin camps is fully booked up for the last week in July and the first three weeks of August—that is, for 280,000 people. After that, Mr. Butlin tries to persuade people to have their holidays either earlier or later, on condition that the cost is less but the amenities are the same. He tells me that in June, for example, there are now something like 100,000 to 140,000 people booked. But there is still obviously a great way to go.
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I think that the lesson of this is that we can persuade a great many people to take their holidays earlier or later—although we do not want to concentrate the whole holiday population in June, because it seems to me that then we should not be better off than at the present time, when it is concentrated in August—provided that when they take their holidays they get the kind of amenities and the community of holidaymakers that they want and that we do not give them the feeling that they are either having an ill-prepared foretaste or merely the "fag-end" of other people's holidays. If that happens, then nothing will make them go. But if there are amenities of the kind which make even our English weather of secondary importance, I believe it is possible to do this.
Here I should like to plead that the time has come in this country when we need a particular kind of holiday which has now become a social institution in America: the holiday camps which you see advertised in all the American papers for boys and girls still at school. This has become a great industry in America. I have met many people who have been to these camps, and also those who have run them, and I believe they are of enormous value, not only as a holiday for the youngsters, but for training in independence and in leadership. Many youngsters eventually become what are called "councillors": they go back year after year and spend a month or five weeks away from home. I believe that this is a thoroughly good thing.
There is one final matter that I wish to mention. We have been thinking of staggered holidays, notably concerned with holidays away from home, and I believe this to be very important. But we should also remember that there is a proper place for holidays which are not taken away from home; and, in particular, I want to plead that the Christmas holiday should be a much longer one. In my view, the holiday that comes in the midst of winter, when, whatever reason you give for it, the Christian radiance overspills, as it were, professional boundaries, is something immensely precious. There is no wonder that the wrong kind of Christmas spirit is so lethal when we attempt to put this unusual and unaccustomed upsurge

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of generosity into two miserable days. There should be a much longer period.
This past Christmas was a classic illustration of what. I believe to be shortsighted, economic meanness. We have this curious kind of neurosis about work. Can we not see that there are times (and our whole economy now permits this) when there should be this kind of leisurely holidays at home? After all, for most people Christmas is still a home holiday: the sort of holiday, like Sundays, when people do not get up and rush about, but do ordinary things. They potter about in their own homes, with their families; they are able to do the odd jobs, and to relax in worship and recreation; and as a result they have a deeper understanding of what their life is all about. This is something that is most important for the sanity of our community. I believe that the words of St. Jerome a long time ago are still relevant. He said:
"Choose for yourself some fit place where thou mayest take thyself out of the great storm and tempest of all thy cares and bestow some leisure upon thine own soul".
He does not see it as a sort of escapist, "pie in the sky" stuff, because he ends up by saying:
"We say not this to take thee out of thy daily life, but that thou mayest there find what such a man thou thyself oughtest to be in thy daily life".
4.24 p.m.
LORD WILLIAMSON: My Lords, I am happy to follow the right reverend Prelate and to have the opportunity of paying tribute to him on his maiden speech in your Lordships' House. He has spoken with great clarity and from experience, and these are qualities which are greatly appreciated by your Lordships. In congratulating the right reverend Prelate, I would add that we all sincerely hope that he will make many contributions in the future to discussions in this House.
I join in appreciation of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, placed this Motion on the Order Paper and so provided your Lordships once again with an opportunity to ventilate what is a pressing problem. It is one that has been under discussion for some years, but it has become progressively more complicated and more urgent. The Trades Union Congress, which is naturally and vitally interested in this question, has always regarded it (more
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so of recent years) as a serious social problem, and from time to time has pressed for its solution. I agree with the right reverend Prelate that after a year's grind in a factory, in the workshop, in offices and other places, a holiday, preferably away from home, is a necessity, and good for the soul.
My noble friend Lord Champion asked me whether I would say where the Trades Union Congress now stand on this question. I am perfectly certain that they are ready and willing to consider and discuss with the British employers, Government representatives and other organisations to try to find acceptable solutions to the problem, which is not an easy one. The right reverend Prelate mentioned that at one time there were not any holidays. Then, after long pressure by organised labour, one week annually was conceded; that later became two weeks and nowadays three weeks is becoming the general pattern. I think it would be reasonable to suggest that in the future the longer period is not likely to remain at three weeks.
With all the scientific inventions, improvements in industrial techniques and automation, many people are now advocating greater leisure, and wondering what on earth we are going to do with it if we get it. Many industrial countries, certainly in Europe, have longer holidays than we have, but, as I said just now, we can expect longer holidays in the not far distant future. It is true—I think I ought to mention this—that in many cases where the three weeks have been conceded by industry it has been agreed, for many reasons, that the third week should be taken in the winter, or at any rate outside the normal holiday period; and this helps the congestion. On the other hand, there is a large number of people—and it is growing, I think—who wish to take the three weeks together and make one holiday of it in the summer; and those who are able to do so will, I believe, take advantage of this.
I was glad to hear what the right reverend Prelate had to say about holidays. Holidays should be welcomed; they are of great social benefit. But in present circumstances they accentuate the problems which are the subject of this discussion, because we are not taking the decisions that are necessary

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to cope with these longer holidays. A further factor which must be taken into consideration is that more and more wage-earners who hitherto have not been able to afford a holiday away are now able to do so because of better wages. The noble Lord, Lord Molson, gave the figures for people who go away on holiday—your Lordships will forgive me for repeating them: in 1956, 23 million; in 1962, 36 million, including those who took trips abroad; and it is estimated that in 1970, six years hence, the number of people taking holidays away will have risen to 40 million, nearly three times as many as in 1937, and twice as many as in 1956.
While all this additional holiday traffic is being built up, little or nothing is being done to lengthen the spread. Railways, roads, and the holiday resorts are being strained to cope with the enormous and constantly increasing build-up in five or six weeks, the period at the end of July, August and the beginning of September. Popular resorts have passed the point of being crowded; they are becoming jammed up, making the holiday anything but one of pleasurable relaxation. Much more serious, many local authorities are now becoming seriously concerned about possible breakdowns in their services, such as water supplies and the essential services of street cleaning, refuse collection and disposal. I read only the other day of one council having a special meeting about this because people are taking cars—not only holidaymakers, but weekenders—and flooding into a place at a rate with which they cannot cope. Mostly it is because of this very short, popular holiday period of August and the week at either side of it.
The Social Survey published by the Central Office of Information says that employment is by far the most important single factor at present limiting the choice of holiday dates, and refers to the employers' decision for either complete closure of the works or the rota system as the main factor in influencing decisions when to take holidays. But, surely, while it may ultimately be the employers' decision, the employees must exercise some influence in this decision. Where there is this choice, a substantial number of the employees will have
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children who are at school, and will prefer the closing down of the factory rather than the rota. What is more important, they prefer the closure right in the school holiday period. I read in the Survey—and this is also mentioned in the White Paper—that three-quarters of the firms in the manufacturing industry have closures. I understand that more and more are being brought into this popular period of late July, August and the beginning of September.
The reason why the rota system is not popular is, I am sure, quite evident to your Lordships. It means that an employee must take his holiday, at best at any time between May and September, and, in some cases between April and September. If this is done fairly, the employee can expect to get his holiday in the period of the school holidays something like only once every ten years. So this is not popular, and it is quite understandable that the employees want to get away, if they can afford it. If they have children, they are reluctant to take them away from school, and they become disgruntled employees if they cannot have their holidays in this particular period. In any case, I am sure that industrialists and noble Lords will agree that the rota system is very difficult to operate, and very often it is an impediment to the maintenance of production and efficiency. Therefore on this question of the closure there is strong pressure for it to take place about the same time, or within this very short period.
The White Paper refers to this point and suggests—which I believe is just beating the air—that industry's closure dates could not be staggered if the existing school holiday pattern remained unaltered. I know that if the workpeople have anything to do with it, or if they are consulted, we shall have the same pressures—not selfish pressures, but many employees with children at school do not want their holidays except in the school holiday period. The Social Survey goes on to say that school is the next most important restrictive factor, after employment, to the choice of holiday. But as the White Paper implies, industry would be able, and no doubt willing, to arrange for staggering if something could be done to adjust the period of school holidays. So we go round. We have all these statistics and we come

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back full circle to the restriction of the schools. Of course, it is well known, as I have mentioned, that employees become disgruntled over these holidays. It is extremely difficult. I have never known how many employers keep their factories running, arrange for these holidays and accommodate everybody, and prevent people from becoming too disgruntled. But I do know cases where employees have left one employer for another, for no other reason than that they have a better choice of holiday.
So I am certain, after giving a great deal of thought to this question—and I realise the great difficulties—that it is not easy. I am not suggesting it is. But I think it comes down to the problem of finding some solution to the restriction of the school holiday period, or at least to some flexibility, which I think would make a great deal of difference. I believe that if the school holiday period could be extended—not for longer holidays, but so that holidays were staggered over a longer period—this might be an advance towards a solution. I do not know, but I suppose there are those who will say at once, "It is impossible". But it ought to be examined. If the school examinations could be taken earlier in the year so that those employees with children to consider could keep their children away from school without interfering too seriously with their schooling, the examinations having finished, they would have nothing to worry about.
Noble Lords have spoken on this question of bank holidays and statutory holidays, but there is one decision which I think is long overdue, and that is the movement of the August statutory holiday. We have a substantial part of the population in our resorts, on the roads and on the trains, and we let loose the whole nation for another weekend holiday right in the middle of it. How can we expect all the services to cope? I think it is silly and ridiculous. If the bank holiday were taken in September, it would lessen the period between that holiday and Christmas. If we deferred the present August holiday until September, and then worked until the next holiday at Christmas, that would seem to me to be a very good thing to do.
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I will not detain the House any longer. I emphasise that it is not easy, but I sincerely trust that the Government will now do something about it. This now becomes a Government responsibility. It is no use asking people to do this and that, because they simply will not do it while some of these circumstances exist, and therefore the responsibility is on the Government, and I sincerely trust they will take some action.
4.39 p.m.
LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and others, I would say that the whole House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, for raising this subject this afternoon, for it is a social problem of the first importance, and it is almost the only social problem of the first importance that I know of which we could solve quite easily if we really put our backs into it and got down to work. And it would not cost us any money but, rather, would save a very great deal of money indeed; and it is the fact that nobody is there really to give the matter a push that we have talked and thought about it for so long, and virtually nothing has been done.
The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, will remember the discussion we had on the N.J.A.C. with the Minister of Labour three or four years ago when most of the points that have been brought up to-day were discussed and it was found, as so often happens, that the views of the employers, the trade unions and the nationalised industries all agreed. They were all of the opinion that something must be done before the whole system broke down. Yet nothing has been done up to now except for a further survey and an admirable White Paper—and now we want something done. I think we ought to congratulate the Board of Trade on hunting up every conceivable particular regarding this problem, for now we have no excuse not to deal with it. We know what people want, why and when they want it, and, surely, something must be done.
As the noble Lord, Lord Mabane has shown, the present position is grossly uneconomic, but a point which I do not think has been brought out fully is that it must negative a very great deal of the good that a holiday should do to

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people, both to their health and to their general well-being. To go off for a holiday and come back again should mean that one returns with renewed vigour to face the autumn and winter. Instead, one often returns exhausted from the struggle to get away and back again. After all, when we come to consider it, renewed health and well-being is the whole object of the exercise. With regard to the roads being packed, I remember an occasion two years ago when I was on the road between Honiton and Exeter and I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life.
The amusements, the hotels and everything are packed at these peak times, and then, two, three or four weeks later everybody is crying out for people to go and occupy the amusements and facilities which are provided. And now, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, has said, the railways are taking a hand and are going to close many of the ways by which one can get to seaside and other holiday resorts, and the difficulty of getting to those places will be much worse than ever.
I believe that the first thing which the Government can do is to deal with the bank holidays—and this is a relatively easy matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and others have said, we ought to make a start at once about moving the August Bank Holiday into September and making the Whitsun Monday holiday a firm holiday, say, on the last Monday in May, but the same day, the same week, each year. Easter is a more difficult matter. It is a matter of international and Church argument; but, with the lead which the Roman Catholic Church has given recently, I am sure it ought to be possible to solve it. The other two holidays are of more overriding importance and should be got on with at once. Both the August and the Whitsun Bank Halidays would, of course, need to be renamed. After all, we do not tie ourselves down in this way in Scotland.
The educational world is the next which has to be tackled; and surely that can be tackled. I sometimes think that educationalists are so accustomed to instructing young people that they forget that it is possible to be instructed themselves. In this matter, let us instruct
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them that they must make their academic years and their school holidays fit in with the requirements of the parents of the children whom they instruct. Having received that mandate, local education authorities should begin to do something about it, because the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, is quite right in saying that industry cannot act unless the education world acts too—and industry is ready to act if we can get a lead from the educational sphere.
So far as business and industry are concerned, I would say that office staffs, especially those not attached to manufacturing units, can always stagger their holidays over quite a wide period. But, of course, the office staff, a great many of whom have young children, would want to go at times when they could take their children, and I know that it becomes like a jig-saw puzzle to try to fit in everybody's requirements with the fact that you cannot leave one department completely untenanted while there is work going on in another. If we had a little more latitude in the school holidays, the operation of the staggering of holidays in these big business clerical concerns would be relatively easy.
When we come to manufacturing industry the problem is more difficult, because circumstances vary in practically every industry, and, indeed, in many plants. Some small plants are in the same town as larger plants, and where the girls may work in one plant and men in another the plants need to take their holidays together. I have in my own industry—in fact it is my own firm—a factory next door to a large railway workshop where the two have to run concurrently. Then there are manufacturers with automatic processes which may have to shut down altogether. They have to choose a suitable fortnight or so in which to do so; and, naturally, they choose the time when school holidays are available, and so add to the big rush.
But there are other factories which have to stagger holidays to meet the requirements of their customers; and, believe me, my Lords, we in business do have to think, sometimes at any rate, of the requirements of our customers who keep us alive. I do not believe we think about them enough.

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The whole art of selling should be to keep the customer satisfied. Many industries have to stagger holidays to keep supplies going to their customers all through the year. Therefore one cannot lay down a law, or even an instruction, to each separate industry as to what it should do. In Lancashire, with the admirable arrangements for the wakes weeks, industry can usually fall in very easily; but if only we had more movement in the school holidays the wakes weeks themselves could spread themselves out and Blackpool would not be quite so crowded as it is at the present time. We come back from the industrial point of view to school holidays, and I am afraid industry can do nothing to relax their present habits without some relaxation of the school holidays. Therefore, with the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, I would press that point.
I should like to cover one or two other points, but I do not want to delay your Lordships. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, talk so eloquently about tourism, because I believe that tourism, with young people going all round the countryside, all round Europe and, indeed, all round the world, is one of the most promising signs of civilisation to-day. Tourism is a major industry and is of major benefit to the spiritual well-being of this world, and should be encouraged; and nothing would encourage tourism better than a more convenient arrangement of our holiday seasons.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, mentioned a point of extreme importance—mid-week bookings so that day holiday makers going away on Saturdays to the coast do not necessarily get mixed up with those going away on their fortnight or three-weeks' holiday. That is a matter which the hotels and boarding houses will have to agree to fix up among themselves, and I am sure industry would fall in if they did. There are one or two other important points in the White Paper which I should like to bring out, but will not bore your Lordships. It is most interesting to me to know that the love of crowds, which is always supposed to be one of the reasons why everybody flocks away in the fortnight or three weeks in the year, is largely a myth, and that only a very small proportion of the people of the
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country have a love of crowds. It is interesting to know that if people could do so, and if school holidays and business allowed, the majority would like to go away in June. And how right they are! because June has the longest hours of sunlight, the best weather, and is in all respects the best month of the year.
I would urge, with other speakers, that this social problem should now be tackled and solved. If it is not, every year it will become more difficult. Fortunately, it is not bedevilled in any possible way by Party politics. All we need is a lead from the Government and a lead from the educational world, and I believe we can solve this problem in a very few years.
4.52 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will not find it too much of an Ash Wednesday penance to have to listen to two Episcopal speeches on this subject. But holidays are a pleasant subject to think about in February; and I am quite certain it was no penance to listen to the eloquent maiden speech of my brother of Lincoln. He is not here to listen to what I say, but he may see it afterwards in Hansard. Those of us who are familiar with hearing him speak in other places are well aware of his great gifts, which he has already revealed to us this afternoon, and perhaps one distinguishing feature of his speech worthy of note is that he managed in one speech to quote both St. Jerome and Jerome K. Jerome. That was quite an achievement. I am quite sure your Lordships realise that the two are in every way entirely distinct.
We have, of course, to take an interest in this subject, because there has always been a kind of tie-up between religion and holidays. If we go right back to most ancient times, to the institution of the Sabbath, that is the first clear example that I know of in history of the division between time for work and time for rest; and the Sabbath, although transferred in the Christian Church to the first day, instead of the seventh day, has continued part of our Western tradition ever since. Even that should not be taken too much for granted. I remember having something of a surprise when I was doing a chaplaincy on the Continent. In the Alpine village

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where I was working a film was being made which had necessitated a very large rather international company of actors, and I was trying my various wiles to persuade them to come to Church on Sunday, at any rate in some numbers. But I found that Sunday was not observed in their company. They explained to me that they found it more convenient to have one rest day in ten. So I had a little bit of education myself, in the sense that even the regular rhythm of the seventh day must not be taken as established beyond all challenge.
Then, of course, it is well known that in the Middle Ages the Festival days offered an opportunity for relief from tedium and also for economic progress in the matter of the fairs, which were so important before the days of commercial travelling. I do not think that our country has ever had any false modesty about realising that religious and economic interests, and even military interests, could in some way be woven together. Some of your Lordships may know that in one of the homilies put out in the reign of Edward VI, in which people were being urged to eat fish on Fridays, it was pointed out that this was not only a valuable religious discipline but would have very valuable results in maintaining the industry of the fisherfolk. And, not content with that, they went on to say that if the fishing industry failed, the Navy would fail and the nation would be exposed to danger. So these things have always been brought together; and we must not be too mealy-mouthed about it.
The modern holiday, as has been said already, in the sense of going away, is for a large part of our population a modern phenomenon. Until fairly modern times it was the single day, either the actual bank holiday or something that had a bank holiday atmosphere, which provided the main opportunity for relief and change. Those of us who are familiar with Victorian literature will remember various instances where these public holidays are described, and they obviously played a great part in the lives of those times. I will not weary your Lordships with more than one example, but I did get down my rather tattered Tennyson to look up the passage at the beginning of the poem "The Princess", in which
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Tennyson describes a kind of fete in a a park, and these are some of his words:
"We went…
Down thro' the path: strange was the sight to me;
For all the sloping pasture murmur'd sown
With happy faces and with holiday.
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads:"
and continues, rather suprisingly:
"The patient leaders of their Institute Taught them with facts".
The poem then goes on to describe how all the various new scientific inventions were being illustrated and exhibited. That is an interesting example of the way in which they combined pleasure with intellectual progress one hundred years ago.
That sort of thing has gone down; has been replaced, as we have heard so many times to-day, by the holiday with travel, the holiday away from home. And at this point I would pay my tribute to whoever wrote the White Paper, Staggered Holidays, which contains such clear and full information about this matter—in fact, so full that it has been very difficult, I think, for those of us who speak to say something that was not already in the Paper. We could do no more than say the same thing in different words and give our comments upon it.
On the broad question of staggering the long holiday, if we might call it that, I feel that we ought to do everything we can in this way. But I do not hold quite such an optimistic view as my brother of Lincoln does about the ease with which such a social change could be carried through. I do not think it does any harm, when considering these changes, to count the cost and weigh the difficulties, because if the thing is worth doing we shall be more likely to achieve it if we have first counted the cost.
I am impressed by the way in which the whole of our national life is woven together in a rather complex pattern that still leaves August as the most vacant month, if I may use that description. It all goes back to the agricultural life of England; the necessity for a long vacation in the universities; the vacation in the law; the vacation in Parliament. And I suppose that from those early arrangements of our time has gradually come the

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assumption that August, and now also late July, is the normal and natural time for holidays. When we have, so to speak, just given holidays in this sense to the main mass of the people (I am speaking now in longish terms: I do not mean that we did it yesterday, but during this century), and when we have given this possibility to our people, we must not be altogether surprised if they want it at the time when others have had it before. And that, I think, largely explains the sort of first natural instinct of people to take their holidays at about this time.
Then instinct is, of course, buttressed by all the other considerations, especially in the schools, which make it so difficult for people to move their holidays about with complete freedom. Almost every speaker has stressed the importance of the schools. I should like to stress it from yet one other angle. Schools are particularly important in this matter because schools involve families, and it is the families that involve the numbers. Therefore, unless we can tackle this question, we obviously cannot make great progress on a wide front.
What can be done in the schools is limited. We have heard a lot about the bringing forward of the General Certificate examinations; but I cannot see everybody being free to rush off from school the minute the examinations are over, because the interval after examinations is a most important time for occasions such as speech days, sports days and other big events. It seems to me that what we have to work for is a bringing forward of the examinations, and a gradual lengthening of the summer holiday and a shortening of the Christmas and Easter holidays. If, with careful work and patience and consultation, we can save a week or two, perhaps at each end of the present school summer holiday, we shall have done something; and that itself will be most useful.
There is a sense in which some people like crowds, not because of the actual physical presence of other bodies—and still less of other motor cars—but because they are susceptible to a kind of psychological atmosphere. We ourselves have done a great deal to create this atmosphere. Our present publicity agencies immediately fill the papers,
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when a holiday is approaching, with news of the ever-increasing numbers going by train, by car and by air. People get caught up with this spirit; they want to be in with it. So we ourselves are partly to blame for the tremendous enthusiasm which we have built up around the traditional holiday period.
I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate who spoke earlier that the nature of holidays has to be thought out most carefully, because holidays are most revealing things. Holidays tell us what we are. I am sure that many of us in this House have known what it is to work hard up to a certain point, suddenly find ourselves on holiday, and ask, "What am I? What is there in me now that all the work has gone?" So in our provision for the people, we have to give them an atmosphere, an environment, in which they can be themselves without being afraid of themselves. All this involves the provision of entertainment and so on.
Coming to the question of bank holidays, it is here that I see the greatest positive chance of something coming out of our debate. We are told that on an August Bank Holiday, for instance, 3 million people are thrown into the world of travel, in addition to all those who are already on holiday. It seems to me obvious that if we could reduce or abolish that particular invasion into the holiday world, we should have done a great deal to save space on our roads and in our hotels; and almost certainly, I think, we should save at least some lives. That itself is an incentive to us at this point to press this matter as far as we possibly can.
Perhaps I may say a word about Whit Monday, so that we can see the field as a whole. The most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury was asked, either formally or informally, what the Church of England would feel about the abolition of Whit Monday as a public holiday. He has authorised me to pass on to your Lordships his opinion, which is that, after hearing the views of responsible bodies, he is of the opinion that the Church of England would not wish to oppose the suggestion that the bank holiday now falling on Whit Monday should be replaced by a fixed bank holiday unrelated to Whit Sunday. Such a bank holiday would

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not carry the name of "Whit". He is conscious that there may be some reluctance to lose the Monday following Whit Sunday as a bank holiday, because in some areas that day has been used for processions of Whit. Your Lordships who know the North of England will realise that this has been a great day for processions of Church children, and there will no doubt be some resistance from that quarter. Nevertheless, the Archbishop does not think that the Church people generally would wish to oppose what suited the convenience and the welfare of the country as a whole. So, in so far as there may be any feeling that the religious interests in the country would oppose a change from Whit Monday—
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, may I ask the right reverend Prelate whether he thinks that if the most reverend Primate says that Whit Monday is finished, then it will be finished? It is a workers' holiday, you know.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, the most reverend Primate was merely answering a question which was addressed to him, I think by some representatives of the Board of Trade, as to whether the Church of England would feel that from the religious point of view the removal of Whit Monday, and perhaps in some people's minds a downgrading of the Whitsun festival, would create difficulties. I think I have answered that question quite clearly. I do not feel myself bound to answer the question from the other side. It is obvious that nobody would claim that the religious side of this was in any sense the only one, or even an important one, in relation to the wide social aspect.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, may I thank the right reverend Prelate for his answer. It would not necessarily satisfy the worker if he were to lose a holiday with which he is quite familiar and which he greatly prizes.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: That I can well understand. I do not feel that it is necessary for me to comment further on that. All I was going to say—and I am now speaking as an individual—was that a case has been made out for a rearrangement and respacing of the bank holidays. So far as I can see, it
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need not in any way reduce the total number of holidays, and the difficulty would be to arrange them in a way that suited the largest number of people.
Here I must just intrude one word about Easter, merely to reaffirm what has been said a good many times: that the Church of England would not wish to oppose the fixing of Easter, provided that it was supported by a sufficient area of Christendom. It is well known that the Roman Catholic Church has recently made a rather liberal statement on this matter. I must remind your Lordships that Rome and Canterbury are not the only people involved. There are some others. We are not very much concerned with the Eastern Churches, because they have a different Easter anyway, a week later. I discovered this, to my cost, when I once had a party in Athens on what we call Low Sunday, and I found the conditions very crowded because it was their Easter Day. But there are also involved in this proposal the great Protestant Churches of Europe, the Lutheran Churches and the Evangelical Churches; so that, from the religious point of view, the matter may be a little more complicated than appears on the surface.
I do not myself think that it is in any way impossible for us to consider the fixing of Easter. As we have heard, there is already something on the Statute Book by which it is laid down that Easter should be, under certain conditions, the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. I could not help thinking, when I read that, what a curious way it is of describing the next day—as if the first Sunday after the second Saturday could be anything other than the day after! However, if Easter were to be fixed then, of course, Whitsun would automatically be fixed; but we should not be bound to keep a public or bank holiday on the Monday. We could put it where we liked, and we should clearly want to get the August Bank Holiday put out of the main holiday period.
I myself should welcome it if we could keep up the connection that has gone on so long between holidays and the traditional Festivals of Christendom. We could offer your Lordships some quite attractive dates in the autumn which you might like to consider. For instance, Michaelmas day, September 29,

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would associate that Feast with something rather happier than the paying of bills and accounts. And there is October 18, which is St. Luke's Day, and is commonly known already as coming in the middle of St. Luke's Little Summer. That could be made a very good selling point by the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, at least, if not by us.
LORD MABANE: My Lords, will the right reverend Prelate add All Saints' Day, November 1?
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: Yes, I have certainly thought of that. November has a slightly unhappy flavour in people's minds, from the point of view of the weather; but November 1 is often an extraordinarily nice day, with very attractive weather. In fact, one of the features of our national life seems to be that the good weather is moving steadily on through the year. At least that seems to be my own personal experience.
LORD LATHAM: What can you expect with the present Government!
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: Good times are al ways coming. I think that is an argument that could be used both ways. I am bound to say, in listening with such great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, that he had one or two friendly "digs" at the Church. I found myself questioning one or two of his points, especially the economic point when he said that if only we could do this there would be millions more pounds in the hands of the hotel keepers, and millions more in the pockets of the public. I hope that is true, but I could not help wondering whether some of the millions that were in the hotel keepers' pockets were coming out of the public's pocket. But these are subtleties into which I need not personally go. I want only to express on my own behalf, and I am sure on behalf of the Churches, our desire to co-operate in this movement, which we believe will increase the health and happiness of a large number of our people and therefore deserves the support of all men of good will.
5.15 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I agree with the right reverend Prelate that our best summer weather seems nowadays to be coming late and later in the year.
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Nowadays so often the two best months of the summer seem to be the whole of the month of October and the first eleven days of November, right up to Remembrance Day. However, August Bank Holiday has come in for a good deal of discussion in the course of this debate, and no wonder! It seems to be a magnet which is much too strong, drawing people on to the roads and the railways on that particular day, and it is a wonder that the chaos created is not even worse than it is. There has been a good deal of support for the recommendation in the White Paper that the August Bank Holiday should be transferred to a later date in the year, perhaps early in September. The only doubts I have about this is that I wonder whether the magnet will still not be too strong, whenever the date is, if everybody is going to take his holiday on that one particular day. I do not think any noble Lord has gone so far as to suggest that the August Bank Holiday should be abolished altogether, and I must say I hesitate very much, particularly in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, to put that suggestion forward; and certainly I would not do so without taking a very careful look at the circumstances surrounding the creation of the August Bank Holiday.
That brings me back to Sir John Lubbock, later Lord Avebury, whom the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, mentioned earlier. At the early age—early in the Parliamentary sense—of only 37, he piloted through another place the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, which was received with the most extraordinary and tremendous public acclamation. The Daily News of the following year, on the first anniversary of August St. Lubbock's Day, as it was then called, had this to say:
"It is perhaps difficult for the general public to realise what such a holiday means. There are thousands in this great city who are at work all the year round. The shops and warehouses are kept open by relays of attendants. In many of the larger of them the humbler employees may have—like the postmen—a fortnight's holiday in the year but to vast multitudes only a day of closing brings a chance of release. … This statute holiday gives a day in the fresh summer air—and let us hope in the bright summer sunshine—to tens of thousands of persons who might otherwise altogether miss the sight of the yellow cornfields or the summer woods."

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Times have certainly changed since those days. They then had no five-day week; no holidays with pay. The poorer people stayed at work because they could not afford to go away on holiday. They stayed at work from Whit Monday to Christmas Day. I think these words were re-echoed by the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, in his most fascinating maiden speech this afternoon. Above all, there were, of course, no motor cars to congest and clog the roads. The circumstances could not have arisen then as arose on one of the bank holidays last year, when the B.B.C. reported in their ten o'clock news that the roads into Southport, which had been jammed with traffic all day long, were still jammed with traffic at 6 o'clock in the evening—traffic which was still trying to get into the town.
Times have indeed changed since those days, and one wonders in one's secret heart: do people in these days really need one special day's holiday in the summer time, above and beyond the holidays which they ordinarily enjoy? I would not seek to suggest that people should not have a special day if they really feel that they need it. But let us free the people, let us allow them to negotiate each for himself his special day's holiday in the summer to suit his own convenience, in so far as he can make the arrangements with his employer. There will, of course, be some factories closing altogether on one particular day, so that the people can go in motor coaches en masse to the seaside if that is what they enjoy. Other people, no doubt, will wish to tack their special day's holiday on to one end or other of their ordinary annual holiday. The important thing is that everybody will not choose the one, same day for their holiday, and that, surely, will be an enormous improvement in the state of affairs.
It may be asked: what is to happen to those sports fixtures which from time immemorial have taken place on the first Monday in August; those cricket matches and horse races which always take place on that particular day? Well, I do not see that anything need happen to them. A great many of the people who have formed a habit of attending these fixtures will, no doubt, be able to arrange still to do so. So it seems to me
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that, while we should not forget and should be grateful for the memory of Sir John Lubbock and his wonderful inspiration of the August Bank Holiday, we can nevertheless say that in these days of 1964 this bank holiday has perhaps outlived its usefulness, and we may perhaps seriously consider whether totally to abolish it.
5.23 p.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, with other noble Lords who have spoken, I should like to express my thanks to my noble friend Lord Molson for putting this Motion on the Paper. I think it is a most important social subject, and I have found the speeches to-day very interesting, very forward-looking and very comprehensive, particularly the introduction by my noble friend Lord Molson. So there is very little left for me to say. When I originally told my noble friend Lord Molson that I would speak in support of his Motion, I did so because a few years ago it fell to my lot to introduce staggered holidays into the factories for which I was then responsible. Some of the factories in question were in Northern Ireland, and from time immemorial factories in Northern Ireland have always had their annual shutdown in Twelfth Week—the 12th July, when the Northern Irish celebrate the Battle of the Boyne. The Manchester factories, of course, shut during their appropriate wakes week and have done so for years.
We were obliged to introduce staggered holidays for sharp economic reasons. As many of your Lordships know, I am connected with the tobacco industry, and if we closed our factory for a fortnight we had to build up stocks, and we had to begin building up stocks very early in the year in order to cover the consumer demand during the time the factory was shut. As successive Chancellors of the Exchequer added to the tobacco duty it became increasingly unpleasant to carry stocks, and that is why we went to staggered holidays. Of course, we explained this decision to our workpeople, and we made every possible arrangement to make it easy for them. There were a number of difficulties which we succeeded in overcoming, but the least of the difficulties was in obtaining the co-operation of our people. I would just like to make that clear.

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Of course, we have to start building up our holiday lists very early in the New Year, almost immediately after Christmas. The foreman or chargehand of the department goes round in February, let us say, and begins to make up the holiday lists. One knows that one has to take one's holiday very early, but it is difficult for people to make up their minds so early in the year. I suspect that this year's holiday lists for our factories have already been compiled. But although we have succeeded in spreading the holidays over the period from May to the beginning of October, there are still a number of married folk with children who simply cannot take the earlier holiday. They are bound by the school holidays and so forth. There are other people whose wives or husbands work in another business which is still having the annual shutdown. Obviously, they want to spend their holidays together so they are confined to July or August—the peak period, in fact. These personal problems are difficult, and I doubt whether we shall ever quite get away from a peak of some sort.
However, there is one factor which is of increasing assistance to us in dealing with this aspect of the matter of getting people to take their holidays spread over the summer. The improved travel facilities and the improved earnings of people are making them more venturesome. They go further afield, and are beginning to realise that it is possible to ignore the summer weather, so called, in this country. When I first went to Northern Ireland some time before the Second World War few, if any, of our people there had ever gone further than the Isle of Man or Portrush. Very few went to Blackpool, none to the South of England. I well remember sponsoring a special excursion for some of the younger girls, under the charge of a welfare supervisor, to the Isle of Wight. In those days this was considered quite unique; they had never crossed the water before.
Since we are talking about Northern Ireland, this peak holiday period in July presents a particular difficulty, because one has to fly the Irish Sea or cross it by ship. This puts a big strain on the travel facilities. However, I am glad to say that more and more of the people realise the pleasures and advantages of
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foreign travel. Of recent years, when I have walked round the factories and talked to the people I have been told of holidays all over Europe, in North Africa and even in Canada and America—and a jolly thing it is, too. We even persuaded one of our older factory managers, who had never been further for his holiday than the Isle of Man, to take a holiday to Switzerland. After he had survived this, to him, unusual and venturesome journey, he unpacked his bag and emerged from his hotel, and he was astonished to find that the first people he saw were six girls from his own stripping room.
There are other problems regarding staggered holidays, but I think I have dealt as fully as I need with the most important aspect—the people. But it is difficult when you have staggered holidays to arrange for maintenance work. I am afraid I am getting down to nuts and bolts—we have had plenty of theory this afternoon. Moreover, boilers and all sorts of machinery generally need at least one annual overhaul, and it was very convenient when you shut the factory for a fortnight. Now, if you want to re-brick a boiler furnace or put new rings in an air compressor, you must first of all have a stand-by boiler or stand-by air compressor, you must have room to put them in, and then you probably have to do the job at nights and week-ends. So factory industrialists must make preparations before staggered holidays can really become effective. I am not saying it is impossible; I am just holding up the red flag.
Another great disadvantage of staggered holidays is that it splits up fully-trained machine crews—you cannot help it—and this is apt to have an adverse effect on the quality of production as well as on quantity; I put quality higher myself. Again, this means increased supervision, increased training facilities and so forth, but it is a factor of which care must be taken. With staggered holidays one's labour force is reduced by 10 to 12½1 per cent. during the period May to October, and this means that, unless one takes steps about it, one's production machinery is running at something less than the ideal economic rate. In the case of women workpeople, the gaps can be filled with temporary labour, and by the time the end of the holiday period has

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come they have become permanent labour because those really in the jobs have probably got themselves married or engaged during the holiday period. But in the case of men it is not so easy; it is a problem. I think I have said enough to show that management has not insignificant problems to cope with in arranging staggered holidays. So far as I personally am concerned, and my colleagues, we are very much in favour of it.
School examinations and holidays have already been mentioned, but I should like to refer to the statutory holidays, Easter and Whitsun. I do not want to join in the fray about whether we could or could not have a fixed Easter, but there is one advantage in having a fixed Easter which has not been mentioned in this debate. A fixed Easter would fix the date of the Easter Parliamentary Recess, which would be a good thing. It would also fix the date of Budget Day for all time, which I think would also be a good thing, because some industries, of which the tobacco industry is only one, are very concerned with any announcement the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes on Budget Day. It makes planning difficult for them—I mean the planning of production rates, and so on—when Budget Day is shifting from year to year. So often have I heard in the factories and in the board rooms, "What day will the Budget be this year?", because then you have to assess what to do in your production and other problems. So a fixed Easter would have that incidental advantage.
Much has been said about the August Bank Holiday. I feel it would be a very great advantage to put the August Bank Holiday back to the end of the month or early September, as has been suggested, but the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, seemed worried that either this or the changing of Whit Monday would remove the statutory holiday. I do not think anybody who has spoken to-day suggests that we should eliminate any of the statutory holidays, but merely that they should be moved up or down the calendar. My Lords, I have taken enough of your Lordships' time, and with those few remarks I beg to support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Molson.
5.35 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I think the problem has been posed,
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and it will not be necessary for me to try to prove the undoubted desirability of staggered holidays. As has already been pointed out, briefly, it leads to the more efficient use of both accommodation and transport, and it will undoubtedly lead to cheaper prices—or could lead to cheaper prices. I do not say that it would, because prices seem to go up but very seldom to come down. I think that, except for the 4 per cent. who, according to the survey, announced that they liked to be in a crowd, it would undoubtedly make people's holidays more enjoyable.
Why, therefore, should I speak, when according to the White Paper Scotland seems to have such a good record on this subject? In paragraph 1 it says:
"Since the problem in Scotland seems less acute and the holiday pattern is different …",
et cetera. The reason is that Scotland still looks to the English for the main bulk of their holidaymakers each year. We are, of course, very pleased to welcome from abroad an enormous number of foreigners, but, none the less, the vast bulk of the "cake" in fact comes from England, and it would help our problem if, throughout the holiday months, we could get a more even pattern of these tourists. It is therefore of great interest to us North of the Border that the holidays in England should be staggered as much as possible.
I think the problem can be divided into two: the week-end peak, which puts an enormous pressure on transport, amusement and other entertainment facilities but does not, on the whole, put a great pressure on accommodation, and then the July-August demand for accommodation, which is confined to the five weeks comprised in the last part of July and the first part of August. First, I should like to put forward a few suggestions—and these are only suggestions—for dealing with the problem of the week-end peak. I have often wondered whether, in twenty years' time, or possibly even less, we in this country will not have to work a continuous shift system (for the want of anything better to call it), by which I mean that the machines will be so expensive that they will have to be manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This, when it comes, will solve completely the problem of the weekend peak, because there will not be any

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week-ends as such; there will just be days when one is on duty and days when one is off duty. I was wondering whether we might not now occasionally adopt during the holiday period, say twice a year, a ten-day fortnight, when factories and works would keep open for one week-end and would then, in lieu, have a four-day week-end the following week. It seems to me that this might help the problem of the acute travel difficulties of the average Saturday at the end of July and the beginning of August.
I would also commend to your Lordships the Scottish system of having no statutory holidays as such but of having local holidays, varying from town to town. This works very well in Scotland and is undoubtedly one of the reasons why the problem is less acute there. I should have thought it might be worth trying in parts of England and Wales. Lastly on this subject, I feel that we must encourage boarding house and hotel keepers to welcome guests who start their holidays in the middle of the week. I am sure one of the greatest difficulties at the moment is that the average person who wants to go on a holiday and wishes to take advantage of the mid-week reduction in train fares and the general ease of travel mid-week cannot do so because the boarding house or hotel to which he and his family wish to go will not take a booking from Wednesday to Wednesday or Tuesday to Tuesday, but only from Saturday to Saturday. I should be the last person to suggest that we should compel people to take bookings when they do not want them; but I hope that the B.T.H.A. and the British Hotel-keepers' and Caterers' Association will encourage their members to do this.
Also, as another encouragement for people to arrive and leave in the middle of the week, perhaps the local authorities who provide amenities such as bowling greens, tennis courts, access to piers, deck chairs on beaches, and so on, could issue weekly tickets running from one Wednesday to the following Wednesday at a considerable discount on daily tickets or weekly tickets running from Saturday to Saturday. I can well believe that they will not want to do this. They say that their job is to please the public. This case, I suggest, might be one of the few cases where the customer is not necessarily right.
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I feel that a much more important problem is the question of the annual holiday. This peak is not caused, as the survey brings out, by people's preferences; in fact, if people could all take holidays when they wished then June would be in worse chaos than the first week of August is now. We could move too far towards people's preferences. But it would be a good thing, I think, if people were able to take their holidays more or less when they wanted to, although I realise the difficulties this would involve.
I should like to quote once again from the White Paper. Having in paragraph 1 given Scotland a rather better record than England, it says, referring to schools, in paragraph 19:
"In Scotland the pattern is rather different. The Christmas and Easter holidays are shorter, not exceeding 10 days to a fortnight, and with few exceptions the summer holidays begin in the last days of June or the first days in July."
If the examinations in Scotland can be fitted in so that holidays can begin in June—and in some places, I think, they start on about June 10—I cannot see why the same is not done in England and Wales. It seems to me that it must be due to the fact that the local education authorities and the Ministry of Education are not really willing to tackle the problem. I am rather disappointed that a representative from the Ministry of Education is not answering this debate. I could have told the Government before they started that the Department to be attacked is not the Board of Trade, whose White Paper I think is entirely commendable, but rather the Ministry of Education. It is they who are the "niggers in the woodpile", and who make it almost impossible for factories to take their annual week or fortnight away from the end of July and the beginning of August. Much as I look forward to hearing my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, I feel that it is a pity that he will not be speaking (and I take it that he will not) for the Ministry of Education.
If the Ministry of Education and the local education authorities refuse to do anything about this, the only thing we can do is try to persuade the other and rather smaller number of people who can take their holidays more or less at any time to take them either in June or

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September. To do this I would suggest that special weeks should be put on with unusual and special attractions during these periods. At the moment, attractions tend to be put on when the holiday crowds are greatest, in July and August. This seems to me to be a pity; although commercially and financially, it is sound business. I believe that one of the ways in which we could encourage people to take their holidays outside the main holiday periods would be by putting on special attractions for them at other times of the year. I would also suggest that there might be a greater price reduction to "off-peak" visitors. I have yet to find anywhere I have stayed, at any time of the year, where prices vary much from season to season; and I feel there would be scope for improvement in this way.
I should also like to point out, as did the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, that many firms insist that when workers are given the third week's holiday—and on the whole I am in favour of people having three weeks' holiday—it should be taken outside the main holiday period. I think this is a very good thing. I can, of course, see that if people wished to go round the world, or to Addis Ababa, there would be an advantage if they could run their three weeks together. Perhaps in special cases, special arrangements could be made; but as a general rule I think that the separation of the third week is a good idea.
The main way in which we can help in this problem, if we cannot persuade the educational authorities to move, is by giving greater publicity to the weather statistics. June and, to a lesser extent, May and September, are undoubtedly the finest months in this country, from the point of view of hours of sunshine and lack of rainfall. Yet many people, according to the survey, when they were asked why they wished to take their holidays in July or August, said that it was because of the weather. Obviously, they either do not know the statistics; or have gone to one of these exceptional places where June is wet and August is dry. Above all, it must be remembered that this problem is not basically due to the "cussedness" of the British public—though they are often blamed—
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but is due to the attitude of the school authorities in refusing to alter the historical dates of their examinations, and hence of their terms. I know that a change such as has been suggested would raise some problems; but if it can be done—indeed, it has been done—in Scotland, I feel that it should and could be done in England. I would suggest, therefore, that possibly the Whitsun and August Bank Holidays should be made local holidays, as in Scotland. This should raise no difficulties with religious festivals at Easter. Incidentally, though this is not entirely within the orbit of this debate, I would suggest that we in Scotland might become sufficiently advanced to recognise that there is such a Festival as Christmas. We should then no longer have no holiday at all. Possibly it would not help to stagger holidays; but it would help to make the New Year more bearable.
I should like to suggest that there might be two experimental "ten-day fortnights" a year, where one week-end is worked and the next week-end is lengthened; that the school term should be completely revised in England and Wales, and brought more into line with Scotland; that employers and unions should get together and try to work out a more flexible attitude to works closures and that sort of thing, which I think can happen only if school terms are altered. Finally, I would ask why we at Westminster cannot give the lead in this great movement. Let us have a month's holiday in June and let us work to the end of August. This, it seems to me, would avoid those horribly late-night Sittings with which your Lordships are afflicted in July.
5.49 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, before the Minister replies, might I refer to the point made by the noble Duke, and also touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who introduced this debate? I must apologise for not being in my place at the time. That is the question of the Summer Recess of the Houses of Parliament. It has been raised before; but I think it is admitted by all Members of both Houses that by the end of July Members are apt to find things rather trying; their spirits are flagging and, frankly, they are not in a very good

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condition in which to govern the country because they have been worked too hard and too long. In the old days it was a different matter altogether. But nowadays I marvel at the way Members of the other place keep going at all at the intense pressure at which they have to work. And I am quite sure that they are not as good instruments of government at the end of July as they are at the beginning of May or at the beginning of November.
At the moment, we work right up to the end of July, sometimes into August, and do not come back until the very end of October. It must be the experience of most of your Lordships, as it is mine, that from the first day of October until we come back, one has a feeling of being at half-cock. Things are happening; business is going on; meetings are again taking place which have been put off for the holiday period: and in one sense this is a wasted period. I suggest that Parliament should rise at the end of June and re-assemble at the end of September or the beginning of October.
I am told that the chief objection to this is that it would interfere with the Budget year. Well, there is a thing known as the Annual Year, which starts on January 1 and goes on to December 31, and I do not see why it is beyond the ingenuity of the Government or of those who advise them to change our Budget Year and make it, like the normal commercial year, start on January 1 and end on December 31. I suggest that that would remove the difficulties about postponing the Recess for Members of your Lordships' House and of another place at a time when they are overworked and over-tired and should be having a holiday.
5.52 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, if I may detain your Lordships for a few minutes, I would express my regret for not being here when the noble Lord, Lord Molson, spoke. Since I have been in the Chamber, a number of noble Lords have mentioned the fixing of the date of Easter. Your Lordships may remember that last year I initiated a debate on this subject, and it was in an exchange this afternoon between the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, that it occurred to me that, in the researches which I carried out before that debate
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and in discussions since that occasion, I came upon the point which I think the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord were touching on—that is, that many laymen and most clerics sincerely desire to keep Holy Days and holidays separate.
The right reverend Prelate referred to the wording of the Easter Act, 1928, which lies on the Statute Book awaiting the day when its provisions are brought into force by Order in Council. I read the wording in this way. Under the Act, Easter shall be the second Sunday in April, except when the 1st of April is a Sunday, in which case, Easter shall be the third Sunday. Therefore, under the Act, Easter would fall between April 9 and April 15.
From that date, I turn to what the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, said about fixing Whit Monday. I think that he was referring to a holiday about that time. Under the Easter Act, if and when it is brought into force, the holy day Whit Sunday would be, at the earliest, May 28 and, at the latest, June 3. The noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, referred to the other advantages which would flow from a fixed Easter, but that is not the subject of our debate, and I trust your Lordships will forgive me for this brief intervention in what has been a most interesting debate.
5.55 p.m.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate, and I should not have done so had I not realised that what the White Paper is trying to do is to alter what has become by long tradition a kind of observance. One appreciates the difficulties in an industry which has a large number of employees who more or less have to remain with machinery which must be kept operating because any interference with its continuous operation would mean a great loss of funds. But I wonder whether we are not ignoring the fact that we are in the midst of a transitional period which will change the kind of traditional holiday that we have been in the habit of arranging.
The idea of holidays is not a new one. There have been Jubilee years, which go back to Biblical time. There have been Sabbatical years, enjoyed by people in higher education and in unversities.

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And to-day there is the tremendous "push" of holiday advertising, in most attractive forms and colours, almost indecent in some respects, which tries to persuade people to think of spending their time away from work, as though work itself were something unpleasant. Is it possible that this White Paper has not been productive of any kind of procedure for rearranging holidays for the masses of the people—not for those few who can take holidays whenever they wish—without interference with essential industry?
When one thinks that to-day one can charter an aeroplane from here to Canada at a reduced cost, which enables the majority of people to be able to afford it, and that people can pay for their holidays on the hire-purchase system, one realises that we are up against a series of problems, and not merely one, which affects the whole of the economic and social structure of the country. That does not apply to this country only, because in Germany, France, Italy and other countries, in spite of the better weather enjoyed there, the people still desire to get away from where they are. I appreciate that a man and wife with a young family want a change, not only to benefit the children, but also for themselves, to get away from their surroundings. But I am not sure that the result is always refreshment and restoration, especially when they do not speak the same language as those around them.
I come back to my question: Are we not in this White Paper trying to do something which entails so great a break with long-established tradition that we cannot possibly hope within a short period of time to achieve something that would make for a really efficient distribution of leisure for the people as a whole? Do not let us forget something else. I do not think that the word "automation" has been mentioned in this debate. We are bound to recognise that we are not far distant from a time when the amount of leisure will be greater, because human muscle will no longer be necessary to the extent it has been. Indeed, I am told that automation has reached such an extent that you get your electronic device at one end and a completed motor car is produced at the other end without a human hand
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touching it. That is the kind of thing that we must envisage and, if necessary, prepare for.
I would remind your Lordships that in the adult education world there are in England something like 25 residential colleges. In Scotland, there is, as yet, only one permanent residential college, although there are summer schools, such as St. Andrew's and others. These adult residential colleges are being increasingly used. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that, although the period for the short courses is rather short, the benefit can hardly be overestimated. One can say from one's own personal experience that people go there, ostensibly for a holiday—and, in part, it is a holiday—but so invigorated mentally are they by what they hear, and what they are asked to do in the way of response to the lectures they have attended, that they are better enlightened and better-minded citizens as a result of this short course form of residential adult education. My hope and belief is that this sort of education will continue to increase; that we shall see the cumulative effect of this tremendous amount of work that is being done (it is not very well advertised, I am sorry to say; nevertheless, it is growing, in interest and support) and that staggered holidays will be a matter of, shall I say, more or less indifference, because the method of spending time will not be by lying more or less naked in the sun, but by benefiting mentally, as well as physically, from the short holidays we can take.
6.2 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, my first task must be to join in the congratulations that have been offered to the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Lincoln on what was a most eloquent and illuminating speech, which I know the whole House enjoyed. We look forward with great anticipation to his taking part in our future debates. Perhaps it would be worth while commenting at this point that, curiously enough, this has been an entirely masculine debate, and we have not had any of the noble Ladies who belong to this House taking part. I wondered, from some of the remarks made by the right reverend Prelate,

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whether, if they had been here, they would not have said that perhaps the supreme luxury to them was not to have to clean and cook.
The Government warmly welcome this debate. As has been said by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Leicester, it has been designed to increase health and happiness and also to reduce congestion and waste. I would thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Molson, for having raised this question. We have been talking, as I say, about congestion, and I think perhaps it is symbolic that he was once the Member of Parliament for the High Peak. The Government will wish to study this debate closely, and if I do not comment on all the many suggestions that have been made it will not be because I do not think them important, but because I am not in a position to do so intelligently at the moment.
What I think must have struck all noble Lords is the great measure of agreement that has been shown in the debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, said, in a most noteworthy and constructive speech, much has been done, and much more can and should be done. The Government started this off in a way by the moving of Summer Time. There have been many individual moves away from the peak periods of holiday travel which have been made by many firms, as referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Champion, Lord Mabane, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, Lord Ampthill and others. As the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Lincoln said, in these matters there are difficulties, but they are not insuperable; and this point was also clearly brought out by the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, in a most interesting speech based on his own experience. One comment was that there has been no mention in the course of this debate of the farm worker. I think the reason must be that we are here concerned particularly with those who, so to speak, form part of the peak and, therefore, can shift; and certaintly no disrespect is intended to the farm workers in this matter.
May I refer to some of the ideas that have been put forward? One was that there should be more separate days of holiday. Another idea is that if main
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holidays are too bunched, individual day holidays are too spaced out; and I took note particularly of the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, that there was nothing between August and Christmas. There was the idea put forward by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Lincoln that Christmas should be a longer holiday, and the suggestion by the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, that Christmas should now be a holiday in Scotland. I think that, de facto, it pretty well is already: because the Scots have a way of getting things both ways when it suits them. The noble Duke also put forward the idea, which I am bound to say I did not fully understand, about ten-day closures.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: People should work for ten consecutive days and have four days at week-ends.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I take the point. This is one of the points that we should have studied.
I was also interested in the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, and I think it was fitting that he made the sort of speech he did at the end of the debate, because what has been so significant is the willingness of everybody in the House to accept change; the appreciation that we are in a transitional period and that these changes have to be accepted. Different noble Lords went different lengths in saying how far at the moment they were prepared to accept change, but the theme of the whole debate has been the need for change and the willingness to accept it and, I think, urging the Government to hasten this change along. The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Leicester said that the whole of our national life forms a pattern, and that August is the most vacant month: vacant, maybe, from the point of view that it is the month in which fewer people may have to work; but, by the same token, it is the month in which there is the greatest congestion from the holiday point of view.
What caused the Government to study this problem was that, while the number of people taking holidays away from home has doubled since the war, the pattern of holidays has remained the same. As standards of living improve,

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the numbers will increase still further; and if nothing is done the peak which was already the peak will grow higher and higher and render the peak holiday season more and more uncomfortable. Holidays with pay are becoming longer. People are, as the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, said, becoming more venturesome. I thought he took that as something, so to speak, on the credit side; but from this angle it is very much on the debit side, because, to the extent that they become more venturesome, they use more transport and other services.
The study (this has been said already, but I think I should repeat it) reveals that twice as many people are taking holidays for a week or more away from home, that nearly two-thirds of that number are taking them in the months of July and August, and that nearly a quarter started their holiday within the fortnight at the end of July and the beginning of August. The problem is made greater because nearly three-quarters of all holidays start at the week-end, and because there is a further exodus of a day or more at the August Bank holiday. All this puts a fearsome strain on accommodation facilities.
The result of the study has been a Social Survey which, I think, has been only once referred to in the course of the debate to-day, and the White Paper, which has been much referred to and which the Government published in order to inform the public and to encourage discussion with a view to concerted action, the more so as it is plain that nothing less than concerted action is required—a concerted national effort, as the White Paper says, to ensure that people, including those who come here from abroad, get the maximum benefit from their holidays. I was very glad indeed that my noble friend Lord Mabane stressed the part that the British Travel and Holidays Association have played, not only in attracting foreign visitors here but in analysing the difficulties that we are meeting with in the holiday seasons here, and doing a great deal to overcome them. He has had a most successful, vital, energetic, and constructive three years of office as chairman of the B.T.H.A., as it is called, and I hope he will long be able to serve as President.
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If holidays in this country can be staggered, then, of course, not only will life be more pleasant and the break from the routine of work more satisfying for our own holidaymakers, but also more overseas visitors will be attracted to visit our cities and to see the beauties of our countryside. As has been said, tourism is big business these days. The B.T.H.A. consider that if the holiday season can be extended over the four months June to September, with some overspill into April, May and October, not only will the United Kingdom and overseas tourists and holidaymakers enjoy themselves better, but there will be a gain of many million pounds a year to the national economy—and I will not enter into discussion with the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Leicester, as to how that particular gain will be distributed between particular pockets.
The proposals put forward in paragraph 27 as to the steps that could be taken in various spheres come under four main headings: bank holidays, school examinations, industrial holidays and action by the trades catering for the holidaymakers. The needs are quite clearly to spread the holiday period over a longer period, to get more people to start their holidays mid-week and to get more hotels and boarding houses to accept mid-week bookings in the peak season.
Could I deal for a moment with the question of bank holidays, which has perhaps taken up as much of the debate as any other single point? I note what my noble friend Lord Mabane said in regard to the number of them, and I was extremely interested by the one, if I might say, dissident, possibly prophetic, speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, on this subject, when he seemed to indicate that the day would come when there would be no bank holidays at all because we should have a sufficiency of holidays elsewhere. I think, as the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said, it will not come perhaps very quickly; but at any rate it is a point of view worth considering.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, may I say that what I noticed during this debate was the constant reference to the old days. Living in an industrial area,

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I could tell this House that the old days are still very much with us, both with regard to labour and to wages.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I was not really making reference to that particular aspect of the old days at the present moment, but I appreciate the noble Lord's point of view.
As the White Paper points out, bank holidays contribute to the problem mainly because of the additional day trips made and the short holidays taken in connection with them. Nothing can be done to reduce the volume of this traffic: indeed, traffic is bound to grow. But a later date for the August Bank Holiday would at least remove this slice of traffic from the summer holiday peak, whilst a fixed holiday that would always fall at a date fairly early in the season in place of the present Whitsuntide Bank Holiday would tend to relieve the summer peak by encouraging more holidaymakers to take their holidays early. As the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Leicester said, that would not only improve conditions but might well save lives.
The majority reaction to the White Paper that we have had from the country favoured a date for August Bank Holiday on the last Monday in that month. We shall never get unanimity on a question like this, and it seems that the farmers view with some misgiving a public holiday at the height of the harvesting season. As to the spring holiday, educationists would prefer it to be deferred until the end of June, so that there would be no interference with examination arrangements and preparations, but the more general preference was for a spring holiday fixed on a Monday either at the end of May or early in June.
The most reverend Primate's message, which was delivered by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Leicester, was very welcome in this debate. He conveyed the most reverend Primate's message that he is of opinion that the Church of England—I think I noted it correctly—would not wish to oppose the change. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development, is considering the question
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of bank holidays with his colleagues, and hopes to be in a position to make a statement before long. Whatever is done, we shall have to ensure that adequate notice is given of these changes. There are a number of interests concerned. For example, there are the makers of diaries and calendars. There are, as has been referred to, the processions of children in connection with the Churches, and there are certain bodies like the friendly societies, whose annual meetings are fixed in relation to Whitsuntide. This gives some idea of the problems involved and an indication that it will take a long time, at any rate, before any such change could come into effect.
A good deal was said about the date of Easter. As has been said, this is a question which is not necessarily bound up with the separate question of the present bank holiday. But I thought that, apart from this, the comments that were made by my noble friend Lord Ampthill and by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, were perhaps more for my noble friend the Leader of the House than for me, and so I shall leave that point there.
Now I come to the question of the school examinations and holidays, which I think a great many noble Lords thought quite crucial. I hope I shall be able to make it plain that the school authorities are not as inflexible as my noble friend the Duke of Atholl thought, and, indeed, that instructors are capable of being instructed in matters of the public interest. The G.C.E. is a limiting factor only in a small number of cases, and yet, because of this—partly because it is so critical in the lives of so many—it goes very much wider indeed than the particular cases that are affected by the examinations.
School examinations are, of course, a matter for the examining bodies concerned. Noble Lords will be glad to know that the Secondary School Examinations Council, on which these bodies are represented, has now requested them to arrange as soon as possible that their examinations will be completed each year by the end of June. I recognise that a great many noble Lords have expressed the opinion that this is too late, that it should be by the end of May, as examinations in Scotland are completed by the end of May. We may very well have to move

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by stages in this affair. I know that time works against us, but, at any rate, this is one of the subjects that will have to be closely studied. It is hoped that this change may be introduced in 1965; that is, that the examinations should be completed each year by the end of June so as to make all July the holiday month for families with children of school age.
I think it is worth noting that it will still be convenient for local education authorities if all schools in any one authority area have holidays at roughly the same time, if only because, as the White Paper says, the best advantage can be made of ancillary services such as school meals and transport only if they are being fully used. What is perhaps more important is that it would clearly not be a good thing for children or their parents if children of different ages or different capabilities or bents in the same family found their school holidays were at different times.
There are sound educational reasons for having the main examinations in the summer and towards the end of the term, as the right reverend Prelate said, rather than before Christmas or in the winter months. I do not think there was any suggestion in the course of the debate to-day that the examinations should be be moved away altogether from the summer months. Only in the long university and school holidays are examiners available to mark papers for G.C.E. "A" and "O" levels. If I may say so, this is one of the ways in which the position in England differs somewhat from that in Scotland, because in Scotland there is a core of examiners who I think are capable of going into action virtually at any time in the year. Summer is traditionally the end of the educational year, and it is the time of year when examiners are least likely to find that ill-health prevents the candidates from sitting or affects their performance. The point was made that we may well be working, and should be working, towards a stage at which the summer holiday is longer. It is longer in Scotland than it is in England and Wales, and certainly if the period of the school summer holiday could be made longer in England and Wales it would also help.
I come now to the question of industrial holidays. This appears to be the
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most difficult aspect of the problem. As the White Paper indicates, the majority of firms in manufacturing industry close down entirely for a couple of weeks each year. This is convenient from the point of view both of suppliers and customers; and closures, which are already dictated to a large extent by the demands of plant maintenance, will be dictated even more so with the development of automation—and I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, that it was surprising that the word "automation" was not mentioned until the very end. It would help if closures could be staggered over a reasonably extended holiday season. At present, more often than not the shut-downs in manufacturing industry fall within a few weeks of the holiday peak for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, made clear; that the workers with families are bound to insist that they have their holidays at the same time as their families. It would help, too, if town holidays on the pattern traditional in Lancashire, Cheshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire were generally introduced. In those parts of the country the closing down of factories and workshops as arranged between the towns themselves is spread out over the summer.
I was particularly interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Champion, had to say of the experience in Rochdale and what has been done there, and the preferences that were expressed in the cotton industry for an earlier holiday. I think we should be a little wary of taking entirely at their face value the preferences for June, because, of course, when those who take their holidays in July and August were asked why they would prefer to have a holiday at some other time, the reason they gave, in 40 per cent. of the cases, for their preference for June was because of overcrowding during August and July. If there were a big transfer to June, then that reason would no longer operate; so, as I say, I do not think we can take the preferences for June entirely at their face value.
I was also greatly interested in what the noble Lords, Lord McCorquodale of Newton and Lord Ampthill, had to say about the rota system within the manufacturing industry, and particularly in what Lord Ampthill had to say about the way in which he had overcome this

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difficulty. Of course, the more it is possible—and we know the limitations—to have staggering within a factory itself, the wider the spread can be made. But this is not a problem that can be tackled by direct Government action: its solution can be worked out only within industry, and probably can emerge only gradually. In recent years, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, said, it has been one of the subjects studied by the National Joint Advisory Council. Provided school examinations can be completed earlier than they are now, neither side of industry, I understand, would see any great difficulty in spreading industrial holidays over a longer period, especially if the August Bank Holiday could be postponed to the end of the month.
My Lords, the last point I want to mention is action by the trades catering for holidaymakers. It would not be possible to induce many more holidaymakers to take their holidays in off-peak periods unless amenities and entertainments were available in holiday resorts at these times. I was interested in the suggestion made by my noble friend the Duke of Atholl that special attractions should be put on at the "off-peak" periods in holiday seasons, but this is the "hen and the egg" all over again. Of course, if the holiday resorts authorities see signs of people coming in sufficient numbers to justify putting on these amenities and entertainments they will be the first to put them on. They will welcome the opportunity. There are plenty of enterprising people in holiday resorts and, of course, the local authorities are vigilant to secure the interests of their own towns.
There are certainly already indications of growing preferences in industry for holidays in June, as has been mentioned in the course of this debate; and I think it is worth noting that, according to a social survey, nearly 30 per cent. of holidays of people living in London and the Eastern regions already start in June. An extension of the holiday season is obviously as much in the interests of the travel and holiday trades as in those of the holidaymakers themselves. I think this is what my noble friend Lord Mabane had in mind. Certainly the British Travel and Holidays Association have always been a staunch advocate of
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the staggering of holidays and have carried out useful, though limited, publicity in support of this campaign. I say "limited", but I am sure that they would have liked to do more if they had had the money. As and when any changes are made which will give scope for greater freedom of choice on the part of individuals and families planning their holidays, a major publicity drive, stimulated and co-ordinated by the British Travel and Holidays Association, would be most helpful. But such a campaign would clearly need the active co-operation of the resort authorities and the holiday trades.
Reference has also been made to the possibility of financial incentives. The whole process of easing the holiday peak period could, of course, be assisted by financial incentives, and much is already done by British Railways, by the airlines, and by coach and bus service operators, through reduced fares for out-of-season and mid-week holiday travel. In the same way, most hotel and boarding-house proprietors quote much lower prices in the off-season. But no doubt more can be done to stimulate the greater staggering of holidays by the offer of financial inducements of various kinds; though, as the peak gets evened out over a period, these financial inducements, which will be designed to start the movement going, will also, of course, tend to disappear. Then cheap travel rates in mid-week will be of little avail if the concession is not matched by a readiness on the part of those running hotels and guest houses to accept midweek bookings.
The Government hope that the holiday trade and all those who, in one way or another, cater for the travel, the accommodation and the entertainment needs of holidaymakers will play their part in what must be a concerted national effort to ease the problem of holiday congestion, which is already serious and, if not tackled, will become worse. Success in these efforts will make for the greater benefit, comfort and safety of us all. If there were a steady flow of mid-week bookings throughout the period (and this was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson) there would be no difficulty. What one would like to see is that, if industry and commerce and the professions show that they mean to take seriously the

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objective of easing weekend travel congestion, hotels and boarding-houses will, to put it colloquially, "play ball" with them. I believe that they will, because it will be in their own interests to do so.
My Lords, in all this, so much depends on knowing where to start. The general feeling in this debate has been that a start should be made by the Government on bank holidays. That feeling I have noticed, and will convey to my right honourable friend. As I have indicated, the Government are already considering action on the spring and summer bank holidays. The Secondary Schools Examination Council has recommended to examining bodies that they should get their examinations finished in June, after which more rapid progress and spacing out of factory closures can reasonably be expected. That is the process of tackling this problem that I envisage. It is not one that the Government can tackle alone. It is one for a concerted effort by all, and I think that your Lordships' debate to-day has shown a most heartening determination on the part of everyone who has spoken to see that the problem is dealt with. I only hope that the same response will come from the rest of the country.
6.35 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I think we have had a most interesting and satisfactory debate. There has been a remarkable consensus of opinion among all the speakers, with possibly only a few philosophical doubts added by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill. There has been agreement not merely on the desirability of some steps being taken in this direction, but even upon what the steps should be and what their order should be; and as my noble friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton emphasised, what is required now is action. I was therefore glad when my noble friend the Minister of State said that what was now required, and what I imagine he was prepared to give a lead in inaugurating, was a concerted national effort.
I think that the timing of this debate is appropriate. It is some nine months now since the Government produced their White Paper Staggered Holidays, and after these nine months of gestation we have had a speech from the Minister of
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State which indicates that there is likely to be some result. We all welcome, I am sure, what he has said about a forthcoming statement on the matter of Bank Holidays from his right honourable friend.
I was glad also that he noted the general consensus of opinion among the speakers to-day that the chief cause of the difficulty is the lateness of the conclusion of the G.C.E. examination, and I was very glad that he indicated that something would be done to try to urge the eight or nine examining bodies all to conclude their examinations before the end of June. I do not wholly like his suggestion of progress by stages. I think that if a change is going to be made it would be far better to make the change so that it is all concluded by the end of May. As I mentioned before, Birmingham has set an example in this matter, and of course Scotland, as is nearly always the case, has set an even earlier example, and therefore there can be no question about the possibility of the examination being concluded in the month of May. No-one suggested that the examinations should be held in winter. If all the examination boards conclude their examinations by the end of June, it will not be any great advance upon the practice of the majority of them at the present time. I hope that the Oxford and Cambridge Examination Board, which appears to be the slowest of them in concluding its examinations, will not allow the convenience of examiners—based, I understand, partly upon social and sporting fixtures—to interfere with the reorganisation of the examinations in the interests of the country as a whole.
I should like to thank all those who have participated in this debate. It has been distinguished by a maiden speech, which we all greatly enjoyed, from the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and by speeches from many noble Lords who, in various ways, have sought to serve the cause of the wellbeing of the country as a whole. We have heard from representatives of the Trades Union Congress, and from the employers—with a most interesting speech, if I may say so, from my noble friend Lord Ampthill, dealing with the practical difficulties which arise and which we are most anxious to face, and

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which he has so perseveringly overcome. In conclusion, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mabane, who has taken, as the Minister of State said, such an active and valuable part in this work. Having thanked everybody who has taken part, I would ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker
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that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; read 1a, and to be printed.

INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS AND DEFENCE ORGANISATIONS BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with an Amendment; the said Amendment considered, and agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before seven o'clock.