Lords Sitting of 27 February 1964

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

APPLICATIONS FOR UNIVERSITY PLACES
3.5 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: 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 how many suitably qualified applicants there were for university places last October, how many were found places in universities, and how many in other institutions of higher education; and how many failed to gain a place.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH): My Lords, the total number of full-time students for first degree or comparable courses entering universities in Great Britain for the first time in October, 1963, was about 35,100. I regret that it is not possible to provide a figure for the total number of qualified applicants to all British universities. The only figures comparing university applicants and admissions in 1963 are those being produced in respect of the applicants to the Universities Central Council on Admissions. These figures exclude overseas applicants and also exclude students who applied only to Oxford, Cambridge or the London medical schools or (in the case of Scottish applicants only) to three of the Scottish universities.
The Report on the first year's operations of the Universities Central Council on Admissions, which is an independent body set up and financed by the universities themselves, is not due to be published until shortly after Easter. The
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Council have, however, provided me with the following provisional figures:
51,600 students applied to them for admission to universities, but of these about 11 per cent. disqualified themselves by failing to obtain the minimum academic qualifications. Of the remaining candidates, 26,500 obtained admission to universities other than Oxford and Cambridge; and a further unknown number of U.C.C.A. applicants obtained admission to Oxford and Cambridge.
It is believed that, of the U.C.C.A. applicants who failed to obtain university places, including those who did not succeed in obtaining the minimum academic qualifications, over 60 per cent. are continuing in full-time education, including those returning to school.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for giving me a much fuller Answer than he had previously led me to expect. I am grateful to him, and through him to the U.C.C.A., for getting out these provisional figures. But they are a little alarming, and at first sight it would appear as though 15,000 students were qualified, but did not get places even among only those applying to U.C.C.A. Have I done my arithmetic correctly, or am I wrong?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Is the noble Lord referring to the first figure, 51,600, of which 11 per cent. disqualified themselves?
LORD TAYLOR: What I mean is that, of the 51,000 who applied, 11 per cent., or about 6,000, disqualified themselves by not having the qualification, leaving approximately 45,000; and then only 26,000 obtained places, so it looks as though 19,000 qualified candidates did not get places, if my arithmetic is correct. But I am open to be corrected.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord's arithmetic is correct. Of course it is very difficult to get a comprehensive picture when Oxford and Cambridge are not included, and when a large number of applicants apply for places to different universities. It is extremely difficult, I am afraid, to get a comprehensive picture from these figures, but it may perhaps be a little clearer when the Report comes out soon after Easter.

APPLICATIONS FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL PLACES
3.8 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: 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 how many suitably qualified applicants there were for places in medical schools last October, how many found places, and how many failed to find a place.]
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, 2,276 students began pre-clinical courses at universities in Great Britain last October. I regret that the total number of suitably qualified applicants for such courses is not ascertainable. The Universities Central Council on Admissions, whose scheme does not at present cover the whole field, have however informed me that 4,556 students applied to them for places in medical faculties. Of these, 19·4 per cent. failed to obtain the minimum academic qualifications for admission to university, and a further unknown number probably failed to obtain the minimum qualifications for medical faculties.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, a very brief calculation on those figures clearly shows that nearly half of those suitably qualified failed to obtain places. Does this not emphasise the need, which we have pressed again and again in this House, for more medical schools? May we know when the first new medical school is likely to be available?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I appreciate the noble Lord's interest in this matter. I think he will recall that my honourable friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health said in another place on December 19 that the University Grants Committed had recommended that at least one new medical school should be planned. That advice has been accepted and the U.G.C. is considering the site of location.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether these numbers apply to those in Scottish universities and medical schools?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think I am right in saying they are excluded, as in fact are some of those who applied to London medical schools.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that 200 girls suitably qualified applied for every available place in the medical schools in this country last autumn? Does he not think that deplorable, in view of the fact that there is such a great shortage of doctors?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am very much concerned about this figure; I do not know where the noble Baroness and the noble Lord previously got it from. I have gone into this matter with some care. It seems to me it is extremely misleading. It would mean in fact that there were more applicants than school leavers with two "A" levels in any subject. Your Lordships may remember that, according to the Robbins Report, the total number of students in Great Britain with two "A" levels, or the Scottish equivalent, was 48,600 in 1961 and the number of students who began pre-clinical courses in 1961 was 2,100. If every qualified school leaver wanted to take medicine there could be only 24 British applicants (I think my arithmetic is correct) for every vacant place. Obviously in pratice the number of applicants seeking a vacancy in a medical school must be much lower than 24 for each available place.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Earl asked where my noble friend got her figure from. She got it from me, and I got it from the Deans of two of the university schools of London University; and indeed it was published in The Times newspaper in a letter from one of the Deans. Is the noble Earl aware that the situation is quite different from that which he has described, and that there is in fact a quota system operated whereby only about 10 per cent. of places are available at most medical schools for women, and in consequence the figures he gave are grossly misleading?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am afraid that I must stand by the fact that the noble Lord's figures are misleading.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as the noble Earl has made such a detailed investigation, can he tell the House what is the percentage of women now in our medical schools in London?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am afraid that is another question.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Earl said that he had gone into this matter most carefully. Can he say the number of qualified women who wished to enter these schools but failed to enter them because of lack of places? Can he give those figures?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think that is another question.
LORD SHEPHERD: But you went into it.

THE A.30 ROAD
3.15 p.m.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: 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 when a second carriageway will be constructed on A.30 along the stretch known at Hartford Bridge Flats.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (Lord Chesham): My Lords, my right honourable friend has been considering this question, but in fact this stretch of road will be largely superseded by the Basingstoke motorway and there is not adequate justification for providing a second carriageway meanwhile.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House when the works on the Basingstoke motorway will be started? If it is some years ahead, would he take into account that this particular road named in my Question has one of the highest commercial vehicle densities in the South, that it, is a notorious accident spot, that there are already two carriageways immediately to the East and the West of it, and there is vacant land—indeed derelict land—immediately to the South, which could easily be used
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without large compensation payments being involved?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I cannot tell your Lordships when the works can start. All I can tell your Lordships is that the draft scheme is in course of preparation at the present time. I was not aware of the fact that this road has an ultra-high accident record, because my information is that it is somewhat below the national average for a road of its type. On the other hand, I was perfectly well aware that there were stretches of dual carriageway on each side of this road, because we put them there deliberately to give some relief to the traffic that we know uses the road.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that, since traffic is going to be doubled in ten years' time, there is a need for this work now to ease the traffic difficulties there in addition to the proposed new West Country motorway?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords, I was aware of that. But I am also aware of the fact that it is our duty, and we do our utmost, to spend the money that we have available to the best possible advantage in the national interest.

THE BANK RATE STATEMENT
3.17 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg to ask the Leader of the House the Question of which I have given Private Notice—namely, whether after the statement which is being made this afternoon, I believe, on behalf of the Prime Minister about the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Foreign Office, another statement will be made—or a copy given us—repeating that to be made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place to-day?
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I am always, as I think the noble Earl knows, most anxious to help the Opposition in any way I can, but I think that on this occasion I should find myself in a difficulty if I acceded to his request to repeat the statement. It would be against any precedent in this

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House that a financial statement or a statement on the bank rate should be repeated in your Lordships' House. But I will, of course, arrange for the statement to be available to your Lordships in the Printed Paper Office.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I say that I do not know of any precedent that I am breaking in asking this Question. Often matters relating to the bank rate are not the subject of a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place. It all depends upon the time and the reason for a statement, as to whether it is of special interest to your Lordships as well as to the Commons. This is not a question of financial control, of taxation, of a subject which is confined to the House of Commons; this is something which is bound in all the circumstances to affect the general national economic position; and if I were to accept a ruling now on this so-called precedent from the Leader of the House it would mean that your Lordships may well in the future find it being argued that you cannot raise economic questions in this House.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, with great respect, I think that the noble Earl is wrong. In the short time that I have had to look up this matter I have discovered a statement that he himself made on this subject in 1961. It is in column 911 of Volume 233 of Hansard. There first of all he asks the Leader of the House, who was then Lord Hailsham:
"Might I just ask the noble Viscount … whether he has noted the position which arises to-day in the House with regard to the financial statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?"
I would point out that to-day this is not a financial statement; this is a statement pure and simple on bank rate; but still, even assuming it were a financial statement, he goes on to say:
"In accordance with such matters as a main Budget or extra Budget we do not have the statement repeated here, but for ordinary Budgets we have a full statement in the Printed Paper Office. I do not know whether that is possible on this occasion, but I should like to know whether the Leader of the House has been able to make any arrangements by which Members of this House can have the earliest possible accurate information."
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It seems to me that the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition on that occasion recognised that there were precedents against repeating statements.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: That was entirely a financial statement. This is not going to be a general financial statement involving the taxation of the community by the other place which is responsible. This is a question on which, in the current political circumstances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is choosing to make a statement at the time of raising bank rate in order to explain why he is doing it. I think, therefore, it is as important for the statement to be made in this House as to be made in the other place.
LORD CARRINGTON: This really is not so. On other occasions when statements on raising the bank rate have been made in another place they have never been repeated here. As Leader of the House I am, in a sense, the guardian of the Rules of Order of the House, subject, of course, to what your Lordships say, and I do not think that it would be right for me, just because the noble Earl today asks for this statement, to ignore all the precedents.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, does the noble Lord the Leader of the House say that on every occasion on which there is a change in bank rate a statement is made in the other place?
LORD CARRINGTON: No; sometimes there is and sometimes there is not. But on no occasion has it been repeated in this House.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am relatively a new Member of the House, and therefore I intervene with all due modesty.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Why noble Lords opposite should not accept my assertion of modesty, I do not know. I cannot follow from what the Leader of the House has been good enough to say why we should not have a repetition of the statement on this matter. It does not seem to me that there is anything sufficiently sacred or involving the special rights of the House of Commons—which rights I would not

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wish to destroy at all, as the House knows; but I cannot follow the reason why this statement should not be made here. It is not a matter of taxation. It is a matter of announcing a Government decision about something which I do not yet know about, but about which we have heard. I should like to know from the Leader of the House what are the practical, constitutional, Parliamentary reasons why, after the statement has been made in another place—and I think it is right it should be made first in another place—we should not have it repeated here. I have said, with all due modesty, that I am fairly new to this House; if I may also say so, without any snobbishness or superiority, the present Leader of the House is new to his job as Leader of the House, and therefore I am sure he will not be less modest than I am about these matters.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, that would be impossible. I should like courteously to remind the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, that although I may be new as Leader of the House I have been a Member of this House for eighteen years, and on none of the occasions when there has been a financial statement in the Commons has it ever been repeated here—or a statement on bank rate. That seems to me, as a new Leader of the House, to be a very powerful argument for me not to depart from that precedent.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: With great respect to the noble Lord, I follow his argument that it has not been done. If he says it has not been done, then I take his word for it. But I still want to know why it cannot be done. What Parliamentary or constitutional reasons of substance are there why this House should not be informed, after a statement has been made in another place by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, especially on a matter of this kind which does not go to the roots of taxation? It really is not enough for the noble Lord to say that something has never been done. Good God! there are a lot of things the Conservative Party has never done before that it is beginning to do now. Therefore, I ask him to tell us, what are the constitutional or Parliamentary practical reasons why the statement should not be repeated here? I see that the former
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Deputy Leader of the House is coming to the rescue.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, this seems to be rather an odd situation. It seems that, although the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was unaware that the bank rate has been raised—presumably it was announced at 11 o'clock this morning—yet he seems to know about a statement which has not yet been made in another place. I know from all my experience, both of this place and of another place, that on principle the Leader of the House is obviously right; this is the course which has been followed, both by Labour Governments and by Conservative Governments while I have been in this House. Would not the convenient course be to wait and see—as we shall see from Hansard, and on the tape—the statement which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to make in another place? Then, if we think the Leader of the House has taken a wrong decision and advised the House wrongly, we shall be able to raise the matter and discuss it, with full knowledge of what the statement is. Otherwise all this "shadowboxing" in the dark appears to me to be irrelevant.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, if I may answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth—and I am very grateful for what my noble friend has said—I do not think there are any constitutional reasons why this statement should not be repeated in this House. The custom probably grew up in order to mark the difference in the powers between the two Houses over financial matters. I imagine that was the reason for this precedent. But I still do not think that, just because the noble Earl has asked whether this statement could be repeated to-day, I should be justified in breaking all the precedents of this House this afternoon. If your Lordships feel that the time has now come to make a change, then it is for your Lordships to decide, provided that there are no constitutional objections. Certainly I should be very happy to have talks with the noble Earl through the usual channels.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I remind the noble Lord the Leader of the House, whose

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memory goes back eighteen years, that in the summer of 1947 I, it happens, as one of the Labour Party spokesmen for the Government, made a very long statement on the economic situation in this House, duplicating a statement made by the Prime Minister of the day, Lord Attlee, on the economic situation. The bank rate was not immediately involved, but if the noble Lord is saying that general economic statements (and this statement may well take on that character) are not duplicated in this House, then he is completely mistaken according to the precedents of this House.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Hear, hear!
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is all very well for the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition to make a noise, if I may say so, like that. He has given me precisely twenty minutes' warning of the Question he was going to ask. I cannot really be expected to have looked up every single occasion in the last eighteen years when somebody has made a statement on financial matters. If I am wrong, then we must look it up and think again whether I am right. But certainly, in so far as I have been able to discover, it has never happened before. It may very well be that it is a statement by the Prime Minister and therefore different.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I thought that when a noble Lord in this place, or a Member of another place, says, "Hear, hear!" to something, he was not necessarily to be rudely remarked upon as having "made a noise". It is a way of giving a proper indication of what our feelings are. In regard to the position the noble Lord is now putting forward, this is not a financial statement within the constitutional speciality of the House of Commons. This is a statement of wide national importance to the economy and trade of the country; and on that basis we have always had an arrangement, so far as I know, that when we ask for a statement to be repeated in this place we are entitled to have it. On that basis I press my case.
LORD CARRINGTON: I did not in any way wish to be rude to the noble Earl. He was making a proper Parliamentary
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noise, but it was nevertheless a noise. But it still remains true that on previous occasions, when there has been a statement on the bank rate, it has not been repeated in this House; and I hope that my noble friends behind me will agree with me that it would be improper for me on this occasion to depart from precedent without a great deal of talk.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, is it not deeply interesting the way noble Lords are trying to revise the view of their radical forbears, who saw to it that this House was wholly impotent in matters of finance? And is it not equally interesting to observe the conservatism of my noble friend the Leader of the House?
LORD TAYLOR: Impotent, but not uninformed, my Lords. May we have a ruling on one point? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a statement on something which is not a taxation matter, is it ever repeated in this House?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am not the guardian of the Rules of this House. I try to be, and I do what your Lordships would wish me to do. But without looking up the precedents, I really do not know the answer to that question. But I have gone as far as I possibly can. I have looked up the precedents as to whether statements on the bank rate are ever repeated, and they are not.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, may I say to the noble Lord, in relation to what the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said, that to the best of my recollection I do not think I mentioned the bank rate at all. In fact, I did not know anything about it—I still do not know anything about it—because I did not hear the radio or read the evening newspapers. I have been to the lunch of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. But, my Lords, may I, in all seriousness, put this question to the noble Lord? I am quite sure he is acting from sincere and conscientious motives, and I accept the position that, in so far as anybody deals with Rules of Order here, it is the Leader of the House—and that is all. This is a wonderful institution, in that it can get on without a presiding officer, in the old sense of the term.

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But may I put it to the noble Lord that up till now we have had from him, and from his noble friend Lord Swinton, for whom I have great respect, nothing but a declaration that this has not been done before. With great respect, in this year of modernisation, in the year 1964, the mere fact that something has not been done before is not a conclusive reason why it should not be done. However, I want to help the noble Lord, because I can see he is in some difficulty, as he has admitted that he cannot come forward with Parliamentary and constitutional reasons. Would it not be a good thing if, let us say at 4 o'clock, approximately, when presumably he will know what has happened in another place, he would be good enough to make another statement as to whether or not he is willing to repeat the statement made in another place? That would give him a chance for consultation. Would that not be wise? Then we might happily be able to reach an agreement about it. I think it would be a great pity if we disagreed on this matter, when we do not know the reasons for disagreeing.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, as an old. Leader of the House, may I make an appeal to noble Lords opposite? It is quite clear from what the Leader of the House has said that this not very large but important constitutional point has not been raised previously. He has had practically no time to consider it. Why not let him consider it? Give him full time to consider it, to look at it. He can make a statement at a later date. If, in the light of those further considerations, he feels that an alteration should be made in the practice of the House, let him say so. But I think that to press him now is hardly courteous, and I appeal to noble Lords not to press the matter to-day.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: At a later time—I do not know whom I am addressing now. But may I put it to the noble Lord that I am not particular about the time. If the Leader of the House wants a longer time, that will be reasonable. I appreciate the motives of the noble Marquess. Make it 5 o'clock if that is preferable. I am speaking in all sincerity, and I am not trying to score any Party point. Make it 5 o'clock, if that is more convenient.
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Whilst not pretending in any way that the House should have financial power, in the old sense of the term, surely in a matter of this kind, of great economic significance to the whole of industry in this country, it is not unreasonable that the House should know about it and that noble Lords should be able to put some questions if they so desire. If the noble Lord cannot answer them then, we shall understand. But if the noble Lord has reasonable time to make his inquiries and investigations—let us say until 5 o'clock or thereabouts—would it not be better to give general contentment and happiness to the House, rather than that we should part from this matter with a sense of some grievance?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I hope the Leader of the House will stand firm. This is not a question on which there is any great urgency. It will not make a ha'porth of difference to this House whether the statement is made here to-day or at any other time. It is not like a statement on some new and urgent affair which has suddenly developed. I really think it is unreasonable of noble Lords opposite, and I hope the noble Leader will stand firm.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I say, first of all, that I am sorry the Leader of the House thinks he had only twenty minutes on this matter. That was certainly much shorter than the warning I gave. But I myself was not informed until 2 o'clock that the statement was to be made. Within a few minutes of that, the usual channels knew about it, and I daresay they lent themselves to research in the meantime in order to supply the Leader of the House with their views upon the matter. I am bound to say that I think it would be unreasonable, in the light of the present political circumstances and what has been said in public on sound radio and television upon certain issues, if a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place on the bank rate, affecting these very issues were not to be repeated to your Lordships this afternoon.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I just answer, as a lot has been going on since I was first asked this Question? Perhaps I may just say one word. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Salisbury for what he said.

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I do not wish in any way to be unreasonable to noble Lords opposite, but I really think, as Leader of the House, that I should stand firm on this occasion, and for this reason. The announcement about the increase in the bank rate was made public this morning at 12 o'clock, and all that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing is making a very short statement on this subject, and on this subject alone, in another place at half-past three. At such time as I have had, I have found out that on the previous occasions when there has been a statement on the bank rate in another place it has not been made in your Lordships' House; therefore, the precedent is that it should not be made. If it is your Lordships' wish that that practice should be changed, I am very happy indeed that we should initiate discussions with the usual channels to see whether or not we could change it. But I do not think we ought to do it on the spur of the moment this afternoon.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he can agree to the proposition of my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth? I think my memory goes back some way in relation to procedure here. Would he not agree to refer this matter to the appropriate Committee of the House, on which all the Parties are represented—that is, the Committee on the Procedure of the House—where it can be thoroughly examined, with terms of reference such as: economic policy including statements on the bank rate? Because we have made a very clear distinction, with which noble Lords on both sides of the House agree, between narrowly financial and taxation policy, and matters of economic policy. Would the noble Lord be willing to accept this suggestion?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords. I should be very happy to accept that suggestion, and I think that would be an excellent way out of our difficulty.

MOTHERWELL AND WISHAW BURGH EXTENSION, ETC., ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislature Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

THE PLOWDEN REPORT ON OVERSEAS SERVICES
3.38 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to repeat a statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, in answer to questions on the Plowden Committee's Report.
The Government are very grateful to Lord Plowden and the members of his Committee for their Report and for the great amount of effort and thought which they put into it.
The Report concludes that the division of the world for representational purposes into Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries has obvious practical disadvantages and that the logic of events points towards the amalgamation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Relations Offices. It recognises, however, the special nature of the Commonwealth relationship. It therefore recommends that the Foreign and Commonwealth Relations Offices should remain separate but that a unified overseas representational service to be known as "Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service", should be created. Her Majesty's Government accept the views of the Plowden Committee and have decided that the unified Service proposed should be formed on January 1, 1965. The Queen has graciously agreed that it should be called Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service.
One of the main purposes of the 1943 reforms was to enable the Foreign Service to seek recruits from the widest possible field; and to this end its conditions of service were designed to ensure that officers had no need of private incomes. The Plowden Committee have, however, been much impressed by the financial difficulties of members

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of the Foreign Service and of the Commonwealth Service, especially those with several children who must, because of their parents' peripatetic career, be sent to boarding schools in the United Kingdom. Their Report recommends improved conditions of service for the Overseas Services designed particularly for those with children. It also recommends a common system of foreign allowances for members of the Representational Overseas Services and members of the Home Civil Service when serving abroad. Her Majesty's Government have accepted these recommendations, subject to a few minor modifications, and propose to put them into effect as soon as is practicable after the 1st of April, 1964.
As membership of the Diplomatic Service will alter in important respects the conditions of service of Commonwealth Relations Office staff, the latter will be able to opt for transfer to Home Civil Service Departments. Members of the Trade Commission. Service will be able to apply to enter the Diplomatic Service.
Though the future of the Colonial Office did not fall within the terms of reference of the Plowden Committee, the Government have had it under review and have decided that as soon as possible after the new Diplomatic Service is brought into being—which must be the first step—the Colonial Office should be merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office. It will take some months after vesting date to put into full effect the arrangements for the new Diplomatic Service, so that the merger of the Colonial Office with the Commonwealth Relations Office could not take place until the latter half of 1965, although it will be effected on the earliest possible date in that period and, if practicable, on July 1, 1965.
This change in our arrangements for discharging our Commonwealth responsibilities continues the process of integration which my right honourable friend Mr. Harold Macmillan began in July, 1962, by the appointment of my right honourable friend the Commonwealth Secretary to fill the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies in addition to that of Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.
In the implementation of the decisions announced in this statement, the staff
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problems involved will be worked out in detail in consultation with the staff associations concerned.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged for the statement made by the noble Lord. I must say that there are many things which may seem quite desirable in what has been done, and which have been fully explained in the Plowden Report, but I think the terms of the answers given will require a little study; and perhaps if we should have one or two Questions to put down about it afterwards, we can do that. For the moment, we should like to reserve the position and have a further study of the statement.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am much obliged to the noble Earl. The Report is rather long, and I am afraid the statement is rather long, too.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.43 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Temporary cohabitation with a view to reconciliation not condonation]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This Amendment implements the promise that I gave to your Lordships during my speech on Second Reading, that I would provide, in the case of the

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new ground for divorce of intolerable conduct, the same period of three months during which a reconciliation between the two parties might be tried without such action prejudicing a subsequent action for divorce which might unfortunately thereafter occur. The Amendment to deal with this problem is in the same form as that which is used for the provision as to reconciliation in the case of desertion, and I therefore think that it is a logical improvement in the Bill and one which ought to fall in with your Lordships' appreciation on Second Reading of the general principle of Clause 2. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 23, at end insert—
("(3) In calculating for the purposes of section 4(1)(b) of this Act the period for which the pursuer has lived in separation from the defender no account shall be taken of any period (not exceeding three months) during which the parties resumed co-habitation with a view to a reconciliation.")—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Divorce for non-consummation or intolerable conduct]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out subsection (1) (b) and to insert:
"(b) that the defender has been guilty of intolerable conduct, being conduct of so grave and weighty a nature that it has caused the separation of the pursuer from the defender and the continuance of that separation for a period of not less than three years.
(2) In determining whether a defender has been guilty of intolerable conduct the court shall have regard to all the circumstances of the case, and except in any case where it is satisfied that the conduct complained of arose from the insanity of the defender shall not grant decree of divorce unless it appears to the court that the conduct complained of was inexcusable."
The noble Viscount said: I must, to start with, apologise to your Lordships for the fact that this Amendment is now in a different form, particularly subsection (2) of it, from that which was first circulated by the Printed Paper Office. I will first of all explain what I have
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done in this clause, and then I will try to explain why I have done it. I think this is probably the most substantial Amendment of those which are on the Order Paper for to-day.
In the definition of "intolerable conduct", I have amalgamated that which originally occurred in subsection (1)(b) of Clause 4 and the definition in subsection (3). I do not think that I have changed the definition as such, but I have put it together into a more compatible form, I hope. But I have added a further requirement to which the court has to have regard when dealing with this particular ground, and that occurs in the new subsection (2) of this clause. Now what I am very anxious to do is to meet the points raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Reid on Second Reading, and in all respects to bring this particular ground into line with the approach that has been made to this matter and to cruelty as a ground for divorce in the English courts, as I think this provides the correct flexibility of approach which is necessary in these matters where the facts vary so greatly from case to case and where one is in each instance dealing with people of quite different characteristics.
It seemed to me that it was essential that, in regarding whether or not intolerable conduct had taken place, the court should have regard to all the circumstances of the case. It should have regard to any question of the insanity of the defender—any unusual temperament, or any other matter of that nature, which affects the conduct of which he has been guilty, or may have been guilty—and also to any provocation by the pursuer which may have sparked off the conduct which the pursuer now complains about. Both these things will, I hope, be covered by the requirement in the new subsection (2), that the court should have a complete look at all the circumstances. I have sought also to assimilate this particular subsection with the new provision in Clause 7(2) of the Bill, which removes the defence of insanity in cases of cruelty and intolerable conduct. Of course, there was never any question of there being a defence of insanity to intolerable conduct before, because this is a new ground found only in this Bill, but I think it was at one stage, at any rate, a defence in cruelty cases.
I do not think it would be possible in logic to have a requirement that the conduct complained of should be inexcusable and, at the same time, to say that insanity is no defence, because it might very well be said that, although insanity is no defence in one case, you are nevertheless saying that it is a defence because Clause (4)(2) makes the conduct inexcusable. Therefore, I have not applied the further test of inexcusability in cases of insanity, because I do not think that the two could possibly fit together into one Bill. But, all the same, I think that the court, in taking account of all the circumstances of the case in the other types of problem which arise—unusual temperament, or the mental abnormality of one sort or another—ought to be able to see whether or not, in those peculiar circumstances, there exists some excuse for the intolerable conduct of which the pursuer is complaining; and particularly, perhaps, if the parties when marrying knew very well that the defender had an unusual temperament or abnormality, that the pursuer is not later complaining that he or she has made a bad choice.
The word "inexcusable" is new, so far as I know, in legislation; but it seems to be the best way to explain in compendious form in legislation the concept I am trying to put over in this particular subsection. I hope that it will provide the flexibility for which my noble and learned friend Lord Reid appealed on Second Reading. If it does not, I suppose that it will be possible to go back again and seek to improve it. But I am satisfied—and I hope that I have been able to satisfy your Lordships—that this is the proper way to deal with this, and that it meets the objections that have been raised. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, leave out lines 11 to 14 and insert the said new words.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD REID: The drafting of any provision dealing with a new subject matter for divorce is, of course, extremely difficult; and the drafting of this subsection is at least as difficult as any other that has preceded it. I ventured in the course of the Second Reading debate to make some criticisms of the rigidity of the original draft. I am glad to say that the new draft carries out everything I had in mind, and I venture
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to think that it is thoroughly workable. My noble friend raised the point about the word "inexcusable". It is true that that has no statutory authority, but in certain recent cases on which those of us who sit in your Lordships' House in a Judicial capacity have been engaged, the word "inexcusable" has been chosen as one suitable to express the idea that the noble Lord is here incorporating in this draft. Therefore, I think he is perfectly right to adopt it in this case. May I say that I am glad that he has been able, here and in one subsequent Amendment, to meet the points I made? I think the new Amendments—this and the following Amendments—meet all the points I have in mind and also, so far as I know, the points that were raised by any others who criticised the Bill.
LORD HUGHES: The fact that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, finds the wording satisfactory will be of great consolation to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and his satisfaction will in no way be diminished by the fact that he has not satisfied me; because in any division on these matters a "Reid vote" is much more weighty than a "Hughes vote". But I must say, looking at it from a point of view other than that of the two noble Lords who have spoken, and who are both legal people—that is to say, looking at it particularly as a layman—it seems to me that in the very great work which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has put in to get a satisfactory definition of this, he has gone from bad to worse.
The difficulty has arisen from the need to find a satisfactory definition of "intolerable". Two adjectives were added: for a divorce to be granted, there had to be "intolerable conduct", which was "of a grave and weighty nature". I looked up "grave" and "weighty" and the variety of meanings attributable to both these words is extraordinary—and not all of them are derogatory in any way. Conduct might be "grave and weighty" simply because it was extremely serious and extremely important. This raises the possibility of grounds for divorce getting through on this definition similar to some of the rather flimsy grounds which we are accustomed to read of in, say, the United States of

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America. Conduct which might appear completely intolerable to, say, a wife of a lighthearted disposition—so much so that she did, in fact, leave her husband—might give an entirely different impression to a learned judge. Now, in an effort to find a definition that will help Her Majesty's Judges in this matter, there is introduced the word which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, finds acceptable, the word "inexcusable". It seems to me to be quite inexcusable to go to all these lengths to define the word "intolerable" and then to finish up by saying that "intolerable" conduct is to be a ground for divorce only if it is also "inexcusable", without in any way defining the word "inexcusable".
It seems to me that if Her Majesty's Judges need so much guidance on the meaning of the word "intolerable" we are not entitled to assume that they will be better off when it comes to the word "inexcusable". The meanings of both of these words are perfectly apparent to the lay mind. If it needs all this interpretation of "intolerable", and at the end of the day the matter is left entirely in the hands of the court, all that will happen will be a build-up of Case Law over a period of many years. What one Judge will consider "intolerable" may not at a particular time be considered "intolerable" or "inexcusable" by another. Although I did not have the benefit of being here during the debate on the Second Reading I gathered that that was the very thing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, was anxious to avoid.
I want to make it perfectly plain that I support the inclusion of this new ground in the Bill. The last thing I seek to do, by any act of mine, to-day or on another occasion, would be to cause this clause to be removed from the Bill. But in view of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, said about the very great difficulty of finding a definition, and in view of the fact that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, said that this was an attempt to bring the grounds into line with the almost similar conditions in England, I suggest (and I greatly regret adding still further to the labours which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has undertaken on this Bill) that another look should be given to the wording before the next
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stage of the Bill. It seems to me that we are in grave danger of making ourselves ridiculous if we go to all these lengths to define "intolerable" and end by adding a word of which we give no definition whatever. And it is on that word that the Judges are going to take their decisions; for they must be satisfied that the "intolerable" condition was "inexcusable".
Before coming into the Chamber today I had a word with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and I asked him in what circumstances conduct which has led to one spouse leaving the other for three years is "intolerable"; and in what circumstances that "intolerable" conduct becomes "inexcusable". The answer he made was that they were the circumstances he quoted: that the pursuer in the action knew before the marriage that the other spouse—husband or wife—had this peculiar disposition or temperament. But "intolerable" conduct does not really arise from any peculiar disposition or temperament. A woman or a man might know that the spouse-to-be was peculiar in particular ways without necessarily being able to anticipate his or her subsequent conduct. I think that by these words, having, perhaps, removed from the Judge the necessity to define what is "intolerable" conduct, we are requiring him to probe carefully into whether the degree of toleration or intoleration could or could not be excused by a reasonable person. In this matter of marriage, what is a "reasonable" person? What one person finds intolerable or excusable, or reasonable or unreasonable, will not necessarily be so found by another. And at the end of the day, it is going to be determined by what the Judge thinks is intolerable and what he thinks is unreasonable.
I am not opposing the Amendment. I want the ground to be in the Bill. As the noble Viscount has tried so hard, and if this is the best he can do, particularly when he has the assistance of one of Her Majesty's most eminent Judges, I doubt very much whether it would be any use my suggesting that I should try to put something down at the next stage of the Bill, because of the great danger that I should only make the matter still worse, although in view of what he has said it would be wrong to say that we should be going

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from the sublime to the ridiculous, because I think this rather verges on the ridiculous. I hope that the two noble Lords who have taken so close an interest in this matter may yet have another look at it, so as not to leave the House in the position we are in at this time: that, after they have taken all this trouble to define intolerable conduct, they leave completely undefined the inexcusability of that conduct.
LORD REID: Perhaps I could be allowed to add a word, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has rightly said, I was to some extent responsible for instigating this change. The words "grave and weighty" have a very long history. They are almost words of style. I am not sure whether they started in Lord Stowell's time, 150 years ago, but they certainly started as early as that, and I think that lawyers have a pretty good idea of what: they mean in this context.
The words "intolerable" and "inexcusable" are used for two different purposes. When you look at a man's conduct and say that it is intolerable, in the sense that no ordinary person can be expected to put up with it, then you ask why it is intolerable. It may be intolerable because it was provoked. It goes back a long way in the history of matrimonial relations that a spouse who provokes the other is not to complain if that other behaves in what would otherwise be an intolerable way. He has brought the trouble on himself and he cannot then turn round and say, "You are behaving in an intolerable way and you cannot consider whether it was my fault or not." That is the reason why the word "inexcusable" is put in. You first look at the conduct and say, if you are going to stop there, that this conduct is quite intolerable; but then you ask, "Is it inexcusable?" Often it is brought about by provocation or, it may be, the well-known temperament of the other party, or by some of what the late Lord Asquith of Bishop-stone called the "wear and tear" of married life. And the purpose of putting in these two words is to see that the court is entitled to look at all the circumstances.
I think it would be undesirable to define "inexcusable". I think that a judge is well able to say whether in the
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whole circumstances conduct is or is not inexcusable. I think that my noble friend has given adequate definition of the word "intolerable", but, of course, in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, says, I will have another look at it, and possibly if my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross thinks fit, we could have a word about it. But I certainly think that, as it stands, it is not too difficult for the courts to interpret.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am grateful to be fortified by the support of my noble and learned friend Lord Reid on this point and I am also very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, does not disapprove of the principle. I am as anxious as he is to get the matter right. I do not think I need add to what my noble and learned friend has said, because he has explained the different functions of these two words in the subsection, but there are one or two points I should just like to make to the noble Lord opposite.
First of all, when he is talking about the interpretation that a reasonable man would put upon this action or that, I would say that this may be a correct consideration when dealing with the "intolerable conduct" part of this clause as one of the grounds of divorce. What I do not wish, however, is that the pure standard of a reasonable man should be brought in when it comes to the second part of the job of the courts, to interpret whether or not the action was in the circumstances inexcusable, because that is where the trouble has arisen to a great extent in England. It has only just been resolved and, thanks to your Lordships' House, the law South of the Border has just been put into the position where the court can look at the individual characteristics of this husband or this wife in the particular circumstances of the case before them. It is precisely that individual appreciation that I wish to give the court in subsection (2) of this clause, and I think it would be the gravest error to go back now to some very strict objective or subjective test when dealing with this matter.
I would recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that he reads the opinions on this subject in the two cases of Collins and Williams, decided in the

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middle of last year, which set out this extremely technical and long-standing problem with great clarity. I hope he will then begin to see how I have attempted in this subsection to deal with these problems, so as not to introduce them in this new ground into Scotland.
The other point I should like to make to the noble Lord is this. If it is a question of case law having to be built up, then it is, of course, a great safeguard that the cases from the Court of Session come to be heard on appeal, if necessary, in your Lordships' House in England, where if there is any conflict between the law in England and the law in Scotland it can be remedied by noble and learned Lords, such as my noble and learned friend Lord Reid. I think this is a very great safeguard for the principle that the Amendment puts forward.
I think the noble Lord should take account of the fact that the terms he has referred to are terms of art which are fully understood by lawyers, even though to the layman they may seem rather vague. I do not think that they are. But, having said all that, of course I should like to try to meet any point that troubles the noble Lord, and if he will get in touch with me I will see whether, with the help of my noble and learned friend, which he has so kindly offered, something can be done to improve the Bill further. Meanwhile, I beg your Lordships to accept this Amendment, which is the best I have been able to do, so far at any rate, and, if necessary, return to this matter on the Report stage of the Bill.
LORD HUGHES: Would the noble Viscount be good enough to give me a note of where I can find the cases to which he referred, and let me know where I can find the equivalent English wording that deals with this situation? The last thing on earth I wish to suggest is that English lawyers can do anything better than Scottish lawyers. In saying that I would look at this matter, I hope it will not force me into looking at it from the point of view of a lawyer, because that is a fate from which I hope to be preserved.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I will willingly give the noble Lord the
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references to the two cases to which I referred. So far as the equivalent English wording is concerned, I think I am right in saying that it is not a statutory wording at all. It is based on the doctrine of constructive desertion, which has been developed by the courts out of the ordinary ground of divorce by desertion. It is the other way round from the facts as they might appear to the outside eye. I do not think the noble Lord will find any exact equivalent wording in any English Statute. Rather it is a matter of judge-made law which has been built up over the years. But I will gladly give the noble Lord any help I can in these references.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 22, leave out subsection (3).—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [No requirement of protection in divorce for cruelty]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I explained on the Second Reading of the Bill that there was only one object in Clause 6, and it was to remove from the ground of cruelty for divorce the requirement that the court should have regard to the present and future protection of the pursuer when they are considering whether or not to grant a decree. There was some question raised by your Lordships that I was going further than this and changing the actual offence of cruelty on which the whole ground of divorce is founded. This is far from my intention, and I hope that the new Clause 6 makes it clear that the object of the clause is the wholly restrictive one that I have mentioned. I hope that this will be satisfactory to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 6, and insert the following new clause:
(". In an action of divorce for cruelty under section 1 of the Divorce (Scotland) Act 1938

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the court shall not be required to have regard to the need for present or future protection of the pursuer."—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Restriction of certain defences]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think the wording that I propose here to leave out is perhaps slightly strange and might, although it was not intended to, suggest rather a higher burden of proof upon the person seeking to satisfy the court than I intended. What I meant was that it should appear to the court, and that is what I now move to put in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 43, leave out ("the court is satisfied on the evidence") and insert ("it appears to the court").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I have already mentioned that subsection (2)(a) of Clause 7 provides that it shall no longer be a defence in the case of cruelty, and now intolerable conduct, that the defendant is insane. I do not think that mental disorder, as such, ever was a defence either in Scotland or in England, and it was only insanity that raised this defence on the part of the defender. Therefore, there is no need to take account of anything other than pure insanity. That is what this Amendment provides for. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 8, leave out ("mental disorder") and insert ("insanity").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Extension of powers to court to award aliment]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This, as I explained to your Lordships before, is a procedural clause. It seemed to me that the phraseology had become
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a little complicated. It is intended to deal with only one thing, and that is to give interim aliment to a pursuer where there is no question of that pursuer's being required to adhere to the defender. There was some doubt whether the court could give interim aliment where the pursuer was not prepared so to adhere. I have attempted in the previous drafting of this clause to express that with some particularity. However, I think the insertion of the words "with just cause" in the place where the Amendment inserts them will provide all that is necessary to explain the new jurisdiction that the court is getting. In consequence, Amendment No. 8 can also be passed, with your Lordships' approval, and leave out the last phrase in this clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 14, after ("is") insert ("with just cause").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 15, leave out from ("defender") to end of line 17,—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 [Interpretation]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Since I have, for better or worse, now defined "intolerable conduct" in Clause 4(1)(b), there is no need for any reference to it in the Interpretation Clause, Clause 9. It should therefore be left out. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 24, leave out lines 24 and 25.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with Amendments.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS (ANÆSTHETICS) BILL [H.L.]
4.18 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Dowding.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AIREDALE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Enlargement of classes of operations in which anœsthetics must be used]:
LORD HENLEY: The Amendment in my name concerns the age at which a bull calf may properly be castrated without an anæsthetic. The existing law is that it may not properly be castrated without an anæsthetic at an age older than twelve months. The Bill substitutes three months; and my Amendment seeks to make it six months. If the operation has to be performed after the proposed age, it must be done with an anæsthetic, and probably that means it should be done by a vet, because anæsthesia is not something which should be left in the hands of an unqualified farmer or shepherd.
I move this Amendment mainly to see what hill farmers feel about it, and also to hear what the Government have to say. Very little was said on this subject on the Second Reading of the Bill. The noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, aired a cognate aspect of the subject when he discussed rubber rings, but nothing much was said about the problems concerning the hill farmer and bull calves. Naturally, I am anxious that the law as we make it should be in the best interests of those animals which we keep for our own use. Therefore, I should like to hear what others have to say about this Amendment, as it affects animals quite considerably.
I am prepared to agree that bull calves are probably best castrated below the age of three months, and I think that probably most of them in fact are castrated below three months. But this is not entirely the normal practice. It is frequently done between four and five
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and a half months. There are certain difficulties, so far as hill farmers are concerned. As your Lordships know, hill-suckled herds that are wandering on the high hills, ranging with their mothers, are not brought down quite so readily, and are not so easily and conveniently handled. So it frequently happens that a man will bring in a batch of calves and do them at one go, and then he will bring in another batch and do them at another go. Therefore, whereas probably the bulk of them are being castrated at under three months, quite a number of them will be slightly older.
Then again, there is the question, with hill-suckled herds, of keeping a calf for a bull. If you have a good calf that is likely to turn into a bull (you cannot always recognise this at under three months), you may want a little longer to decide whether you are going to keep it as a bull, or whether you are going to steer it. Again, some farmers like to castrate calves a little later than three months because they think that they grow better this way, from the point of view of the beef animal. It is not quite the same question as not castrating them at all and butchering them uncastrated straight off their dams, as in the case of a lot of black-faced lambs which are not castrated at all and are butchered at, shall we say, three months-plus, uncastrated. Nor is it quite the same as the bull beef, which is becoming very popular now, where the animal is kept as a bull calf up to, say, nine months, or even older, and is then butchered, uncastrated. But it is cognate with this new Russian system to half-castrate animals. It is in a way a sort of primitive way of doing the same thing—that is to say, to let them grow on a little longer uncastrated.
This is the sort of problem that, so far as the hill farmer is concerned, affects him if the noble Lord's Bill goes through unamended. I feel that six months would be a perfectly reasonable age at which to put it. I do not think there is any more cruelty in castrating at six months than in doing it at three months. Also, it falls into line with the special concession which is granted to hill farmers to have their calves subsidised at six months instead of eight months, as is usual. On ordinary farms the age is eight months, but in the case of hill

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farmers, with the rather later born calves, the subsidies are give at six months. Of course, before the calves are subsidised they must be properly castrated, and must have properly recovered from that castration. So in fact, in allowing the hill farmer six months, in most cases in fact it probably means five and a half months.
When the noble Lord introduced this Bill, he said that he had the best veterinary opinion. I wonder how far veterinary opinion has been consulted over this matter. I know that, for instance, the local branch of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons where I live, in North-West Cumberland—and that branch ties in with the Dumfriesshire branch, and I think probably covers as far as Kirkcudbrightshire—have not been asked to consider it. I think that is a fairly important point. Hill farmers live in these wild, out-of-the-way places, and points of this sort are apt to be forgotten when the general principle is under consideration. The general principle of three months is, I am sure, a good one, but it does raise these difficulties for hill farmers, and I am not entirely sure that they have been fully consulted, at any rate so far as the local branches are concerned.
There is one last aspect of this matter. If the age stays at three months I think there will be a tendency for the law in this respect to be brought into contempt, in that farmers will not obey it. Nobody can say whether a calf is three months old or five months old: its age is what the farmer says it is. This, of course, applies also to subsidising calves, which are not normally supposed to be subsidised until they are eight months' old. So long as the calf is well grown, the subsidy officer accepts what the farmer says. The same thing applies here. If this Bill is passed unamended, and the age remains at three months, the farmer will frequently castrate an animal at five months and merely say that it is three months.
I would have raised similar objections to the rubber rings, but I do not do so for this reason: that it is impracticable for the hill farmer to castrate or tail lambs in the first week—and he does not tail lambs in the case of black-faced sheep. I do not want to raise
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this point, because veterinary surgeons do not like rubber rings anyway; and anything like this which is impracticable, from the point of view of tailing or castrating lambs with a rubber ring at one week, will tend to discourage people from using the rubber rings at all. I think the same thing to some extent applied to the burdizzo, or bloodless castrators: on the whole, vets do not care for them. They inevitably leave dead tissue which is bound to decay, and they also tend in this way to release a certain amount of histamine into the blood, which I understand possibly inhibits the best growth. So I leave that side of the subject alone. But I hope the noble Lord will perhaps meet me so far as the bull calves are concerned, and will be willing to allow the age to be six months instead of three months. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 16, leave out ("three months") and insert ("six months").—(Lord Henley.)
4.27 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: I feel that I must oppose this Amendment very strongly, because it is against the whole purpose of the Bill. Some clear facts have been laid down by the British Veterinary Association which I feel destroy any evidence the noble Lord has produced. I sympathise very much with his feelings for the hill farmer, but, after all, bull calves are not owned by any farmer in such numbers that they would be impossible to deal with. The British Veterinary Association have pointed out several facts. First, there is the fact that development between three months and six months is very rapid indeed, and the state of the calf between those ages would be very different. A healthy bull calf may well have reached puberty by the age of six months, and in that case the operation would be a very painful one indeed. Naturally, the ideal thing would be to have anæsthetics used in all circumstances, but one quite realises that this is impossible. I do not think that one should allow the operation at an age greater than three months, because I feel that beyond that age the development has been too rapid and too great, and the operation therefore would be far too painful. I hope the noble Lord will not press this Amendment.
4.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should like to speak for a short time against this Amendment. I feel that what the noble Lord, Lord Somers, said is quite correct: that you cannot compare the age of three months with six months, and a bull calf of six months can feel far more inconvenience at this operation than a calf of under three months. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, drew a parallel between hill cattle and hill sheep. I agree with him that in the case of hill sheep it may be very difficult for the hill farmer to gather in 2,000 or 3,000 sheep; there may be low cloud for a long time. But, compared with the number of hill sheep, the hill farmer when he has a herd of hill cattle may have 30, 40 or 50 beasts, and to say that he cannot gather them all in within three months is, I think, rather far-fetched. The noble Lord also said that if you have a calf that you are anxious to keep as a bull, you will obviously want to keep it for over three months to see whether it is going to improve sufficiently in its conformation to warrant being kept as a bull. If that is so and it does not improve sufficiently, then all you have to do is to have it castrated at five or six months, or if you like, at eight months, under an anæthetic used by a vet. So I really cannot support this Amendment.
LORD DOWDING: Some doubt was raised by the noble Lord who moved this Amendment about whether the veterinary profession as a whole were behind this Bill. Of course, I cannot answer for every branch or every section of the profession, but the fact is that it was the British Veterinary Association who made the original proposal for the reduction of the age at which bull calves might be castrated without an anæsthetic; and their proposal was two months. The hill farmers were then consulted and these other points about the difficulty of rounding up and gathering in all the calves in time were taken into consideration, and at that meeting three months was agreed upon as a reasonable compromise.
The noble Viscount who has just spoken has dealt with the question of the considerable growth which occurs in bull calves between the ages of three
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and six months. As a rule, bull calves are well developed at this age, with a marked increase in the blood supply to the reproductive system, and certainly they will be far more sensitive to pain at that age than at three months. We must not overlook the fact that this Bill is designed to preserve animals from all unnecessary suffering. Therefore, I would not be inclined to agree that the age should be raised beyond three months.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, raised one new point: the difficulty of ensuring that this law would be universally complied with. I think that, on the whole, the inhabitants of this country are more law-abiding that one would expect, if one's only source of information were the daily papers because it is the law breakers rather than the law abiders who get most of the notices. Admittedly, it would be quite impossible to ensure that no infraction of this Bill, if it becomes an Act, ever takes place, but one has to think of the general compliance with the Act. I think that rather a good parallel may be taken from that of the Act which prohibited the slaughter of pigs without the use of a humane killer or some method of stunning. I dare say it happens more or less frequently that some pig owner in a remote part of the country kills a pig without any preliminary stunning, but I believe the Act has been accepted as a whole, and an enormous amount of suffering is saved to a very large number of animals. So I am not inclined to accept the argument that it would be very difficult to enforce this regulation.
Assuming that this Bill goes through and it becomes illegal to castrate a bull calf over the age of three months without an anæsthetic, the farmer still has two alternatives. One, is to employ a veterinary surgeon to carry out the operation, but, as I tried to explain on the Second Reading of the Bill, it is now possible and legal for the owner of an animal or his accredited representative to adminster an anæthetic himself before the operation is carried out; and that is a possibility which I think has been rather overlooked. There is, of course, the obvious danger that ignorant and unqualified persons may attempt to apply the anesthetic themselves. But one would very strongly advise any farmer or owner who intends to take advantage of this new power to

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get some instruction from a veterinary officer on three particular points: the first being the exact point at which the puncture should be made, the second being the precise dose which should be applied, and the third, the period of time which should elapse after the application of the anæsthetic and the beginning of the operation. As there are these two possibilities open to the farmer, I personally should not be inclined to accept this Amendment and I hope the noble Lord may see his way to withdraw it.
LORD HENLEY: It is far from my wish to press this Amendment. As I said at the beginning, I raised it really to air the subject because I did not feel it had been aired at all on Second Reading. I think there are difficulties as far as the hill farmer is concerned, and I do not think these difficulties have altogether been answered by the two noble Lords who spoke against my Amendment or by the noble Lord whose Bill this is. I have no wish to press this and I intend to withdraw it. But I think there are one or two points which the noble Lord raised which I had not said very much about, in particular about anæsthesia. I think, in the first place, that anæsthetising an animal is very often as painful and disturbing as performing this very minor operation. Certainly this is so in the case of a tom cat, referred to in another part of the Act; it is very much quicker and easier to perform the operation than to anæsthetise it, which is very distressing to it. Secondly, I think unbridled use of anæsthetics by amateurs, even on animals, is something very much to be discouraged.
Those are merely two points I raise because the noble Lord expatiated on them a little. My basic point is still the difficulties for the hill farmer, and I do not think these have been answered, and I cannot help feeling that when this Bill goes to another place some of these points on this particular item of the three months as opposed to six months will possibly have a rather rougher passage than I have been able to arouse for them in your Lordships' House. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

RATING (INTERIM RELIEF) BILL
4.45 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, I beg to move that the Rating (Interim Relief) Bill be now read a second time. This is a short Bill designed to enable rating authorities to give interim relief to certain domestic ratepayers who have had a sharp increase in rates following the general revaluation of 1963. At that revaluation houses moved from 1939 to 1962 rental values while other property moved from 1955 to 1962 values. The Government's action in ending industrial derating coupled with the lapse of commercial derating cushioned the effect of these very unequal changes, so much so that in the country as a whole domestic ratepayers as a class are bearing much the same share of local expenditure now as in 1962. In fact, they are bearing 48 per cent. whereas it was 47 per cent. But the averages of course conceal extremes and once all the consequential effects of revaluation on grants, precepts and rates had worked themselves out it was obvious that a number of ratepayers were faced with exceptional increases in rates, and that some of them are faced with hardship as a result.
The general impression is that a very small number of rating areas have a fair number of households faced with hardship as a result of the increase in rates; that a rather larger number of rating areas have a smaller problem of this kind; and that rating areas with a high proportion of retired people figure prominently in both these groups. This is the impression created by the considerable volume of correspondence reaching my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and his Department.
That correspondence, however, leaves a great many gaps in our knowledge, and my right honourable friends the

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Minister of Housing and the Secretary of State for Scotland decided that these should be filled by a fact-finding study by an independent Committee. The Committee, with Professor Allen of the London School of Economics as Chairman, were appointed last June. They have had a special field survey carried out for the purpose and the data collected is now being prepared for analysis by computer. The Committee are expected to report this summer. Their findings will provide much of the basic material for the Government's own examination of central and local government finance and of the rating system. But these reviews, and any permanent legislation that springs from them, will all take time and this Bill has been introduced to enable rating authorities to deal with the sharpest cases of hardship meanwhile.
The Bill has two main provisions. The link between the two appears at first to be tenuous and is perhaps better understood if the second provision is considered first. This is in Clause 2, which enables rating authorities to give a measure of rate relief in any or all of the next four years if they are satisfied that a household is faced with hardship as a result of an increase in the level of rates since 1962–63, the last year before revaluation. The rating authority's discretion is limited to those cases where the rates on the dwelling occupied by the household increased between 1962–63 and 1964–65—a period of two years—by 25 per cent., or by a minimum of £5 if that is more than 25 per cent. And the amount of rates they may remit in any year may not exceed the difference between the 1964–65 rates and the 1962–63 rates as increased by the 25 per cent. or £5.
The most common criticism of the Bill has been of its failure to define "hardship". My right honourable friend has never attempted to conceal the omission or the reason for it. This is an interim measure and until the Allen Committee have established the facts about the impact of rates it would be premature to attempt a national definition of such a subjective state. Indeed, it is questionable whether a national definition is practicable—whether the "hardship" that may be
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found in the boroughs of West London is of the same kind as that found in, say, the remoter rural districts. In some of those boroughs the average increase in rates for houses this year exceeded the total average rates per house in many rating areas in other parts of the country. The job of identifying cases of hardship will be invidious and, for a very small number of authorities, fairly substantial. But the Government believe that it is a job which can in present circumstances be done only locally, and they have every confidence in the authorities' ability to do it.
Under Clause 5 the Exchequer will meet half the cost of the remissions up to 3 per cent. of the authority's gross rate income. It is expected that the majority of rating authorities will not remit more. But any authority that gives reliefs aggregating more than 3 per cent. of gross rate income will also get two-thirds of the excess over that proportion reimbursed by the Exchequer. With a 9s. rate poundage, 3 per cent. of gross rate income is roughly equal to a 3¼d. rate. The balance of remission will fall on the rates, and in a county will be shared between ratepayers in the county at large and those in the county district where the remission is given. In any area where there is a considerable incidence of hardship the rating authority might still have to put up their rates by a penny or two just to cover the cost of the remissions, and it is to offset this increase that the other Exchequer grant, under Clause 1, the main provision, is designed.
This grant is to be paid to all rating authorities with more than one-tenth of their population over the age of 65. The grant is at the rate of £5 a year for each elderly person in excess of that proportion, so that the higher the proportion the more the grant under Clause 1. The grant rests with the rating authority—it is not shared with the county—and is paid in aid of their revenues generally. As I said earlier, there appears to be some correlation between the proportions of elderly and the extent of hardship resulting from increases in rates following revaluation, though the Government would not claim for one moment that one is directly proportionate to the other.

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They therefore believe that this two, grant system will enable rating authorities generally to deal with hardship of the kind that the Bill is designed to meet without increasing materially, if at all, the rates levied on their other ratepayers, many of whom will also have had quite substantial increases in rates to meet. No doubt that result could have been achieved more precisely by giving 100 per cent. reimbursement under Clause 5 instead; but, unlike the system adopted by the Bill, that would inevitably take away from the rating authorities their financial responsibility to their ratepayers for the way in which they administer the hardship provisions.
The remaining provisions of the Bill are in the main consequential on Clause 2. Clause 3 specifies how the rates attributable to a dwelling for the relevant years are to be calculated. Clause 4 provides for the variation or termination of relief following a material change of circumstances—not defined but intended primarily to deal with a change in the ratepayer's ability to pay his rates without hardship. Clause 5 I have already referred to.
Clause 6 prevents the grant of relief under Clause 2 from affecting the proportion of rate-deficiency grant payable to a rating authority, but ensures that it is taken into account in calculating the rate product for the purposes of precepts. Clause 7 provides for regulations governing the calculation and payment of grants. Clause 8 contains the interpretation provisions; Clause 9 deals with expenses; and Clause 10 with the Short Title and extent. The Bill does not extend to Scotland.
My Lords, as I emphasised at the beginning, this is a stop-gap measure. Amendments made in another place inserted "31st March. 1968" as a terminal date for both of the main provisions of the Bill. The Amendments were not intended as a guarantee that the provisions of the Bill would continue willy-nilly until then. They are an earnest of the Government's intention to replace this interim measure by that date at latest by whatever permanent legislation may be decided upon as a result of their review of central and local government finance and of the rating system.
The present Bill is a modest measure involving only a relatively small increase in Exchequer grant to local government.
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No more is claimed for it than that it will enable rating authorities to deal with hardship resulting from a sharp increase in householders' rates following revaluation; but the Government believe that it can bring much-needed relief to those particularly hard hit, and they commend it to your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hastings)
4.56 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, we are most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, for his introductory speech. He has classified this as a modest and stop-gap measure. Really, it is just tinkering with the problem. What the noble Lord did not say was why the Bill has been brought in at all—because it will not be effective in regard to anyone anywhere in the country. The real reason for the measure is that at the Tory Party Conference the seaside landladies got a little obstreperous, because in seaside towns and certain towns without any industry the increase in rates arising from the 1961 Act tended to be higher than was the case in industrial areas. But the landladies in Bournemouth and Worthing have been in clover ever since 1929, from the Derating Act, and the industrial areas have been taking the burden. All that has happened now is that there is a little more equity as between the rateable burdens borne by hereditaments throughout the country.
The noble Lord did not deal with what was really worrying the Tory Party Conference, and what is worrying the country at the present time—namely, the sharp increase in rate burden charges that has occurred in the period of the Tory Government's term of office. Ever since 1951, every Rating and Valuation Act and every Local Government Act which has been brought in by the Government has transferred costs from the taxpayer to the ratepayer, from the Treasury to the local authority. The changeover in the 1957 Act from the percentage grant to the general grant basis, and in other Acts where added burdens have been included within the general grant basis, shows the effect of this matter.
As I have stated in this House on a number of occasions, I am associated with

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Hertfordshire. The change from the percentage to the general grant basis in this year in Hertfordshire means that the ratepayers are bearing £1¼ million to £1½ million extra in rates than they would have done under the old system. Rates in Hertfordshire have gone up this year by 6d. or, to be exact, by 5·8d.—and £1¼ million is equal to a 6d. rate. It is this transfer of the burden of cost of local government services from the Exchequer to the ratepayer which is the cause of the problem, and this Bill does not deal with it in any shape or form. Under this Bill, where in Hertfordshire there has been an increased cost this year of £1½ million the grants to the district councils in Hertfordshire amount to £40,000—a mere fleabite. The Bill as a whole is a grant to local authorities of £1½ million spread over 1,500 rating authorities—that is, 1 per cent. of the total Exchequer grant.
My reference just now to "a fleabite" was an exaggeration. My information is that the rates over the country as a whole for 1964–65 will increase by 8 per cent. The Government, in other terms, have talked about a "guiding light" in regard to an increase of 4 to 4½ per cent. If we apply the "guiding light" to local government, to enable local authorities to meet the added cost placed upon them by the Treasury would mean a 5 per cent. addition to the general grant. But, of course, that will have to be dealt with on the problem of transferring some of the charges in regard to educational services from the ratepayer back to the Treasury. Of course, it is too fundamental a change for the Government to take.
The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, referred to the fact that under the Bill grants to local authorities will depend upon the proportion of the population over 65. The proportion of people over that age in any community does not in any shape or form determine the ability of ratepayers in an area to carry the added burdens which have been placed upon them in recent years as a result of deliberate Government action. A further point made by Lord Hastings was that there was no definition of "hardship". I consider that the Bill will fail because here is no such definition. The Minister was a little more forthcoming in another place than the noble Lord has been to-day. He went so far as to
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say that hardship occurs where the income of the individual is only slightly above National Assistance level. This makes confusion worse confounded. I am not a lawyer, but I can imagine lawyers having a merry game and earning plenty of fees over the definition of what "slightly above" means. It is almost as difficult as determining what hardship is.
It would not be unkind to say that this is a "means test Government". First, they try to put weekly rent-paying tenants in local authority houses on a means test for rents. Now we are to get a means test for rates. The tragedy is that perhaps those who most need relief—those to whom the Minister, in compiling this Bill, was most desirous of giving relief—will not get it at all. They will be too proud to go parading their poverty before the local authorities. It is no good saying to such people that the information given to local councils is confidential. They have their doubts. Members in both Houses tell people who are in difficulties that they should apply for National Assistance, but numbers of people who are entitled to such assistance and who ought to be drawing it do not do so because of the necessity to make a declaration of their incomes. In spite of the fact that this is intended to give relief, the only persons who are going to be sure of relief are industrialists, commercial hereditaments, Crown lands and wealthy ratepayers. The very people whom the Bill is designed to relieve will very likely get no relief at all.
I have mentioned the fact that there is no definition of hardship. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said it would be impossible to get a national definition of hardship. Yet we are going to have 1,500 rating authorities trying to determine hardship; so we are going to have 1,500 interpretations of hardship. It is even worse, because under the Bill I can see that there will be no compulsion at all on a local authority to make a grant. I can see some miserly local authorities even making a profit out of the Bill by taking the grant and giving no relief. Having had some local government experience, I must confess that it is tempting, if one is faced with a big rate increase, to take some money from somewhere to try to make a general decrease rather than particular decreases.
A lot of fuss is made about the burden of rate increases. I have experience of

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one authority where the biggest increase in any rented property was one shilling a week. We had no grumbles at all on that, but when it came to the direct ratepayer who was called upon for a comparable property to pay £2 12s. split up into two halves, there was an immediate outcry against the extra amount. I can see that under this Bill it is going to mean in some areas an increase in local authority staffs. In some London boroughs and in many of the industrial towns there are tenement houses containing three, four, sometimes five dwellings—and, unfortunately, in the London boroughs sometimes more than five. It will mean a splitting of the hereditament if the ratepayer is claiming a relief, and will mean a great amount of work in determining whether or not under the terms of the Bill the ratepayer who claims is entitled to relief.
A further point is that it is a requirement of the Bill that the persons should have been resident in the property in 1962–63. Some of the people who have been hardest hit, particularly the older people, are the people who have been the victims of the 1957 Rent Act. They have had to get out of their accommodation and take further accommodation at a higher rent and a higher rate, far in excess of 25 per cent. or £5; and yet these people, who are hardest hit, will get nothing at all out of the Bill. In fact, they may have to make a contribution in their own rates to those who in fact get relief.
I said in opening that this was tinkering with the matter. On reflection, I think I might be accused of being over-generous to the Government, because of the basic fact that this Bill gives no advance whatever. Under the 1925 Rating and Valuation Act, a local authority during the whole of that period until to-day has had the powers to write off rates on the ground of poverty; but to get relief under this Bill people have practically to be in the bread line. All I can say to the Government is that the attitude of ratepayers will be: "Thank you for nothing!".
5.9 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords in my capacity as President of the National Union of Ratepayers' Associations, I have a small interest, of a strictly non-financial nature, to declare in the pro-1264
visions of the Bill, which I welcome, with a number of reservations. One of the most important criticisms of the Bill is in regard to the Explanatory Memorandum on Clause 1, because this gives the impression that the £5 relief grant goes to each person over 65. In fact, as I understand it, the money goes to the local authority which has the discretion to use the money as it thinks fit. But having said that (and I do not have the experience of local government which the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, has) I would add that I think the majority of local authorities, of whatever Party, would use the money trustfully. But there is a danger in some cases that these monies may be used for purposes other than those intended in this Bill.
The main objection to this Bill is undoubtedly the need for the people who are to benefit to go either to their National Assistance office or to their local council so that their hardship can be defined and tested. This admittedly amounts to a means test. It seems to me, and to the National Union of Ratepayers' Associations who support this idea, of which I have already given notice to my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, that these claims could be submitted in writing under a confidential seal, so that the people concerned do not have to go in person. Some of them may be infirm, physically lame, or otherwise in a very difficult position, and not easily able to travel a long way to a National Assistance or local council office. If they were able to submit these claims in writing it would save them a great deal of trouble, and possibly some embarrassment, because it may well be that some of their friends, particularly if they go to their local council, will accuse them of seeking favours. This, I know, is a novel suggestion but it seems to me to be worthy of consideration by the Government.
I think this Bill could be defined as a "Waiting for Allen" measure. It is an interim Bill, and already the headquarters of the National Union of Ratepayers' Associations has received 300 letters from ratepayers' associations concerning hardship, and 80 of these have been formally acknowledged by

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the Minister. This clearly proves one thing: the urgent need for the Allen Committee to report quickly—because many of these cases are of quite genuine hardship. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, mentioned, I think fairly, as indeed did the Minister, that hardship is a difficult term to define. It is this shortcoming that is a major defect of the Bill, because it means that the onus is placed on any hard-pressed local authority. I should have thought it would be possible for some more general guidance to be given on this matter.
It will be largely the seaside resorts that will benefit from the terms of this Bill. Having some knowledge of a number of seaside resorts, I think it is fair to say that many of the people living there are retired and living on fixed incomes; people who, even when they worked, were not earning large salaries. So I think they are entitled to some benefit. If I might quote one town which I know, Sidmouth, in Devon, a number of people who are on fixed incomes have retired there. I would add that there are also a number of people who are sufficiently well placed as not necessarily to benefit from this Bill. But I have some figures which show that there is at least one case where 30 per cent. of the income of the person goes in rates; and there are 38 cases where between 10 per cent. and 21 per cent. of income goes in actual rates alone. My Lords, this is a very high figure.
Quite a lot has been said in ratepayers' circles that education should be made a national responsibility, and that that would help to cushion rates for those who find difficulty in paying them. I think that the suggestion which has been put forward from a number of circles, that a minimum of 75 per cent. of the cost of education should fall on the national exchequer, is generally sound. It would probably help to some extent. It is also fair to say that many local authorities have had big school-building schemes, road works programmes, and so on. The cost of all these schemes is added to the rates, of course, and leads to increases in the rates.
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My Lords, as I have said, this is an interim Bill. It has met with a lot of criticism from all Parties, but at least it is a start in giving relief, even though of a small nature. But I urge the Government to do what they can to expedite the results of the Allen inquiry and, when the Report has been forthcoming, to take action. It has been suggested in some circles that a Royal Commission on Rating would help. I do not think so. We have had too many Royal Commissions. There have been enough inquiries on rating matters over the years. It is not a problem that can be solved in five minutes, but it is hoped that the Allen Committee will give a substantial lead for doing something radical. The point that I mentioned about claims being put in writing, is a Committee point. But, subject to that, I feel, having made a number of criticisms of this Bill, that as an interim measure it can be welcomed and certainly commends itself to a Second Reading.
5.20 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, this is one more attempt to patch up the system of local rating in this country and to try to make it tolerable to the ratepayers. This is a process which has been going on now for some seventy years. In 1896, the rates on agricultural land were reduced by half; in 1923 by three-quarters. A few years afterwards, agricultural land was derated entirely, and freight transport hereditaments and industrial hereditaments were partially derated. Then, after the last war, we had a measure which proposed a new basis of valuation which was so complicated and so unsatisfactory that it was abandoned before it came into operation. A new compromise was arrived at under which rateable values on dwelling-houses remained at 1939 values, and other hereditaments were rated at current values. That was mitigated by a reduction of the rateable values of commercial property.
Now we have come on further. The valuation of houses is now raised to current values, and the derating provisions are abolished except for agricultural land—and once more we have a Bill to try to mitigate the effects of this system. Agricultural land has been derated in spite of the fact that in many

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cases land which would hardly sell for £20 an acre before the war is now selling for £200 an acre. Nothing could be more inequitable than that—thrusting the burden upon other sections of the ratepayers. That is something which cries out for alteration, especially at a time when the Exchequer is providing, in addition to the subsidy of relief from rates, support for agriculture to the extent of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, which is in fact creating this increase in the price of agricultural land. It is time that some of that was skimmed off by a proper rate upon the value of land: not upon the value of the farmer's house, as at present—let that be exempted; and let his buildings and other improvements be exempted so as to encourage production—but upon the pure land value, at any rate, which is surplus profit and should make its contribution.
My Lords, what is the use of appointing a Committee to investigate this matter once more? Everybody who has given any thought to the problem knows perfectly well that a tax or a rate levied upon an absolutely essential article of living is bound to be a form of regressive taxation which falls more heavily upon those who are least able to bear it. Nothing could be plainer than that: it does not require any elaborate investigation to discover it. As the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, has said, we have had Royal Commissions and other bodies to inquire into the rating system. As long ago as 1885 the Royal Commisison on the Housing of the Working Classes pointed out how unreasonable it was that land of considerable value required for building but not used should escape rates entirely.
At the beginning of this century the Royal Commission on Local Taxation made a Report. Five members—a minority, I agree—made a separate Report in which they proposed that rates should be levied upon site values. It was a Minority Report, but how distinguished were the members of that minority! Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the father of the present Lord, who was the Chairman of the Royal Commission, was a party to it; Lord Kinross, the Lord President of the Court of Session, was another: Sir Edward Hamilton, Secretary to the Treasury; Sir George
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Murray, the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue; Mr. James Stewart, M.P.—those were the members who brought forward this recommendation, and it was a recommendation which went to the root of the matter. It is the only remedy which anybody has ever suggested which is of a practical character and which can be carried out without any difficulty. It is one which has the enormous advantage of freeing from local rates the buildings, factories and other improvements which add to production or to the amenities and necessities of life and which we ought to encourage, whilst at the same time taking for public revenue a value which exists, and which could continue to exist, only by reason of the activity of the community generally and of the public expenditure which is needed in order to provide for the requisites of civilised society.
In spite of the fact that this has been done in many other countries under most varying conditions—in Denmark, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and East Africa; they have for many years rated on site values—there have still, time after time, been suggestions that it cannot be done in this country. It has been said that you will not get enough revenue, and that there are difficulties about making the valuation. These queries have now been settled by a practical experiment which was carried out under the auspices of the Rating and Valuation Association, in a very public-spirited and wise fashion. They had a valuation made of the site value of the town of Whitstable, with a population of 20,000 persons—and what was the result?
They found that the annual site value was eight-ninths of the present rateable value, and that in order to raise the same amount of revenue as is raised at present by a rate of 11s. in the pound you would have needed a rate of only 12s. 5d. in the pound upon the site value. They also found that it was easier to make this valuation than to make an ordinary valuation for rating, because you had not got to inspect minutely every house to find out whether it had a bathroom or not, or a garage or not, or differed from its neighbours in details of that kind. What is more, they found that, using amateur labour,

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they were able to carry this thing out in a space of nine months, without all the facilities which are at the disposal of the professional valuers of the Inland Revenue.
My Lords, it is time that something was done upon those lines. It is a very great pity that the recommendations which have been made in this direction—the requests which have been made by leading local authorities in this country, such as the London County Council, Glasgow, Manchester and others—have been ignored upon the specious pleas that this thing cannot be done. It can be done; and the Whitstable experiment has shown it would give an enormous degree of relief to the majority of householders, whether tenants or owner-occupiers; and that it would give relief to the majority of shopkeepers, but not necessarily in respect of sites situated in the central shopping areas where the values are extremely high and which quite possibly would be required to make a more substantial contribution. But it would not necessarily give any relief to vacant land; it would require it to make some contribution. There is the practical experiment. This is something which really can and should be done in order to find a permanent and satisfactory solution of this problem, instead of tinkering away at it, year after year, with one device after another.
5.30 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, the only merit I can think of in this Bill is that, at any rate, it is only a temporary measure. I can regard it only as a panic measure not wholly uninfluenced by the approach of a General Election. Clause 1 provides discriminating assistance, amounting to £6½ million, to certain local authorities: it is given to those local authorities with more than 10 per cent. of persons over 65 years of age; and these local authorities are not necessarily the poorest ones. This is an arbitrary interference with the existing general grant and it is not carefully calculated, as the general grant is, to make the money available where it is most needed. There is no obligation on these local authorities to pass on the relief to individuals. Therefore, the benefit may very well be received by the whole body of ratepayers, the rich as
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well as the poor; those who are not in need, as well as those who are suffering hardship.
Clause 2 I regard as even more objectionable. It applies in cases where the burden of rates goes up by more than one quarter and where indiividuals are said to suffer from hardship. This is a discriminating power to remit. I cannot believe that it is a good thing that the authority responsible for collecting taxation should also be the authority that is given power to remit it. Even in the case of taxation the Board of Inland Revenue enjoys autonomy from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I cannot believe that local authorities are suitable bodies to exercise this discretion, since most of them are elected, to a greater or lesser extent, according to political Parties; and it is not unlikely that they will be affected to some extent, consciously or unconsciously, by political prejudice. It is quite possible that some of the councillors and officials may themselves be desirous of obtaining relief, and they would be entitled to claim under this Bill. Moreover, there would be no uniformity between the 1,467 rating authorities who are going to exercise this discrimination.
My Lords, it was soon after the war that, because of the wide differences between the bases of assessment of rating that were applied by the different authorities, legislation was passed which took responsibility for valuation out of the hands of the local authorities. In order to secure uniformity, it was given to the Inland Revenue. Here, in an interim measure, is a departure from that principle, which was adopted after careful consideration.
In order to make it even more difficult for the local authorities to exercise this discretion, and in order, I suppose, to make it even more certain that there will be no general standard applied throughout the country, there is no standard of hardship laid down in the Bill. All that can be said is that it cannot be the standard of poverty, because the local authorities already have power to remit rates, to a greater or lesser extent, in the case of poverty; and it does not apply to those in receipt of Public Assistance because already the scales of assistance are supplemented by the amount of rent and rates.

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It would obviously require the local authorities to devise some kind of administrative machine somewhat on the lines of the National Assistance Board, They will have to ascertain what the income of the ratepayer is; and we do not know whether they are to take into account the incomings of the whole house or only those of the breadwinner or breadwinners. It will also be necessary to ascertain what the necessary outgoings are. A means test of this kind—although I do not necessarily condemn it as such—is extremely difficult to administer; it will impose a heavy burden of labour and a great deal of cost upon the 1,467 local authorities who will be charged with this responsibility.
For these reasons, my Lords, I cannot regard this as a very sound or wise measure. I hope that the Allen Committee will report some time in the fairly near future but I cannot believe that it is going to be made any easier to reform the rating system of the country after an interim measure of this kind, which contains so many departures from established and sound principles and is intended to last for only four years.
5.38 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, will not feel very encouraged by the reception that this Bill has had. Apart from a few casual words from the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, I cannot think of a single word that has been said in favour of this Bill. Yet I think we are agreed that the rating system being what it is, many of us would wish to change it, if possible. Some kind of measure was necessary to give relief to those who are going to suffer from what, in many cases, will be a dramatic increase in the amount of rates they will have to pay. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has just said, this is a panic measure. It is not sound; it is not wise. The reasons have been given, and I need not repeat them to any great extent.
To begin with, Clause 1 is an extraordinary clause, because it lays down a criterion for giving relief to local authorities—not to the people who are suffering hardship, but to the local authorities. The criterion is based upon the number of people over 65 years of age. Really! my Lords, what necessary relationship is there between the number or percentage
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of people over 65 years of age in an area, and the ability to pay rates? You might just as well—and perhaps more plausibly—take as a criterion the number of people who voted for the Labour Party in a particular area, or the number of people who voted Conservative.
In the seaside areas we have been talking about I would say that on the whole—though there may be exceptions—the ability of people to pay rates is greater than the average ability in the country. Yet these are the areas in which there is more likely to be a higher percentage of people over 65 years than anywhere else. This is no criterion whatever; the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, did not even pretend that it was a criterion. He said that the Ministry were judging by the number of letters they have received; but they are still waiting for the facts, and they will not get them until later. I venture to suggest that when the facts do come, they will not establish that the amount of hardship is necessarily related to the number of people over 65. The facts will not bear out the Bill.
But then, as has been said both in this House and in another place, even when the contribution for the number of people over 65 has been made to the local authorities, they will be under no obligation to use that money for the purpose for which this Bill is designed. In another place, my honourable friend Mr. Michael Stewart said that it was open to a local authority to erect a monument to the Minister of Housing and Local Government with the money. Perhaps if they did that they would be surcharged by the district auditor; but they could do something equally irrelevant with the money, and they would not be contravening the spirit of the Act. Even under Clause 2, where the local authorities are given power to grant to residential occupiers assistance where there is hardship, they are under no obligation to do so. The only obligation is on the part of the Government to provide the money, if the local authority satisfies the condition; and then the local authority is given power to grant the residential occupier of a dwelling certain relief.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, said that the cost of administration would be high. That might be so if the Act were

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going to be administered, but in many cases it just will not be administered. I cannot conceive of a great many local authorities deliberately setting out to make an inquiry (I do not know how they are going to do it) as to the hardship of local ratepayers as defined in this Bill—unless the ratepayers themselves come forward and ask for relief, in which case, if the local authority is going to administer the scheme, it may involve them in a good deal of work. But I cannot see the local authority being willing to take the initiative.
One class of hardship is not dealt with at all. I am not repeating the argument that "hardship" is not defined, and that it is to be left to every local authority to judge for itself, but one particular type of hardship is not defined—that is, the person who had to go into new accommodation as the result of decontrol or for other reasons, where he has had to pay a higher rent and, therefore, higher rates after 1962. There are many cases of this kind. The noble Lord, Lord Auckland, will know of cases where leases have expired and the holders could have got them renewed only at a rent which was beyond their means. As a result, they have gone into other accommodation which, nevertheless, is more expensive than the rent they had been paying. They are suffering hardship, yet they are not covered by this Bill. If the Government were so disposed we could table an Amendment to help on this point. I do not know whether this will be regarded as a Committee point, but the comparison between what a person paid in 1962 and what he has to pay now in respect of the same premises seems to me fundamental to the structure of the Bill. I would suggest that it might be possible at least to relieve that kind of hardship.
Finally, is it too late to suggest that we delete Clause 1 altogether from the Bill, and this absurd test of giving a local authority a bonus, merely because it has a number of old people, regardless of what it does with the money? Could we not combine Clause I and Clause 5, so that the local authorities are given one grant, based on some sensible criterion which relates to the hardship that might be involved and to the increase in rates? They could then be put under an obligation to dispose
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of the benefits they receive from the Exchequer to the people who suffer hardship, without leaving it entirely to their discretion to decide whether they make a distribution. Subject to these few comments, we propose not to oppose the Bill, because we have sympathy with its objective, although, as the Minister will no doubt have noticed, the Government's method of expressing and demonstrating that sympathy has been widely criticised.
5.47 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, we have to adjourn presently for the Royal Commission and I do not know whether it would be the wish of your Lordships to do so now or whether I should start winding up, because I do not think that I shall finish before the Royal Commission. As noble Lords wish to go on, I will begin. As the noble Lord, Lord Silkin has said, there has not been much welcome to this Bill. I cannot say that I am exactly discouraged by that fact, because I was not really anticipating that noble Lords would be clapping their hands. But I am bound to point out that there has been a good deal of discussion quite off the Bill altogether.
There has been discussion of the general rating problem connected with central finance, which is one of the things which I said—as all noble Lords know very well—is going to be reviewed by the Government with the precise intention, as noble Lords wish, of seeing if there should be a different balance between the burdens borne by the ratepayer and the taxpayer. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, who opened from the Opposition Benches, launched a general attack on the rating system, and he was followed in rather more detail by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, who asked why agriculture should not bear rates. But these are not really matters for discussion this evening.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, surely it is open to Members of this House, on the Second Reading of a Bill, to discuss alternatives which might have been adopted?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I will be coming to some of the criticisms based on that view presently. I would not try to stop noble Lords from discussing anything they like on the Second Reading of any Bill, but I do not

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think that it behoves me to deal with the general rating system when discussing the Second Reading of an Interim Relief Bill.
I was about to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, that I think he was less than just to Her Majesty's Government when he rapped them for transferring from the general taxpayer to the local ratepayer the burden of finding more and more of the money required for local government. In point of fact, the Government have maintained their share of the burden through the general grant, even though the system of grants has been revised, and I think it is fair to say that the local authorities have not suggested otherwise. But how the burden should be shared is one of the matters which the Government will be considering as part of that general review.
The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, then went on to complain that the definition of "hardship" was not clear—in fact, that it was not defined at all. I gave a reason in my opening remarks, and I think a good one, why that is the case. Although the noble Lord thought that my right honourable friend had mentioned only the likelihood that people affected would be those just above the National Assistance level, my right honourable friend also said on Second Reading [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 686 (No. 27), col. 1268]:
"There will be others who suffer hardship, although their means are not so restricted, because it takes time to adjust their pattern of spending to their means".
I think that might cover a number of cases, and possibly even the case which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, mentioned, of people having, willy-nilly, through no fault of their own, to change their accommodation. I think these matters can be taken into consideration by a sensible council showing common sense.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, that really is not an explanation. I could make out a good case that all the time I am suffering from the fact that I have difficulty in making my expenditure fit my income.
LORD HASTINGS: I think we are probably all in that condition nowadays. But there are obvious cases where circumstances are much more difficult than
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others, and I think therefore that there is a certain amount of guidance in what my right honourable friend has said.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is really saying that in the Bill the kind of case I have put forward can be met? My reading of the Bill is that it cannot, but if the Government's intention is that it should, then perhaps they will accept an Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS: It is not written into the Bill, of course, but I think these provisions will be carried out by the local authorities in a sensible manner. My right honourable friend has already sent one circular to them, and will be sending another, giving a certain amount of guidance.
LORD SILKIN: May I press this point? A circular will not do, because it will be outside the scope of the powers conferred on the local authority. If the noble Lord wishes these powers to be conferred on the local authority to give relief in those cases, then he must amend the Bill.
LORD HASTINGS: I do not think that is possible; I admit that. But I do feel that these things can be, and are likely to be, worked out in a sensible manner. I must point out also to the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren—this is really on the same matter—that he was wrong in thinking that to get relief a person must have been in occupation of his house in the period 1962–63. There was an Amendment made in another place which provides that this is not now necessary. In the case of any change of accommodation, where the house was not occupied or has even been built since that period, there is in Clause 3(7) the possibility of bringing the dwelling into the rating adjustment and granting relief accordingly. I think at this moment I must ask your Lordships' permission to sit down, because the Royal Commission is about to take place.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until the Royal Commission at 6 o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
6.0 p.m.
The following Bills and Measures received the Royal Assent:

Trustee Savings Banks,

International Headquarters and Defence Organisations,

Export Guarantees,

Shipbuilding Credit,

New Towns,

Public Works Loans,

Family Allowances and National Insurance,

Navy, Army and Air Force Reserves,

Episcopal Church (Scotland),

Church Commissioners (Loans for Theological Colleges and Training Houses) Measure 1964,

Incumbents and Churchwardens (Trusts) Measure 1964,

Churchwardens (Appointment and Resignation) Measure 1964

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

RATING (INTERIM RELIEF) BILL
6.15 p.m.
Debate on Second Reading resumed.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords I was just talking about the question of the definition of hardship, and there was one point remaining which I wish to clear up. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, suggested that people would not claim because they would be very reluctant to submit themselves to any sort of means test, and he pointed out that people, even now, owing to this element of pride, are reluctant to claim National Assistance. One of the things that my right honourable friend is most insistent upon is that people shall be able to retain their anonymity when making these claims. It has been suggested to local authorities that they can deal with these matters simply by putting a number against a person, his name not being revealed.
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That brings me on to a point of a slightly different nature, but relating to the same problem, raised by my noble friend Lord Auckland, who pointed out that it might be impossible, especially for elderly people who are not physically strong, to go along to the local authority office and make their claims. Of course, these matters are essentially for the local authorities themselves; they are not the responsibility of the Government. But in point of fact, there is little doubt that claims, not only for the physically limited, but all claims, will be submitted in writing in the first place. Obviously, the local authorities, where necessary, will, as they do now, send along somebody to interview the person, especially if that person is not able to move easily from his or her house.
I come now to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, although I do not want to follow him at any great length in his animadversions on the general defectiveness of the rating system. Nevertheless, I think he said that everybody knows that rates are regressive, and that the Allen Committee is unnecessary. It is, however, a fact that we do not know nearly enough to generalise in that manner, and I must make it quite clear that the Government certainly disagree most strongly with the noble Lord's opinion. We shall have to wait and see what the Allen Committee reveal in their Report, and then we can really get down to business, in conjunction with the review of central and local government finance.
My noble friend—if I may deem somewhat nervously to call him that—Lord Molson, raised one or two points and was very dissatisfied indeed with Clause 1. It seems to me that the major attack on the Bill itself has been in relation to Clause I. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, even suggested that it was going to benefit only those who do not need relief. He mentioned industrialists, and feared that none of it would be distributed to people suffering from hardship. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, thought that this was a bad clause, and could not see what relationship it had to the criterion necessary for judging hardship. He also pointed out that there was no actual obligation written into the Bill to distribute this money. Admittedly the provision is in the nature of a general grant and is not tied

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specifically to the distribution of payments in relief of hardship; but I pointed out, when I opened this debate, that it was devised as a means of preventing the other ratepayers from having to pay a very considerable proportion of the relief grant to be meted out to those who required relief. It is devised in that sense.
I think we are able, first of all, to rely upon the honesty, integrity and efficiency of the local authorities. We really cannot tie their hands too tightly in these matters, and we have no reason to believe that local authorities will not operate the scheme in the intended manner. Secondly, the reason why Clauses 1 and 5 have been split and there are these two different forms of grant is in order that local authorities should examine the necessity for relieving hardship carefully, and should make sure that they are being neither unduly mean nor unduly generous; and they should continue to exercise their discretion with a sense of financial responsibility towards their ratepayers. If the payment of grants under Clause 1 were made conditional upon the distribution of all the money made available to people who were eligible for relief, it would mean that the authority would have to distribute that money whether in fact there were sufficient people in their district requiring such a payment or not, and this could lead to waste of Exchequer money.
In point of fact, we believe that there will be few cases where the balance of payments, taking the two clauses, 1 and 5, into consideration together, will be in favour of the local authority. In other words, there will mostly be a small balance to be found from the general rate levied upon the ratepayers. There may be a few cases—there will, I think, be a very few cases—where the balance will come out in favour of the local authority. But we do not think that that is sufficient reason to vitiate the whole purpose of these two clauses when seen in relation one to the other.
I think that really covers most of the points or the more important ones we have gone into this evening. There is the accusation that this Bill is nothing else but a panic measure, and one or two speakers, including, I regret to say, one of my noble friends, have even sugges-
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ted it might have something to do with Conservative landladies in Blackpool or Bournemouth, and something to do with the General Election.
LORD SILKIN: It is not impossible.
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Lord says it is not impossible, but I do not follow the logic of this reasoning, because either we are faced with a situation which demands that certain individuals should be relieved of unusual hardship or we are not. And to suggest—and this is following the argument to its logical conclusion—that because there is going to be a General Election soon we should not give any relief to people suffering hardship is surely not the intention of my noble friend on my right or noble Lords opposite, because I have not heard anybody this afternoon deny that there are cases of hardship worthy of relief. I hope, therefore, that I can dismiss that argument with the reasonable measure of contempt—without rubbing it in too hard—that it deserves. I hope noble Lords on all sides of the House will agree that this interim measure will serve a useful purpose, however much they may dislike it on general grounds of principle: and I hope, therefore, that they will now give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EARLDOM OF ANNESLEY
Report made from the Lord Chancellor that Robert Earl Annesley in the Peerage of Ireland, has established his succession to the Earldom of Annesley and his right to vote in any elections of Representative Peers for Ireland which may be held in future under Statutes in force relating thereto, to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor: read and ordered to lie on the Table.

BARONY OF DUNALLEY
Report made from the Lord Chancellor that Henry Desmond Graham Baron Dunalley in the Peerage of Ireland, has established his succession to the Barony of Dunalley and his right to vote in any elections of Representative Peers for

1281
Ireland which may be held in future under Statutes in force relating thereto, to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

CHAPEL STREET CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH (SOUTHPORT) BURIAL GROUND BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
CHICHESTER RURAL DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Reported, without amendment.

EPISCOPAL CHURCH (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-four minutes past six o'clock.