Lords Sitting of 3 March 1964

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

DESALINATION OF SALT WATER BY NUCLEAR ENERGY
2.35 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: 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 whether they have taken note of the announcement of the President of the United States of America on February 6 of co-operation between Israel and the United States of America in researches into ways of turning salt water into fresh by means of nuclear energy and of their willingness to pool intellectual resources working on this problem with all countries of the world; and what contribution to this study Her Majesty's Government intend to offer.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH): My Lords, the answer to the first part
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of the Question is, "Yes". Her Majesty's Government took note of the President's announcement; and an expert from the British Water Research Association recently paid a visit to Israel and is fully conversant with what is being done there. President Johnson referred to the International Atomic Energy Agency as a focal point in the programme for pooling experience and knowledge. The United Kingdom has been represented by two leading experts on a panel convened by the Agency and will continue to contribute the benefits of our very considerable knowledge and experience.
Of the various methods of desalination, distillation processes are the only ones so far capable in the right circumstances of economic application. They are used in a number of installations built by British firms, which are recognised throughout the world as the leading manufacturers, and have been responsible for the bulk of the installations at present in operation overseas, which are oil-fired, usually in conjunction with an electrical generating plant.
The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research have set up a Committee to consider what further help can be provided to support research in British industry in order to keep the United Kingdom in the forefront of desalinating technology. There is, in principle, no difficulty in using nuclear energy as the source of heat, and in some circumstances there could be advantage in combining a distillation plant with a nuclear power station

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These problems are under study by the Atomic Energy Authority.
LORD REA: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that during the debate on the Manchester Corporation water Bill the late noble and learned Lord, Lord Birkett, suggested that such desalination processes might take effect? I supported this, and added that we might also expect some improvement in getting moisture from the air. Further, is the noble Earl aware that the Minister for Science, in Volume 237, column 348 of Hansard, referred to both of these schemes as wild-cat schemes; and have the Government subsequently changed their opinion?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, my Parliamentary memory is very short.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, are the Government aware that turning salt water into fresh water not only could save our rivers and lakes from depletion, but would confer far more benefit on the people of this country than most of the expensive projects now in fashion?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, unfortunately, in so far as this country is concerned this is an expensive project, and there is no chance at present of water in this country being supplied by this method at under about 9s. per 1,000 gallons. In other parts of the world it is another matter, but in this country we use only about 5 per cent. of our rain water, as opposed to 95 per cent. used in Israel. I do not think that the use of this method is likely to be widespread in this country for some years.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, can the Minister state to what extent there has been a study of underground storage of water? Is it not far better to store water underground rather than to take up valuable land which may be used for agriculture or for amenity and recreational purposes? An enormous tonnage of coal and minerals has been taken from underneath the ground. Why not store water underground in these places instead of on the surface where it can evaporate in hot weather?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are not at present discussing the question of storage, but only of desalting.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, might I ask how much it is estimated that these further researches for the use of nuclear power in connection with the operation are likely to cost? Do we have a firm assurance from the Atomic Energy Authority that nuclear power is now available and efficient with regard to this matter, or are we to get more disappointments like Dounreay?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think the answer to that question is, "No". I think that is all I can say at the moment. The answer to the noble Lord's next Question may be somewhat illuminating.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, did I hear the noble Earl aright? Did he say that we used only 5 per cent. of our rain water for drinking purposes or for water supply purposes? If so, it would look as though there is 95 per cent. to spare if we are to be intelligent in the use of our water resources.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for having made that observation.

GRANT FOR DESALINATION STUDIES
2.39 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a decision has been come to on the question of an earmarked grant for the appointment of a special scientist in the United States of America to keep in touch with American research and development into the possibilities of the economic conversion of salt water into fresh.]
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am pleased to tell my noble friend that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research have recently offered an earmarked grant of up to £34,325 over three years to the Water Research Association for studies in desalination. This will enable the Association both to keep a closer watch on work in the

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United States of America and elsewhere by staff visits overseas, and also to commission a study of the economic factors as they affect this country.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he will accept thanks for that decision, which I am sure is greatly in the national interest?
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend how far further co-operation is going to be undertaken with Commonwealth countries which are heavily affected by these problems—for instance, Pakistan?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, so far international co-operation is effected through the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is to have meetings shortly in Vienna.

WATER SUPPLIES, DRAINAGE AND POLLUTION
2.41 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: 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 to arrange for interdepartmental consultation forthwith between the Waterways Board and the Housing, Agriculture and Health Departments so as to adjust future policy regarding water supply, drainage and pollution and to put to common use the mass of maps and graphs, accumulated by the Surface Water Inland Survey Division; and not to wait for Water Resources Board appointments.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, the Waterways Board know that all Departments are available to them for consultation about policy, without the making of any special arrangements. As to the exchange and use of information, much of that held by the Surface Water Survey of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is published and, apart from that, there has also been a full exchange of information of mutual interest between the Survey and the
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Waterways Board's predecessors. This practice continues with the Board.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that Answer. The Interim Report of the Waterways Board said that three times they were anxious to consult and could not find the people there to consult. This does not seem to tally with what the noble Lord has just said.
LORD HASTINGS: What I said is perfectly true. The Waterways Board are free to consult with the Department at any time. The Water Resources Board, which has been troubling the noble Earl in the past, has not yet, of course, been set up. It will no doubt consult as soon as it is.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, is there not a great difference between saying that the information from the Departments is available at any time and summoning a conference, quarterly or periodically, between the Departments which are equally concerned with the whole problem of water? It is no use saying that the information is available when we all know the quite natural jealousy that exists between Departments as to their territories. As water supply planning is the concern not only of the Housing Minister but of other Departments (Agriculture, Health and Transport are equally involved), quantity is not the only factor to be considered; the question of purity is also most important. For instance, is the noble Lord not aware that, as is stated in the Report, the Water Board's revenue from the sale of water amounts to £595,000, but many such sales take place to factories situated on the banks of canals, which do not all want pure water. They may require water, for example, for cooling purposes. My question is this: ought not more attention to be paid to the uncleaned water in a great many canals which I hope will eventually come into the water system of the whole country?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, the noble Earl is covering a wide field. The quality of water, will be one of the prime concerns of the Water Resources Board and the new river authorities when they are set up. I would merely say—as, indeed, the noble Earl said—

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that in regard to waterways and canals it is not so much a question of the public water supply for drinking, but a question involving water for industry and agriculture. As for the rest of the noble Earl's statement, I said that the Departments are available for consultation. I did not say merely that the information was available; I said that the information is already fully exchanged.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, in view of the nature of the noble Earl's questions, may I ask if the Minister would be kind enough to ask his Department, or his Minister, whether instructions could be given to the people concerned that when a request for consultation is made, consultation will be allowed forthwith? Apparently, it is not clear from the Answer.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I will put that point forward, but I have no reason to believe that consultation is not allowed.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider the urgency of this matter of full consultation? As the noble Lord may know, the new Waterways Board will inevitably require a further Act of Parliament to sort out all the ancient legislation involved, and until such an Act is passed, the great hopes we have seem to be quite impossible ones. Until these consultations reach the point where legislation can be formulated, we are completely stuck.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I will take up the matter with my right honourable friend.

FLAMMABLE NIGHTWEAR
2.47 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the progress of the consultations between the Home Office and the parties concerned in the campaign against flammable nightwear; when these consultations will be concluded
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and whether the results will be published.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD DERWENT): My Lords, consultations with organisations concerned with consumer safety and with the trade associations concerned with the manufacture and distribution of nightwear have shown general support for the Government's proposal to deal with this problem by means of regulations under the Consumer Protection Act, 1961.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has decided to make regulations prohibiting the sale of children's nightdresses which do not comply with the low flammability requirements of British Standard 3121. Draft regulations will be prepared and circulated to the interested organisations for comment, and the regulations will then be laid before Parliament.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that there will be widespread support for these actions? Is he also aware that in one large town in Cornwall a mother tried six different shops to buy a non-flammable nightdress for her child? She could not obtain one, she bought a flammable one, and her child was burnt to death. While not condoning the carelessness of this mother for not using a fireguard, may I ask whether the Home Office will look into this non-availability question?
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, it is possible that in certain areas retailers are not stocking non-flammable nightdresses, largely, I think, because the public in certain areas have not been very willing to buy them, possibly because of the increased cost. Now that it has been announced that regulations will be made forbidding the sale of these flammable children's nightdresses, I think one may assume that retailers will not place any further orders for the flammable ones, and of course when the regulations come into force they will be forbidden.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, arising out of that last answer, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government are having consultations with the Government in Hong Kong, because I am quite

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sure the noble Lord will agree that a very large percentage of Hong Kong's cotton textiles axe imported into this country and are used to a great degree in children's wear? Can the Government give us an undertaking that there will be full consultations, and that help and assistance will be given to Hong Kong so that they can continue their present trade and comply with the regulations?
LORD DERWENT: I think, my Lords, that all I can say in answer to that question is that regulations will be made forbidding the sale of flammable nigh-dresses, and the importers of Hong Kong goods will undoubtedly notify their suppliers.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord two questions arising out of what he has said? May I ask him, first of all, whether, after these regulations have been passed, it will be compulsory to have a sewn-in label giving washing instructions attached to all the children's nightdresses which may be sold? The second question I should like to ask the noble Lord is this. Would he feel able to press once more on his right honourable friend the Home Secretary this question of publicity? Is he aware that since our debate I have talked with many people in industry and outside, and I think everyone, without exception, feels that this is a matter for education in addition to what the Government may do? Finally, may I ask the noble Lord whether, as on television we have instructions and help concerning road safety, there is the slightest reason why we should not have it on this particular matter, where also the very young and the very old are concerned?
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, in answer to the noble Baroness, I think there is no doubt that these garments will have to be marked in some way as regards the washing of them. It presents a few difficulties because there is not only the washing at home, but the commercial washing of these garments to be considered. However, consultations are going on. I think there is not the slightest doubt that regulations, in the terms which I think the noble Baroness wants, will be made when the consultations have finished. Any publicity that anyone
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can give is going to help. There is a good deal of publicity in the papers at the moment, and the Consumer Council itself has been carrying out a great deal of publicity, both publicly and privately—by private letters to retailers, and so on. As regards the point about television, I will look into that. Our advisers on what is or is not good on television have not yet been consulted about this, but I will bear the point in mind.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I thank the noble Lord. I do not wish to steal the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, but I know he will agree with me on this particular matter. May I ask the Minister whether it is not a fact that nowadays—and, I would say, unfortunately—if you want to get something over to the general populace, which includes ourselves, it is necessary day after day to put it over on television? Money is required for this and, whatever the Consumer Council may or may not do, it has not got money. Therefore, would the noble Lord press his right honourable friend very strongly on this point?
LORD DERWENT: Yes, my Lords. I will certainly take it up with my right honourable friend.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why, when children's lives are in danger in this way, the Government are taking so long to get these regulations through?
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, it is not quite as easy as that because if to-morrow we were to ban all flammable nightdresses there would be none at all; or very few of any kind available to be bought in the shops. This is a question of the manufacturing being altered, and there is not at this moment a sufficiently large supply of chemicals to treat materials, such as cotton, which are in themselves flammable. Production has to be increased before the regulations can come into force. We are not taking long about making the regulations, and the noble Lord will realise that the trade must be consulted as to the form of the regulations in order to make them workable.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, surely the noble Lord will agree with me that these points have been known for months.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, they have been known for many years, but that is not quite the point.

FISHERIES CONFERENCE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Dundee will be making a statement on the Fisheries Conference.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I understand that this is not a reply to a Private Notice Question in the other place, but to a Starred Question. Would it not be possible for the statement to be made earlier?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: I understand that it is a statement in the other place.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: A statement, yes. But it is not in reply to a Private Notice Question.

WHITE FISH INDUSTRY (GRANTS FOR FISHING VESSELS AND ENGINES) (AMENDMENT) SCHEME 1964.
2.56 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, I beg to move that the White Fish Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, which was laid before your Lordships' House on February 4, be approved. The main purpose of this Amendment to the Grants Scheme which was approved by Parliament in 1962 is to bring in freezer-trawlers, but the opportunity has been taken to increase the grant ceiling for other fishing trawlers and to make it quite clear that the White Fish Authority has to approve any application for grant before the work is commenced.
Your Lordships may remember that the present scheme for grants, introduced in 1962, extended the provision to distant-water vessels. It was, however, then agreed with the industry and the
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White Fish Authority that there should be some limited replacement of the older distant-water vessels by modern conventional types of trawlers on a scrap-and-build basis. In the meantime the Government agreed to help experiments to see what newer types of vessel could be introduced. The freezer-trawler is one type of vessel that has been so helped. The Government think that the time has now come for the introduction of rather more freezers than would have been possible under the experimental scheme. Freezer-trawlers could, of course, be given grant assistance under the existing scheme but the maximum amount of grant payable is only £50,000, whereas these vessels may cost something like £500,000. This would mean that the rate of grant would be out of all proportion to the rate of grant on other trawlers. This scheme therefore provides grant for freezer-trawlers at the normal rate of 25 per cent., but with a ceiling of £110,000, which is about 25 per cent. of the more costly of these vessels.
I would emphasise to the House that these trawlers cannot be the whole answer to the industry's problem, but the Government think that it would be desirable to encourage a replacement of some older vessels by freezer-trawlers in order to have more experience of the economics of their operation, and particularly of the economics of the market of frozen fish. I am sure your Lordships will welcome this attempt to carry the modernisation of the fleet a stage further by the inclusion of freezer-trawlers, and I hope that your Lordships will give your approval to this Scheme.
Moved, That the White Fish Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) (Amendment) Scheme 1964 be approved.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
LORD WISE: My Lords, this particular Scheme has already been passed by the Special Orders Committee as one that can be passed by the House without special attention. For that reason I do not propose to be very lengthy in what I have to say in regard to it. The matter was fully dealt with in another place. A Prayer was tabled for annulment of the Order, but was not moved after the explanations given by the Minister. During the last few years we have had many Orders in regard to

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White Fish, and this Order, as I understand it, is simply an interim measure which may last for six months. After that time, as a result of various suggestions which have been made and of various recommendations of a certain committee, the Government may decide to bring in some permanent measure in regard to this particular branch of the fishing industry.
It is important, I think, that we should have a properly and fully equipped fishing industry for this country, and the introduction of freezer-trawlers, which this Order envisages, may help to this end. There is just one point I wish to make—and I think it is a material one. In our last debate on these Orders we started to talk about the building of trawlers in foreign shipyards. I hope that these freezer-trawlers can be built and equipped in our own shipyards, rather than in shipyards overseas. In that connection, I wonder whether the Minister could inform your Lordships how many trawlers have been built overseas in the last year or in the last period, and how many grants have been made to the owners of trawlers which have been built overseas. I mention this because I understand that in my own area the provision of fishing vessels is very slow, and that orders are not being received. So much so, that the shipyards themselves are seeking new means of obtaining orders in other directions.
I am wondering also what the position is in regard to Scotland. I cannot speak for Scotland, and I hope that one of the Scottish Peers present may have something to say in regard to the Scottish aspect of this particular Order. I understand that the Scottish Trawler Owners' Association have disagreed with the Order, and I am wondering if the Minister can tell your Lordships whether any fresh agreement has been arrived at in regard to the Scottish end of this industry.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am grateful for the general commendation given to this Order by the noble Lord. To the best of my belief—and I am pretty sure I am right in assuring him of this—up to the present, no grant-aid has been given to any type of trawler built abroad. But I would remind him that, under our agreement,
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we have to abide by the rules of GATT, and it would be difficult for us to give an absolute, rigid undertaking to exclude all foreign-built trawlers from grant-aid; but no such aid has yet been given.
Then, the noble Lord asked about the Scottish trawler owners' attitude to this scheme. He is quite right in saying that they did not agree to the terms of the scheme, mainly, I understand, because they were more interested in subsidies than in actual grants towards building the ships; but, in view of the interests concerned, we decided to present the Scheme to Parliament notwithstanding.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TRADE UNION (AMALGAMATIONS, ETC.) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
ELECTIONS (WELSH FORMS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (HOSPITAL BOARDS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

BRITISH NATIONALITY BILL
3.6 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, from time to time in recent years citizenship has been debated in your Lordships' House in the context of the arrangements to be made as one country and another has achieved independence within the Commonwealth. During these debates two things have become clear: first, that citizenship is an important matter, both in general and, still more, to the individual, so that your Lordships have, if I may say so, rightly taken a close interest in the subject; secondly,

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that the subject is a technical one through which laymen have to pick their way very carefully.
For both these reasons, my Lords, I think it is right that before explaining the provisions of this Bill I should attempt to explain in some detail the background to it. If, in so doing, I go over ground which is familiar to those of your Lordships who have mastered the subject, I must ask them to forgive me.
Under the scheme which was agreed, soon after the war, by the then members of the Commonwealth, and which, so far as this country is concerned, is embodied in the British Nationality Act, 1948, each country within the Commonwealth has its own citizenship—the United Kingdom and Colonies for this purpose being treated as a single unit. Each country, by its own law, determines who shall be its citizens, and on the strength of possessing the citizenship of any Commonwealth country a person possesses the additional status of British subject or Commonwealth citizen. These two terms are, in our law, interchangeable, while in other countries it is usual to use one term or the other. Thus, a person born in this country, or whose father was born here, is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and on the strength of possessing that citizenship he is also a British subject or a Commonwealth citizen. Similarly, a person possessing Indian or Australian citizenship, or that of any other Commonwealth country, is in the same way a British subject or Commonwealth citizen in our law.
It is into this framework that the arrangements made as each new country has achieved independence within the Commonwealth have had to be fitted—arrangements contained partly in the law of the newly independent country and partly in the Independence Act passed here at Westminster. Provisions for acquiring the newly created citizenship are, of course, contained in that country's law; while the United Kingdom's legislation adds the country to the list of countries whose citizens possess the status of British subject or Commonwealth citizen.
At the same time, the United Kingdom legislation withdraws citizenship of the
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United Kingdom and Colonies from persons acquiring the new citizenship who have no close connection with this country or with a remaining Colony. Such a connection is defined in a standard formula included in the various Independence Acts, and has the effect that a person is exempted from loss of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies if he, his father or his father's father had been born in this country or in what was still a Colony, or had been naturalised or registered there. Thus it has come about that, under the normal pattern of independence arrangements, a person who automatically acquired the newly created citizenship but who also possessed the specified connection with this country automatically became a dual citizen on Independence Day. I hope your Lordships have been able to follow me so far.
Some, however, of the countries which recently attained independence have included in their laws a prohibition on the possession of dual citizenship. I should here emphasise that the law of this country contains no such prohibition, since in our experience few difficulties arise in practice from the possession of two or more citizenships at one and the same time, and that where difficulties may arise these can be overcome without imposing any sort of compulsory prohibition. Nevertheless, a number of countries take a different view, and your Lordships will appreciate that this was not a matter in which the United Kingdom Government could dictate its view to other Commonwealth countries upon their achieving independence.
Thus it has come about that, under the law of certain Commonwealth countries, those of its new citizens who are permitted under our law to retain their citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies are required to renounce that citizenship on pain of forfeiture of the new citizenship; and those who do not automatically acquire the new citizenship, but may acquire it on application, are required, as a condition of obtaining the local citizenship, to give up their citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
Your Lordships will not need me to dwell on the personal problems and anxieties that may arise for individuals. Many people living in one of these

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new countries have wanted—and still want—to play
a full part in its life, and they have therefore wanted to take out the new citizenship; yet they are naturally reluctant to sever the bond of citizenship which they have with this country. It is true that under the existing provisions of the British Nationality Acts people who give up their United Kingdom citizenship can regain it after five years' residence in this country, or, in special circumstances, after a shorter period. But many of those concerned feel that any sort of qualifying period is an undue imposition, and that the requirements bear particularly harshly on those who might wish not to return to this country but to move elsewhere in years to come.
This situation first arose in a substantial form in Tanganyika, just over two years ago, and later in Uganda also. But it was in connection with Kenya, as Independence Day drew near, that anxiety was most strongly expressed—both by the British settlers themselves and, on their behalf, by their friends in this country, including some of your Lordships. These anxieties were voiced in this House in the debate on Kenya last July, which took place on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Colyton. A number of your Lordships spoke in that debate, but perhaps, I might mention in particular my noble friends Lord Salisbury and Lord Colyton himself, both of whom followed up their speeches by writing to us on the subject. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking my noble friends for the assistance they have given us in finding what I believe to be a satisfactory solution to this problem of dual citizenship.
My Lords, it was against this background that Her Majesty's Government gave further consideration to the problem caused by this opposition to dual citizenship on the part of some of the newly independent countries of the Commonwealth. As a result, they decided that the matter called for legislation, and the substance of the present Bill was foreshadowed during the debates on what is now the Kenya Independence Act. It is evident from what was then said that the intention to introduce the present Bill was generally welcomed, and I have no doubt that this afternoon the
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House will endorse that welcome by giving this Bill a Second Reading.
I will now briefly turn to the provisions of the Bill, the principal one being contained in Clause 1. Under this clause, a person who has renounced his citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, whether before or after the Bill comes into force, will be entitled to resume that citizenship on application if he fulfils the conditions set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1). Under paragraph (a) an applicant must satisfy the Secretary of State that at the time of his renunciation of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies he possessed or was about to acquire the citizenship of a Commonwealth country, and, further, that, but for the renunciation, he could not have retained or obtained the other citizenship or, alternatively, that he had reasonable cause for thinking that he could not have done so.
Paragraph (b) provides that a person must have a "qualifying connection" with the United Kingdom or with what is still a Colony at the date of the application, or, if the applicant is a married woman not qualified in her own right, that her husband should have such a connection. The definition of a qualifying connection is contained in subsections (2) and (3). If a person does not possess such a qualifying connection but is able to fulfil the requirements of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) the grant of registration will be at the Home Secretary's discretion. The only other comment which I think I need make about the clause is to point out that under subsection (6) the Home Secretary will be able to delegate his powers of registration to British High Commissioners, which will mean that much time and trouble will be saved in dealing with applications.
That, my Lords, briefly, is the effect of Clause 1. It will, I feel sure, fully meet the anxieties of British people living elsewhere in the Commonwealth to which I referred earlier. Under the clause, a person who has already, or may in the future automatically acquire, the citizenship of the Commonwealth country, or who voluntarily acquires that citizenship, will be able, if he has in the process been obliged to renounce his citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, regain that status whether or not he is

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living in the United Kingdom and whether or not he can comply with the ordinary requirements which citizens of other Commonwealth countries must fulfil before they can become citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
I now turn to Clause 2, which does not deal with resumption of citizenship but makes two seemingly small but nevertheless important amendments to the law relating to renunciation of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies. At present, under Section 19 of the British Nationality Act, 1948, a person may renounce citizenship only if he already possesses some other citizenship or nationality. The object of including this restriction was the very laudable one of seeking to avoid a situation in which a person, perhaps unwittingly, could render himself stateless. Experience has shown, however, that hard cases can arise as a result of this restriction, because the laws of a few countries—and I am thinking here of foreign countries rather than of countries within the Commonwealth—require that a person must first have renounced his former citizenship before acquiring the new one.
In particular, a certain number of British women have suffered hardship in this way through not being able to acquire their husband's foreign nationality. Accordingly subsection (1) of Clause 2 allows a person to make a declaration of renunciation if he satisfies the Home Secretary that he is about to acquire the citizenship of another country. If, for some reason, he does not in fact acquire the other citizenship within six months, the declaration is automatically void and the person is deemed never to have lost his citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies. By this means we shall still avoid the risk that a person may become stateless as a result of making a declaration of renunciation. Subsection (2) is a purely procedural amendment. Under this subsection, powers can be delegated to British High Commissioners, and this will simplify procedure. Clause 3 calls for no particular comment.
My Lords, may I say, finally, that the nationality law of this country is not, and never has been, something static and unchanging. Rather has it been
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constantly adjusted to take account of changing circumstances and of new situations. I commend the present Bill to your Lordships as being the latest adjustment that experience has shown to be necessary. The Bill may be a short one, but I have no doubt that for many individuals it will mean a great deal; and for this reason alone I am sure that your Lordships will receive it warmly.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am quite sure that we are all grateful to my noble relative for the clear way he explained the purpose and content of this Bill. In particular, we are very grateful for his clear explanation of the background of the law relating to citizenship in this country and in the Commonwealth. I find from my experience that this is the most difficult of all forms of law dealing with the Commonwealth and Commonwealth relationships. I was able to follow the noble Lord's explanation myself—although I do not pretend to be a particularly brilliant Member of your Lordships' House—and I was so delighted at this that I felt other noble Lords must share my pleasure in having been able to do so.
I am sure that your Lordships will welcome very warmly a Bill that benefits the Commonwealth and, in particular, the different races in the Commonwealth. It will be very useful to new Commonwealth countries, at least to those which prohibit dual citizenship, because it will encourage United Kingdom citizens in these countries to accept the new nationality by removing the fear that by doing so it will become difficult, if not impossible, for them to recover their British nationality later on, if they so desire. These new countries desperately need the support of Englishmen in many different capacities in Government service and in other spheres, and this support is much more likely to be forthcoming if people are not deterred by fears about their future if they renounce British citizenship.
As my noble relative pointed out, in our debate on the Kenya Independence Bill, many noble Lords on both sides of the House expressed anxiety about the British in Kenya who would acquire nationality of this kind under their legislation and consequently lose their British

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nationality. This Bill makes it easier for them to recover their British nationality later on, if they want to leave Kenya and come back to this country or go anywhere else, by removing the five-year residential qualification. It is particularly important that this new right should be available in African countries with large minorities of British settlers. We want very much to assist these courageous men who have made their homes in Africa and stay on in spite of the risks to which they are exposed as a result of the conditions of life in Africa, and it is certainly right that we should do as much as we possibly can.
So I welcome this Bill. I do not want to criticise it at all, because I think that it is right, but I should like to ask one or two questions, of which I gave my noble relative notice a few days ago. The first is this: can he say how many of the new Commonwealth countries have already passed legislation prohibiting dual citizenship? Is this the case in only Kenya and Tanganyika or have other new Commonwealth countries passed similar legislation? Is it possible to say how many British citizens are in these countries who may be penalised by this law of citizenship, or who will be affected by the provisions in Clause 1 of this Bill? I wonder whether it is possible to give any sort of estimate of the number of persons affected?
Finally, I wonder whether my noble relative could say if there are any British dependencies that are considering a change in their law of citizenship, such as Kenya and Tanganyika have already made, when they become independent, which would have the effect of prohibiting dual nationality? I am thinking particularly of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, is to speak and he may also have those countries in mind. These are both British territories which are due to become independent before the end of the current year and I cannot help thinking that this Bill would be particularly important to British residents in Northern Rhodesia, in view of the large number in the Copper Belt, if the Northern Rhodesian Government is contemplating a change in its law of citizenship of the kind that has already taken place in neighbouring countries.
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This Bill has already passed another place, if I may say so without any disrespect to another place, without anything like so thorough a background information being provided by the Minister as the background information we have had. I hope that the Bill will have as easy a passage through its later stages in your Lordships' House as it has had through another place.
3.25 p.m.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, I am encouraged by the confession of the noble Earl who has just spoken that he found nationality legislation extremely difficult. It has always seemed to me to be the most complicated of all legislation with which any Legislature has to deal and tends, necessarily perhaps, to be imprecise. I would join the noble Earl in being grateful to the Minister for his full explanation of this complicated subject. I merely want, if I may, to make one or two observations, which I hope may be useful in considering this particular Bill.
I entirely agree with the Minister that nationality is something far more than just what most people think it is, something relating to travel and passports. It is for a great many people concerned with, opportunities for education and work. I had a letter from a civil servant who had previously been working in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and has now returned to this country. A passage in it says:
"Fortunately, I kept my British citizenship and am therefore able to seek work here."
For him, as for many others, the question of nationality is the very practical one of livelihood and opportunity for the future. It is also related to social security, civil rights and liberties, and personal status.
It seems to me that there should be two principles applied by us in this country to this matter. The first is that no British citizen should be compelled to renounce his rights as a British citizen permanently and irrevocably on account of discrimination against him in a country to which he has gone in good faith to live and work—and if I use the term "British citizen", instead of "citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies", I hope that your Lordships will forgive me. The second principle is that no one who has a proper claim to be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or British

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citizen, should be deprived of that right because of any failure here in this country to ensure that legislation is available on the Statute Book to safeguard that right.
I was encouraged to hear from the Minister that he regards this as an interim measure, to be added to and improved as experience shows it to be necessary. Indeed, that was the purpose of the 1958 Act, which was intended, and I think succeeded in some degree, to overcome some of the deficiencies in the original legislation of 1948. This Bill carries this process a step further, but I am not sure whether it carries it far enough in accordance with the needs of the subject. For instance, I should like to ask the Minister whether there is any discrepancy between the Explanatory Memorandum, on the one hand, and Clause 1 of the Bill, on the other, because the Explanatory Memorandum says:
"Registration is as of right in the case of a person with specified connections with the United Kingdom and Colonies, a protectorate or a protected state;"
whereas Clause 1 says:
"… the Secretary of State may so register any person who would be entitled thereto if he had such a connection."
I therefore assume that the Secretary of State has discretion as to whether he registers, and although he would interpret it as closely as possible to recognise the right which a person may claim under this clause, we must remember—and I know that your Lordships will know this from your own experience—that in fact legislation of this kind is administered, not by courts of law, or very seldom, I imagine, by courts of law, but by civil servants and High Commissioners, operating at some distance from this country and dealing with individual cases as they arise and having recourse, not so much to any debate that there might have been in connection with this legislation, but to the actual wording of the legislation itself. Where there is a case in doubt, with the passage of time they will interpret that naturally and, I think, inevitably more and more narrowly, particularly as there is always pressure on them, so as not to give the benefit of the doubt to the applicant. I do not say this in any way critically. I think it is probably the right way to interpret legislation of this sort. But,
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for this reason, it is most important that the Bill itself should contain the instructions which are going to be carried out by those who are to administer it—in this case, the High Commissioners' offices in various parts of the world—and that these instructions should be as clear and precise as possible.
I would give merely one example of what I have in mind, and it is this. I had the responsibility, as Minister in another place, of introducing there the 1958 Act. In doing so, I made a speech which gave the Government's interpretation of the meaning of that Act, and contained, I hope (though I fear not), as clear an explanation of the background as the Minister has given this afternoon. It later happened that a case was brought to me, as High Commissioner, of an individual who had applied for a British passport and recognition of his status as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies under this particular piece of legislation, and who had had his application turned down by the officer administering it in my office. The matter was then referred to me. I could claim to deal with it only in accordance with the interpretation that I thought should be placed on the legislation; that is to say, not by reference to the legislation itself but by reference to my speech on Second Reading in another place which explained what the Government intended. Had it not been that the Minister had changed his occupation, and happened to be administering this piece of legislation on that occasion, I am certain that this application would not have been accepted.
What I am really trying to say to your Lordships, and to the Government, in relation to the Bill before us is that this is a most complicated subject, and it will have to be administered by people who will increasingly interpret its provisions more narrowly as time goes on and as the spirit and intention with which it was introduced begin to fade. For this reason it is important that the drafting of the legislation should be clear and precise, so that the intention of Parliament is fully revealed to those who have to administer it. All this may seem quite simple in the minds of your Lordships, but from the administrative point of view I think it is important.

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I should therefore like to ask the Minister whether there is this discrepancy: whether a person who has the qualifications, in accordance with Clause 1 of this Bill, has in fact the right to be registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or whether it is at the discretion of the Secretary of State, in accordance with Clause 1, and therefore of the High Commissioner and, to some extent—we must be realistic about this—of those officials who will be administering the scheme in accordance with this legislation in offices in various parts of the world. If it is as of right, then my point is met. But if it is at the discretion of the Secretary of State, and that discretion is, as it is under the 1948 and the 1958 Acts, a fairly wide one, then I fear that there may be occasions when the administration will not be fully in accordance with the spirit, although, of course, it will be within the letter, of the Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament.
I should like to ask one other question, and it is this. I assume that under previous legislation, under the 1948 Act, the position of Tanganyika as a mandated territory, as a Trusteeship territory, has been taken into account, and that there is no gap in Clause 1(2) of this Bill, so that the original purpose of this particular piece of legislation—that is, to deal with the problems of Tanganyika—has not been omitted. I am certain that any qualms I may have are due more to misunderstanding the legislation rather than to any possibility of a failure on the part of the draftsmen in that respect.
There is one other point I would make, and I do so with great deference because I am almost certain to be wrong in doing it. We find great confusion over this conception of a Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, a British subject, a citizen of the Commonwealth of Australia and so on. We have in recent months and years tended more and more to apply the word "British" to the United Kingdom to explain and define the status and nationality of this country. I think the time may be coming—although it may not yet be right to do it—when we shall have to simplify this particular terminology in our naturalisation law by omitting or altering this
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overall umbrella formula of "British subject "or" Commonwealth citizen", and to come back to what is the proper term for people who belong to this country, which is "British citizens".
I am sure your Lordships join with the noble Earl who spoke last, and with the Minister, in paying tribute to those Members of your Lordships' House who were really responsible for seeing the problems which would arise in the newly independent countries of Eastern Africa, which may apply equally to countries in Central Africa when they become independent, and I think apply to one, at any rate, of the Asian Commonwealth countries of Malaysia. In those circumstances, it is of vital importance to these people, our own people, that their interests should be safeguarded and looked after. In so far as this Bill does that, it is to be heartily welcomed; and if there are any deficiencies or defects in it, I hope your Lordships will not be slow in putting them right when the time comes.

WEST EUROPEAN FISHERIES CONFERENCE
3.37 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, it may be convenient if I now repeat a statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in answer to a Question on the West European Fisheries Conference.
The European Fisheries Conference, which has met in three sessions under my right honourable friend's Chairmanship since the 3rd of December, 1963, concluded its work yesterday. At its final session a majority of Delegations adopted ad referendum the final text of a Fisheries Convention, together with a Protocol of Provisional Application and certain ancillary agreements. The Conference also passed resolutions on Fisheries Policing, on Conservation, and on Access to Markets.
Arrangements are being made for copies of the Final Act of the Conference, to which the texts of the relevant documents are annexed, to be placed in the Library of the House.

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The Fisheries Convention enables signatory States to regulate fisheries within a twelve-mile zone from the baselines from which their territorial seas are measured. Fishing is to be reserved to the fishermen of the coastal State within the inner six miles, subject to a short phase-out period for foreign fishermen who have traditionally fished the three-to-six-mile zone. During the Conference our Delegation agreed with the other countries principally interested the duration of this phase-out period so far as the United Kingdom is concerned. It will be until the 31st of December, 1965, except where straight baselines or new bay closing lines are drawn, where it will be until the 31st of December, 1966.
Within the outer six miles fishing is reserved to fishermen of the coastal State and to those States which have habitually fished in the area between the 1st of January, 1953, and the 31st of December, 1962. Such foreign fishermen will be restricted to stocks and grounds which they already fish and subject to regulation and policing by the coastal State. The Convention will be open, on conditions to be agreed, for accession by other countries which were not represented at the Conference. It was agreed that any straight baselines and new bay closing lines should be drawn in accordance with the rules of general International Law, and in particular of the Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea, 1958. A copy of a map indicating our broad intentions in this matter is being placed in the Library of the House.
The Convention is open for signature between the 9th of March and the 10th of April, and thirteen Delegations indicated that they would recommend their Governments to sign it. I am sorry that the Delegations of Norway and Iceland, and the Danish Delegation, in respect of the Faroes and Greenland, were unable to accept the Convention. The Convention will, of course, remain open for accession by these and other States. The position of Denmark in relation to the Faroe Islands raises urgent and special questions on which a statement will be made by my right honourable friend within the next few days.
So far as the United Kingdom is concerned, legislation will be necessary to
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give effect to our acceptance of the Convention and will be introduced as soon as possible. The signature of the Protocol of Provisional Application will enable early effect to be given to the new regime of fishery limits without waiting for ratification of the Convention by all signatories.
3.42 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am very grateful for this statement, and I am sure that everyone in the House would wish to congratulate the noble Earl on the success which he has obtained, not only in having been able to secure substantial agreement in three meetings but also on having arrived at what looks like (and I must say "looks like", because I am no authority on this matter) a very favourable agreement. It is a pity that the agreement was not unanimous, but there may be special conditions applying to Norway and Iceland, and we shall be hearing in a few days about the Faroe Islands. I do not know whether the noble Earl can tell us whether there are special difficulties here, and whether there is any hope of meeting them, so that we can achieve complete unanimity.
The noble Earl told us that thirteen countries have accepted the Convention. Can he say who they are and whether they are all countries who are interested in this particular question? Were they all represented at the Conference? He did not mention them in his statement. The Convention provides that existing rights which fishermen have enjoyed in the outer six miles for ten years up to December 31, 1962, are to continue. Are there many of them, and is there a registration or information as to exactly who these fishermen are? I see that they will be regulated, but I would hope that they can be identified without any difficulty. Finally, we are to have legislation on the subject. Will this agreement become effective before the legislation is passed, or must we wait until the legislation actually goes through Parliament?
LORD REA: My Lords, may I also welcome the statement from the Minister and congratulate both him and the Government upon having come within sight, apparently, of a settlement of this serious problem, which, as your Lordships well know, has been a problem not only for decades and generations, but

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even for centuries. It is unfortunate that the three dissident nations who are not signing are presumably those who most concern us. All we can say is that we very much hope that the tension which existed a few years ago between ourselves and Iceland will not arise again, and that we shall come to some amicable agreement with these three countries. There is one further point, and that is about the phasing-out period. If these, as I call them, dissident countries do not come into the Convention for some time, will they also have to be phased out by December, 1965, or will they be given some pro rata extension in which to make their own rearrangements?
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive a brief intervention on my part, but this is quite a moment in my life. It represents at least a partial, and I would even go so far as to say a substantial, victory in a battle which I personally have been fighting for precisely 40 years against successive Governments of every political complexion, all of whom have been equal in their obstinacy, obduracy and stupidity. At long last our inshore fishermen will get a measure of protection in the only form which can really be of any use to them.
It is not the end of the story. This agreement, good as it is in many ways, will not solve the major problem of the over-fishing of the North Sea over a long period to come. This has taken place twice in this century; and, had it not been for the intervention of two World Wars, I do not think any fish would be being caught in the North Sea to-day. The agreement does not get down to the basic problem, which can only be settled internationally and which will take time. But it goes a long way to protect the inshore fishermen.
I want to say only two things, having already said that, so far as it goes, this agreement is good. First of all, I ask for an assurance from Her Majesty's Government that, in the exercise of the control which they will possess over the outer six-mile limit under the agreement, they will bear in mind always the paramount importance of the conservation of stocks and, above all, of the spawning grounds, particularly in the Minch and the Moray Firth. That is of tremendous importance to our inshore fishermen.
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Finally, I am going to do something that I can never remember having done before in 40 years of public life—I want to thank and congratulate the Government. Whatever the future vicissitudes of politics may be, the present Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will be remembered permanently, and with gratitude, by the inshore fishermen of this country, because he has done something that they well deserve—and none too soon.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, if I may take the questions in their reverse order, I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Boothby should enjoy all the credit for this achievement—
LORD BOOTHBY: I deserve it!
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: —on condition that my noble friend will also accept the blame for any defects which may subsequently become apparent and any criticism arising from them.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, countries which do not come into the agreement will not, of course, enjoy any benefits under it so far as we are concerned, but we shall be very glad to discuss with them bilaterally on questions of mutual interest, and to make any suitable arrangements on which we can agree.
The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked the names of the thirteen countries who signed the Convention. There were sixteen countries who attended this Convention, and they all signed it except Norway and Iceland, and also Switzerland, because Switzerland, having no coast, thought it was rather pointless to come in. Denmark signed it in respect of her domestic waters, but could not do so in respect of the Faroe Islands and Greenland. I do not know whether the noble Lord wants the names of the sixteen countries, which will take a moment to read out. They were: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Iceland (who did not agree), Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway (who did not agree), Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord also asked about the policing of the outer six-mile limit. I understand that no difficulty is anticipated in deciding which vessels or which

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countries have habitually fished these areas in the last ten years. Of course, they will be subject to the control and policing regulations. I should also like to say to my noble friend Lord Boothby, in connection with that, that we have very much in mind the necessity for protecting stocks and the spawning grounds, particularly in the areas which he mentioned.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, could he explain why Luxembourg and Austria signed, and Switzerland did not, because I do not think their coast line is very different.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No, my Lords, I think if the noble Lord will look at the texts which are being put in the Library he may be able to form some theory about that.

BRITISH NATIONALITY BILL
3.50 p.m.
Debate on Second Reading resumed.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I now resume the Second Reading debate on the British Nationality Bill. I should like to start by thanking both noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for the welcome which they have given to this Bill, for which I am grateful. I think that all that remains for me to do is to answer the questions that have been put to me. I am grateful in particular to my noble relative for having given me warning of some of the questions which he was likely to put. If I may deal with those questions first, I think his first was: are there any other Commonwealth countries besides Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda which prohibit dual citizenship? There are. Other Commonwealth countries whose laws contain a complete prohibition of dual citizenship are Ceylon, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, and Trinidad and Tobago. The laws of Ghana and Malaysia provide that a person may in certain circumstances be required to renounce his other citizenship.
The second question which my noble relative asked was: can we estimate the number of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies living in the various Commonwealth countries where dual
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citizenship is prohibited? It is estimated that the numbers of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies of British origin living in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda are 60,000, 15,000 and 8,000 respectively. Estimates for the other countries are not readily available, I am afraid. It is, of course, not possible to say how many of these people already possess, or may wish to acquire, citizenship of the country in which they are living and thus be obliged to renounce their citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
The last but one question my noble relative asked was: are any dependent territories which will achieve independence in the future likely to prohibit dual citizenship? Citizenship is one of the matters discussed when a territory is about to achieve independence, and it is not possible to say in advance of such discussions whether the law of a particular territory will prohibit dual citizenship; but if it does, the provisions of this Bill will automatically apply to persons who are, as a result, obliged to renounce their citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
There was one more question, I think, relating to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and possibly Southern Rhodesia. Southern Rhodesia is no problem, because it has its own citizenship law which does not require United Kingdom citizens to renounce their citizenship if they possess it in addition to that of Southern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland do not yet possess separate citizenships. When they do, the provisions of this Bill will come into play if their laws should follow the example of Kenya and Tanganyika in prohibiting dual citizenship. The Bill is so drafted that it will apply to the situation created by any Commonwealth country which requires United Kingdom citizens to renounce their citizenship, whether such requirement derives from past or future law.
The two questions asked by my noble friend Lord Alport were, first, whether there was some discrepancy between the Explanatory Memorandum and Clause 1. There is no discrepancy. Clause 1 says that the applicant will be entitled to registration if he satisfies the Secretary of State that he fulfils both conditions (a) and (b). As soon as he does so, registration will be automatic. If he

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fulfils condition (a) and not condition (b), registration will be at the discretion of the Secretary of State. That is where the Secretary of State's discretion comes in.
The other question my noble friend asked was whether this Bill was all right as regards citizens of Tanganyika? Tanganyika has ceased to be a mandated or trustee territory, as my noble friend knows. It is simply an independent country of the Commonwealth, like Kenya or Australia, and is covered by a uniform provision applying to all such countries, on exactly the same footing as all the other Commonwealth countries.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

FIREWORKS BILL
3.56 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, this is a very modest Bill in length and, in spite of its Title, unlikely to cause any "fireworks" in your Lordships' House. But it is, none the less, important in practice for the sake of our export trade. It is a Private Member's Bill introduced in another place by my honourable friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead. The trouble has arisen from the Fireworks Act, 1951, which in Clause 5 says that no fireworks shall be consigned from the factory in which they were made unless each firework bears conspicuously the name of the occupier of the factory and the address of the factory. There are many buyers in foreign countries who are not very happy to receive fireworks exported from this country marked in this way with the name of the British factory and its address, and the extra labour involved in re-labelling each firework which may be exported to a foreign country puts us out of competition with other countries who are prepared to supply fireworks unmarked.
Therefore, the only object of this Bill is to provide that, where fireworks are being exported, there is no need for Clause 5 of the 1951 Act to apply, and that they may be exported unmarked.
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This Bill has a comparatively small effect, and it may seem to your Lordships somewhat like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but unfortunately this is the only way in which this particular object can be achieved. Finally, I should merely like to stress that nothing in this Bill will in any way affect the safety provisions that exist both for the manufacture of fireworks and for their transport in this country and abroad. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
3.59 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF MANCHESTER: My Lords, I should like to raise just one point. It may really be inappropriate to do so on this particular Bill, but we were earlier this afternoon dealing with the question of safety of children in regard to nightdresses. Over the last few years in my diocese in Manchester there have been a very considerable number of accidents to children through fireworks. It would seem, although I have not the figures, that the number of such accidents is increasing considerably, possibly due to the fact that we live in a more affluent society and fireworks are more easily procurable. I have seen pictures of hospital cases of children who have been injured by fireworks; they are really terrible to look at, and every year a large number of children in this country receive accidents in this way.
It is not often that one gets an opportunity of making some protest about this and I should like to do so on this particular occasion, although I should not like anyone to think that I was in any sense a killjoy. Fireworks may be very amusing things, but they could surely be let off under appropriate, adequate adult supervision, and I think it is wrong that we should allow fireworks to be distributed, as they are at present in this country, more or less indiscriminately to children, leading to a great deal of distress and pain. I should like to know whether Her Majesty's Government have any plan for looking into this and seeing whether what I say is correct—that these accidents are increasing—and, if so, in what way they could be decreased.
4.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF IDDLESLEIGH: My Lords, may I express a good deal of doubt about the merits of this Bill? The provision with regard to marking the manufacturer's name on the fireworks was designed in the interests of the public. As the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, said when he introduced the Bill in 1951, if fireworks are marked, it will be easier to trace the makers or the importer, as the case may be, if any of them are found to be dangerous; and, as a result, if dangerous fireworks are found, the appropriate steps can be taken against the manufacturer concerned. Are we not depriving the purchaser of these fireworks, who may be a Commonwealth citizen or a foreigner, of that degree of protection which we think necessary for our people? Can I be assured that fireworks intended for export will not, as a result of this Bill if it is enacted, be made with a lack of the proper safety precautions which Her Majesty's inspectors require for fireworks for use in this country? I regard that as a very important point. God forbid that we should be more careless of the lives and safety of children, for example, in Malta, where fireworks are used a great deal, than we are of children in this country! I should like to press for consideration particularly of the point that I have made: that unsafe fireworks might be made with impunity under the provisions of this Bill.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I be allowed to say one word in answer to the right reverend Prelate? May I say, with the greatest of respect to him, that this Bill has nothing to do with fireworks for use in this country, but as he referred to regulations for fireworks in this country I will take the opportunity of writing to him in a day or two to pursue that subject further.
THE LORD BISHOP OF MANCHESTER: My Lords, I am much obliged.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am grateful to those noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I would only say to the noble Earl, Lord Iddlesleigh, that nothing in this Bill in any way affects the stringent regulations of the Home Office on the manufacture of fireworks. I think I am right in saying that there are very stringent
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regulations by the Home Office to see that fireworks which emerge from British factories are as safe as they can be. Moreover, there are further stringent regulations made by the Ministry of Transport, covering the transport of fireworks, so we should certainly not be transporting dangerous fireworks to people overseas. The only object of the Bill is to enable fireworks to be sold overseas without each one being labelled. Of course, the box going abroad would be labelled, and therefore the supplier would be known.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BILL
4.5 p.m.
Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD moved, after Clause 2, to insert the following new clause:
Provision for industrial training courses etc. by the B.B.C. or the I.T.A.
". Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the Television Acts 1954 and 1963 or any other enactment an industrial training board may make grants or loans to the British Broadcasting Corporation or the Independent Television Authority to enable them to provide courses or other facilities for the training of persons employed or intending to be employed in the industry for which that industrial training board is established under the provisions of section 1 of this Act."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bowden, who, I regret, is not able to be with us this afternoon, I beg to move the first Amendment on the Marshalled List. On Second Reading the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, said that this Bill relates to men, women, boys and girls employed in industry and commerce throughout the country. The noble Lord, Lord Bowden, in his very notable maiden speech, drew attention to the estimates made by Professor Stone of Cambridge that by 1970 we should need approximately 1½ million more skilled men than we have to-day and, I thought perhaps more significantly in view of the fears of redundancy in industry throughout the country, that 1,400,000 unskilled jobs would disappear.
He drew attention to the fact—and I do not think there would be any dispute about it on any side of the House or on either side of industry—that if we are to achieve the major breakthroughs in industry which we all wish to see, and if we are to avoid large-scale and permanent unemployment, we must devise some system by which persons may obtain industrial training, whether it be in a factory or in an office, and this should be a continuing process. The noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, when he introduced this Bill, admitted that the previous arrangements for industrial training have largely failed, and now we have the Bill containing the Government's proposals. I believe, like my noble friend Lord Champion, that there is much in this Bill which will make it possible to achieve considerable industrial training.
But I wonder whether the figures that were given by the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, really showed the full picture. I believe that there will be a continuing demand by men and women, particularly as we have the growth of education—and I am sure there is a strong desire for young people to continue their education—that we should endeavour to provide a flexible and an interesting way of giving training and further education. Even if we take the figures of Professor Stone, it is obvious that the Government and the local authorities would hardly be able to provide colleges or schools sufficient for these numbers. It would be extremely difficult to find the number of teachers required. Certainly the capital cost for buildings and facilities would be beyond our present means, particularly when we consider the demands that Robbins and Newsom will make upon the Exchequer.
As my noble friend said on Second Reading, we have this medium of television and radio. Television is relatively new, particularly in the field of education; but it is an undoubted fact, and I think it has been fully accepted within the schools, that sound radio has played a very important part in education, and also in adult education. Television is a new medium. It is far more powerful than sound. What we seek in this Amendment is to make it
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possible—it is purely permissive—for the new industrial boards to have the opportunity to use this new medium of television for industrial training, and by industrial training we have in- mind not only the factory training and the use of equipment but also commercial training and the use of foreign languages.
As I understand it, there will be nothing between the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, and ourselves in this matter. In fact, he said in his winding-up speech on Second Reading that he hoped the boards would take note of the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Bowden. Nor do I believe that there is anything between us in regard to the use of television, whether it be the British Broadcasting Corporation or the Independent Television Authority. Here we have a modern method of teaching, and I think the Government themselves would wish it to be used.
But I think there are two difficulties in this matter. First, industrial training, whether it be for the factory or for commerce, will for us be relatively new. If it is to succeed, a considerable amount of research will have to be undertaken, not only by the boards but also by the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. As I understand it, the B.B.C. are already fully stretched in regard to their finances, and it will be difficult for them to put aside fairly considerable sums of money which will be required initially for research into this matter. In the case of the I.T.A., it might well be that they have a more flexible position because of the income they receive, but they may well be in a similar position later on. Therefore, having taken this step forward and having made considerable sums available to these industrial boards, we feel that if the boards wish to use this medium—and, of course, if the B.B.C. and I.T.A. themselves are prepared to co-operate and to develop these services—the boards should be in a position to make grants or loans to either body for research into the use of this medium.
But having achieved that, there is such a wide field for exploitation in television, particularly if available in the mornings, that in the mere putting forward and the compiling of programmes we should

39
again be in the same position as in regard to research. The B.B.C. would not, within their own budget, be able to provide the large sums that would be necessary to make use of this medium; and no doubt the same could be said of I.T.A. Therefore, we have drafted this Amendment which would make it permissible for boards to enter into agreements with the two corporations, so that they can provide courses and other facilities for the training of persons within industry.
If it were only this narrow issue that was concerned, I do not think there would be any difference between us and the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham. But on research into this matter we found that it was not sufficient just to amend the Bill to give the boards permissive powers to make grants. As I understand it, under the Television Acts and by their Charter, in the case of the B.B.C., these corporations are not allowed to receive sums of money in order to deal with programme content. I would submit that in this particular case there is considerable ground for breaking this principle. It is largely a question of one side of the State organisation for an important purpose contributing funds to another public corporation who can provide the service.
It may be said—and one must anticipate it—that in doing this we should be breaking a considerable principle for sound and television. But if we are to use this medium (and I think that on all sides of the House we recognise the power and strength of television for the good of the country) then we should find some way in which we can harness that power for the national good. It would seem to me that if we are to do that sooner or later this particular principle will have to be broken.
I should not subscribe—in fact, I would strongly resist it—to the idea of private capital or private funds being paid for programme content, either for the B.B.C. or I.T.A.; but I would suggest that this is rather different—indeed, quite different. Here is a case where, the State having decided that a particular service should be provided by, and not imposed upon, the corporations—because, of course, they would enter
40
into it willingly and voluntarily—the funds necessary for that service ought to be provided. I hope that the Government will first of all accept the principle behind the Amendment. I do not suggest that the Amendment is word-perfect or will fully meet the case, but I believe that there is an overwhelming case for developing television for the national good, particularly when one takes into account the tremendous pressures for industrial training, not only in fitting people for new jobs, but also in trying to deal with great problems of redundancy which both Parties foresee following automation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Shepherd.)
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT BLAKENHAM): My Lords, I think your Lordships will have listened with interest and some sympathy to what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has said. I am sure we are all sorry that Lord Bowden is not able to be with us this afternoon, because he spoke most effectively on this subject during the Second Reading of this Bill. Your Lordships may recall that I said during the debate on Second Reading that there was nothing in the Bill to prevent the use of television, correspondence courses or teaching machines in pursuance of the boards' objectives, and in the general sense that is true. A board will be free, if it chooses, to provide correspondence courses or other aids for those employed in the industry or to make payments to other organisations which will provide them on its behalf. The only limitations the Bill imposes are that courses must be provided for persons employed in the industry; and that they must meet the board's standards.
I cannot continue to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in his argument, because in his Amendment he is seeking, as I hope I shall explain in a moment, to breach certain principles, which I could not advise your Lordships to accept without considerable thought and care. The particular proposal contained in the Amendment explained by the noble Lord was that the training boards should be able to sponsor B.B.C. or I.T.A. programmes

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which, in spite of what I have said, would not in principle be permitted as the Bill now stands. It is because there are two important reasons why this is so that I would advise your Lordships not to accept the Amendment that the noble Lord has put forward.
The first reason arises out of the regulation that the B.B.C. and I.T.A. are acting under certain principles which were laid down in the past, because when Parliament passed the Independent Television Act, the Government thought it right—this was agreed, I think, wholeheartedly by the Opposition at the time—to provide that the programme contractors should not be permitted to receive payments for programmes which they broadcast. One of the main purposes of this provision was to avoid what are known as sponsored programmes, that is, programmes controlled by organisations other than the broadcasting authorities, particularly under the Independent Television Act where we had advertisers in mind. A somewhat similar provision is included in the B.B.C.'s licence.
The noble Lord argued that an exception to this principle should be made in the case of the new industrial training boards. This would be a much greater step than perhaps the noble Lord contemplated when he first thought of this Amendment. There is nothing to prevent the B.B.C. or the I.T.V. from putting on a programme to teach a particular skill or to instruct in a particular subject: quite the contrary. Both organisations put out a number of educational or instructional programmes and would be perfectly at liberty to develop this side of their activities. What neither television authority can do is to receive instructions and cash payments for the programmes which it broadcasts. I suggest that this is a principle not to be lightly discarded. It is an important and possibly vital principle of broadcasting policy, even though it involves a marginal limitation of the powers of a training board.
The second reason, which is also important, why boards would not be able to make payments to television authorities is that in the normal way television programmes go out to all who are prepared to turn on their set. The noble Lord, Lord Bowden, made the point that the Americans were very
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impressed with the number of people who listened to educational programmes in preference to "soap opera". This means that any B.B.C. or I.T.V. programme for which a board paid would be likely to be received by large numbers not within the scope of the board; the board would therefore inevitably be spending money for purposes which it was not entitled to do. And even the new clause, as drafted by the noble Lord, would not give the board power to spend the money in this way.
I do not think the noble Lord need feel too discouraged. There are two reasons for saying this. First, the B.B.C. and I.T.V. have already shown considerable interest in educational broadcasting. The broadcasts form part of the general duty placed on the broadcasting authorities to provide programmes of education and information as well as programmes of entertainment. It will be up to the boards themselves, with these new important functions in their hands, to encourage broadcasting authorities to continue the good work which they are already doing and to persuade them to expand and do more.
Secondly, there will be nothing to stop the boards from developing the use of closed circuit television. This is an important development. Some interesting experiments in the use of this medium for teaching purposes are going on at the moment. At Kidbrooke Girls' Comprehensive School and at Warbling-ton Secondary Modern School, Havant, closed circuit television is used for giving lessons as part of the general curriculum. Mathematics is taught in this way at both schools, and at Kidbrooke geography, science, pottery and dressmaking as well. An interesting feature at both schools is an arrangement for two-way communication so that pupils can both ask and answer questions. This possibility of two-way communication would seem to make closed circuit television an appropriate means of adding these modern techniques of instruction to the curricula of the new training boards.
I would end by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that his general objectives will be achieved within the terms of the Bill as it now stands; although, for the reasons I have given, I am afraid it would not be possible for

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me to accept the Amendment and his suggestion that the boards should be able to finance the two authorities for the purpose he has in mind.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, made a strong case against sponsored programmes, but I think he also indicated that the B.B.C. and I.T.A. are not able to radiate programmes for very limited audiences. I do not think this is correct.
VISCOUNT BLAKENHAM: I am afraid the noble Lord entirely misunderstood me. What I said was that the training boards are allowed to provide money only for training people within their industry. If a particular programme were on B.B.C., the training boards would be providing money for training people outside the particular industries for which the boards were responsible.
LORD TAYLOR: That is a rather sad thought, because in Glasgow the ordinary commercial television service is used for post-graduate medical education one night a week late at night, with great success. Here we have an extremely limited audience being instructed by the Glasgow Post-Graduate Medical Federation over the ordinary commercial television service. I should have thought that this was a very good way of doing precisely what it is the aim of the Minister and my noble friends to do. I hope that this would not be precluded. If, for example, the boards were to set up a small unit to produce training films for radiation over the television service, I hope there would be no objection to this being done late at night in the same way that post-graduate education is given to doctors late at night.
LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, the suggestion made by the noble Lord is a good one, but some of us would surely take strong exception to any form of sponsored programme—a programme which was paid for. Many films for training purposes are already being produced by various bodies. A body to which I am attached, connected with hospitals, produced one the other day. Unfortunately, the B.B.C. made an awful mess of it. But such films can be produced and there is nothing against them. Provided that no fees are
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charged, I hope that the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. will be encouraged to put on films connected with industry and prepared by the B.B.C. or by the training boards or whoever it may be—and provided that the films are of good quality and useful to industry.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as I suspected, in principle there is nothing between us in this matter, and I fully acknowledge the considerable work which both the I.T.A. and the B.B.C. are doing in the field of education and other matters of general interest, and from which I am sure the country as a whole benefits. If we are to make a considerable break-through in the use of television and sound radio in the national interest, taking into account the tremendous demands that will be placed on education, I consider that the resources of the B.B.C. in particular are inadequate to provide the sums required for such a service to be provided on the proper scale and of the requisite quality. I recognise the difficulties of trying to get an Amendment into the narrow scope of the present Bill, but this is a matter Parliament will have to come back to—I hope after the next Election, when, perhaps, we shall make a great stride forward in having a university of the air. I beg leave to withdrawn the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 [Proposals for exercise of board's functions and for levies]:
4.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT BLAKENHAM: My Lords, at the Committee stage an Amendment was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, to require the Minister to appoint new members of a board not later than six months after the Minister had made an order declaring a board to be in default. The noble Lord said at the time—and I warmly agreed with him—that we all hope the Minister will never have to use such default powers. But the noble Lord was concerned that, since the Bill does make provision for a default order and a caretaker period in certain circumstances, it should not allow that caretaker period to continue indefinitely. I think that was the point of what the noble Lord had to say. In answer to him, I agreed with his suggestion that there should be as short a period as possible before the appointment of a new

45
board, and I offered to consider this point further. As a result of this consideration, my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour has decided that an Amendment to limit the caretaker period is desirable, and that six months is in fact the right period to fix as a maximum. This Amendment takes a rather different form from the Amendment which the noble Lord tabled at the Committee stage, but I think it does what he wanted to do.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 15, leave out from ("board") to end of line 16 and insert ("during such period, not exceeding six months, as may elapse before new members are appointed").—(Viscount Blakenham.)
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, has pretty fairly and fully set out the history of this Amendment during the Committee stage. He has fully met the undertaking that he gave during that stage, and I should like to place on record my appreciation of that consideration and the outcome of it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BLAKENHAM VISCOUNT BLAKENHAM moved, after Clause 13, to insert the following new clause:
Power of industrial training board with respect to training for employment overseas
.—(1) If the Minister so requests, an industrial training board may exercise such functions in connection with the training for employment in any activity of industry or commerce carried on outside Great Britain of persons temporarily in Great Britain as are exercisable by it under subsections (1) and (4) of section 2 of this Act in connection with the training of persons employed or intending to be employed in the industry for which the board is established.
(2) An industrial training board may delegate any power exercisable by it by virtue of this section to a committee (which need not include members of the board) appointed for that purpose or to any committee appointed under section 3 of this Act.
(3) An industrial training board shall keep separate accounts—

(a) with respect to its functions under this section; and

(b) with respect to its other functions under this Act;

and no money raised by a levy imposed under this Act shall be carried to an account kept in pursuance of paragraph (a) of this subsection, and any expenses and liabilities incurred by the Board under this section shall be disregarded for the purposes of sections 4(1) and 9(3) of this Act.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the purpose of this new clause is to enable industrial training boards, at the request of my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour, to exercise their functions in respect of overseas trainees who are not employed or intending to be employed in industry in Britain and are therefore not covered by the provisions of Clause 2 of the Bill. This clause would not in any way affect a board's duty to provide or secure the provision of training facilities for those, whether British or overseas, who are employed by firms in its industry. Of course, the great majority of overseas trainees are in fact employed in the ordinary way while undergoing training in this country, and the provisions of the Bill therefore apply to them. Boards will be able to make grants for training overseas employees, just as they will for British trainees. To that extent, overseas trainees who are employed will benefit from this Bill just as much as British trainees.
This clause deals with trainees from abroad for whom the boards have no responsibility as the Bill stands. The sort of trainees we have in mind are those who receive maintenance allowances for example, under the Colombo Plan, other regional technical assistance schemes or under the Federation of British Industries' scholarship scheme. I hope your Lordships will agree that it is very desirable that the Government should be able to use the machinery of the boards where appropriate to secure training facilities for these people and similar groups of overseas students, particularly those from the developing countries. The effect of this clause will be to enable a board, at the request of the Minister, to exercise certain of its functions under Clause 2 in respect of the sort of people I have just mentioned. This means that a board would be able to secure training facilities, and approve courses, for trainees in this category. They would also be able to make grants or loans to firms providing training for them.
There are two important points about this new clause at which I would ask your Lordships to look. First, the power is to be exercised only at the request of the Minister. A board will not be required as a matter of course to make

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special provision for training this category of overseas trainees; nor will it be able, on its own initiative, to propose a scheme of training for these people. The Minister, at the request no doubt of the Secretary for Technical Co-operation or the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development, would have to take the initiative in asking a board to make special arrangements of the kind that I have mentioned. This is in contrast to other provisions of the Bill which require a board to secure provision for training and to submit proposals to the Minister. That is the first point of difference.
The second point concerns finance. Where a board provides or secures training facilities for overseas persons who are not employed in the industry, the expense it incurs—including any grants it makes to employers—will not be met from the levy. These expenses will be accounted for separately and will be met by the Minister, who will in his turn be reimbursed under arrangements made with the Department of Technical Co-operation, the Board of Trade or whichever other Department may have requested the training.
My Lords, I think this is a useful Amendment. This country undertakes a great deal of training which is of great value to our friends in the developing countries, and frequently, also, to the host firm in this country. The boards will be in a good position to assist with schemes of training of this sort, and it would be a great pity if the Bill were worded in such a way as to prevent this from being done. I therefore beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 13, insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Blakenham.)
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am sure that, certainly on this side, we all welcome this new clause. The only fault I have to find with it is that I did not think of it myself. I think it is a very good clause, and I agree with the whole intention behind it. It is certainly desirable, in relation to the emerging countries, that we should be in a position to give this training for skilled manpower which they so urgently need—even more than we do in this country. I must admit that,
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when I have looked at the students coming over here from some of these emerging and developing countries, it has seemed to me that they tended too often to be taking courses intended to make them lawyers, rather than scientists, technologists and skilled men in the technician grades. So we certainly accept this clause as being a very desirable and worthwhile one.
The point I had intended to ask has already been adequately covered by the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham; that is, the amount of the levy. Clearly, there is to be a separate account, and clearly, too, as I understand it, the Minister himself, or some Ministry, will pay the board for the work that it does in this connection. If that is so, we will certainly support this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

PLANT VARIETIES AND SEEDS BILL [H.L.]
4.38 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Commons Amendments.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[The references are to Bill [55] as first printed for the House of Commons]
In the Title, line 14, after ("potatoes") insert ("to authorise measures to prevent injurious cross-pollination").
Clause 5, page 6, line 8, after ("including") insert ("alterations,").
Clause 5, page 6, line 29, leave out from ("If") to ("in") in line 30 and insert (", where a name is registered under this section for a plant variety, any person uses that name, or a name so nearly resembling it as to be likely to deceive or cause confusion,").
Clause 10, page 12, line 10, at end insert—
(" (a) to provide for determining in which part of Great Britain any appeal is to be heard;").
Clause 24, page 26, line 42, after ("authority") insert (", and in accordance, with the terms,").
Clause 24, page 27, line 11, leave] out ("forfeited") and insert ("liable to forfeiture under the Customs and Excise Act 1952").
Transpose Clause 24 as amended to after Clause 32 as Part IIA of the Bill.
Clause 31, page 32, line 46, leave out from ("trees") to end of line 47.
After Clause 32, insert the following new clause:
Measures to prevent injurious cross-pollination affecting crops of seeds
(" .—(1) This section shall have effect for the purpose of maintaining the purity of seed of any types and varieties of plants of any species of the genus Album, Beta or Brassica.
(2) The Minister may by order bring this section into force in an area in any part of Great Britain in which persons are engaged in growing crops of seeds of any type or variety of plant mentioned in subsection (1) of this section if he is satisfied that in that area satisfactory arrangements (whether legally enforceable or not) have been made for locating such crops so as to isolate them from crops or plants which might cause injurious cross-pollination.
(3) An order under this section—

(a) shall be made after consultation with the persons responsible for the arrangements mentioned in subsection (2) of this section, and with persons representative of such other interests as appear to the Minister to be concerned. and

(b) shall be made by statutory instrument and may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order so made.

(4) An order under this section—

(a) shall state which of the types and varieties of plants mentioned in subsection (1) of this section are protected by the order, and

(b) shall specify the kinds of crops and plants which are to be controlled in the area to which the order relates, and

(c) may relate to more than one area and, if so, may make different provision under paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection in respect of the different areas to which it relates;

and in this section, in relation to an area to which an order under this section relates—

(i)"protected crop" means a crop of a type or variety of plant which is protected by the order in that area, being a crop grown for the purpose of producing seeds, and

(ii) "controlled crops or plants" means crops grown for any purpose, of the types or varieties of plants which are protected by the order in that area, and such additional kinds of crops or plants, whether grown or self-sown and whether of those or any other types of varieties, as may be specified in the order for the purposes of this definition in that area.

(5) If in an area where this section is in force controlled crops or plants are growing and, on an application made in accordance with Schedule ("Cross-pollination injuring protected crops") to this Act, the Minister is satisfied—
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(a) that they are causing or may cause injurious cross-pollination in a protected crop which is being grown in the area, and

(b) in the case of controlled crops or plants which are not self-sown, that the person growing them did not give to the persons responsible for the arrangements mentioned in subsection (2) of this section such notice of his intention to grow those crops or plants to the flowering stage as would have enabled them to take any appropriate steps for altering the arrangements,

the Minister may serve a notice on the occupier of the land where the controlled crops or plants are growing requiring him to take such steps as may be specified in the notice for the purpose of preventing any of the controlled crops or plants from causing or continuing to cause injurious cross-pollination in the protected crop.
(6) if the person served with a notice under this section does not comply with any requirement in the notice, the Minister may enter and do what that person has failed to do or, if in the opinion of the Minister that would no longer serve the purpose for which the notice was served, may take such other action as appears to the Minister appropriate for that purpose; and where, when the default occurs, further obligations remain under the notice, the Minister may also take such action as appears to him appropriate to meet the purposes for which those further obligations were imposed.
The Minister may recover from the person on whom the notice was served a sum equal to the reasonable cost incurred by the Minister in taking any action under this subsection.
(7) Without prejudice to the power of proceeding under the last foregoing subsection, a person who unreasonably fails to comply with any requirement in a notice under this section shall be liable on summary conviction—

(a) in the case of a first offence under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, and

(b) in the case of a second or subsequent offence under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.

(8) A person duly authorised by the Minister may, on production if so required of his authority, at all reasonable hours enter on any land (but not into any dwelling-house) in an area where this section is in force for the purpose of ascertaining whether controlled crops or plants are growing on the land or of inspecting and taking samples of any controlled crops or plants growing on the land.
(9) A notice under this section or Schedule ("Cross-pollination injuring protected crops") to this Act may be served by leaving it at, or sending it by post addressed to, the last known address of the person on whom it is to be served, and if it is not practicable after reasonable inquiry to ascertain his name and address, the notice may be served by addressing it to him as "the occupier" of the land and affixing it or a copy of it to some conspicuous object on the land.
(10) A person who obstructs or impedes a person acting in the exercise of the powers conferred by subsection (6) or subsection

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(8) of this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
(11) In this section, and in the said Schedule—
"the occupier" means, in the case of unoccupied land, the person entitled to occupy the land;
"protected crop" and "controlled crops or plants" have the meanings respectively assigned by subsection (4) of this section.")
Clause 37, page 35, line 11, at end insert—
("(2) References in this Act to seeds are references to seeds for sowing.")
Clause 40, page 37, line 33, leave out ("Part II") and insert ("Parts II and IIA")
Schedule 1, page 38, line 41, after ("rights") insert (", or would under sections 5(6) of this Act have been actionable in proceedings by the holder of those rights,")
Schedule 4, page 45, line 37, leave out from ("proceedings") to ("in") in line 38.
After Schedule 6, insert the following new Schedule—
("CROSS-POLLINATION INJURING PROTECTED CROPS
1. An application under section (Measures to prevent injurious cross-pollination affecting crops of seeds) of this Act seeking the issue of a notice under that section shall be in writing.
2. Before deciding whether to issue a notice in accordance with the application the Minister shall serve a notice on the occupier of the land giving him particulars of the application, and of his right to make representations in accordance with the next following paragraph.
3. The Minister shall, if requested within such time as may he specified in the notice under paragraph 2 above, afford to the applicant, and to the occupier of the land, an opportunity of appearing before and making representations to a person appointed by the Minister for the purpose.
4. In deciding whether to issue a notice in accordance with the application, and in deciding the terms of any such notice, the Minister shall have regard—

(a) to the need to maintain, in the interests of the public, the purity of the seed in question,

(b) to the degree to which the injurious cross-pollination will or may diminish the value of the protected crop or disturb arrangements made for the purpose of maintaining the purity of the seed in question, and

(c) to the value, if any, of the controlled crops or plants and the inconvenience or disturbance involved in complying with a notice.")

LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I ought first to point out a small printing error in Amendment 13, on Schedule 4. It should read, "Page 45, line 37, leave out from ('proceedings') to the first
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('in') in line 37." The word "in" occurs twice. Before going on to move approval of these Amendments, I think it may help your Lordships if I make a few general points concerning them, and say something in a little detail about the more significant changes. They are, for the most part, drafting changes, some of them consequent upon Amendments made in your Lordships' House, which I think have improved the Bill without altering its basic provisions.
The principal change is the insertion of a new clause, Clause 33, which deals with measures to prevent injurious cross-pollination of seed crops. It will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that this has required the amendment of the Long Title, and it has also been thought logical to rearrange the clauses slightly, so that we now have four instead of three Parts of the Bill. In particular, Clause 24 has been moved back in the Bill, so that it should precede the new Clause 33. I am sure your Lordships will agree that this is an appropriate Amendment.
So far as the new clause itself is concerned, your Lordships will recall that when we discussed this subject at Committee stage, on an Amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wise, I explained that, while recognising the genuine importance of the problem and its extent, I foresaw considerable difficulties of enforcement. I am happy to say that we have been able, following intensive discussions with the interests mainly concerned, to resolve most of these difficulties. The clause as it now stands has the support, not only of the seed trade and the National Farmers' Union, but also of the National Allotments and Gardens Society, all of whom recognise the importance of high quality seed with little or no varietal impurity, and are willing to encourage their members to co-operate in a good neighbour policy.
Your Lordships will observe that the clause is a complex one. It is not simply a matter of taking powers to issue Orders, with no means of enforcement. We have to go the whole way if the purpose of safeguarding valuable seed crops is to be fulfilled. But we have tried to keep interference down to a minimum. The clause will apply only to certain seed crops in the intensive seed-growing areas, and no Order will be made by the Minister unless merchants and growers in the

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area have first made satisfactory arrangements among themselves for the necessary isolation of seed crops. The Minister has the power to intervene in cases where there may be a danger of injurious cross-pollination from other crops in the area; but he will do so only on application and after inspection and enquiry have shown that the danger exists and that private negotiation has failed to remove the cause. I am personally very happy that the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wise, in Committee in this House was eventually met, though not by me.
My Lords, I do not think there is anything else of any great interest in any of the Amendments. If it is to the convenience of the House I should prefer to move them en bloc, but if any other noble Lord has anything to say I shall naturally be pleased to listen.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I rise only to say that my noble friend Lord Wise is unable to he present, but that he particularly welcomes the new clause referred to by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. So far as my noble friend Lord Wise is concerned, having studied these Amendments, he says that they ought to be acceptable to the House, and he would be quite prepared for them to be moved and accepted en bloc.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.(Lord St. Oswald.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TESTING OF NEW DRUGS
4.44 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR LORD TAYLOR rose to ask Her Majesty's Government to consider the establishment, under the Medical Research Council or elsewhere, of a central agency to organise the clinical testing of new drugs. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. Because this is an Unstarred Question, I shall not have a chance to reply to it, and that means that I shall not be able to thank noble Lords
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who are going to take part in the debate after they have done so. May I therefore do so in advance, and thank all noble Lords who will be taking part in this debate, and say how grateful I am for their help?—I cannot say "support", because I do not know what they are going to say.
LORD LINDGREN: That is bad organisation.
LORD TAYLOR: My noble friend suggests it is bad organisation. Perhaps my organisation is better than it seems.
My Lords, the successes of commercial and academic pharmacology during the past twenty years have been quite extraordinary and have changed the lives of many millions of people all over the world, but as a result of these successes medicine and the public are now facing a situation which is really without precedent. I think it is fair to say that medicine has never had a finer lot of drugs available for the cure and relief of disease. But there is another side to the penny. Not only is more good done by drugs than ever before, but also more harm. I think this is recognised by all serious students, certainly not least by Professor Alastair Macgregor, the Regius Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the University of Aberdeen, who recently gave a lecture in Glasgow called a Maurice Block lecture, which was reprinted in the Listener: and if any of your Lordships are interested in the technical side of this problem I strongly recommend this lecture, entitled Drugs and the Community.
Now I said that drugs have done harm, but I do not think we should overestimate this. I think we want to keep the matter in proportion. We are all aware of the tragedy of thalidomide; but two years ago there was a severe epidemic of German measles, and if your Lordships will look in this week's Lancet you will see that the first letter is from a pædiatrician who describes five ghastly cases of congenital defects, similar to but not identical with those of thalidomide babies, which had occurred during the year, following German measles in the mothers. This pædiatrician goes on to calculate that the total number of malformed babies—these particular babies went blind,

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were mentally defective, and so on—from this cause in that year may well have been greater than the total crop from thalidomide. But that does not make the situation any better: it merely gives us a little picture of the risks and difficulties we run, and enables us to see that, while we cure many more people, some suffer as a result of our efforts.
In between the great number of good drugs and the dangerous ones, there is a vast penumbra of new drugs of marginal advantage—some useful, but not very much more useful, or perhaps no more useful, than their predecessors; and some, on balance, useless. In this country we are struggling towards a national method of dealing with the effects of all this pharmaceutical and pharmacological activity, and here I should like to pay a tribute, first, to my noble friend Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, who, on a series of committees, has done great work in this particular respect. In particular, one of his committees has been concerned with the classification of drugs for the benefit of doctors, and year by year his committee has classified new drugs, as they have come out, into five categories.
These categories are designated by letters. The trouble is that I can never remember which letter is which, but in fact they are as follows: "N" are the jolly good ones—"N" for "new" drugs of proved value. My noble friend will correct me if I am wrong, I know. Then, "S" drugs are those similar to standard pharmacopoeia preparations; and "P" are new drugs which look good but are not yet fully proved. So "P" is for "possibles", one might say. Then, "O" are new drugs of little or no value; and "H" are mixtures of "O" with other things: so you can say that the "O's" and the "H's" are really out. This has not prevented the successful, although usually temporary, sale of certain drugs in the "O" and "H" categories, but I think it is fair to say that when drugs have an "O" or an "H" after or before their names, this, in the long run, has meant a death blow to those products. Although I understand my noble friend has retired from this particular Committee, I think this work is going on—at least, I hope so,
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because the value to the medical profession of this simple classification of new drugs has been very great.
My second tribute is to something the Ministry of Health have done to help. They have prepared a little journal called the Prescribers' Journal. This little book goes out to every doctor throughout the land in the National Health Service—and others can buy it—and it gives us absolutely unbiased information about the new drugs. It is first-class material, and has been going out since 1961. I value it immensely, as I am sure do most of my colleagues. I hope they all read it. Each month this journal takes three or four new drugs or conditions and gives us helpful advice about what is really useful. So my second tribute would be to the Prescribers' Journal and to the Ministry of Health for producing it.
The third tribute (and here, perhaps, not all my noble friends will agree) is to the pharmacological industry itself. Noble Lords will know of Professor Alastair Macgregor, the gentleman who gave the lecture at Glasgow, and who reminded us that, of all the valuable antibiotics now available to doctors, only two—penicillin and streptomycin—came out of a university, or noncommercial, laboratory. All the rest came out of commercial laboratories, and were the achievement of the commercial pharmacological industry. So I do not think we should belittle the industry, even if some of us may sometimes criticise its commercial methods.
There are at least five stages in the development of new drugs. First, there is the chemical elaboration or extraction of the new compounds. This is the pure laboratory work and may involve testing the compounds against germs in vitro in the laboratory. The second stage is to test the new drug on animals, first to ascertain its pharmacological activity (that is to say, what it does to the animal, whether it makes its stomach more or less acid, and so on) and, secondly, if the animal be infected with a disease, what effect the drug has; and, at the same time, whether the drug is poisonous to the animal and, if so, how much is required to produce a poisonous effect. It is worth while remembering that almost every substance can be poisonous if enough of it is taken. Even water

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can be poisonous, if you take enough of it; and certainly common salt can quite easily be so. So there is an optimum amount of everything; and while "a little of what you fancy" may do you good, too much can prove fatal. That is the second phase: the testing of drugs on animals.
The third phase when a new drug is produced is to test it on ordinary human beings for toxicity, to see whether it is poisonous to them. This test is usually carried out on the laboratory staff. The fourth phase consists of the clinical trials to assess whether the drug has any use as a cure and, if so, whether it is superior to existing drugs. It is to this phase of the process that I am drawing particular attention this evening. In the course of this phase the doctors watch out for any further sign that the drug is toxic and dangerous; and, if it is, they will at once deal with this. The final phase is the assessment of all the information made available by the results of the chemical tests in the laboratories, the animal tests, the human tests, and the tests on patients which lead to the recommendations to the industry and the profession on the therapeutic value and safety of the new drug.
I do not know how many of your Lordships have read Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy; but those who have will recall that he once said that "Marriage is a lottery with twenty blanks to one prize". Well, my Lords, pharmacological research is a lottery where the ratio is approximately 4,000 blanks to one prize. Probably 4,000 new drugs are synthesised for every one that emerges as really useful in medical practice. Of that 4,000, about 400 pass stage "B"; that is, the stage of the testing on laboratory animals. And of the 400 that have some apparent value and are ready for human experimentation, only one will prove worth while. So, behind each successful drug, there are 3,999 which have failed to make the grade. This is some measure of the labour, disappointment and heartbreak that goes on behind the scenes in the scientific pharmacological industry.
Of the five stages which I have described, only the last one—the assessment of all the experimental findings—is a committee job. To do this (I think I am correct in saying this; but no
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doubt the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead and the noble Lord, Lord Newton, will correct me if I am wrong), there are at least two Committees currently engaged in this process. First of all, there is the Cohen Committee, or its successor—I do not know the name of the chairman of the successor committee, or its correct title. Secondly, there is the new Dunlop Committee on the Safety of Drugs. I think I am right in saying that this Committee issued its first report on the safety of a group of drugs only this week.
This Committee has sub-committees to review certain matters. First of all, it looks at drugs before they are used for clinical treatment; in other words, it assesses the toxicity as a result of the animal tests and tests on normal human beings before allowing the drug to be used on patients. My Lords, I have said "before allowing it to be used". But, of course, this is a voluntary committee, and therefore it is not absolutely mandatory on the drug industry to submit their drugs to the Committee. However I think they will increasingly do so—at least, I hope so. Secondly, it has a subcommittee for assessing the results of clinical trials; and, thirdly, it has a sub-committee for studying the reports of adverse reactions to drugs after they have been released. Some people felt that this should be a compulsory process; that all drugs should compulsorily go through this Dunlop Committee. But the Government have decided otherwise, and at the moment I am not going to criticise that particular decision. I am going to say that I think the weak link in the chain is the organisation for clinical testing, for the actual testing of a drug on patients. I propose to elaborate this matter a little to show why I think this is the weak link in the chain.
Your Lordships will recall the Hinchliffe Report of 1959. Paragraphs 261 to 266 deal with the question of clinical trials of drugs, and the Report says, among other things:
"The present arrangements for the organisation and interpretation of independent clinical trials and for the publication of results are inadequate."
That indicates the importance of early clinical trials, the testing of new drugs on patients as quickly as possible. That is obvious because, first of all, if they are any good, we want to get them

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going as quickly as possible; and, secondly, if they get going, the manufacturers want to start making them and selling them as quickly as possible because they have spent a lot of money on research and development.
The Hinchliffe Report went on:
"Early clinical trial not only for those for which new therapeutic effects are claimed but also for minor improvements on existing drugs".
And
"Hospital authorities should encourage clinical trials."
Then they discussed how these should be organised and made two suggestions, on page 82. The first was that the trials should he done by or through the Medical Research Council, which in fact does do some clinical trials but not very many; and, secondly, that they should be done through various professional bodies—the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons, the College of General Practitioners and the British Medical Association. The Report did not come out firmly in favour of either of these methods and left it at that.
I think that I am right in saying that not much has happened about this particular problem. On January 23 of this year there was a symposium in London of the Association of Medical Advisers to the Pharmaceutical Industry, which repeated the plea that something should be done about this problem of clinical trials. They said that it was five years since the Hinchliffe Report was published, and asked why no move had been made to help them to make certain that clinical trials were done.
Why are clinical trials necessary, your Lordships may ask? Why cannot we just do them on animals? The answer is that they just do not work on animals. Sometimes animals give the wrong results, which may be even misleading and certainly can be quite unreliable when it comes to studying safety. For instance, one of the safest drugs is penicillin. Yet if penicillin had been tried only on guinea-pigs we should have reached the conclusion that it was an extremely dangerous drug because it happens to be toxic to guinea-pigs. Your Lordships are familiar with thalidomide. No amount of clinical testing on pregnant dogs, cats, rats, mice or hamsters would
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show any adverse effect. It does not produce what are called teratological effects, which means changes in the embryo, in these animals. It produces such changes in the embryo only if fed to a pregnant rabbit or a pregnant human being.
This problem of drugs which affect the human embryo is virtually insoluble at the moment because we do not know whether a drug is liable to do this if it is administered during pregnancy. We have had some pretty stern warnings administered to the medical profession by those in authority about trying out new drugs early in pregnancy, and I think that we should be very careful about this. There is a drug called hydroxyurea, which is a simple sort of compound, but which turns out to be one of the most teratogenic of the lot. Yet hydroxyurea is a very simple compound, which is extremely harmless and which can he taken in enormous quantities. We just cannot tell, even with clinical testing, because it would be quite impossible to do clinical tests on pregnant human beings. We have just to be very careful indeed about what is used in the early months of pregnancy.
There was a spendid example of the fallacy of animal tests as compared with human tests in The Times on February 28. It is a description of how a doctor set out to find a short-acting barbiturate which would produce unconsciousness and then, when one stopped giving the drug, the patient would come round. He found such a drug. He tried it on a doctor and it worked perfectly. The article says:
"The sequel is best told in the author's own words. ' With high optimism, and the collaboration of the department of anæsthesia, the new barbiturate was given by slow infusion to a doctor volunteer until anæsthesia was achieved. We then sat back and waited for signs of anæsthesia to disappear.
'Two days later we were not really concerned except that the subject was not yet awake and was expected home for dinner. … We had discovered the most long-lasting barbiturate of all time—in man '."
It is just impossible to predict from animal experiments what can happen to a human being. There is no escape from the necessity of clinical trials.
Clinical trials present considerable organisational difficulties. It is easy enough with diseases that are fatal, because we can tell how long a patient

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lives and can compare that with other patients who do not have the particular drug. But it is much more difficult for non-fatal conditions, where improvement is subjective, is in the feelings of the patients or in complaints, as of rheumatism, which are hard to measure. The answer has been found out. It is the use of matched controls—that is to say, the use of two lots of patients in every way similar, one group of whom receives, not the drug, but something that looks exactly like it, and the other group who receive the drug. Moreover, the testing must be by what is called the double blind technique; that is to say, neither the patients nor the doctors who are giving the drug must know which patients are getting which, otherwise the power of suggestion comes in and the whole test is valueless. So this double blind technique with controls series is essential, with the statistical assessment of results.
All this is technically easy enough, but it takes a lot of organising, and in a majority of cases the results are bound to be negative and therefore it is rather dreary work. Without this elaborate organisation, clinical trials are valueless. It is fair to say that, if a drug is worth testing at all, it is worth testing properly. There are three factors necessary. The first is the willingness of the patients to co-operate in the test. And let me say that the enormous majority of patients are willing to co-operate in these tests, if the thing is fully and properly explained to them. The second is a sufficient number of patients suffering from the appropriate complaint. The third is willingness on the part of the doctor.
Relatively few doctors are in fact willing to undertake these double blind, properly controlled, therapeutic trials because of the extra volume of work involved, because they have not the assistance and because of lack of time. Still fewer of them have enough patients to make the results worth having. So the drug firms have to set out and find doctors who are willing to do this. I am assured that the hunt becomes ever more difficult, though not apparently so difficult in Scotland as in England.
The first suggestion which I would make is that there should be a panel of doctors who are both competent and willing to carry out such tests. The size
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of the panel, I think, will depend on there being some financial reward for the work done, because in some cases it may need the employment of extra secretarial or extra medical help. In the United States, I gather, it is usual to pay doctors to have these therapeutic trials, and the payment per trial, I am told, is of the order of 10,000 to 15,000 dollars—that is, £3,000 to £5,000. Here we should say it is quite wrong for the payment to be made from the drug firm to the doctor, and this would at once introduce an element of bias into the situation which might upset the results. That is one of the reasons why I feel there needs to be some impartial buffer body between the drug firms and the doctors. I suggest that such a body might be called a Therapeutic Trials Board, and comprise a board of scientific integrity.
I do not see why on earth the drug firms should not pay to have this work done for them, and pay reasonably and properly, rather than make small donations to hospitals, which I cannot regard as a proper return for doing this work; and they should pay either individually or by levy. I suggest that such a body should build up a register of a panel of doctors and institutions where these tests can be done, to receive the drugs for testing; that they should allocate them, pay for the test, and publish the results.
At the moment, the initial toxicity of the drug is assessed by the Dunlop Committee. That could continue perfectly well, and a drug would not normally go for clinical trial unless it had been to that Committee. Whether this should be done compulsorily or should be available as a voluntary service, I do not know. I personally would prefer to know that all drugs were properly tested in this way, but I can see objections to it, at any rate at first.
I am not sure—and the nature of my Question makes it clear that I am not—whether this organisation which I have suggested should be located under the Medical Research Council or under the Ministry of Health. The Medical Research Council has, I think, carried out the best clinical tests that have been done anywhere, but they have been very slow indeed about it. They have been most thorough, but slow. Here we want

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something which will operate with businesslike efficiency, and would be a fair return to the pharmaceutical industry for financing the thing. But there was under the Medical Research Council for 21 years an organisation which operated with businesslike efficiency, and in fact still does under the Ministry of Health: I refer to the Public Health Laboratory Service. That grew up during the war, and a few years ago we participated in its transfer to its own board under the Ministry of Health. I should very much like to see the Therapeutic Trials Board under the Medical Research Council at first, and then perhaps being transferred to the Ministry of Health. I do not mind how it is done, so long as it is done.
There are certain technical problems. The first is the problem of secrecy. When a manufacturer has a new drug he does not want all his rivals to know about it, particularly until it has been tested. Once it has been tested and he knows it is good and he is starting to market it, then they are bound to know about it. There is a legitimate secrecy. So clearly the doings of such a board would have to be conducted discreetly vis-à-vis the different manuacturers. The second thing is the volume of drugs which would be produced and tested. My own guess is that if we had a really good organisation for carrying out these clinical tests, which everybody knew was absolutely and ruthlessly honest, then this would itself reduce the number of drugs submitted for tests. Although there may he 500 new preparations coming forward every year now, I think that relatively few absolutely useless products would be submitted, particularly if there were a fair fee; and certainly, if the procedure were compulsory, they would not be submitted at all.
I know that some of my noble friends think there is no problem here and that genuine advances can always get tested. Well, I think there may be something in that view; but I also feel there is something in the view that I have advanced. It is true that when one pharmaceutical firm strikes a winner, as it were, by finding some good new drug, its rivals start trying out minor variants by just altering the OH group here or the CO group there, trying to find something which just is not covered
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by the patent, but is equally effective, or even slightly better. That is a game called in the trade "molecular roulette". There is no harm in it. It may not be very valuable, but they may strike something even more remarkable, so one must not discount "molecular roulette".
I myself am fairly satisfied (I know that if I am wrong I shall be told so in the course of this debate) that there is a real and substantial problem here, and I think we ought to be looking at it and doing something about it, particularly because I am sure that as this century goes on we are going to get more and more of these complicated new drugs coming forward for testing. The sooner we get a good machine for doing it quickly, the better. If we do not do this, we are going to waste great volumes of human effort by using drugs which have been improperly tested; we are going to add to human misery by using drugs which have been improperly tested and which may be less efficient than existing drugs; and, incidentally, we are going to reduce the efficiency of our own doctors and add to the nation's drugs bill. So I am not at all diffident in asking my Question, and I hope that we shall receive from the noble Lord, if not a complete answer, at least a helpful answer for the future.
5.18 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has covered the ground so fully that there is not a great deal for me to say, but I should like to follow him on one or two points, and add just a few words about them. First, I would say how much I agree with the things he said to start with. I am particularly pleased that he mentioned the Prescribers' Journal, because the editor is one of my colleagues at the medical institution where I work and an old friend of mine.
I should like to talk about the difficulty that the ordinary doctor has in carrying out clinical trials; because at one time, when I was younger and not so experienced as I am now, I undertook several of these trials for various pharmaceutical firms. With the normal staff one has working at a hospital one finds such trials quite impracticable. I found, in the first place, that it took a long time—several months. But had one wished, it could have taken even

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longer. It depended on the number of patients available. An enormous amount of time was spent by the various members of my staff doing the extra work for me, and when it came to the end one was still not satisfied that the job had been done as well as one would have liked. So I am afraid that what I do now, if I am approached by one of the pharmaceutical industries to carry out a therapeutic trial, is to say that it is quite impossible, and I turn the offer down. That seems to me a great pity, because one would like to do what one can to help people who are manufacturing drugs which may further the end towards which one is working.
Therefore, I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, suggested: that the money for these trials might come from the pharmaceutical industry itself. The industry wants the trials done, and it will be greatly to its advantage if they can be done properly. I would favour a different method from that adopted in the United States. I do not think I would pay the doctor who is in charge of the trial anything at all: the work would be part of the normal work he is doing at his hospital. But because he would need to engage extra staff for the work, money should be provided for that staff. Here again, I think it would not be possible for the hospital itself to undertake the bother of engaging the staff, and I believe that it would be a good thing if it were possible for the pharmaceutical industry to run some kind of a pool of staff, of trained and experienced people who could visit various hospitals where these trials were to be done. That, I think, would be one way—I do not say the only way —of solving a certain number of the big problems involved.
Then the second point comes up: what are we going to do to spread the knowledge we have? Because the point about these trials is that people should know whether these drugs are effective and safe—not only whether they are safe, but that they are also effective. That, I think, is where the new Dunlop Committee could do quite a lot. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said that they produced one little report on a group of drugs—a report which seemed to me to be very well done—
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to explain, quite shortly, what are the dangers associated with the drugs in question. One of the troubles for the average doctor with these new drugs is that, as has been said often enough before, we have an enormous amount of advertisements sent to us. I am afraid that some people just tear them up before opening them. I at least used to look at the cover on taking it out of the envelope before tearing it up, but I can quite see that one might well miss some warnings that were given, unless they were in a form which enabled one to recognise immediately that they came from an authoritative body such as the Dunlop Committee. Such a document would be immediately recognisable on opening one's mail in the morning. One would say, "That is something I must read", whereas the others could go straight into the waste paper basket. That seems to me to be one way of getting the knowledge of these drugs spread rather more widely.
I do not want to go into details about various drugs. There has been some correspondence about various drugs at the present time, but I do not think it would serve any purpose if I were to repeat it to your Lordships. It merely goes to show that in dealing, as we are now, with strong, powerful and dangerous drugs, which have been made in increasing numbers and are being supplied to patients in increasing numbers, unless clinical trials are undertaken with care and skill, we must expect the occasional catastrophe to arise. That is why I should like most strongly to support this plea for the clinical trial. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has rightly said, trials cannot be done by laboratory work or animal work. You can do preliminary work on them, but if you are going to deal with patients the final need is to try the drug upon the human patient. You should not, if you are careful in your laboratory and animal work, get a great deal going wrong with your trials; but even then, with the best will in the world and in the best possible conditions of all, you may find the occasional catastrophe happening, because we do not know what is going on. Therefore, the sooner we can have some proper machinery made available by the Medical Research Council and the pharmaceutical industrv—I do not mind what

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it is, but done, I think, by the reputable doctors themselves, working in reputable institutions—the sooner we shall be sure that these totally unnecessary but, at the present moment, almost inevitable tragedies do not occur.
5.26 p.m.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, may I, at the outset, express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for his graceful and generous tribute to the Joint Committee on the Classification of Proprietary Preparations which, during the last fourteen years, I have had the privilege of chairing? I shall tell the noble Lord a little later what is its successor. I fully realise that the noble Lord's Question is intended to try to ensure that the maximum safety of drugs will he achieved when they are used for therapeutic purposes. He therefore suggests in his Question that the responsibility for clinical trials should rest with the Medical Research Council or with a Central Agency which will organise the testing of these new drugs. He referred to the Dunlop Committee. Perhaps I might be permitted to recapitulate the history of the Dunlop Committee.
Your Lordships may remember that the public unrest which followed the thalidomide tragedy led to the establishing of a Committee called the Safety of Drugs Joint Committee by the Central Health Services Council in this country and the Scottish Health Services Council, to advise the Government on what measures might be taken to try to ensure the safety of drugs. I was Chairman of that Committee, which recommended that there should be a parent or main Committee which would have three subcommittees, the first dealing with pharmacology—that is, the animal reactions to drugs and the toxicity of drugs in the laboratory; secondly, clinical trials to indicate immediate safety of a drug and its therapeutic efficacy, and, thirdly, a Committee on adverse reactions, because we know that many drugs which appear to be safe, do in the course of time reveal certain undesirable reactions in patients which must be taken into account in prescribing the drug.
The Safety of Drugs Committee, which established the Dunlop Committee,
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recommended—and I shall deal with this a little later—that the Clinical Trials Sub-Committee of the Dunlop Committee should assess clinical trials, the organisation of which the Safety of Drugs Committee thought should be left (as indeed it had suggested in its Interim Report) together with the toxicity trials, as a responsibility of the manufacturers. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will know the composition of the Clinical Trials Sub-Committee, and I think he will agree that it has an unrivalled expert membership. I do not wish to detail this now: it has already been published. The noble Lord referred to the lecture by Professor Alastair Macgregor, who was a member of the original classification committee. I am sure the noble Lord will be reassured to hear that in relation to the recommendations of the Safety Drugs Committee, under my Chairmanship, this is what Professor Macgregor said in his lecture:
"These are eminently sensible recommendations and the majority of the Committee have felt that although these arrangements will ultimately require legislative sanction they should, nevertheless, be introduced as soon as possible without waiting for legislation, although these interim measures should not be regarded as any justification for delaying a comprehensive review of the whole legislative field."
If the recommendations of the Safety of Drugs Committee are to be comprehended, I think it is necessary for me to stress certain basic facts. The first relates to the concept of the safety of a drug. No drug is wholly free from any hazard. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has referred to the fact that water itself is capable of producing toxic effects in man, and many of the most commonly used drugs may, in certain susceptible individuals, show significant deleterious effects. The homely aspirin can produce stomach bleeding and can give rise to asthma. Only six weeks ago there was a report of a coroner's inquest in Dereham, in Norfolk, in which an unfortunate individual who had been prescribed two tablets of aspirin by his doctor had succumbed. He was a known sensitive aspirin subject, but, unfortunately, the doctor was new and was not fully aware of this sensitivity. Phenacetin, which I suppose over the last 20 or 30 years has been a regular constituent of practically every headache powder or tablet, is now known to

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cause, when administered continuously, significantly serious effects on the kidney, which can lead to kidney failure. The ordinary bicarbonate of soda that one takes for wind can produce grave renal damage leading to uraedemia.
These are dangers that might follow the use of any drug, and therefore it is important to stress that no drug is without some hazard; that the safety of a drug is a relative and not an absolute quality of the drug, and that whether a drug is safe for human use depends on many factors. It depends on the constitution of the individual. Many of us are curiously constituted and we react abnormally to simple drugs. It depends on the dose. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will remember that prussic acid was once used in the treatment of gastric disorders. Your Lordships know that it can be used for other purposes. The fact is that it is the dose which determines whether or not a drug is a poison, and that is why slogans about certain preparations, such as "Fluoride is poison", are significantly misleading; because it depends entirely on the amount which is taken. For these reasons we think in terms of a "margin of safety" for drugs. There is the dose which will produce a therapeutic effect, and the dose which is toxic; and the wider the margin of safety, the more reliable the drug is for human use.
The duration of treatment, of course, also affects the action of drugs. Some drugs accumulate in the body and can be used for short periods only. Some drugs must be used in excessive doses to try to reverse a disease process, but if continued may prove to have serious adverse effects. Again, the safety of a drug is related to the purpose for which it is being used. You must not tolerate any toxic effect in a mild hypnotic or a mild antacid tablet, but you can tolerate a toxic effect in a drug which is used for a very grave disease. For example, before the advent of chloramphenecol (chloromycetin), the death rate from typhoid was about 20 per cent. We know that chloramphenecol does, in certainly not more than one in 10,000 patients, produce a grave anæmia but we still use chloramphenecol in the treatment of typhoid, because the hazards of the disease are much greater than the hazards of the drug.
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This is, after all, what Hippocrates taught us over 2,000 years ago: that desperate diseases require desperate remedies. That is why, when anyone is assessing the therapeutic efficacy of a drug, he must take into account also the indication for the drug. I might remind your Lordships that the reason why thalidomide was introduced was that thalidomide was a relatively non-toxic drug, so far as its action on animals and human beings was concerned; the ordinary person can take 50 or 60 times the hypnotic dose of thalidomide without its producing any deleterious effects. When there were in this country hundreds of cases each year of suicide from barbiturate poisoning, there was no wonder that thalidomide (or Distaval, which was its proprietary name) caught on and was extensively used. It was dropped as soon as its deleterious effects were recognised. I think the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has spoken quite objectively about the effects of thalidomide, that they could not be avoided, although I think that, with our present mechanism of recording adverse reactions, we should recognise them sooner.
The noble Lord then referred to the question of new drugs. The Committee which I chaired had to deal, on an average, with about 300 new drugs per annum; but, of course, 75 per cent. of these are not new drugs in any strict sense of the word "new". They have no novelty about them; they are slight modifications of existing drugs. The noble Lord spoke of "molecular roulette". The fact is that these can also well be called "me-too" drugs, because the manufacturer who has produced a very good drug soon has on his heels other manufacturers who wish to produce something similar. As the noble Lord said, they make slight modifications, to avoid certain litigation on patent law, and they then produce the drug. That is why I suppose there are to-day about 25 anti-histamines, 45 tranquillisers and 30 diuretics, all of the chlorothiazide group. It is not because each one of these is an absolutely new, satisfactory drug, but because one repeats the other. And I am doubtful whether we shall see any reduction on the lines suggested by the noble Lord, unless a recommendation that I shall make a little later is adopted. The fact

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is that only 6 or 7 per cent. of new drugs have some chemical structure which is without precedent in therapeutics or have a promising novel therapeutic action, and only half a dozen of these are significant advances in therapeutics each year. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, some of these drugs have undergone clinical trials by the Medical Research Council. I have taken part in several of these trials, and I have, in fact chaired the Committees which have dealt with all the cortisone series, which the noble Lord will know; others were penicillin in sub-acute bacterial endocarditis; streptomycin in tuberculosis, and streptomycin associated with other anti-tuberculous drugs to try to diminish the likelihood of the emergence of resistant strains of tubercule bacilli.
It is proper that the Medical Research Council should undertake this work, because it requires co-ordination of a very large number of centres, and not infrequently some of the facts are in dispute. But do not let the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, think that this will necessarily increase the rate of turnover of new drugs or diminish the rate at which we shall have replies to our questions about new drugs. I would only remind the noble Lord that anti-coagulants are still the centre of a great battlefield; that there are strong proponents of anticoagulants, and there are the antagonists who regard anti-coagulants as rat poison and the like. The Medical Research Council has had its own committees on this matter. The result really is that no definitive view can be expressed at this stage; it will doubtless appear that the drug might have a value in certain cases but not in others, and the difficulty has clearly been the selection of appropriate cases. My view—and I will explain in a moment why the Safety of Drugs Committee came to this conclusion—is that although the Medical Research Council might undertake them at times, organised trials are not a proper function of the Medical Research Council; nor do I think, indeed, that it is practicable.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, my noble friend is not, I take it, referring to the organised trials which he has just mentioned
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as having been done by the Medical Research Council?
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I am referring to all organised clinical trials—that is to say, the clinical trials about which the noble Lord has spoken in relation to all drugs, and I say that it is not a proper function of the Medical Research Council to undertake this: the Council's function is essentially research. And it is impracticable, because of the amount of work involved and because it is not the best way of doing it, as I hope to convince the noble Lord in a moment.
May I just read what the Safety of Drugs Committee's proposals were'?—I am quoting paragraphs 20 and 21. Paragraph 20 says:
"The responsibility for arranging clinical trials should lie with the manufacturer. In some special cases the Medical Research Council might be prepared to arrange these trials; in others university or hospital departments or individual consultants may accept responsibility for the trials."
Then paragraph 21 says:
"There should be an independent objective assessment of clinical trials."
That, of course, is the independent assessment which will he undertaken by the Dunlop Committee's Clinical Trials Sub-Committee. The noble Lord is prepared to allow toxicity and pharmacological tests to remain with the manufacturer and to allow the Dunlop Committee to assess them.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord is muddling me a little, because he has been concerned far more with toxicity than with therapeutical efficiency. I have been all the time stressing that what I wanted assessed was therapeutical efficiency. Toxicity is admittedly important, but I am perfectly happy to have toxicity assessed by the Dunlop Committee on the result of animal tests and on the result of therapeutic trials. My concern is to get proper therapeutic trials for the assessment of therapeutic efficiency.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I hope I shall be able to satisfy the noble Lord's impatience. If he wishes, I will deal with what I think the organisation of clinical trials should be. The Safety of Drugs Committee recommended (and this was accepted by the Government) that the organisation of

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clinical trials, like the organisation of toxicological and pharmacological tests, should remain with the manufacturers. I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to elaborate what he said of the stages of a clinical trial. The clinical trial is not a simple thing. It is true that an early stage is that after the drug has passed its appropriate toxicological tests in the laboratory it should be given to human volunteers not only to see whether it is toxic but to examine in man the metabolism of the drug; that is to say, to examine through what changes it passes in the body of man, because this is often a very good indication of the similarity of the changes in man and animal.
The second stage is a pilot trial, and this is of the utmost importance. It is a trial, rightly, as the noble Lord has said, carried out with the knowledge of the patients who are in the trial, and it is on a very limited number in order that we may establish the probable safety of the drug in disease, and its possible therapeutic promise. The results of this pilot trial may indicate that there should be further animal tests—in the laboratory of the manufacturers who have undertaken the original toxicological and pharmacological tests. It may indicate that there is a need to modify the drug, to modify its formulation, to try to ensure that it does not deteriorate in a relatively short time, and so forth. In other words, the whole armamentarium of the pharmacological laboratories of the manufacturer must be brought into use during this pilot trial and there must be repeated and frequent communication and consultation between the clinicians carrying out the trial and the manufacturers themselves. This is vital to the success of the pilot trial, and that is why it is necessary to leave that in the hands of the manufacturer also.
In relation to the full-scale clinical trial, here again the Safety of Drugs Committee, I think rightly, recommended that early clinical trial on a full scale should be carried out only at a couple of centres or so. Nowadays there is too often a tendency to disseminate the drug widely and let it be tried on a wide scale, but in that way you might encounter too many hazards, you might have taken too great a risk. After all, in the United States some 1,270 doctors were provided with thalidomide and over
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20,000 patients were given the drug because the drug was disseminated in that way. Then, provided you have a promising pilot trial and an adequate clinical trial with proper controls, clearly you can have a more extensive trial with adequate numbers. There is another reason why it is important to leave this with the manufacturer—it is a point which the noble Lord mentioned—and that is that we should minimise delay. It is much quicker to communicate directly with manufacturers than it is with any central organisation.
Is there any real difficulty in arranging for clinical trials? I have had a long experience of this matter and I will tell your Lordships of it. I am sure manufacturers would agree there is no difficulty in arranging for clinical trial of a product which has promise of a major, significant therapeutic advance. And it is no use having a panel as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, suggested for this, because the drug must be tried by those who are most expert in a particular field, and your panel may not include such an expert. For example, if there is a drug for use in a grave disease, such as cancer of the uterus, you want an expert in that field.
There may be, for reasons which I shall mention in a moment, some difficulty about the clinical trials of those marginal products to which the noble Lord has referred in his "molecular roulette", because doctors do not want to waste time undertaking clinical trials of drugs which are of only marginal significance. But if the noble Lord would look at the Hinchliffe Report again he will find that the Hinchliffe Committee recommended that there should be a body to which manufacturers might turn in order that they might have advice, if they wished to seek it, on the organisation of clinical trials and where they might be carried out.
The Ministry of Health in its wisdom, or otherwise, extended the terms of reference of the Joint Committee for the Classification of Proprietary Preparations which had long experience, so that this Committee would be prepared to advise manufacturers on clinical trails. That was in 1960. Until the time when I retired from the chairmanship of the Joint Committee, which was three years

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later, there were only three requests from manufacturers for advice on clinical trials; they were all for preparations which had had earlier clinical trials in which it had been found that these preparations had no proved therapeutic value. So I am still a little dubious as to whether there is a grave difficulty in finding opportunities for the carrying out of clinical trials, except on drugs which have, it may be, only marginally significant differences; and we in fact know—the noble Lord will, I am sure, agree—that most of these marginal differences do not add to the value of the drugs.
May I mention also that when these trials are carried out, the reports come to the Dunlop Committee's sub-committee on clinical trials, and it is that Committee's responsibility to ensure that the trial has been properly organised by experts, that it is of the right size, of the right duration, covering a sufficiently adequate section of the population and so forth. They may then find that there is evidence of hazards, of complications, of side effects, and they may wish that the trial be held for a further period of time, or the drug used only in hospital or on special prescriptions, rather than freed to the general public. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that this is a big, but it is not an insuperable, task.
Over the fourteen years for which I have chaired the Joint Committee we assessed 8,000 drugs, because in the early days we had to deal with many which were on the market and so our task at that time was gigantic. In the last six or seven years we have assessed approximately 300 drugs each year. There is only one of those drugs—I would challenge the noble Lord, if he knows of others, to tell me of them—in which the assessment went wrong and that was because we had inadequate information. That drug was, of course, thalidomide. In 1958, thalidomide was issued in this country. Its protocol was presented to the Cohen Committee which assessed it, and they said that this was a drug of proved therapeutic value. It was in 1962, after the effect of thalidomide in the production of neuritis and of fœtal deformities had been published that the Food and Drugs Administration of the
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United States did not agree to the release of the drug. But I can tell the noble Lord if he so wishes, that there were certain drugs that the Food and Drugs Administration of the United States—this vast organisation costing millions of dollars a year which leaves the organisation of clinical trials to the manufacturers—passed which the Cohen Committee refused to pass as of proved therapeutic value.
Having said that, may I just make this quite clear. The Dunlop Committee will, and I think rightly, not express a view on the relative values of drugs; it will only say whether the drugs are or are not of proved therapeutic value, and it relies on the doctor's own judgment in prescribing for individual patients what he feels is necessary for them. After all, this is a fundamental tenet of the National Health Service. One of the earliest Committees over which I presided said that doctors should be allowed to prescribe any drug which they wished for their patients, provided that they can justify its prescription. It seems to me that this is proper.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: How, without test?
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I am sorry; I did not hear the noble Earl's intervention.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I was wondering how, without test?
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I did not hear it even then, I am afraid; it may be my fault. But this, of course, does carry a corollary. It means that the doctor must keep himself aware, in these days of virtually explosive changes in his therepeutic armamentarium, of the uses and abuses of drugs. That is why the Prescribers' Journal, and the British Medical Journal with its weekly treatment article, are giving such valuable service, and why there must be more Chairs for clinical therapeutics and clinical pharmacology in our universities, because what is important is the educational aspect. Drugs which are of inestimable value in the prevention of crippling, and indeed in saving life, can themselves be extremely dangerous, indeed lethal, if they are improperly used.
Now I come to the point which I think is of the utmost importance. Your

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Lordships may recall that the Safety of Drugs Committee had two dissentient members. They were both pharmacists, who said that it is useless relying on voluntary controls; we must have legislation. The Safety of Drugs Committee itself said that there must be legislation as soon as possible, that this is urgent and no interim measures will justify unnecessary delay; but that voluntary measures can help, provided that the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the doctors are prepared to play. I am delighted to say that the pharmaceutical manufacturers, as represented by the Association of British Pharmaceutical industry and the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, who together are responsible for about 90 per cent. of all the drugs which are manufactured and marketed in this country, have agreed that they will accept the advice of the Dunlop Committee and will act upon it.
That leaves 5 to 10 per cent. of drugs produced by the "black sheep" of the pharmaceutical industry, and of course it takes no account of the drugs which are imported, say, from North America or from Europe. That is why the Safety of Drugs Committee said there must be legislation, that legislation on the whole subject is urgently required, and they emphasised that its proposed interim measures should not be regarded as a justification for delaying this essential measure.
It is well known amongst those who are interested in this subject that there has been an Inter-Departmental Working Party considering this "tortuous and ungodly jumble" of the laws which are concerned with pharmacy and therapeutic agents, and that this Inter-Departmental Working Party has not issued a Report. It seems to me that the most urgent task of prime importance of Her Majesty's Government in this field is to complete their proposed consolidation of, and improvement in, the legislation to embrace the Safety of Drugs Committee's recommendation that there shall he these Committees—such as the Dunlop Committee now on a voluntary basis—that shall be made statutory; that the quality of drugs and their purity, now the responsibility of the British Pharmacopœia Commission, should be made a statutory responsibility of Government, and that indeed there shall be continuing surveillance to guard against
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long-term, adverse reactions and such matters as deterioration in quality, the regulation of promotional literature, the labelling of containers and the like. I believe that such legislation will prevent the marketing of drugs, wherever they are manufactured, which have not been approved for quality, safety and efficiency, and that therefore we shall have established an effective control. But there will still remain the responsibility, and it is a heavy one, which lies with the practitioner who prescribes these drugs.
6.0 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, this Unstarred Question set down by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has performed a most useful function; but whether its timing is quite right is open to doubt. I say this in the light of what has been said in this Chamber about the development of the effect of the Dunlop Committee. As time goes on, it is clear that its effect will become more pronounced and easier to assess. As to the timing of this debate, it is fair that I should say that I am sorry that the Question was moved forward from last Thursday, because I know of at least one other noble Lord who would have been present on that occasion and who would have liked to take part in it to-day. Be that as it may, any step that will contribute to an advance in the field of medicine is a step worth taking. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord on avoiding an attack on the pharmaceutical industry—an attack which has become almost a ritual in some quarters. It makes my task easier and, your Lordships will be glad to hear, my speech shorter.
I am not abashed that I should be one among technicians to address your Lordships on this subject, because, although the issue is a narrow one and very largely a medical one, the industry is involved, as, indeed, has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. Consequently, I feel that the debate would be unbalanced without a contribution from someone with experience such as mine. This leads me to make the declaration which I usually do on these occasions: my interest as chairman of a group of pharmaceutical companies which form part of a larger group. And again, as usual, I would add the fact that, although I am not a pharmacist or chemist, I take

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pride in being concerned with this reputable, important and vital industry, despite the current mode for abusing it which one sees in some quarters. I do not speak for the industry; and, if I did, I have the feeling this would not be the place to do so. All I wish to do is to make a contribution to your Lordships' deliberations from my own experience.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said something which I feel he did not mean: did drugs do harm in the past? The implication was that in the good old days nothing went wrong with drugs. But I would not go all the way with the noble Lord in that, because, of course, the fact remains that when they did go wrong nobody heard about it. There was no Press to start a hue and cry and to highlight the tragedies and the mistakes which took place. We need not go back very far to find these—to cortisone, antiseptics, and back to Galenicals when medical experimentation must have brought about tragedies such as we find in our time.
I should like to thank the noble Lord for his tribute to the industry, but there have been misunderstandings in some quarters. Perhaps, in the light of what has been said, the time is coming—I make this suggestion in all seriousness—when we should have a debate in this House on the relations between the National Health Service and the pharmaceutical industry. It might provide a better platform for the expression of a number of opinions which need not be expressed to-day.
To turn to the subject of clinical research, my own interests are probably exceptionally well-placed in Edinburgh. Lord Taylor has made reference to the position in Scotland. Each of the three companies with which I am concerned has well over 100 years of history of close association with the medical schools in Scotland. Indeed, the founders of these companies contained doctors of medicine. In other words, we have little or no difficulty in arranging clinical trials. I would emphasise and confirm what the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, said: that the more meritorious the product, the easier it is to arrange a clinical trial. After all, the number of
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new drugs which reach the stage of clinical tests is comparatively small, and of that number only a comparatively small number are really meritorious. Our own research departments screen and discard hundreds of items before the stage of clinical examination is reached. Incidentally, be it noted that one of the functions of the Dunlop Committee is to ensure that only such drugs as these come for ultimate trial. That is a point worth emphasising, and it is one that has already been made.
There is another side to the question. I could tell of medicaments approved by the F.D.A. and already marketed abroad which have been rejected by companies in this country even before they have reached the stage of clinical examination here. I sometimes wonder whether it ever occurs to the critics of the industry that such things do happen. Our Scottish tradition of co-operation between the medical authorities and the industry is something which has grown up over the years and cannot be replaced. But can it be augmented? That is what the noble Lord is asking. Are improved facilities for clinical trials possible of development? These are questions which, in a measure, have been answered by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead; but, as other noble Lords have said in their speeches, Sir Derrick Dunlop's Committee is well equipped and is the best source from which to seek advice, recommendation and instruction on how this can he done. It is already an "early warning" system, and it is really a question of whether more co-ordination and a greater pool of information can be achieved under its ægis.
As it is, the pharmaceutical industry's own skills, the established position of the Cohen Committee (if I may so call it) and the Dunlop Committee, are powerful safeguards. The value of having another organisation under the Medical Research Council seems to be doubtful, and it occurs to me that when the noble Lord added the words "or elsewhere" to his Question on the Paper to-day it was perhaps an indication that he felt, on examination, that that might well he the case. As I have said, the present safeguards are powerful, and it is left, and properly left, to the pharmaceutical companies, and their medical advisers up and down the

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country, to arrange clinical trials. I emphasise the point that the spread in terms of space and personnel is tremendous. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead. There is no one group of consulting physicians or registrars who could cover the whole field. The co-operation in clinical trials, which has been so willingly given to the pharmaceutical companies, has worked well, and I am one who agrees with the view that it should continue and, if anything, be embellished. Of course, this embellishment is all the easier since the creation of the Dunlop Committee.
The noble Lord referred to the fact that the Medical Research Council has already concerned itself with the organisation of co-ordinated and controlled clinical trials, through its advisory board in clinical research, but I think I am right in saying that this advisory board does not conduct trials of specific drugs. As to whether the existence of a further centralised body might add to the present difficulties in terms of speed, the importance of which has already been mentioned, and as to whether the existence of another centralised body would slow up development, I am inclined to believe that it might. It would not, I feel, add many workers in the field; and since it would exercise selection among comparable competitive drugs, progress would be delayed and chance observations overlooked.
My Lords, there seems to be an opinion held by some that pharmaceutical companies are anxious to get products on the market at all costs and without adequate trials. I say that such an opinion is held by some, because this is an opinion which is not shared by all. But it is an opinion which is very far from the truth. I would make the point that, from the purely commercial point of view, any company which marketed a product of dubious merit would be in a difficult position. Therefore, it does not do it. Proper clinical observation is, therefore, a commercial essential. It is well, too, to remember that, given always the need for maximum feasible security, speed is of importance. I would emphasise this not only as regards the problem of making new, meritorious drugs available to the sick, but also as
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regards keeping pace so far as possible with world competition and keeping up with our export trade. I noticed when the noble Lord suggested that 3,999 out of 4,000 shots were going to be misses that he referred to disappointment. But he did not refer to the cost in terms of pounds, shillings and pence which this enormous figure means.
Of course, Britain's ability to compete in world markets with our low prices—and our drugs are priced low—is seriously affected by the limited financial resources available for research compared, shall we say, with people like the Americans and the Swiss. I could not restrain a chuckle when the noble Lord talked about the pharmaceutical companies paying for this and paying for that, when I thought of the times we hear that drugs are too expensive and the price should come down. Now we hear that the industry will be able to pay for these plans. However, that may be, I think it is safe to say that the pharmaceutical companies will support any workable proposal. Of course, the noble Lord has referred to the fact that the associations representing the vast majority of the pharmaceutical companies in the country have assured the Dunlop Committee of their full support, and I am not surprised.
My Lords, before I conclude I would mention another factor in the industry's approach to clinical work. I refer to the ordinary pharmaceutical companies' force of representatives. These skilled and generally dedicated men are in some measure the industry's eyes and ears. Unfortunately, part of the ritual of decrying the industry has been to pour scorn upon its sales staff. But it should not be forgotten that they have a part to play in initiating, in promoting and in fertilising the exchange of clinical information. Through them news often reaches research departments of unexpected happenings or reactions, for G.P.s in busy practices will recount in conversation observations that they have neither the time nor the inclination to write about. Observations such as these can be followed up by research experts with minimal delay. To this extent the sales force of the pharmaceutical organisation is a useful, if small, adjunct to clinical research.

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Before I sit down, I should like to make a point about the noble Lord's therapeutical trials board. What I have to say is very much what the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, had to say. There is the problem in regard to the supply of trained clinicians and, of course, the supply of patients. It is for that reason that I made use of the word "spread" when I described the ramifications of the clinical research system as it exists at present. The noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, quite properly mentioned the problem of competition and secrecy, which were the commercial and industrial difficulties which would obviously spring from one of the suggestions which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has made. I feel myself that if speed is essential, and it is, then this problem of competition and secrecy would make such a board difficult to create. Surely, a stage might be to provide a sort of bureau of exchange through the existing Committee.
I see that I have made a note here of this word "meritorious", but I have written it beside a note I made when the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said that we were going to get a lot of new drugs. Of course I am thrilled with the idea, but that is not so. I am quite certain that, it terms of available meritorious drugs of the future, there are going to be something like the half-dozen which the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, mentioned.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, implied that he felt that some drugs were improperly tested to-day. I do not think he meant it; certainly, not in connection with the major pharmaceutical advances. As I said before, this is probably not the place to discuss complex industrial problems, some of which the noble Lord has raised. I should like to congratulate him on the presentation of his material, though I sympathised a little with a number of noble Lords who are not intimate with the industry or with the technicalities of medicine, in the detail into which he went. But I hope very much that my part in this debate has been a contribution to the end which we all seek.
6.20 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend for initiating this debate,
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because this most important matter which we are discussing to-night on this Unstarred Question concerns the welfare of the whole community, for, sooner or later, every one of us must be treated for a minor or a major complaint. Because of this, for many years we have pressed the Government to establish some kind of machinery designed to ensure that the new drugs, with their potential dangers, should be adequately tested. To emphasise that point, let me quote the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, when he said that in the field of the drug industry we can only describe the situation as "explosive". What better word than that of the noble Lord can describe the importance of this matter?
At long last a Committee of eminent people has been set up, with Sir Derrick Dunlop in the chair. But its inherent weaknesses are these. First, it is not compulsory for the drug manufacturers to submit their products; and, secondly, the pharmaceutical industry, which profits from drug manufacture, has again been left to undertake a report on the toxicity tests and the clinical trials. Surely, that is a fundamental weakness of this new Committee. Although the manufacturers are given a memorandum and told what is required of them, how can the Committee assess the thoroughness of a clinical test unless an independent agency of the highest repute is responsible? That is what my noble friend is asking for, whether it is under the ægis of the Medical Research Council or some other professional body.
This raises the question—and do not let us be mealy-mouthed about it—of the trustworthiness of certain elements in the drug industry, and whether they have forfeited our confidence. That, shortly, is why we come to your Lordships to-night and ask that this independent agency should be set up. Tonight, I want to prove to your Lordships that certain elements of this industry have completely forfeited our confidence. Year after year the Public Accounts Committee comment adversely on the mounting cost of drugs and the individual prescription, and the disproportionate number of proprietary drugs prescribed. The drug industry completely ignore these strictures by applying more and more pressure on the doctors to buy proprietary products,

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although there is a non-proprietary equivalent at a lower price. In the last five years the cost of prescriptions has risen by 32 per cent., and the estimate for our drug bill under the National Health Service for 1963–64 puts the total cost at over £100 million.
The industry claim that it must have high profits for research; but after the cost of research has been met the profits are very high. Let me remind your Lordships of what some of the profits are. The Glaxo company, which of course produces a great many drugs and not only the old-fashioned milk powder, had a trading profit last year of nearly £10 million, and their dividend was 14 per cent. This firm also have a policy of issuing share bonuses. The Beecham Group had a trading profit of nearly £10 million, and their dividend was 30 per cent. for 1963. The British Drug Houses, a rather smaller concern, had a trading profit of £875,000, and the dividend for 1962 was 16 per cent. The Committee of Public Accounts for the Session 1961–62 were informed that the cost of advertising amounted to 9·7 per cent., or about £6½ million. The Ministry of Health said they knew of firms which spent substantially more than 10 per cent. of their sales receipts on promotion costs.
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in another place referred to the anxiety which the Committee felt over the prescribing of proprietary drugs as against the unbranded equivalent, and to the "cold war" which existed between the Ministry and the pharmaceutical industry. My Lords, those are strong words coming from a responsible man like the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The Public Accounts Committee, with regard to the promotion of drugs, said this:
"The National Health Service, as the main purchaser of drugs in this country, bears the bulk of the sales promotion expenditure incurred by the drug manufacturers. Part of this expenditure is incurred in promoting the sale of proprietary preparations in competition, not only with similar proprietary preparations but with unbranded standard equivalents which are frequently available at a lower price. This may involve a two-fold extra charge to the Health Service: first, for the sales promotion expenditure itself, and secondly for the excess of the cost of the proprietary preparations over the cost of unbranded standard equivalents".
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In view of the high cost of drugs the Ministry of Health decided to buy drugs from a cheaper market abroad, and we must congratulate the Ministry of Health for trying to do their best to counter this mounting drug Bill. The drug firm Pfizer's had the affrontery to challenge in the courts the Ministry of Health's right to try to cut down the expenses of the Health Service. The Court of Appeal overruled the High Court and upheld the legality of the Ministry's right to buy in cheaper markets. This is an appalling background, and I think that when I said that the drug industry has forfeited our respect that was not an overstatement. The pharmaceutical industry makes no attempt to put its own house in order. It seems incapable of controlling that element which is devoid of ethical considerations, and which regards the National Health Service solely as a source of wealth.
The industry produces an unending flow of drugs for mental depression. This, of course, is a commercially remunerative field, because nearly 40 per cent. of complaints are functional, and the introduction of the so-called tranquillisers offers a huge market. Indeed, the very nature of the complaint—let us take the neurotic—lends itself to the production of different products with substantially the same ingredients but under different names. That is what they want. The neurotic has one prescribed, and then says, "This doesn't do me any good, doctor; give me something else". The doctor, willing to oblige, and pressed always by the commercial representatives of the drug houses, then prescribes something else. There is a fortune, of course, as they know, in selling these tranquillisers to the neurotics of the world. In America, colossal sums are made. The Practitioner of January 1 said:
"The very multiplicity of these new preparations has proved a handicap to the medical practitioner."
And the Dunlop Committee (we have already heard of the Dunlop Committee) made one recommendation last week. The Dunlop Committee warned doctors of the country of the possible side effects from eleven of these drugs, many of which contain amphetamine, an ingredient of the so-called "Purple Heart" pills. Some of these drugs have been

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responsible for a rare liver disease which may be fatal; others are associated with changes in the blood pressure and strokes.
But the significant thing about this last week, when the doctors were warned about eleven drugs, is that the industry has been responsible for ensuring clinical trial of these drugs, most of which have been prescribed for years. Yet only now that this Committee has been set up has a warning been issued. Nardil has been widely advertised in every medical paper for years. Yet only now are the doctors warned against it. This drug has been used since 1959. Parnate has been available since 1960. It has been completely withdrawn in the United States of America because there is evidence that it can produce fatal brain seizures. Let me tell your Lordships the other eleven. Parstelin has been available since 1960; Drazine has been available since 1961; Actomol since 1962. Then there are Cavodil, Eutaryl, Marsilid, Niamid, Tersavid, Marplan. Many of these contain the same basic constituents but masquerade under different names to increase sales. The noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, called them "modifications". This is a delightful understatement of the situation, but it is absolutely accurate.
The noble Lord opposite talked about ritual. He really should not be so cynical. He accused me last time of doing a "ritual dance". I would call it a minuet; but at least I have been doing a minuet with the Public Accounts Committee and the Ministry of Health. Here are eleven drugs on which last week the doctors were warned that there was a risk. The Dunlop Committee feel that it is sufficient to inform the doctors of the risk of serious side effects; but the United States Food and Drug Administration have decided that it is dangerous to leave the valuation of drugs to the individual practitioner.
I would remind your Lordships that a few weeks ago when there was a debate in your Lordships' House on the position of the general practitioner, one-third of the general practitioners of the country petitioned the Government to grant them relief from day and night working, bad conditions and underpayment. These are the people who are now to be asked to do the most detailed
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research work, to keep carefully a record of day-to-day reactions from a wide variety of drugs. Then they have to compile and send the findings to a central register. This is a fact, The general practitioners were told last week that the use of these drugs carried wide risks; and yet here are these busy men—exhausted, worn out, actually agitating at the door of Parliament for relief—given this work to do.
I can think of no scheme more welcome to the worst elements in the pharmaceutical industry. They can put drugs on the market without clinical trial and then, if things go wrong, can throw the blame on to the doctors for not reporting that certain drugs caused danger to their patients. Striking proof of what I say was given at Salford last week at an inquest of a woman who died from the combined effect of Nardil and another anti-depressive drug. The manufacturers said there was a warning in one of their pamphlets. The poor, busy doctor said that he may have read it three years ago; but, as he gets about 20 circulars from the drug manufacturers every day, he has no time to read them. Another pathologist, in Yorkshire, questioned a general practitioner after the death of another woman who had taken Nardil. He said, according to a Report:
"It is obvious doctors just have not got the time to read everything that is sent to them. They cannot possibly do that, run surgeries, visit patients, keep up with their medical Press and have a normal home life as well."
These changes we are asking for tonight, that a new individual authority should be set up, will be resisted by the pharmaceutical industry. When the United States Food and Drug Administration ordered the withdrawal of Parnate, the president of the manufacturing company, Smith Kline and French, said that although they were withdrawing the drug they did not agree with the United States Food and Drug Administration. Though they would order the withdrawal of it in the United States, they challenged the Food and Drug Administration. Yet I would remind your Lordships that the Food and Drug Administration of the United States was responsible for refusing to allow thalidomide to be prescribed. The manufacturers called the woman doctor who was responsible "ignorant" and "stupid" when she repeatedly refused permission to allow thalidomide to

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be distributed. We are moving into a period when this matter becomes so serious that the British Medical Journal on January 25 printed an article, under the heading Drugs and The Embryo, but it concerned men and women. It said:
"We now have to recognise that the increasing complexity of drugs may result in increasingly subtle interference with the intricate biochemical mechanisms of the dividing cell. In future, therefore, a doctor who prescribes a new drug to a patient of either sex may unwittingly be testing its ability to produce genetic mutation, with eventual deformity and disease in future generations."
Sometimes the seriousness of this matter is so great that I find it difficult to understand how the public can accept the situation as it is to-day, and the irresponsibility of certain drug houses—for instance, in distribution of oral contraceptives. It is outrageous that British Drug Houses should advertise these products to harassed, ignorant and innocent women. Last week a doctor showed me a sample brought in by the latest commercial traveller. It was a box of oral contraceptives, beautifully packed, to go to some woman who might come in. I looked at the pamphlet which was with the package. British Drug Houses, in advertising these products to the doctors, sought to allay the doctors' fears by printing under the heading, "Evaluation of testing", the words:
"Before release it was necessary to establish the safety and efficacy of this product".
This is a deliberate distortion of the truth. Many eminent doctors have warned of the possible danger of oral contraceptives. The Times of March 2, in an article under a heading, "Caution over Oral Birth Control", said:
"Cautious individuals very reasonably question the advisability of the use of such a potent group of hormones for a purpose which may be satisfactorily handled otherwise."
The Times to-day thinks it necessary to quote the Lancet on the same subject. The Lancet said:
"Despite the lack so far of evidence in the human of harmful permanent effects, their use"—
that is the use of oral contraceptives—
"for long periods cannot be contemplated without considerable trepidation, for it may be dangerous to interfere with rhythmical processes … Twenty years may go before we can he sure about the safety of the present oral contraceptive".
Yet doctors throughout this country will be sent beautifully packed parcels of
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oral contraceptives for their poor women patients with large families, who are desperately anxious to do something, irrespective of what it might do to their health. The firm have written in these pamphlets:
"Before release it was necessary to establish the safety and efficacy of this product."
We are asking your Lordships to-night to agree to the setting up of an independent agency, absolutely independent of the pharmaceutical industry. There is no doubt that the control of the testing of drugs is now an international problem. For this reason, we were pleased that a symposium on the toxicity of drugs has just taken place in Moscow, attended by delegates from nine European countries, among whom, I was delighted to see, Britain was represented by the Principal Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health did not feel that he had to echo the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. Not a bit of it. Among other things he recommended in Moscow was that all new drugs should be clearly marked, warning people of adverse side effects.
One does not need to have any medical knowledge to know that one can go into a chemist's to get a prescription made up and is given a box or bottle without any name on it or any indication of what it contains, whether it is something simple or something very dangerous. In his opening remarks, my noble friend said that any prescription can be poisonous, if you take enough of it, but the dangers to children are obvious and they are faced every day of their lives with all these bottles and boxes containing mixtures and tablets.
Finally, it is astonishing that, while we have waited for months for the Dunlop Committee to be set up, the medical advisers of the pharmaceutical industry only last month decided to discuss the ways and means of effecting clinical trials. The report in the Lancet of February 1 fills me with misgivings. It said:
"In the past it was said clinical trials had been nobody's business but the hobby of a dedicated few."
The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, opposite told us how all drugs have been carefully tested. He has no difficulty at all in securing clinical trials.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, does the noble Lady suggest that any drugs which

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go out from firms with which I am associated have not been tested?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am always very careful to support any such statement I make by an authentic quotation. I am quoting now the noble Lord's industry at a meeting last month, of which results were reported on February 1, when they said:
"In the past it was said clinical trials had been nobody's business but the hobby of a dedicated few."
LORD FERRIER: May I interrupt the noble Baroness?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I did not interrupt the noble Lord; would he mind please sitting down? Sir Derrick Dunlop found it necessary to remind that meeting of a very elementary fact. The noble Lord ought to blush that it had to be said. Sir Derrick said:
"The deep-rooted, built-in ethics of the profession is the greatest safeguard, greater than any rules that could be drawn up by any committee."
I say that the corollary of this is surely that we must establish an independent agency governed by the highest ethical standards to undertake the clinical evaluation of drugs if the public is to be afforded the fullest protection.
6.45 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Amulree, on behalf of my Department, for the kind words which they said about The Prescribers' Journal, which I personally was very glad to hear.
In view of the learned discourses to which we have listened this afternoon, your Lordships will not, I hope, expect from me a judgment of Solomon upon this difficult and complex matter. It is not just a matter of organising an efficient piece of machinery. The professional ethics of doctors are involved and, so far as I am aware, there is in the profession no general consensus of opinion that a central testing agency is desirable. Indeed, from what has been said this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, it is clear
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that there is a powerful weight of professional opinion on the other side. So, my approach is cautious.
Though we have sometimes strayed rather far from the theme, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is mainly concerned with the value or efficacy of new drugs, and, indeed, the expression "clinical testing" or "clinical trial" is normally taken to refer to the administration of drugs to patients, under controlled conditions, for the purpose of testing their therapeutic efficacy, as opposed to tests for determining toxicity—and, therefore, safety—which are performed in the laboratory and on animals and sometimes on human volunteers. Things would be simpler if toxicity and efficacy could be treated as wholly separate aspects of a drug's nature, but, unfortunately, they cannot be. I follow my noble friend Lord Cohen of Birkenhead in saying that for any worthwhile drug, judgment about hazards must depend on judgment of what the drug will do therapeutically. In a drug that could be relied on to cure cancer, for instance, a much higher risk of side-effects could be accepted than in a drug for curing headaches. So toxicity and efficacy must be looked at together in order to assess safety.
In October, 1962, after the thalidomide tragedy, the Medical Research Council reviewed their responsibilities over the whole field of toxicity testing and clinical trials. They confirmed the principle, which had developed down the years, that responsibility for routine toxicity screening of new drugs should remain with the manufacturers and that the Council themselves ought not to become involved in it. It is a matter of history, as your Lordships know, that following the Report of Lord Cohen of Birkenhead and his Committee—a Report which was endorsed by the Standing Medical Advisory Committees in England and Wales and in Scotland—the Government appointed the Dunlop Committee on Safety of Drugs, after receiving assurances of co-operation from the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession. As your Lordships know, the Committee began their functions on January 1 this year.
The arrangements for submission of new drugs to the Committee ensure that such drugs are not offered by their

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manufacturers for clinical trial without adequate toxicity testing. Furthermore, the Committee decide whether or not the results of the clinical trials of a new drug justify that drug being put on the market. This, I should think, is as effective as the proposed board of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in reducing the number of insufficiently tried drugs coming on to the market.
The Medical Research Council have given advice on the conduct of clinical research and of clinical investigation generally, with special reference to the interests of patients. Nevertheless, my Lords, the individual doctor's judgment as to whether a particular drug should be administered to a particular patient is still crucial and it always will be. His personal responsibility is, and always will be, an important safety factor.
I turn now from safety to efficacy, and, first, the attitude of the Medical Research Council. In their review of their responsibilities in this field, which they made in 1962 and to which I have already referred, they concluded that clinical trials which are clearly desirable on medical grounds ought to be arranged directly between the manufacturer and the individual physician. They further decided that they should be concerned only if there were a necessity for full-scale co-operative trials which involved issues of major importance to medical practice; and even then they considered that they should retain the freedom of deciding whether or not to undertake the trial of a particular drug. That, I am advised, is the view of the Medical Research Council. My right honourable friend the Minister for Science supports the contention of the Council that they should not become responsible for routine testing, as it is not an appropriate task for a research council.
As I understood it, part of Lord Taylor's argument is that manufacturers find it difficult to get trials done; and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, from his personal experience, that he considered it difficult for an individual doctor to carry out clinical trials. On the other hand, my noble friend Lord Ferrier has said that his pharmaceutical firm have no difficulty in getting trials done; and, moreover, the Committee on the Safety of Drugs, presided over by my noble friend Lord Cohen of Birkenhead,
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said they had been informed that the pharmaceutical industry had little difficulty in arranging for clinical trials of new drugs which showed promise of marked therapeutic advance, although there was difficulty over drugs of probable marginal advantage over existing remedies; and my noble friend more or less repeated that in his speech this afternoon. If this is so, it seems safe to conclude that at any rate the priorities to-day are not wrong.
I suppose it is possible that a doctor might be more willing to undertake the clinical trial of a new drug if requested by an official agency rather than by the manufacturer. But might he not feel that an official overture was derogatory of his professional status and of his personal responsibility for the care of his patients? I do not much like Lord Taylor's suggestion that doctors might receive a special payment for undertaking clinical trials; and I think I have the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, with me on that. I do not believe that that sort of inducement would be acceptable to the profession generally, and I am reasonably certain that it would not be acceptable to the general public, because many of the general public do not like being treated as guinea-pigs by the medical profession.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, this is a very fair point, and I stand corrected. I would accept what the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has said. But the difficulty arises where a doctor is in hospital and cannot do it but could employ a part-time registrar, for example, to do it, and the question of paying him might arise. However, on principle, I think I would agree with the noble Lord, and I withdraw my previous suggestion.
LORD NEWTON: I am obliged to the noble Lord for saying that.
The noble Lord's idea of a central agency is certainly, at first sight, an attractive one. It might well secure that available resources were used to the best advantage and save manufacturers and doctors the trouble of harassing and being harassed. The agency would need to be very knowledgeable; it would have to concentrate in a few people all the knowledge in depth about the whole range of drugs which is at present spread among manufacturers, each of whom tends to specialise in a particular range.

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That might be feasible, but not obviously so. The manufacturer knows the clinicians who are interested in his particular line. It would not be easy for a central agency to acquire that information for the whole range of new drugs, although I am not saying that it could not do so.
As a matter of historical interest, in the 'thirties the Medical Research Council operated a therapeutic trials committee to supervise a scheme for the clinical testing of new substances which had given promise of therapeutic value in laboratory tests, but it was not reconstituted after the war because the rapid increase in the number of new drugs made it impossible for a single committee to cover the whole field. On the other side of the coin, the prevailing system, unco-ordinated though it may be, has the advantage that it makes for the closest personal contact between manufacturer and clinician; and my noble friend Lord Cohen of Birkenhead said that, in his opinion, that contact is vital. This enables the clinician to obtain expeditiously all the information he needs before making up his mind about undertaking trials in the interest of his patients; it also enables him to exchange information with the manufacturer while the trials are in progress. A central agency would, rightly or wrongly, come between the two and affect the responsibilities of each in relation to the other.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has asked in his Question that the Government should consider the establishment of a central agency. We have considered it, and we will consider it. But I have felt it right to sound a note of caution, and I warned your Lordships that I would. I have done so mainly for this reason: that the doctor, unlike any other scientist, has to care about what ultimately happens to the physical matter upon which he carries out his experiments. He cannot just chuck the hits into the dustbin and start again, because the bits are human beings, and nothing must ever be done, in my view, which would limit the responsibility of a doctor for the treatment of his patients.
So I would sum up my position like this. After listening carefully to the
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debate, I am not convinced that the present arrangements are so defective that, notwithstanding their advantages—which I have mentioned—it is imperative to discard them and set up new machinery.

NUCLEAR PROPELLED MERCHANT SHIPS
6.58 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH rose to ask Her Majesty's Government to state what steps are being taken to put this seafaring nation on comparable terms and to match the progress of other nations in respect of nuclear propulsion in merchant ships The noble Earl said: My Lords, I regret that we are somewhat late in opening this debate on the Unstarred Question that I have on the Paper. Your Lordships will see that it is my request to the Minister and to the House of Lords that we should be given information as to the steps which are being taken to keep this great seafaring nation of ours on comparable terms in research, and, I hope, development, with regard to the question of nuclear propulsion of merchant ships. I think it is essential for the reputation of our country in mercantile matters; and I think it is essential, also, that we should be making progress in this matter because of the likely future of nuclear propulsion of merchant ships.
Your Lordships may think it strange that I should have raised this matter in the debate upon the Shipbuilding Bill two or three weeks ago. But I had to speak upon the Bill anyway, and what impressed me, as I read the debate in another place which took place on January 15, was that a very great case was submitted by the speaker for the Opposition with regard to this general question of nuclear propulsion of merchant ships. What impressed me even more was that there was no attempt on the part of the Government to reply to the case that was then presented with considerable force.
When I came to speak upon the Shipbuilding Bill, I pursued a similar line to that which had been pursued by the I Opposition in another place, hoping to

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get an answer. But the remarkable thing was that, although a case had already been made known by the debate in another place to the Department for whom the Minister here was speaking, no reply at all was made in this House to my contentions about the nuclear propulsion of merchant shipping. After all my experience (especially through practically 80 per cent. of the war period and then after, having been at the head of the direction not only of naval repair and shipbuilding but merchant repair and shipbuilding, when anything to do with the future of that great nautical industry of ours was of concern to me) I still fail to understand why no reply was given, either to my colleague in another place or to myself on this matter.
So last week I put on the Paper a Question to the Government, to which the noble Earl opposite made a reply. I was bound to express at the end of the Questions and Answers on that day that I was wholly dissatisfied with the Answer which was given, and that I would take the earliest opportunity of raising this subject upon an Unstarred Question, on which there could be at least a short debate.
The more I go into this matter, the more I feel that there is something which, in the public interest, needs a real inquiry. I am not quite sure what sort of inquiry would be the best, but that an inquiry is required in my view there is no doubt. The operations of the Atomic Energy Authority in regard to this matter have now gone on for a good many years. There were various proceedings and inquiries by themselves and in conjunction with a number of industries, or sections of allied industries, concerned, so that there were about five of them in constant consultation with the Atomic Energy Authority on this matter. They entered into a great deal of activity and research along lines arising out of the consultations, but those were brought to an end, so far as relations were concerned, on a question of payment of research money for the work the private firms were doing. Then came the decision in 1961 to make a fresh start, because, apparently, no great progress had been made. I do not know exactly what was the total cost to the Atomic Energy Authority
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during that trial period, but it was then decided that there should be set up a special arrangement by which the Government would make a grant of £3 million, which was to cover three years' research into this question.
Since then, it seems to me that things have been going so far wrong that there has been a constant attempt by Questions, mostly in another place, to find out the situation of the research; how far it had developed and how much money had been spent from time to time out of the £3 million grant, and the answers came in various and somewhat uncertain degrees. At one stage, it was suggested that the cost at the end of ten months of the period after the end of November, 1961, was about £600,000. The replies at which I have looked since seem to have been of various kinds. Sometimes, when general information has been asked for about the progress of this research, the answer has been given that the statement could not be made now, or it was postponed to some other time, and no real information was ever given to Parliament, which, after all, is responsible for the management of the nation's finances and is entitled to be kept informed of what is going on.
It is essential to call attention to these things to-day, when you consider the amount which has been spent upon research and experiment in this country in the last twelve years, and how little real result we have from it in the nuclear—military or civil—sense. At last, however, a statement was made that it was expected that the £3 million would be used up by the end of December, 1963. The noble Earl kindly answered a Question of mine the other day, when he said that up to that time, at any rate, the expenditure amounted to £3·4 million and that it would continue through 1964, and would probably—I do not suggest he gave an absolutely firm figure—be round about £5 million by the end of 1964. What I was then pressing for was to know what results had actually been obtained from this research. I am bound to repeat to the noble Earl to-night (as I am sure he expects me to repeat what I said then) that I was wholly dissatisfied.
As I had made the speech on the Shipbuilding Bill, and asked my questions, which were not answered, he must not be surprised to find that people with technical knowledge of the matter got into touch with me. I had not met them before at all, and they brought what may be regarded as their certain and known facts of the situation to my notice and, therefore, made me keen to press for an inquiry into the whole question. One thing is quite certain, and that is that, whatever may be said by the Government to-night, to my mind, knowing what has happened in the past in our general industries, and not without regard to our great seafaring industry, there is a future for nuclear power in the propulsion of merchant shipping.
The extent to which nuclear power has been developed in Service ships, of course, is used as an argument to say, "They are not required to be economic; they are done for specific purposes of defence". It does not need a lot of intensive study of the question of the future of the propulsion of merchant ships to show that there is every reason to suppose that nuclear-powered ships could be made effective and economical. You need only cast your minds back to the history of engineers' experience with regard to the propulsion of merchant and passenger ships, back to the period of—I ought to know the name; I handled it many times, but I forget it at the moment; at any rate, back to the period when the methods of driving a ship which are now so common were said, as recently as 1900, to be quite impracticable. Yet after research, and especially the final and successful research, in the British shipbuilding industry, these methods have made us quite pioneers in the new types of propulsion. And the same thing will arise in regard to nuclear expectancy.
The grant was made originally by the Government to the Atomic Energy Authority to continue following up the previous researches, to enable the Atomic Energy Authority to engage in research, but also to keep in touch with, and use (as I took it to mean), these services of private industry who had also
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been interested in it, especially in certain research and experiments. But, from the date the grant was made, I cannot find, from all the information given to me, that anything really effective has been done by the Atomic Energy Authority to use to the full the knowledge, experience and research of private industry in this matter. There seems to be an attempt to keep anything arising out of their consultations for the sole benefit of any operations of the Atomic Energy Authority, rather than to spread the advantage to the whole of the consulted industry as well as to the Authority. I think this is not a fair way in which, under the terms of reference of the grant, this expenditure should have been made. I think that aspect needs inquiry.
I then find, of course, from getting the inside knowledge from those who have been inside this business, that the real course pursued by the Atomic Energy Authority was to confine, largely at any rate, its research to the development of the boiling water reactors. You had two types of what were called the I.B.R.s, which were pursued at considerable expense; and I think the Minister will confirm, when he replies, that both have been abandoned. But on the course up to their abandonment certain things happened.
First of all, there was the fact that no announcement was made by the Minister of Transport about the course of research to be adopted in this matter, until, I think, 1962; although it is clear to me, at any rate—and I should like to know what the evidence of the Minister is—that the decision to concentrate upon these boiling water reactor types was made much earlier in the year, and that the consideration of the other type of reactors which were included in the submissions of those who had been engaged in private and industrial research was put on one side, so that the Minister had only one choice to make: to approve what was put to him. He had nothing before him at all on what would be a question of special examination, from the nation's point of view, of the differences in effectiveness, as well as in cost, between the various types.
It is of note to relate from my information that in fact the T.B.R.s have been

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abandoned, and solely, or almost solely, for the reasons which were exposed by Captain Atkins in the Press just over twelve months ago. He may perhaps be charged by some people with having revealed something he ought not to have revealed, but he certainly saved this nation from what would have been enormous expense to no avail, if that basis of research had been continued, because the reasons which have led to the abandonment of the I.B.R.s were the very reasons which were made public by one who himself was a qualified naval engineer of great experience and who had been connected with the work that had gone on on the industrial side a year or two before—that in connection with Rolls Royce and associates. What happened? The Chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority insisted that he be dismissed from his post by the head of the firm concerned in Rolls Royce associates dealing with the matter; and he was promptly dismissed. But the I.B.R.s have been abandoned for the very reasons that were exposed then. How does this sort of thing arise? I think we ought to have an answer to that.
When I come back to other aspects of the question, I look at the information supplied to me, and what I find is that there has been no adequate consideration at all of the other types of reactors which have been under examination and research by private firms, and which have not, in their judgment, some of the particular handicaps which I know to be in the boiling water type of reactors. What has gone on? They have had communications, I think, from time to time, and conversations; but no indication that the merits of these other proposals have ever been fully examined. Yet were any explanations given with regard to the decisions made? No, not at all. Instead, there has been a steady pursuit of the same ultimate type of reactor, the Vulcain, through the Belgonucleaire Organisation; and so, at the present time, so far as I can see, the Government are committed to a contract, a considerable contract—
LORD HOBSON: Two million pounds.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am not certain about the figure. My noble friend has one in mind
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apparently, but it is certainly quite considerable; and I should say that it is extraordinary in these circumstances that the Minister of Transport says that he declines to give the figure of the contract price, in spite of this situation I have been describing.
This is an extraordinary position. We now know that the £3 million grant is to go up to £5 million by the end of the year. The Government give no reason for it, but is not the reason, in the main, that this sum is about to be added to the balance of the contract price which still goes to be met with the Belgonucleaire Organisation? I want to ask the Minister to-night to tell us how much has been paid to the Belgonucleaire up to the moment and what remains to be met on the contract which is now entered into. This is something which ought to be communicated to Parliament in view of the fact that, in spite of all that has been done so far, there is no result—unless the Minister can tell us to-night what that result is.
What is the fact about the other proposals which had been made by other organisations before the date of the making of the first grant, the £3 million grant? What had gone on before then? The Rolls Royce associates were willing to supply a reactor of the type which one might describe, not being an engineer, as a steam-cooled reactor, but I am sure that the noble Earl with the research he has been making knows all about that particular one. That was offered to be produced and installed into a ship ready for trial for £550,000. That offer was not accepted. So far as I know, that particular offer was quite deliberately turned down.
But then later on, after the £3 million grant had begun to overate for this special research, after the announcement was made at the end of November 1961, the Mitchell organisation had consultations with the Authority, and they found that although all these other people were to have been consulted they had in fact been forgotten; and there was no going back upon that; but if they liked to make some submissions they might be considered. The other organisations concerned had no doubt been recipients of payments for the pieces of research work they had done for the

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Atomic Energy Authority before the commencement of the operation and administration of this £3 million grant.
The Mitchell organisation submitted a scheme of design which had been very carefully and thoroughly prepared and costed to their satisfaction down to the last degree. They offered to supply a steam-cooled reactor for propulsion of merchant ships at £500,000 installed in the ship for sea trials. This was a firm that had never had any research money at all from the Atomic Energy Authority. In my view, according to my information, the way in which they have been treated hardly bears description. They have been asked questions as to what has been done and the secrets of their own design for production. They have never been paid anything for that information. I do not think they have asked anything for it. But what apparently seems to happen is that the Atomic Energy Authority in such matters ask for and obtain all the information required in the course of consultation, and seek then to use such information for the development of their own organisation of production.
Looking at the records of the Atomic Energy Authority over the last twelve years, I wonder what has actually been produced by them and about the results of their research. I am sure they must have done something, but how much? I understand that they now have a staff of 42,000, and that the productive workers number hardly much more than one-quarter of that number, certainly not much more than something between one-third and one-quarter. Despite all the money going in and being paid out, we seem in a matter of reasonable simplicity, the matter of this particular nuclear project, to be getting no information about the results. Until now it has been whispered and said in different places that the Government, having spent the money thus far, say that, after all, the idea of having nuclear-powered propulsion of a merchant ship is not likely to be economically successful at all at any time. I must say I disagree with that. When we consider a ship of 15,000 to 20,000 tons, and even larger ships than that, if we can get a satisfactory reactor which can develop 20,000 shaft horse-power at 0·2d.
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per hour, which does not entail having to put into your merchant ship all the immense space required for the bunkers at present required for oil or diesel or other fuels, and does not interfere with the whole arrangements for the voyage by the ship having to go from port to port to re-fuel, and if the reactor is able to produce all the fuel that is required for propulsion—certainly up to the period required for entering for the ordinary inspection as required by Lloyds, and therefore it must be able to make and will make its own fuel out of the same core for four years and, if necessary, it could go to five years—then, in the light of these economic factors, the idea that we cannot ultimately get by research and trial a real economical use of nuclear power in merchant ships sounds to me ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous to suggest at this stage that there is no likely future economic case for the development of nuclear propulsion of merchant ships. These are facts.
The Atomic Energy Authority ought to be asked for other information as well. I was very much struck to-day in picking up the Hansard of another place and reading Mr. Hay's statement with regard to the Dounreay reactor which was to be built there for the "Valiant"—that is, the No. 2 nuclear propelled submarine out of the three, at least, to be built for ordinary submarine purposes; not one of those which is to be in the Polaris. What do we read? We read that in fact certain faults have occurred in materials used, resulting in certain complete changes having to be made in the piping which had gone into the business, and that is now to require months of delay, at that very choice centre for nuclear development at Dounreay. And yet one of my informants had made his protest against the acceptance of materials and methods with regard to that particular operation there, and because he would not give up his professional views upon that he had his contract ended.
I say that the way this business is going on at the moment calls for an inquiry. I should be glad to discuss with the Government if necessary what form the inquiry should take. But there is something that needs a lot of answering. I shall be most interested to hear what the noble Earl has to say upon it, but I

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have no doubt at all that if the inquiry is granted there can be revelations for the benefit of Parliament, which has to provide the taxpayers' money in these matters, and for the benefit of the industry, which has every right to be encouraged to come to a more modernised and, in the end, more economic form of merchant ship propulsion. I believe this would provide some general addition to the incentive for protecting and increasing the expansion of British industry. I hope we shall get an answer to-night.
7.31 p.m.
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, I rise to support my noble Leader. In preparation for this discussion on the Unstarred Question I did a little research in the Library, and I found that on no fewer than eleven occasions this question of nuclear ship propulsion has been before another place and your Lordships' House. It has been handled by two Ministers, the Minister of Transport and the Minister for Science, and in not one single case has a direct answer been given. There has been equivocation and dodging of the main points that have been put to the Ministers by the questioners. I think this is most unsatisfactory, and I hope that the noble Earl will be much more forthcoming when he comes to reply.
I want to ask him straight away one or two questions. First of all, I want to know whether the Committee under Sir Thomas Padmore has yet reported. I think that would be of interest to your Lordships, because, after all, this was the Committee which was set up to go into the matter. May we know whether the technical Committee under Professor Diamond of Manchester University have reported? Presumably they will have done, if the Padmore Committee have. Their terms of reference were singularly limited at the outset. They were called on to study two types of reactor—the integral boiling water reactor, which of course is a paper design produced by the Atomic Energy Authority at Risley; and secondly, what is known as the spectral shaft reactor of a water type known as the Vulcain.
The Vulcain is designed by a Belgian consortium, and what makes it rather unsatisfactory is, I think, that the British Atomic Energy Authority have entered
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into a contract with Belgonucleaire who produced the Vulcain. Presumably if the A.E.A. choose this form of reactor it will be produced in Britain under licence, but it is not a British reactor. This is the point that I want to make, because later on in my speech I shall refer to other reactors of a foreign make. Obviously, there is no prejudice so far as Her Majesty's Government's present advisers are concerned, in obtaining and manufacturing a foreign reactor and placing it, should it be necessary, into a British ship. I should like to know whether the Atomic Energy Authority are providing money, which they presumably are, for the Vulcain, and whether there is any evidence at all that this reactor will be a suitable one for placing in a vessel. I think that is information which ought to be given to your Lordships.
One of the disturbing factors to those who have something to do with the industry is that apparently the Atomic Energy Authority are wedded to the philosophy of a pressurised water reactor, despite the fact that there are other systems. The most likely one at the moment is an American design of an air-cooled reactor. I want to reinforce what my noble Leader has said. The point is that tenders were asked for for this nuclear engine and reactor, and five firms tendered. Of those five firms, three submitted tenders for reactors of American design. I think that is rather of interest. But have these firms been told whether or not their tenders have been rejected? We should like to have an answer to that question. Were the firms told at the outset that the nuclear reactor that they had to produce for the ship had to have such characteristics that it would be an economic proposition if placed in a merchant ship? I think that is most important.
There is not the slightest doubt that we are behind other countries so far as nuclear reactors for ships are concerned. Let us look at the present situation. In the United States of America they have the "Savannah". I do not propose to say much about that; but it is a merchant ship. Of course, so far as naval ships are concerned they have the aircraft carrier, nuclear submarines (I forget how many), and a

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nuclear-propelled cruiser. I am told that they are all of the pressurised water characteristic. So there is experience of nuclear propulsion. Then comes the question of the type. The type of reactor that is placed in the "Savannah", for instance, I am told, weighs something like 2,000 tons, for a shaft horsepower of 20,000; but with the air-cooled water reactors that weight can be reduced to something like 400 tons for a shaft horsepower of 20,000.
There is nothing secret about all this. This is not classified information. The noble Earl will be perfectly free to say whether this is true or not, because one can actually go and buy the technical appreciation of these forms of reactor. It is unclassified material, and is readily available in the United States. What we want to know is, what at the present moment are the Government going to do? Germany has placed a contract for a 15,000-ton oil carrier. The nuclear reactor is going to be of the Babcock and Wilcock water type. It is going to be built by Babcock and Wilcox Deutsch in consultation with Siemen-Schuchertz. Obviously, the Germans are pretty hardheaded in this matter. Apart from being our nautical rivals at the moment, they must have thought that this was an experiment worth going on with and that there seems to be a future for producing a merchant ship with a nuclear reactor.
What are the objections to going ahead with this scheme? I think the noble Earl should tell us what the objections are. There certainly cannot be any doubt about building a ship's reactor under licence. I cannot see any objection to that. Indeed, the Atomic Energy Authority, as I said earlier, are already considering the Vulcain. And from the point of view of the shipbuilders of Britain—after all, we do build hulls for ships and occasionally put in foreign engines, so there is nothing unusual in that—certainly the industry should be given a chance to produce a hull in which we can put a nuclear reactor.
A statement was made in answer to a Question in the other place that there was to be international co-operation so far as Britain was concerned in the production of a maritime nuclear reactor. What has
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become of that proposal? Are any consultations taking place between the countries of Euratom? Has any consideration been given by the Technical Assessment Committee under Professor Diamond to the American 630A reactor? This reactor seems to have the best possibilities of all. It is much lighter, and indeed was originally conceived out of an idea of President Kennedy when the Americans were flirting with the idea of having a nuclear-propelled aeroplane. This reactor—and there is nothing secret about it—is certainly of much lighter weight and produces steam of a quality which is compatible with turbine techniques in modern merchant ships, so it overcomes many of the difficulties which exist in such ships as the "Savannah". I should like to know what consideration has been given to these matters.
I should also like to ask the noble Earl what is wrong with the conception of constructing an Admiralty fleet auxiliary, a tanker of 15,000 to 20,000 tons, and placing within that ship a nuclear reactor. We should get the experience of running it and also have extra facilities for training the crew. This appears to me to be something which could well be done. I am surprised that there has been no indication whatsoever from any spokesman on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that they are considering this. I think it is far better to work in that way than to have a dry cargo ship constructed by a private firm which would have to be subsidised at the outset. I think the Admiralty fleet auxiliary is a suggestion worth considering.
The fact remains that for British people it is rather annoying—because, after all, we were the pioneer of steam turbines in the past—that we should lag behind in this matter. It is evident that at the moment there is no nuclear reactor of British design which fits into the time schedule of the other nations who are constructing nuclear ships. To that extent, I consider that all British people—we are a seafaring nation—feel hurt in this matter. This is a question of pride.
I do not think that the implications of this Unstarred Question are that the Minister is expected to get up and say, "Here we have a reactor which is viable and, when installed in a merchant ship, will be a paying proposition." We do

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not expect that. But we are now entitled, after three years of equivocation and of dodging the issue, to have some authoritative statement whether the Government are throwing out the whole conception of nuclear propulsion in merchant ships or whether they are prepared to go ahead. For my own part, I should like to see this great maritime nation build a nuclear ship. I am absolutely convinced that if we do not, we are going to fall behind in what, in five or six years' time, could very well be almost standard means of propulsion, particularly for fast cargo ships.
The Atomic Energy Authority have been criticised. One finds it difficult to know precisely what their rôle is in this matter, but there is no doubt that whilst they have spent taxpayers' money, so have many private firms in the British consortia spent many thousands of pounds in going into this problem. It is now incumbent on Her Majesty's Government to declare firmly their intentions in regard to nuclear propulsion in merchant ships.
7.45 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH): My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition for putting down this Unstarred Question on a subject which certainly deserves considerably more discussion than we were able to give it in question and answer the other day, and, indeed, than perhaps we can give it this evening. The noble Earl has great experience in these matters, as has the noble Lord, Lord Hobson, who, as a former power station engineer, is perhaps as well qualified to speak as anyone else in this House; and I am very glad that he did speak.
I should like first to deal with certain points which were raised by the noble Earl in his supplementaries last Wednesday, and which also have a direct bearing on what he has said this evening. The noble Earl referred a few days ago to the article in the Financial Times. of February 20 and asked me whether it was true that by then, as he has again stated this evening, £3·4 million had already been spent on research into nuclear propulsion for merchant ships. I confirm
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what I said in answer to him that £3 million had certainly been spent by the beginning of this year, and that expenditure was continuing at the rate of about £2 million a year.
The noble Lord, Lord Waleran (who unfortunately is not with us this evening), asked me how I related the statement that £3 million had been spent since November, 1961, with the answer made by my right honourable friend, the Chief Secretary, in another place on November 20 last, that the nuclear marine programme cost £200,000 a year. I have already informed my noble friend that this figure of £200,000 related only to the extent to which the Atomic Energy Authority had placed contracts with industry and paid for research, design and development work on nuclear merchant propulsion. The figure of £200,000 was given in response to a question specifically concerning British companies engaged on this research. This expenditure was part—and only a small part—of the total expenditure of £3 million to which I have referred. The remainder of this sum of £3 million has been spent by the Atomic Energy Authority on work by its own design teams, working in conjunction with engineers, naval architects and others seconded from the British shipbuilding industry and the British Ship Research Association, together with the Authority's share of the expenditure on the joint project with Belgonucleaire on the Vulcain reactor.
The development of any reactor, and particularly one designed as a marine propulsion unit, is essentially a long-term process. Results of such development programmes do not materialise within a year or two, as I think noble Lords opposite recognise. For example, the agreement with Belgonucleaire to develop the Vulcain system, which was signed in 1962, extends to 1967. This is a long-term agreement covering this particular project of which we are a joint party. Belgonucleaire is a commercial undertaking, and its partnership with the Atomic Energy Authority necessarily has a commercial aspect. The Belgonucleaire and the Atomic Energy Authority are joint owners of the patents, and an arrangement has been reached on licensing should the Vulcain system prove to be successful.

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Under the Vulcain project the fuel elements, which have been designed for the Vulcain reactor, will be tested as a complete charge in an existing pressurised water reactor, the B.R.3 in Belgium, in order to determine the behaviour of the fuel elements under operating conditions. Noble Lords know what problems are involved there.
LORD SHEPPERD: My Lords, before the noble Earl proceeds, could he give the figure of the British financial contribution to the Belgonucleaire agreement? This is a question that my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has put on two occasions. I think it is very important, when taking into account the small amount that the Government have contributed to British industry.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, this is a figure which I was hoping I might be able to give your Lordships. I cannot do so to-day, but I hope that it may be possible to do so on a later occasion.
The noble Earl also asked me—and he confirmed this to-day—whether or not the handing over of this research to the Atomic Energy Authority had led to the discarding of any further consideration of the American steam-cooled reactors, or those developed by Rolls-Royce and their associates, or by Mitchell's. He said that the Mitchell reactor had, in fact, been quoted at a firm price, much below anything we seemed to be able to get in any other direction. In reply to the noble Earl on those points, I should like to say this. Those American types of reactor, which are essentially variations of the pressurised water system, are said to be ready for immediate installation. But, my Lords, the United States Administration do not at present appear to intend to build another nuclear-propelled merchant ship.
I understand that the reactor system which was investigated some years ago by Rolls Royce and its associates is no longer being put forward by that group of firms. I hope that the noble Earl will forgive me if I do not at this moment enter into any discussion on the merits of the reactor design put forward by the Mitchell undertaking, nor refer to the
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claims which he made the other day regarding its cost of construction and seaworthiness.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, with regard to the steam-cooled design which was quoted by Rolls Royce and its associates at £550,000, may I ask if there was ever any communication to them that there was any disapproval by the Atomic Energy Authority of its design? May I ask, also, whether any similar expression of disapproval was communicated from the Atomic Energy Authority to Mitchell's; and, if so, why?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, these points are all matters for the Working Group and for the Diamond Panel. I do not think it would be at all appropriate for me to go into them this evening. They are matters which have been examined by the Working Group; and, as I say, their Report is awaited. Until Ministers have this Report in their hands, they will be in no position to evaluate the claims which have been made on behalf of this reactor system and others.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl, before he proceeds?—because this is a most important matter. My noble friend Lord Hobson specifically asked whether the Report had been received. Obviously, it has not been received, so can the noble Earl say when he expects to receive it?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: It will be received very shortly, my Lords.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: We never get any information.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: In answer to further supplementary questions last Wednesday, I also referred to the Russian icebreaker "Lenin", which can be operated without regard to ordinary commercial considerations. There is then the United States passenger cargo ship "Savannah", to which I have already referred, and this cannot be regarded as an economic unit. I have already said that the Americans show no present intention of building another passenger cargo ship. I have just seen that the "Savannah" is reported as

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having cost the Americans 83 million dollars, and we might well ask what the results have been there. I also mentioned the other day that the Germans and the Japanese had each announced their decision to build a ship. I should add, in this connection, that the Germans have, as the noble Earl knows, ordered a reactor of American design from Babcock and Wilcox. There are observations I could make upon that, which I cannot do in your Lordships' House, but your Lordships may well be able to imagine what has passed. Then, in so far as the Japanese are concerned, they have still apparently to decide what reactor they propose to install
The noble Earl now asks:
"What steps are being taken to put this seafaring nation on comparable terms and to match the progress of other nations in respect of nuclear propulsion in merchant ships."
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I do not want to embarrass the noble Earl, but before he goes on to the future steps I should like to have some answer, if I may, as to why the I.B.R.s were abandoned, and why all the steps were taken by the Atomic Energy Authority to get somebody dismissed who had exposed the very reasons for which they have subsequently been abandoned. I should also like to know the actual relationship of the Vulcain project to the I.B.R.s which have been abandoned.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I have the answer. The work by the Atomic Energy Authority on the I.B.R. has been suspended for reasons unconnected with the contentions put forward by Captain Atkins, whom we all recognise as an eminent naval engineer. The main reason was that the design of the fuel elements entailed a long-term development programme. Incidentally, I would take this opportunity again formally to deny that Sir Roger Makins had any connection with the dismissal of Captain Atkins by Vickers. Lastly, on this point, I should emphasise that the Atomic Energy Authority has achieved much in the development of nuclear power stations, for which the economic prospects are good. Nuclear power for ships, however, is a different problem.
I assume that what the noble Earl has in mind is the development of a
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reactor unit which can be economically operated in a merchant vessel. Your Lordships will have gathered from what I have said—and I must re-emphasise it—that so far no country has built an economic propulsion reactor for use in a merchant vessel; and, so far as I understand the matter, it will be many years before they do. Indeed, during the course of this debate some noble Lords could have said that we might see a jet engine in a motor car. This, of course, may come. I do not know whether the noble Earl was referring to diesel engines or not, but he referred to the fact that at one time a certain type of engine was not accepted but that later it was. Sometimes a design may he accepted: sometimes it may prove to be inappropriate.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I struggled for the right word. The word I ought to have used was "turbines". Turbines, it was said in the early 1900 period, were unlikely ever to be useful for the propulsion of merchant ships. But in fact this country then made a great advance in turbines, and later on very specialised turbines swept the industry throughout the world, almost. I want that to happen with the nuclear propulsion of merchant ships.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: The noble Earl may be right—I do not know. I hope he is. I do not want to knock this project too hard, and I am merely putting the considerations which have to be taken into account. The American one has cost 83 million dollars—
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt while he is on that point? Could consideration not have been given, as I said in my speech, to putting a nuclear reactor in an Admiralty fleet auxiliary? They are not under any real compunction to operate at an economic cost, but you would get the experience.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: That is a very interesting suggestion which I am sure the Working Group, if they have not already considered it, would be only too willing to consider. But, as I think your Lordships recognise, submarines, warships and icebreakers are another matter, because they do not

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have to operate under commercial conditions, and there are, of course, logistic advantages in ships which can refuel only at very long intervals being equipped with nuclear reactors. But merchant ships can refuel, and they do require above all to be economic, and in that context capital and operating costs are very important.
My Lords, I am not going to go into details regarding the figures of shaft horse-power. I do not think that I can accept the figures which the noble Earl gave me this afternoon. But, there again, that is a matter which the Working Group will no doubt also consider. I know that the noble Earl will appreciate from what I have said in regard to activities in certain other countries that to use the phrase which he has used in his Question, "match their progress", is somewhat to misdescribe the position they have reached. These countries, like us, are grappling with what is a complicated problem, and one which, if it is to be resolved successfully, will entail a substantial expenditure over a long term of years. We are not giving up this project, but it is a most complicated one and it is by no means certain that success will ultimately be achieved.
There is no question but that a propulsion unit could be built now for reliable operation in a merchant vessel, but it could not be economic in competition under normal commercial conditions with conventional ships, and none of my shipping friends seems to support the idea. In view of what has been said, I think I must quote to your Lordships a passage from the Annual Report of the Chamber of Shipping, dated February 27. They say here—and this is really an objective analysis:
"There is no evidence that any of these ships will be commercially viable. These facts alone indicate the uncertainty surrounding the future of nuclear power for merchant ships, and put more accurately in perspective the absence of any firm decision in this country".
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUH: My Lords, that is the reason why they have no evidence. It is because they have not been given all the information that I have had, for example.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: I think they have gone into it in some
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detail, my Lords. There is no question, as I say, but that a unit could be put into a ship, but I do not find that the shipping industry thinks the possibilities very promising. The vital question is whether, by building and operating an experimental ship, we could put ourselves in a better position to achieve, in the longer term, an economic unit capable of competing with diesel and steam turbine units. That is what the Government will have to decide when they have the Report of the Working Group. I should perhaps remind the noble Lord, Lord Hobson, that the tenders submitted in 1960 were considered at the time. The Government decided in the following year not to proceed with building a ship, and instead to initiate a further programme of research.
In regard to the noble Earl's suggestion that an inquiry should be set up, I hardly think that this is necessary, since the Working Group, under the chairmanship of Sir Thomas Padmore, is itself an independent body, as is the Technical Panel which assists it and which was set up to assess the merits of the various reactor systems. I cannot therefore think it necessary to set up another committee. The Panel have examined six reactor systems. For the most part, they have been variations of the pressurised water system, together with the Mitchell steam-cooled reactor and one other, more advanced, concept making use of air-cooling. My Lords, I feel we must await the Report of the Working Group. I hope that this Report will shortly be in the hands of Ministers, who will, I am sure, be anxious to reach a decision as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter. On a subject of this importance they will need some little time in which to digest the considerations advanced and to decide what would be the most desirable course for this country to follow.
My Lords, this has not been a general debate on atomic energy, but the remarks of certain noble Lords would perhaps have fitted more conveniently into such a general debate, which I suppose we can hold at any time if the Business of the House makes it possible. But the general performance of the Atomic Energy Authority is something very

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much wider than this relatively narrow field. As to the announcement which my right honourable friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty made in another place yesterday, that, again, is something which I do not think your Lordships would wish me to deal with here, but I am most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, for having raised this matter. It has interested me greatly in going into it, and it has interested me greatly also to
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hear what he has had to say, as well as what the noble Lord, Lord Hobson, has said.

SAINT JOHN'S CHURCH, SMITH SQUARE BILL [H.L.]
Committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
House adjourned at nine minutes past eight o'clock.