Lords Sitting of 11 May 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 Lincoln

AID FOR BRITISH TEAMS IN OVERSEAS SPORTS
2.35 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a progress report of the work of the Advisory Committee concerned with the applications from governing bodies of sport asking for grant-aid for teams competing in amateur international sports events overseas.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH): My Lords, to date 21 applications have been received. In 2 cases a grant has been approved. Several other cases have progressed to the stage when it is hoped that a decision will not be long delayed. The remainder are under consideration.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, without wishing to look the smallest gift horse in the mouth,
2
I would inform the noble Earl that when I was at school we had a slow bicycle race and the person who came in last won, and I wonder whether the noble Earl would agree that this Committee would have won all the time? May I ask him, arising from that, whether he himself does not consider that, for 2 out of 21 cases to have been decided over a period of seven months from the date when I first put down a Question on this matter, is to have taken a rather long time?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think that when the noble Baroness put down her first Question the applications had not yet been received. I can assure the noble Baroness that there is no delay whatever in dealing with these applications, and that no one is going to suffer as a result of the time taken in considering the applications. This work is reasonably well advanced.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl a further question? Can he give the House any information as to the proportion of grant made in so far as money is concerned in respect of the two applications which have been approved?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I can inform your Lordships that in fact a very substantial part of the money sought by these sporting organisations has been granted in so far as travelling expenses are concerned.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: Yes, my Lords, but can the noble Earl be a little more specific, because that really does not help us very much?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot be more specific as each case varies to some extent, but I know that the requests have been very largely met.

PROPOSED EXTENSION TO PALACE OF WESTMINSTER
2.39 p.m.
LORD LLEWELYN-DAVIES: 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, when considering the proposals for an extension to the Palace of Westminster, they will bear in mind that the architecture of the new building should reflect the century in which we live.]
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL NAVY (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, the design of any important and prominent building is a matter of great public interest and requires very thorough consideration. Her Majesty's Government will take into account the views expressed both inside and outside Parliament on the design of any new building which may in due course be erected for Parliamentary purposes.
LORD LLEWELYN-DAVIES: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. I should like to ask him whether he agrees that this is a matter of enormous public concern and that its discussion and debate in this House and elsewhere is a matter of the greatest urgency at the present time?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I would of course agree, if the Sunday papers are any guide, that this is a matter of great public concern, and I think, indeed, that it is. Quite clearly, of course, the matter of debate in this House is one to be considered through the normal channels; but, if I may express a personal opinion, it is that this is the type of subject on which your Lordships are known to excel.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that there are many considerations in this scheme other than the architectural one which has received so much prominence? May I ask the noble Earl whether the Government will
4
consider the whole scheme, and whether the proposed scheme will produce what is required for Members of both Houses in the most efficient way?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I would, of course, agree with the noble Lord that there are many factors to be considered here, of which the purely architectural and stylistic is only one. I am sure that these are all factors which will be fully debated in another place, where a debate has been promised, and possibly here, and these factors will doubtless be considered by Her Majesty's Government when a decision is being taken.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, in strongly supporting the noble Lord who asked this Question, may I ask Her Majesty's Government two questions? First, am I right in thinking that the proposed development could not be carried out without legislation? Secondly, am I right in assuming that the instructions to Sir Leslie Martin to prepare an outline plan for Parliament Square, Bridge Street and Whitehall, still stand and are quite unaffected by a proposal recently emanating from a Committee of another place?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think that my noble friend is right in his first supplementary thought. The legal position, as tends to be the case with legal positions, is a little obscure, I understand, in this particular respect, but I gather that it is almost certain that the scheme as recommended by the Speaker's Committee would require legislation. My noble friend is quite right in his second assumption that the terms of reference given to Sir Leslie Martin stand.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether he thinks all the features of the present century should be reflected in any new building?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I can quite confidently reply to my noble friend in the negative.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in view of the fact that there is concern in regard to the Foreign Office and in view of the proximity of the Foreign Office to Whitehall, Parliament and the necessary rebuilding, can the noble Earl say whether consideration will be given

5
now to having some kind of uniformity so that we do not have this hotch-potch which appears to be characteristic of London's architecture?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, it was, of course, with that aspect very much in mind that my right honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works recently asked Sir Leslie Martin to consider the Whitehall area as a whole.

INQUIRIES UNDER THE TRANSPORT ACTS
2.44 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: 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 the number of public inquiries ordered by the Minister of Transport under the Transport Act, 1919, and subsequent Transport Acts, and separately the number of public inquiries ordered under Section 90 of the Transport Act, 1962, and whether they will state the circumstances under which this section will be used.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I regret that in the two working days since the noble Lord put down his Question I have been unable to research into the number of inquiries ordered in the 45 years of the Ministry of Transport's existence. It is unlikely, in fact, that this information is available. No public inquiries have yet been ordered by my right honourable friend under Section 90 of the Transport Act, 1962. He would no doubt do so if he considered it useful and appropriate for the purposes of any of his powers under the Act.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, does the noble Lord think that the real reason why he has been unable to find that any inquiries have been made under this section is that there have, indeed, been none in the 45 years? With regard to the second part of his Answer, is the noble Lord aware that a number of local authorities have submitted applications to his right honourable friend for public inquiries which appear to be in line with what he has just said, but they have been refused? Would he have a look at the
6
request which has now been made by local authorities in the Conway Valley for a public inquiry under Section 90 of the Act?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that in saying that the noble Lord does the Department for which I answer less than justice. There is no central registry from which I can obtain the details of such inquiries, many of which, over the years, have probably been discarded from the files. I think that what remains relating to the rest of the time would involve an entirely disproportionate and not very progressive amount of work to try to supply the answer to the noble Lord. So far as the specific inquiry to which the noble Lord has referred is concerned, at the moment I do not know what is the subject of this application. I will look at it, but I can add no more on what is in the original Question, the hypothetical part of it, than say that my right honourable friend will no doubt start an inquiry if he thinks it useful and appropriate.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that I always do his Department far more than justice. It was because I had myself undertaken some research to find out whether there had been any of these public inquiries since 1919, and had been unable to discover any, that I tabled the Question to find out whether he had been more successful; and that seems very reasonable, having regard to the fact that this power has been continued in successive Acts since 1919.

MALTA'S INDEPENDENCE CONSTITUTION
2.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: 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 state their policy in regard to the Independence Constitution submitted by referendum to the electorate of Malta, in view of the fact that it was not supported by a majority of the electorate.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, my right

7
honourable friend is arranging to see the Prime Minister of Malta as soon as possible. I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate that no statement can be made prior to this meeting.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, of course I entirely accept what the noble Marquess has said, but perhaps I may ask this further question. In view of the fact that it is the Government's intention that Malta should be independent by the 31st of this month, do the Government intend to adhere to that intention, or will they allow sufficient time for reconsideration of the Constitution of Malta with the Prime Minister and any other interested parties who may be consulted between now and then?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I thought I had made it clear in my Answer that my right honourable friend is going to see the Prime Minister of Malta as soon as he possibly can. Clearly, as we approach the date, May 31, the likelihood of independence being possible by this date becomes more remote.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess whether he does not agree that it is desirable for the people of Malta—for whom independence is probably the most important event in their history—to know at the earliest possible moment whether or not they will be independent at the end of this month? In view of the factors he stresses, indicating delay, would it not be desirable to inform them immediately that it will be impossible for the date of independence, which was intended to be not later than May 31, to be adhered to?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot anticipate the results of the conversations between my right honourable friend and the Prime Minister of Malta.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government a Question of which I have given Private Notice: have they a statement to make regarding Southern Arabia?
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords,
8
I will, with the permission of the House, answer the noble Lord's Question as soon after half-past three as convenient.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Bessborough will be making a statement on business schools.

MACDUFF HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Clause 26 [Protection of Crown interests in wrecks]:
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD CRAIGTON): My Lords, I beg to move the five Amendments standing in my name. These Amendments correct an error, which I regret, in the nomenclature of the Minister now responsible for defence measures. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 12, line 24, leave out ("Minister of") and insert ("Secretary of State for")
Page 12, line 34, leave out ("Minister of") and insert ("Secretary of State for")
Page 12, line 36, leave out ("Minister of") and insert ("Secretary of State for")
Page 12, line 43, leave out ("Minister of") and insert ("Secretary of State for")
Page 12, line 47, leave out ("Minister of ") and insert ("Secretary of State for").—(Lord Craigton.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.

PLOUGHING GRANTS SCHEME, 1964
2.50 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1964, be approved, and I trust that it will be convenient if we take at the same time the Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme, 1964. Looking at the other Schemes which are before us, I propose, if your Lordships agree, to take together the two Calf Subsidies (Amendment) Schemes; and then, again if your Lordships agree, my noble friend Lord Craigton will take the two Winter Keep (Amendment) Schemes together. I hope that it will be for the convenience of the House if we deal with these matters in this way.

9
My Lords, during our debate on Agriculture a few weeks ago my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Dalzell remarked upon the increasing complexity of our agricultural support system; he was concerned, if I may borrow his phrase, at the "pitch of sophistication and complication" which that system has now reached. I therefore look confidently to my noble friend to support these two Ploughing Grant Schemes, because simplification is in fact their keynote.
The main change we are proposing is to streamline the conditions for the Part I or £5-an-acre grant and to cut down on the paper work they involve. We have felt able to do this now that the rate of grant has been reduced, following last year's measures to launch the Winter Keep and Grassland Renovation Schemes. The farmer will now be able to claim his £5 an acre as soon as he has ploughed eligible land and completed the first follow-up operation towards production of a crop. Previously he has had to wait until he had actually sown the crop. Under the old system he had to send us two forms—one immediately he had ploughed and the other when he had sown. The new arrangements will permit most ploughing grants to be paid on the strength of one piece of paper; they should lead to earlier payments of a grant which undoubtedly provides small farmers with valuable working capital over the anxious months before the return from their crops is safely in the bank. The new system should also materially reduce the number of claims that have to be disqualified because one or other of the forms is not received by the statutory closing date.
Two administrative rules are also being changed in the interests of simplification. We have now gained sufficient experience of rotavation, in lieu of ploughing, to drop the prior approval rule and its associated conditions; and we shall no longer be calculating special deductions for headlands and the like—provided the area left unploughed is not excessive, the long-standing practice of ignoring areas of less than one-quarter of an acre in calculating payment will suffice. In all other respects the Part I grant remains substantially unchanged, as does the Part II
10
or £12 an acre grant for bringing older and difficult grassland back into a productive condition. However, we are following last year's practice and advancing, by one year, the date from which land must have been under grass to qualify for this higher rate of grant.
My Lords, these several changes in ploughing grants have been welcomed by the Farmers' Unions; they should speed up payments and relieve farmers of a good deal of form filling; and they will bring about a useful reduction in paperwork and administrative costs in the agricultural departments. I am sure they will enjoy the approval of your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme 1964, laid before the House on April 23 last, be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
LORD WISE: My Lords, it is customary practice in this House year by year to pass these particular Orders with but little comment, and certainly with the approval of those on this side of the House. I think the same will apply to-day. Although there are three Orders on which I wish to ask one or two questions, time will not be wasted and we shall progress towards the end of the day when certain matters have to be resolved. The question which I had in mind to put to the noble Earl he has, I think, already answered. In the last Price Review the drop in the cost of ploughing grants was from £10 million to £7·3 million. I think that is explained by his remarks about easing up the grants and more or less amalgamating them, so that the grants for ploughing for winter keep and other operations are dealt with under their particular Orders, and do not therefore come into this Order in respect of ploughing grants. The result is that at the end of the year the payment for ploughing grants will be less by reason of the fact that this matter is dealt with in other ways.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if I have understood him correctly, I think that the noble Lord is substantially right. The ploughing grant was reduced last year, and as a result of the reduction it has been felt that possibly we could be a little less stringent in regard to the forms which the farmer has to fill up.

11
At the same time, he has been able to take advantage of the Winter Keep Scheme and the Grassland Renovation Scheme which in some respects will counteract the lower grant he will get in respect of a ploughing-up grant.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PLOUGHING GRANTS (SCOTLAND) SCHEME, 1964
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be approved.
Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme, 1964, laid before the House on April 23 last, be approved.—(Lord Craigton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CALF SUBSIDIES (ENGLAND AND WALES AND NORTHERN IRE LAND) (AMENDMENT) SCHEME, 1964
2.55 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Calf Subsidies (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, a draft of which was laid before this House on April 23, be approved. The purpose of this Scheme is to implement the increase of 10s. in the subsidy for steer calves born on and after January 1, 1964, which was announced in this year's Annual Review. I do not think I need detain your Lordships for long, but there are two points that I should make. First, the date—January 1—has been deliberately chosen to include all spring-born calves and to benefit the rearer of steer calves of the beef breeds, the great majority of which are born before April. On previous occasions when the calf subsidy has been changed on April 1, there have been objections that it was not sensible to do this in the middle of the spring calving season and, indeed, that it might put a strain on the honesty of applicants. We hope that we have done better this time.
My other point is to draw attention to the fact that the Scheme we are amending covers calves born only up to and including October 29, 1964. In case of any misunderstanding, I should repeat that, as stated in the Annual
12
Review White Paper, the calf subsidy scheme is to be continued for a further three years from that date. That, of course, will mean a Motion in due course to approve a new Scheme laid before the House in draft. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Calf Subsidies (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, laid before the House on April 23 last, be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
LORD WISE: My Lords, there are just one or two questions that I would ask the noble Earl. He mentioned that this Scheme dealt with calves born before October 29, 1964. I conclude that the Government have in mind, as the noble Earl indicated, that further Schemes will be brought in after October 29, 1964; because it is obvious that calves born in April this year, or in May or June, will not be able to come under the Scheme since they will not become eight months old until beyond the October date. It seems to me that if payment is to be made in respect of these a new Scheme will have to come into operation.
There is another point. The Minister in another place estimated that the additional cost by reason of this Scheme, by increases in subsidy, would he a quarter of a million pounds. The Price Review suggested that it might be half a million pounds. I conclude that the difference between a quarter of a million and half a million is brought about by the probable addition of extra calves which are now being born year by year. It is obvious that the figures increase, as they have increased most considerably in the course of years; and the probability is that the calf population will increase as the years go by. That possibly accounts for the additional cost of between a quarter and half a million pounds.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, of course the Scheme which this Order amends refers to calves which are born on or after April 1. Although you may not submit your calf to certification until after October, if the calf is born after January 1, then you are entitled to collect the grant. The estimated cost of this Scheme in 1964–65 will be in the region

13
of half a million pounds, and in a full year it is expected it will be about three-quarters of a million pounds.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CALF SUBSIDIES (SCOTLAND) (AMENDMENT) SCHEME, 1964
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be approved.
Moved, That the Draft Calf Subsidies (Scotland) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, laid before the House on April 23 last. be approved.—(Lord Craigton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WINTER KEEP (SCOTLAND) (AMENDMENT) SCHEME, 1964
3.0 p.m.
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I beg to move that the Winter Keep (Scotland) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, a draft of which was laid before this House on 23rd April, be approved. As my noble friend has suggested, it will, I think, be for the convenience of your Lordships' House if we consider at the same time the draft Winter Keep (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Scheme 1964 which deals with England and Wales and Northern Ireland and is similar in material respects to the draft Scottish Scheme.
When the Winter Keep Schemes were approved a year ago they were generally welcomed by the farming community as being right in principle, but there was, particularly in Scotland, criticism of some detailed aspects of them especially of the rates of grant. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State undertook to consider representations made to him by the Scottish N.F.U. in this regard at the Annual Review.
The Government's general conclusion from this year's Annual Review was that an improvement in all farm incomes was necessary. This was generally achieved by increases in the guaranteed prices, but farmers on livestock-rearing land do not benefit directly from the price support system since very little of their output is in the shape of commodities for which there is a guarantee. To ensure, therefore, that this important class of farmers was not precluded from
14
the general improvement in incomes, it was necessary to have special provision for them. They will benefit from the increase in the price of wool and from the increase in the subsidy for steer calves, but the amendments embodied in the Schemes now before your Lordships are calculated to inject about £1¾ million into this deserving sector of the farming community and will be the main vehicle for achieving the broad policy objective. The Review settlement was of course agreed by the farmers' unions and I think it is fair to say that the unions welcome the changes now proposed.
These Draft Schemes make two important alterations. They increase the rates of grant by £1 per acre in each case and they enable eligible farmers to receive both Ploughing Grant and Winter Keep Grant instead of, as formerly, having to choose between one or the other. The Draft Scottish Scheme also makes minor amendments to the definitions of crofters, eligible occupiers and agricultural units, to make clearer the intention of Parliament that people who benefit from grants under the Special Crofting legislation should not be eligible for grant under these Schemes. I commend them to the House.
Moved, That the Draft Winter Keep (Scotland) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, laid before the House on the 23rd of April last, be approved.—(Lord Craigton.)
3.3 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, I cannot, of course, speak in regard to a Scottish scheme, but so far as the rest of the United Kingdom is concerned, I am certain that our farmers will be very satisfied with an increase of £1 per acre.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I welcome any scheme that is designed to help the upland farmer, especially so that the upland farmer can attempt to keep on more level terms with his counterpart in the more fertile valleys lower down. However, I do not think this scheme has yet tackled the knotty problem of the barley crop. The N.F.U. have been pressing for barley to be included, and the Government have resisted this because it is not in the national interest.
Another matter that comes in here is that the scheme itself is based largely

15
on the growing of grass. Both grass and barley go very well together in that they require an alkaline soil. What in fact is happening at present is that the Government, or Whitehall and St. Andrew's House, in their wisdom, are to a certain extent encouraging bad husbandry. I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will look into this to see whether the Government cannot set a better example by including barley or by getting round the problem in some way.
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wise, for his welcome. My noble friend criticised the absence of barley from the list as a crop eligible for winter keep grant. I read his speech in the debate last year and he made the same point then. The point is that the Government feel that as a general principle it is not desirable to grant-aid a crop twice. All cereals qualify for cereal deficiency payments. Oats was included exceptionally in the scheme because of its important and traditional use as a food crop in the hill areas, particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland. There is, however, the added consideration that a substantial proportion of the barley grown in the hill areas is sold as a cash crop whereas the bulk of oats is retained on the farm. To put the matter in perspective to my noble friend, in Scotland only some 25,000 acres of barley are grown in the hill areas as compared with 150,000 acres of oats. So when one considers that there is only 15 per cent. of acreage of barley as compared with oats, the Government's view is probably right in this matter.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I still feel that, if the Government were to give some assistance to barley, the percentage figure he quoted would be changed completely.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WINTER KEEP (ENGLAND AND WALES AND NORTHERN IRE LAND) (AMENDMENT) SCHEME, 1964
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Winter Keep (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Scheme, 1964, laid before the House on April 23 last, be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SPRAY IRRIGATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I must briefly describe the reasons for this Bill under which spray irrigation, and therefore to some extent river pollution, can be controlled. Although Scotland generally has abundant water supplies, we do have our river pollution problems. And much good work is done under the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act, 1951, to improve conditions in the interests of water conservation and amenity. I pay tribute to the work of the River Purification Boards and to the co-operation shown by all concerned, including local authorities, industry and agriculture.
The Scottish River Purification Advisory Committee was constituted in 1956 under the 1951 Act. This small Bill springs from the unanimous advice of that most effective Committee who consider that we ought now to have powers to control abstraction in any area where the need for control is established. There can be good reasons for not taking out too much water. Ideally, alt effluent into a river should be of such quality that its dilution by the volume of water available would prevent pollution. Our aim must always be to encourage higher standards of sewage and other effluent purification. But this can involve very expensive treatment plant, which public authorities, industry and agriculture cannot always afford as soon as we should like; and where this is so, it is necessary to conserve the volume of water in the river and thus ensure effective dilution of the polluting materials.
I should say a word here about what I am advised is the legal position of those who take water from a stream. A riparian proprietor has the right at Common Law to take water for what are known as the primary uses, that is, drink

17
for man and beast, and water for ordinary domestic purposes. He may even be entitled to draw off water for the purposes of irrigation, but he can do so only if no other riparian proprietor's interest is thereby infringed. It would appear doubtful therefore whether a riparian proprietor is entitled at Common Law to abstract the large quantities of water which may be required for spray irrigation. Your Lordships will know that spray irrigation is a developing practice in Scotland, especially in the lower rainfall southern and eastern areas which give the greatest return. This practice, if uncontrolled, could in certain areas result in the serious depletion of rivers and streams because with spray irrigation very little of the water used finds its way back into the river from which it came.
Happily, a good many rivers in Scotland have such an abundant flow of water and such a relatively low amount of pollution that it is unlikely that even a substantial development of spray irrigation would be harmful. This Bill accordingly does not impose any overall control on the abstraction of water for spray irrigation. But it does enable control to be introduced where circumstances would justify this course. While action under the Bill may prevent certain farmers from drawing all the water they want from a stream, it does not prevent them from insuring against water shortage by creating their own farm reservoirs for which grant assistance is available.
The principles of this Bill have been discussed with the National Farmers' Union and the Scottish Landowners' Federation. They accept the need for the limited form of control here proposed. These bodies, however, consider that when a control order is made, the river purification board concerned should have added agricultural representation. My right honourable friend agrees with this view and will provide for this by order made under the 1951 Act.
As to the Bill itself, under Clause 1 the initiative is left with the river purification boards to apply for an order, subject to the reserve power of the Secretary of State to require a board so to apply. The Schedule provides for the full process of advertisement, for notice to be given to all persons or bodies likely
18
to be affected, and—if objections are made and not withdrawn—for public local inquiry. These are the reasonable safeguards which Parliament has enacted in related legislation, including the Water Resources Act, 1963, and the Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act, 1961. The rather detailed licence provisions of Clauses 3 to 6 are essential to secure a fair balancing of justice to the interests of the many parties concerned with the need for prompt decisions adequately conveyed. The aim is to enable farmers to make their spray irrigation plans knowing where they will stand on licences well before the beginning of the year for which the licences will apply. It is envisaged that a river purification board will, if at all possible, ensure that licences granted will substantially be continued in subsequent years.
Clause 4 allows for contingencies, such as changes in tenure of land, which legitimately give rise to applications out-with the normal period. Clause 7 is based on the humble but realistic recognition that "man proposes but God disposes", particularly where rainfall is concerned. River purification boards will need this power to regulate licences—on an equitable basis, of course—in conditions of exceptional shortage of water or, more happily, when abundance of water permits suspension or relaxation of restrictions for the time being.
My Lords, it is not easy to hold a proper balance between the conflicting needs involved in the conservation and the use of water, but I believe that in this Bill we have come close to achieving this aim. I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Craigton.)
3.13 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I would start off by saying that this seems to me to be a measure which will be very much in the interests of water users generally in Scotland. It will help to further the objects of different Acts of Parliament, to make our rivers cleaner and to keep them in that condition once that has been accomplished. I have little, therefore, to criticise in connection with the Bill, but there are one or two points which seem to me to be not completely satisfactory.

19
In the first instance, the noble Lord the Minister has stated that this practice of spray irrigation is already being followed, particularly in the South of Scotland, and that it is growing. I gather, from what little I have read on the subject, that this is not an inexpensive procedure for a farmer or a landowner to undertake. It seems to me, therefore, to be a little surprising that there is nothing in the Bill which gives any security at all to the person who has already installed such a system. It appears to be a little less than fair that no protection of this kind should be put in when control is being imposed for the first time. Frankly, I should have preferred to see in the Bill a provision giving to an existing owner of such a system the right to have a licence granted to him, unless the circumstances were such that it was clearly in the public interest that he should not get it.
At the moment it is really the other way round. A man who has gone to all this bother—and one presumes that a farmer who has done this so much in advance of the general practice is among our most progressive farmers, and therefore should be most encouraged—may, in fact, find himself penalised rather than encouraged. I do not know exactly how licensing could be done, but it ought to be a reasonable possibility that a person who already has this system should be given a licence almost automatically, unless the board or the Secretary of State can show, right from the outset, that it is against the public interest that he should get such a licence.
The second point, on which the Minister's statement went a certain way to clearing my doubts, is the business of a licence being for one year only. While the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, indicated that it was the intention that the licence would go from year to year, the fact remains that a man is going to get a licence for only one year, and he must apply each year for its renewal. It is not quite as simple as running a car or keeping a dog, and it seems to me that a licence, once granted, should be continued automatically on payment of whatever is determined to be the annual fee for renewal of that licence; and that a licence should be revoked only if cir-
20
cumstances, either temporary or permanent, require its withdrawal. So I hope that this suggestion of the licence being for one year at a time may be withdrawn.
My final point is on Clause 8, which says that in addition to
"any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under this Act"
for which money is provided by Parliament, there shall be paid
"any increase attributable to the provisions of this Act in the sums payable under any other enactment out of monies so provided."
Does that mean that the river purification boards' additional expenditure under this Bill will be met entirely by grant from the Secretary of State, and that no part of it will fall upon local ratepayers? I hope that that is the intention, because in recent years there has been a very great increase in the tendency to throw more and more of the burden on to the local ratepayers, and less and less on to the national taxpayer. If this means what I think it means, there would appear to be a welcome change in that pattern. I hope that I am right in that assumption. My Lords, I think that the Bill will lead to the best possible use of water in Scotland. I hope that your Lordships will generally welcome it, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be able to give consideration to the suggestions I have made for its improvement.
3.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, the few words that I have to offer are warmly to commend this measure, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has done. Control over crop spraying has been needed for a very considerable time, and so I would congratulate the Minister of State on bringing forward this measure for Scotland. The spraying of green crops has come into more extensive use since its advantages have come to be realised by farmers. It is now done in East Lothian, and I dare-say in some of the other very dry parts of Scotland it has become almost a necessity when there is anything like a dry summer. We have not had one in recent years, but it is very likely that before long we shall have another very dry summer.
Spraying is used on early potato crops, on sugar beet crops and, to a

21
certain extent, more recently, on grassland for silage. But, of course, its important benefit relates particularly to early potatoes, because it is the early potato that responds more quickly to water. The East Neuk of Fife, and that part of the country which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, knows so well, South Angus, roughly from Monifieth up to Arbroath—these are the great potato-growing areas in Scotland, and are districts with probably the lowest rainfall in Britain. Certainly the coast of East Lothian has, I think, only 23 or 24 inches of rainfall in the year—very different from some of the Western counties of Scotland. Of course, these early potatoes must be harvested in the month when normally the rivers are at their lowest, the month of June.
We get an idea of what benefit spray irrigation has been to green crops when we realise that, since it has been practised, anything from two to three tons per acre have been added to a crop of potatoes—a very considerable gain when we think of our need for food production. Fortunate, then, are the riparian farmers, the people who have had the opportunity to get this water free and without any restrictions up to date. But, of course, this has all been done at the expense of the river, as the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, has said; and while doing everything we can for the farmers, we must at the same time not let our rivers get too low and polluted. We campaign and we legislate for a litter-free land, and we legislate for clean air: it is just as important that we should have clean rivers as well. Nor must we forget the fishing, which makes a valuable contribution, both to sport and, of course, to the public food supply as well.
If your Lordships will pardon me for one moment—I shall not be very lengthy—I should like to take the River Tyne, in the South-East of Scotland, as an example, because this is the river on which I live and which I know intimately. There are already eight pumping stations on the lower reaches of the River Tyne, which is not a very big river, in just about as many miles. The number of potential users of pumps amounts to twenty—that is to say, in a very short time we expect to have twenty pumps on this river. Each pump is capable of drawing 15,000 gallons per hour,
22
so that twenty pumps, if they were all working together, would extract from this small river 300,000 gallons per hour—just about one-third of the river's flow in a normal summer. Of course, it is not difficult to visualise what the effect on such a river might be in an excessively dry summer if all these pumps were working together. One other important point which I think we should remember is that very often pure, undiluted water is extracted in the upper reaches of a river, which water would be of benefit to towns further down for their sewerage schemes; that is, water is being extracted above, and the towns do not get it for their sewerage schemes further down.
What, then, can be done to control this increased extraction of water from small Scottish rivers? My noble friend has told us that the Bill proposes a system of licences. I hope this will work satisfactorily. But we have this situation. The greatest amount of water is always required at the time when the rainfall is at its lowest and the rivers are low. The obvious solution, which is not mentioned in the Bill, seems to me to be that there should be some form of storage; that we should have storage provided by reservoirs on farms into which water can be pumped during the winter and spring months, when the rivers are full and when there is plenty of rain, for use in times when the rivers are running dry and there is little rainfall—in other words, in the summer months. I have heard of such storage schemes being operated already on one or two farms, and I think they have been very satisfactory. I would suggest that these could well be included in farm improvement schemes, for which grants could be available.
I think that qualified technical advice on the construction of dams and storage of water should be made available. I do not know whether that is in the Bill, but I do not think it is. Then we must see that there is sufficient agricultural representation on the river purification boards, to see that the farmers' rights are kept up against other rights. It seems to me that, generally speaking, this Bill will really have an impact on only certain districts in Scotland—as I say, in the East and South-East, where the rainfull is low and where the arable

23
crops are grown, and where spray irrigation is at present the common practice; not in the West of Scotland, of course, where there is plenty of rain and plenty of water.
I see it is obviously the intention of the Bill that there must be a good case for a control order before such an order is made by the Secretary of State, but problems will arise and decisions will have to be made by the river boards. For example, who are to receive licences and who are not? And, enlarging on what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said, as to the farmers who have already invested capital in spray equipment, are they not to receive licences automatically? If every riparian farmer on a river is to be entitled to ask for a licence, it seems only fair that he should get one. Consequently, it seems to me that it is quite possible that, if too many licences are issued, the rivers may run dry again and an individual farm crop might just not get enough water because there will not be enough to dole out to all these licensees. That is why this question of off-peak storage—and I am sorry to have to hark back to it again—seems to be of such great importance, and I hope the Government will examine this aspect of the matter, because I see no mention of it in the Bill. It seems to me to be a possible solution of this problem of extracting too much water from these rivers during the dry period.
With that reservation, I would heartily support the Bill, which I feel will be very useful in bringing method and regularity into crop spraying, which have certainly been absent in the practice up to now. Above all, it will help to keep our rivers clean. I therefore hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.
3.28 p.m.
LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL: My Lords, while, I am afraid, automatically disliking any further imposition of restrictions, I welcome this Bill because, as a member of one of the river purification boards, for the River Tweed. I know all too well the importance of controlling the abstraction of water. I will not repeat the arguments that have been put forward from both sides of the House on this case, but will merely say that I would stress
24
the importance of everything that has been said.
There are two small points which I should like to raise with my noble friend the Minister, and one is the notification of the imposition of a control order, the procedure for which is set out in the Schedule, paragraph 3, subparagraph (1)(a). That says that
"every person known … to have any interest in any land to which the control order"
applies has to be informed. That, I am told (rather "off the cuff", I admit), by the river inspector of the River Tweed would mean in one county only through which that river flows 5,000 letters. I wonder whether paragraph 3(1)(d) might be deemed to be sufficient; that is, that those to be informed should be the bodies or associations representing those people, for example, the National Farmers' Union, which is the most important one.
The other point I should like to make to my noble friend is this. He talked about added representation from the Secretary of State. I entirely agree that the farmers' interests must be fully represented; but in our particular case the Secretary of State has six nominees already, and that includes people who are undoubtedly representatives of farmers' interests. In addition, the county councils (who, in our case, I think, appoint four members each) also include farming representatives. So I hope that Her Majesty's Government will not increase the size of these boards so that they become unwieldy; they are fairly large now. With those two reservations, I wholeheartedly support this Bill.
3.31 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, while giving general support to the Bill, I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the penalty for contravention in Clause 2(2), which I consider to be inadequate. The damage which, in a drought year, selfish extraction of water could do runs far beyond the penalty of £50. It would be a long time before an unscrupulous and selfish extractor was taken before the courts where he might then suffer the penalty of £50, but meanwhile he would have been allowed to indulge in continuous defiance and continuous extraction. I

25
should like the Minister to consider whether the Bill should not be amended in the way of providing greater penalties for second and subsequent transgressions; and also to consider whether there should not be some provision which would prevent continuous extraction until legal action is taken by the river purification board. As I have said, in that event the worst that could befall the extractor would be a penalty of £50, which seems to me entirely inadequate in such circumstances as I have described.
3.34 p.m.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I support this Bill, as, of course, control of the use of water from rivers is undoubtedly necessary. Before saying anything more, I must declare an interest, which in my case is a double, and possibly conflicting, one. On the one hand, I am a farmer using spray irrigation; and, on the other hand, I am a chairman of a river board. I have two criticisms: one is general and the other specific. My general criticism is that I am not sure whether Her Majesty's Government (who are so often criticised for not acting soon enough) have not this time acted a little too soon. In any case, I think they have put the cart before the horse. This question of extraction is an extremely big one, and at present we have the Hunter Committee sitting and about to make a recommendation on the use of rivers for fishing. Undoubtedly, when their Report is published there will be a great deal in it affecting this matter.
There is much in this Bill that is to fall on the heads of the river purification boards, and as a result of the Hunter Committee these boards will probably be changed. At present, they are in many cases little more than face-savers. The trouble is that the local authority representation on the board vastly outnumbers the fishing interests. This means that whenever there is expenditure on measures against pollution the local authority, rather naturally, drag their feet as long as they can.
My specific case is that which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I think there must be some safeguard to those farmers who have already installed expensive equipment, to ensure, at least to begin with, that they
26
are granted a licence unless there is some extremely good reason why a licence should not be granted. Otherwise, some farmers are going to lose a lot of money over this. The Bill is a necessary one; but, in my opinion, it can be considerably improved. I am quite certain that the Report of the Hunter Committee will make the task of improving it very much easier.

OPERATIONS IN SOUTHERN ARABIA
3.36 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I will, with your permission, now answer the Question which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked earlier to-day: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a further statement on the operations in the Federation of Southern Arabia.
My right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for Defence, in answer to a Question in another place, said:
"No military engagements of any consequence have occurred during the last few days. Traffic is moving freely on the Aden/Dhala road. The initial objective of the operation has therefore been achieved. The present phase of the operation is one of consolidation and reconnaissance in the area to the East of the road, where positions are still held by hostile tribesmen. As the House knows, my right honourable friend the Colonial Secretary is in Aden now discussing the situation with the High Commissioner and the Commander-in-Chief. I do not think there is anything that I can usefully add until he has reported on his visit."
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we are grateful for that statement. I suppose one can regard the present position as one of unstable equilibrium. At any rate, we all hope there will be equilibrium in time to come. I would ask the noble Lord whether he could say what is the purpose of Mr. Sandys' visit. I see that he is discussing the situation with the High Commissioner and with the Commander in Chief. Will he also have discussions with the Government of Aden and the Government of

27
Southern Arabia? And is it anticipated that he will be returning before the Recess? If so, would the noble Lord undertake to make a statement to this House whatever time he may return —even if it be late on Wednesday—so long as the House is in session?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, with regard to the noble Lord's first question, I may say that my right honourable friend decided to go to Aden because he had had this visit in mind for some time; but he thought that in view of recent happenings this was a convenient moment to go. As the noble Lord said, he will be discussing the situation not only with the Commander-in-Chief and the High Commissioner but also with the Federation Government and Aden Ministers. I do not know exactly on which day he will return; but I am sure that if Parliament is in lesion when he returns he will most certainly make a statement.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend could answer a slightly wider question. Bearing in mind the alarming, tendentious and dangerous nature of the speeches now being made in Cairo by Mr. Khrushchev and President Nasser, may I ask whether British propaganda is answering those speeches over the international radio networks? Can the Government say what active steps are being taken to show, for example, that the standard of living in the Arab lands in association with Britain—Southern Arabia, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere—is far higher than that in the Soviet Union and in Egypt, and is some beneficent result of our presence in that part of the world to the people inhabiting it?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I take my noble friend's point. Of course, the British point of view is put over by the B.B.C. in their Arabic services; but I will certainly consider what he has said and look into the content of those broadcasts.

BUSINESS SCHOOLS AT UNIVERSITIES
3.40 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (THE EARL OF ESSBOROUGH): My Lords, this may be a suitable moment for me to make a statement on business schools in universities, which my right honourable friend is making in another place. I will, with permission, use my right honourable friend's own words.
"The importance of management studies for the future of our economy has been strongly emphasised by the National Economic Development Council; and the establishment of two major business schools—a new development in this country—was recommended in general terms by the Robbins Committee.
"A Working Party, under the Chairmanship of Lord Normanbrook, was set up at the initiative of the Federation of British Industries. It was asked to give definition to the proposal made by Lord Franks in his recent Report on British Business Schools for the establishment of two new business schools at the Universities of Manchester and London, and, in particular, to examine the costs of starting and running them, and to establish the basis for partnership between business and the universities in their finance and administration. The Working Party included representatives of industry and commerce, and of the two universities themselves, and of the University Grants Committee.
"The Working Party Report, now being published, estimates that the capital costs of the two schools would be about between £2·2 million and about £2·4 million; that, over the first seven years, the total net recurrent cost would be about £1·7 million; and that, thereafter, the net recurrent costs would be £332,000 a year. The Working Party envisage that this financial burden should be shared equally between business and the universities. They also suggest how governing bodies should be constituted to carry out the principle of partnership.

29
"The Government welcome this principle and have sought the advice of the University Grants Committee on the Working Party's proposals from the point of view of policy on university development. They have been glad to learn that the Committee fully endorse them. For their part, the Government have indicated to the Committee and to the F.B.I. that they are prepared to make provision for the universities' share of capital and current expenditure on the two new business schools within the framework of future university programmes. They are also prepared to give sympathetic consideration to the suggestion contained in Lord Franks's Report that awards from public funds should be made available for postgraduate students at these schools. I understand that the Federation of British Industries are now planning an appeal to all sides of the business community for funds for management education which will include their share of the needs of the two schools. I am sure that business will wish to play a full part in this new development from the point of view both of finance and operation.
"In pledging full financial support to the universities concerned I should like to add that the Government do not in any way wish to imply that management studies elsewhere, whether at universities, colleges of advanced technology and technical colleges, or other institutions, will no longer be needed, or are to take second place. Raising the quality of management at all levels calls for the steady development of all the work now going forward in the various parts of our educational system, as well as for the establishment of these two new schools."
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Earl for making this important statement—important not only to the universities but also to business, industry and commerce. I think that we should also welcome the initiative of the Federation of British Industries; for, as the noble Earl will be the first to agree, it was they who set up the two Committees, the Franks and the Normanbrook Committees. I think that the Government and the Committees are right in pro-
30
posing that these business schools should be within existing universities and in close proximity to industry. Could the noble Earl say whether the Government have any idea of the number of places that industry would wish to see in these schools? And could he further say, as he has given us detailed information about capital cost and current expenditure, how many places the two schools will provide?
May I also draw the attention of the noble Lord to the importance of these schools for the modernisation of industry and commerce? I hope that they will be a magnet around which modern industry will grow. The noble Earl will be aware that part of the new University of Strathclyde will be the Scottish School of Commerce. It seems extraordinary that when we are creating two new business schools we should not also take this opportunity of developing an existing one, particularly because of the high rate of unemployment in Scotland.
I think that I shall have the noble Earl with me when I say that these business schools must not be merely for the development of business practice within the United Kingdom but must also play a big part in our export drive. One of the main requirements of the export drive is to have men with business training and experience who also have the ability to speak foreign languages. Can the noble Earl say whether modern languages will be taught within the curriculum of these schools? Another valuable practice is that of bringing people from Commonwealth and foreign countries to study our business methods. These students not only build up knowledge but establish friendships with business people in this country that play an important part in future trade. Therefore, I think that in these schools we should have places available for people from the Commonwealth, and, perhaps, from other countries also. I do not know whether the noble Earl can answer any of these questions, but I regard them as of some importance in the establishing of these new business schools.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his sympathetic and interesting remarks on the statement which I

31
repeated in the House. I think that I can give him one or two answers. To take the last point, in regard to the teaching of languages in these schools which will be of help in our export drive, it is almost certain that languages will be taught, but the whole question of curriculum is a matter for the universities and the schools themselves. In regard to the number of places which it is hoped can be provided at the schools, the Working Party have assumed that each school should be able to provide a one-year course for 200 post-graduates and a 20-week course for 100 post-experience students. In regard to the matter of a third business school—for example, in association with the new University of Strathclyde; that is to say, the Royal College of Science and Technology or Glasgow University—the noble Lord may remember that in their conclusions, the Franks Committee came down in favour of having only two schools, rather than more, because qualified staff and finance were limited. In so far as the question about the Commonwealth is concerned, I cannot give the noble Lord an answer to-day, but I am sure that the point will be looked at most sympathetically by the Government.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I ask a further supplementary question? Am I to understand that there will be 100 places for a one-year course in each university or over both?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, each school should be able to provide a one-year course for 200 postgraduates and a 20-week course for 100 post-experience students.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Earl, with his business experience, consider that, according to our needs, those figures are pathetic?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, does the noble Earl not feel that we shall not make much progress unless we introduce a business school into Oxford or Cambridge? Would he not agree that the real trouble about business in this country is that it is ranked so low in terms of prestige, and is not given a very high U rating? Does he not feel that we shall not progress until either Oxford or Cambridge is equipped with a business school?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sure that both these considerations were taken into account by the Franks Committee and the Lord Normanbrook Committee and I think their recommendations are fully worthy of support at this stage.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, would the noble Earl care to answer my question without this sort of remarkable evasion? Can he tell us why the Franks Committee rejected the arguments which he feels must have been considered by them?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give the answer at this stage. I have not had much more time than the noble Earl to look at the papers on this subject. However, I will certainly find out the reasons for him if he cannot read them in the Report itself.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I had hoped that the noble Earl would be able to give me an answer without forcing me to go and read this Report.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, before there is any danger of another two schools being created in England, may I stress the point which my noble friend Lord Shepherd raised about having such a school in Scotland? He mentioned the University of Strathclyde, which, unless I am mistaken, the Minister then duplicated by referring to it by its present name. But I would draw attention to the fact that there are other opportunities in Scotland. The University of St. Andrews, for instance, took over the Dundee School of Economics, which is one of the leading establishments in the country in this direction and seems to me to be ready-made for the establishment of such a place in Scotland. I am not putting this forward as an alternative, but just pointing out that Scotland does not suffer from a scarcity of opportunity to develop this sort of thing.
May I ask whether the noble Earl will consult with his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, in his capacity as the Minister responsible for education in Scotland, as to the possibility of establishing a school of this kind in Scotland now? As my noble friend Lord Shepherd said, the figures indicated, of 100 or 200 people being able to go there at a particular time,

33
are a mere drop in the bucket in comparison with our need, and if we are not to get a contribution of this kind in Scotland, some of the things which the Government are doing at the present time to help Scotland will be knocked back by the neglect of Scotland in this most important field.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord's remarks will be taken fully into consideration. In so far as the first part of his observations are concerned, I think I should repeat that in the last part of the statement I said that the Government do not in any way wish to imply that management studies elsewhere, whether at universities, colleges of advanced technology, technical colleges or other institutions, whether they be in England or Scotland, will no longer be needed or will take second place.

SPRAY IRRIGATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.55 p.m.
Second Reading debate continued.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I rise to continue, quite briefly, the discussion we have been having on this Bill, to which I should like to extend a warm welcome, as I am sure it is welcomed by all your Lordships. I should like also to congratulate my noble friend and his right honourable friend on bringing this Bill before us. The reason why I particularly warmly welcome this measure is that I happen to live on the banks of a river which in recent years has suffered from pollution as the result of the discharge of industrial effluent into it and also as the result of sewage. Unless there is some control over the abstraction of water from that river, the position of those who live on its banks will become quite intolerable.
Over and above that, I think I noted in my noble friend's speech a reference to the fact that we have plenty of water in our Scottish rivers. That may be so at the present time, but the enormous increase in the amount of water called for by industry and for domestic purposes is such that it may well be that in the future,
34
steps will need to be taken to control the use of water even from our plenteous supply of the present time.
I should like to endorse the plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, which has been supported by other noble Lords, that some protection should he given to those who have initiated this form of irrigation. It would he quite unfair if licences were withheld from those who have spent considerable sums of money, and granted to those who had merely followed in their footsteps when they had ascertained that the experiment was a successful one. I hope that my noble friend will inquire into that and see what protection can be given.
3.57 p.m.
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends for their interest in this Bill and for the constructive suggestions they have made. The point which has concerned most of your Lordships is the one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and by other noble Lords, that there is nothing in the Act to give any security to existing installations. This we will look into most carefully. But, as I see the position now, not every installation will need to be licensed; that is the principle of the Bill. Where a licence is necessary in any area, I think it must be for the board to approve everything about the extent of abstraction; and, on reflection, it might be unwise to give any priority to any particular person or installation, especially as, according to my advice, in Common Law no one has an undisputed right to take water now. So some of the people who have not put in installations may have hesitated to do so simply on those grounds alone.
My noble friend Lord Haddington stressed the difficulty—I think he spoke from a great deal of knowledge—that the board will have in holding the balance between all the interests concerned. What he said is what will face the board all the time under this Bill. He spoke about off-peak storage. As I said in my opening speech, there is nothing to prevent a farmer from putting in his own storage.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, it is very expensive for a farmer to put in his own storage. The only

35
thing that might be done is two adjacent farmers on the river might combine and share the cost, or something like that.
LORD CRAIGTON: Yes. Off-hand I cannot say whether two farmers joining together would be eligible for grant aid. I understand that some farmers have done this already.
The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, asked: Why the licence for one year only? This is a point I considered, but other people may want to draw water, and there seems to be no alternative, if we are to give justice to all concerned and are going to have proper conservation, to the consideration every year of the whole functions and future of an area. All we can hope, as I said in my opening speech, is that the boards will try to make the renewal of licence as automatic as they can. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, asked a question about Clause 8(b). I am afraid the answer is, No. These small additional net expenses covered by Clause 8(b)—that is, if there are any, after allowing for the licence fees—will be shared between the ratepayer and the taxpayer, and the clause refers to the Exchequer equalisation grant proportion of the expenditure.
My noble friend Lord Stratheden and Campbell has raised an important point about the notification required by the Schedule, which might entail 5,000-odd letters. I must tell him that the Schedule is based on the precedent of the Second Schedule to the Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act, 1961. I know he will be the first to agree with me that we have to be very careful. I am sure that all concerned and affected must be advised. But both I and the Department are grateful to him for his warning. This is something we shall have to look at very carefully indeed.
The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, raised the point of the £50 penalty in Clause 2(2) as being rather a small amount. I should tell him that it is the same as the penalty for discharging effluent under existing legislation. I do not know whether he looked at the sanction in Clause 6(1), which deals with the revocation of licences on conviction. Having said that, we shall look carefully at the point he has made,
36
especially the one about subsequent offences, and I am grateful to him for having raised this.
I am grateful for the welcome given to this Bill. As the speeches have made clear, it is not an easy Bill to draft in detail. There are many conflicting interests. We have to make the right decision quickly, and we have to give justice to all concerned and let everybody know. I am grateful for the Committee points. The Government also will have Amendments to propose, and I look forward to the Committee stage, and commend this Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

RIDING ESTABLISHMENTS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGE ESTATES BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
PHARMACY BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

TENANCY OF SHOPS (SCOTLAND) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES BILL [H.L.]
4.4 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the purpose of this Bill, which I beg to move be read a second time, is to enable the United Kingdom to give full effect to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. This Convention, drafted at Vienna in 1961, is of great

37
importance. It deals with one of the oldest subjects in the field of International Law and provides in a single document a modern code based upon traditional law and practice, but adapted to modern needs. For the greater part, the Convention re-states in concise form well recognised rules of International Law and practice, but it also removes some doubts and makes one or two innovations. It now provides a uniform standard for the whole world and is likely to govern diplomatic relations for many years to come.
The Convention is also important because it is a further step along the path of the codification of international law on which the United Nations embarked in 1947. In that year, the General Assembly established the International Law Commission for the "codification and progressive development" of international law. The Commission has had the full support and cooperation of the United Kingdom in this work. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations was based on Articles prepared by the International Law Commission. The Commission has in hand other important projects, such as the codification of the whole Law of Treaties. It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to support and encourage this work. I feel confident that, bearing in mind these considerations, the principles of the present Bill will commend themselves to your Lordships. The Vienna Convention itself came into force on April 24 when twenty-two States had become parties to it. It is now desirable that the Bill should be passed with due speed so that the United Kingdom may ratify the Convention as soon as possible.
Since the Convention deals with the whole subject of diplomatic relations, most of its 53 Articles do not require legislation. They can be fulfilled by executive action. They deal with such matters as the functions and duties of diplomatic missions, their establishment and termination, and precedence among Heads of Missions. They do not affect the rights of individuals under our own domestic law. There are, however, eighteen Articles which do require to be given effect under our own law. It is, therefore, these Articles of the Convention for which the Bill provides.
38
My Lords, just as the Convention provides, as it were, a code in the international field, so does the Bill in effect provide a code in the field of domestic law. Our existing law on the subject is contained in a few Statutes, such as the famous Act of Anne—the Diplomatic Privileges Act, 1708—and in the Common Law. This Bill will provide a single statement of the relevant rules, and will do this on the basis of the Vienna Convention. Thus, the rules to be applied in the United Kingdom will be the rules of the Convention itself. For the greater part, these rules will be the same as those now applied in our law or in practice. But there will be some changes. The tendency of the Convention and of the Bill is to reduce the extent of immunities from our jurisdiction while making comparatively minor changes in privileges which in the sum add or subtract very little.
It may be helpful in this connection to make one or two general observations on the Vienna Convention. It was based upon Articles drafted by the International Law Commission, a group of experts in International Law elected by the General Assembly of the United Nations. These Articles were the product of their joint wisdom and knowledge. They were designed to state the well-established rules of International Law and to clarify those about which there were some doubts. The Articles drafted by the Commission thus represent the results not only of the expert skill of its members, but also of the accumulation of experience from State practice for more than a century and a half.
The Convention, drafted at a conference of some 81 States, was based squarely on the Commission's Articles. The final text was approved by a vote of 72 in favour, none against and one abstention. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Convention reflects not only existing International Law, but also the interests of countries both as receiving and as sending States. When considering these questions of diplomatic privilege, we should always remember not only the desire to limit the privileges of the representatives of other States in the United Kingdom, but also the need to ensure the free and proper representation of the interests of the United Kingdom

39
by our diplomatic missions in other countries. We believe that the Convention taken as a whole achieves this end. Therefore, my Lords, while calling attention to some of the changes in our law which will result from giving effect to the Vienna Convention, I do not wish to lay too much emphasis on the reduction in immunities which will in fact result. But I should like to explain one or two points in this connection.
Under our present law, no distinction is drawn between various categories of members of the staff of a diplomatic mission. The head of the mission and all members of the staff of whatever rank or functions enjoy full personal immunity from the jurisdiction, unless it has been withdrawn under the Diplomatic Immunities Restriction Act, 1955. Such immunity is also enjoyed by the private servants of the head of the mission, but not by the private servants of other members. In fact, with the exception of the servants of the head of the mission, private servants are entitled to no privileges or immunities.
The Convention, which in this respect adopted the practice followed by many States other than the United Kingdom, divides the members of the mission into three categories. These are: the head of the mission and the diplomatic staff, who are called diplomatic agents; the administrative and technical staff, and the service staff. Broadly speaking, the diplomatic staff includes all those who hold diplomatic rank. The administrative and technical staff are those who perform clerical, secretarial, communications and like duties. The service staff are those who are described as performing domestic services.
Under the Bill, only diplomatic agents will in the future be entitled to full personal immunity from the jurisdiction of our courts. The members of the administrative and technical staff will have a large measure of immunity, as indeed is necessary having regard to the character of their duties, but henceforth it will be possible to sue them in our courts for their private acts; that is to say, for loss or damage resulting from acts performed outside the course of their duties. It is estimated that there are over 3,000 people in this category in the United Kingdom. When this Bill
40
becomes law, they will be unable, without liability to suit, to break contracts or to cause damage by the negligent driving of their private motor-cars and so on. Under the Bill, the service staff will enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction only with respect to acts done in the course of their official duties. They will be subject to both criminal prosecution and civil suit for their private acts. These changes may not go as far as some people would like, as far as the missions of other countries in the United Kingdom are concerned, but they go a long way, and some people may think that they go further than we can afford in withdrawing protection from the members of our missions in foreign countries. This is a point on which we may have to reflect further during the passage of the Bill.
I will not worry your Lordships with a complete catalogue of the detailed points on which the law of the United Kingdom will be changed by the present Bill, but I should add a word about the exemption from income tax on their emoluments, which will be extended from the private servants of the Ambassador to the private servants of all members of the mission who are not nationals of or permanently resident in the United Kingdom. This is an extension of privilege, but it is one that should be accepted in the interests of upholding this measure of codification as a whole. Besides, this type of privilege does not operate so unfairly as might be imagined at first sight. After all, the members of the mission who take private servants to their posts abroad normally do so to enable them to carry out their social duties, and they have to be paid sufficient to enable them to pay their servants: so that, on balance, what a State loses by not collecting income tax from servants employed by members of missions in its own territory, it may indirectly save in the amount it is bound to pay for the maintenance of servants at its missions abroad. In other words, what we lose on the swings, we gain on the roundabouts. But I ask your Lordships to accept this provision as forming part of the Convention as a whole, and not because it is a measure which on its own we would necessarily wish to endorse.
I do not think I need detain your Lordships by saying more about the exemption from estate duty than is said in the

41
Explanatory Memorandum on the face of the Bill, and in the relevant Articles in Schedule 1. But lest it be said that I am trying to draw a cloak over certain other changes in the law, I think I should mention that there are several respects in which what is at present done administratively will be put on a statutory basis. This is so, for example, as regards the exemption from customs duty, the provisions as to rates, and social security.
It may be convenient here to say a word of explanation on the question of rates. One of the consequential effects of the Bill will be to give statutory authority to the partial relief from local rates which Embassies and certain members of their staffs have in practice enjoyed for over seventy years by virtue of payments made by the Treasury. Articles 23(1), 34(b) and (e) and 37(2) of the Convention exempt Embassies and diplomatic agents and members of the administrative and technical staff from "municipal dues" on their premises and official residences, except for such dues as represent payment for specific services rendered. These words must be interpreted to include the portion of local rates which does not represent payment for specific services rendered. The Bill will therefore give this exemption the force of law in this country.
The Treasury have for many years accepted liability for the general rates on Embassies and diplomats' official residences other than what has been known as the "beneficial" portion of the rates; this is the element in the rates which relates to the local services which are of direct benefit to the Embassy or the diplomat concerned. The intention is that the Treasury should, after the Bill becomes law, continue to bear the same part of the rates on premises occupied by privileged persons as before; but it is proposed to simplify the procedure so that in future the Treasury will pay the rating authorities the full general rate on premises occupied by Embassies and privileged persons and will recover the "beneficial" portion of the rates from the occupier. This arrangement has in fact been used for some years in respect of certain Embassy premises, but in other cases the rating authority has levied the full rate on the Embassy or the diplomat and the Treasury has subsequently reimbursed the Embassy or the diplomat for the
42
non-beneficial portion. The change in procedure proposed will therefore fully protect the position of local authorities and will, indeed, strengthen it. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government have already been in touch with the representatives of the local authorities on this question and the Government hope that the simplification in procedure proposed will be welcomed by the local authorities affected.
My Lords, may I now for a very few moments offer a few words of explanation on the Bill itself? The main provisions are made by Clauses 1, 2 and 3. The provisions of the other clauses are of a more or less technical or consequential nature. The heart of the Bill is in Clause 1, read with subsection (1) of Clause 2 and Schedule 1. The purpose and effect of these provisions is to substitute for the existing law the relevant parts of the Vienna Convention which are contained in the Articles set out in Schedule 1.
The Articles selected are those any part of which is required to have the force of law in the United Kingdom. There have been omitted those Articles no part of which requires to be given the force of law. It is believed that in the circumstances this is the best way of giving effect to the Vienna Convention. The interpretation of the Articles which are scheduled will be left to our courts. Subject to minor exceptions, no attempt is made to lay down in advance what may or may not be the right interpretation. It is anticipated that our courts will not have undue difficulty in this task and that they will interpret the Articles in the light of international law, so as to give effect to the true intent of the Convention construed as an international agreement.
If we were to attempt now to rewrite the provisions of the Convention in terms of our own law, there would be a serious risk of departure from the uniform standards which the Convention is intended to provide. Accordingly, what may be called the adaptations which are set out in subsections (2) to (5) of Clause 2 have been kept to a minimum. At this stage I do not think I need take up your Lordships' time by explaining those subsections, the effect of which, I think, is clear on a careful reading of them.

43
Subsection (6) of Clause 2 enables the immunities and privileges, first of members of the staff of a mission who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or are permanently resident in the United Kingdom, and secondly, of private servants of members of a mission, to be specified by Order in Council. This subsection enables effect to be given to Articles 37(4) and 38 of the Convention. It will be of most value with respect to the Commonwealth because of the comparatively large number of dual citizens involved. It is therefore proposed in due course to lay before Parliament the draft of an Order by which members of the mission of a Commonwealth country in London who are citizens of that country and of the United Kingdom and Colonies will be entitled to the same immunities and privileges under this Bill as they would if they had had citizenship of that Commonwealth country only.
Clause 3 gives power by Order in Council to withdraw privileges and immunities from a mission when the sending State is failing to accord to our mission in its territory the privileges and immunities conferred by the Act. This power replaces the similar powers which exists at present under the Diplomatic Immunities Restriction Act, 1955. It goes further than that Act, which provides only for the withdrawal of the personal immunity and inviolability of residents to which I have referred. It underlines the reciprocity which has always been at the root of diplomatic privileges and immunities, and the power will be exercised in accordance with Article 47(2)(a) of the Convention, which allows restrictive and discriminatory application of the Convention against a State which is applying the Convention restrictively.
I shall be glad to try to provide any further explanations on these or any other clauses of the Bill in reply to any questions which may be raised during the debate, but perhaps I ought to add one comment on Clause 7(2). At present, the representatives of Southern Rhodesia enjoy privileges and immunities by virtue of Section 1(1) of the Diplomatic Immunities (Commonwealth Countries and Republic of Ireland) Act, 1952, and the effect of the
44
repeal in the Second Schedule would be to take away those privileges and immunities. Clause 7(2) will continue them on the scale allowed under the present Bill.
My Lords, I have already indicated the main respects in which the Articles of the Convention set out in Schedule 1, which are to have the force of law, will alter the position under our existing laws. On the whole, I believe that these Articles are clear and self-explanatory, and that we are fortunate in having such a valuable code on a subject of International Law. Britain has by tradition been in the forefront of States which uphold the rule of law and foster and support International Law. Her Majesty's Government regard the Vienna Convention as an important measure in the codification of International Law. Accordingly, I commend to your Lordships the present Bill which will enable the United Kingdom to manifest its sup-port for this valuable work of the United Nations by ratifying the Convention. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Carrington.)
4.25 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, this is a subject in which noble Lords have for a long time taken a very great interest. Whenever there was a question—and there have been many in recent years-of extending diplomatic privileges, or of giving them to a bigger section of people coming into this country, this House has generally been critical. I welcome, therefore, the opportunity of being able to discuss this matter in the form of a Bill which incorporates a Convention that has been agreed to. I hope that we may have a full discussion about this matter and clear our minds of any doubts that may arise on some of the provisions of the Bill.
I would, therefore, accept the noble Lord's invitation to ask him questions as to the meaning of certain parts of the Bill, before I come to its substance. First, under Clause 3(1) I would ask him whether there are at the moment any States in which the privileges and immunities that are accorded to a mission from this country are less than those contained in this Bill; in other words,

45
will the question arise almost immediately of having to curtail some of the privileges and immunities so far as some countries are concerned?
Then I would ask the noble Lord to explain the meaning of subsection (2) of Clause 3. I do not want to be legalistic about it, but I have tried very hard to understand what is meant by it.
The subsection states:
"An Order in Council under this section shall be disregarded for the purposes of paragraph (a) of the proviso to section 4 of the British Nationality Act 1948 (citizenship of children of certain persons possessing diplomatic immunity)."
I have looked at the British Nationality Act, 1948, and the proviso to Section 4, and I have failed—perhaps I read it at too late an hour of the night—to understand the relevance of this to Clause 3. Perhaps the noble Lord will explain.
Clause 5 changes the definition
"head of a foreign diplomatic mission or any member of his official staff or household"
to other words which seem to me to mean the same thing. But I cannot imagine that this clause of the Bill was introduced merely to put the same thing in other words. I have failed to understand what is the significance behind the change of words, and I should be glad if the noble Lord could explain that when he comes to reply. I am sure there must be some significance in it, but anyone reading the original language and the words which are intended to replace it must find it difficult to understand the difference between the two.
Finally, on the Bill itself I would ask why the Bill does not come into operation on the passing of the Bill, as is the normal case. Clause 7(3) states that it will come into force
"on such day as Her Majesty may by Order in Council appoint."
Is there any reason why it should not come into operation on the passage of the Bill? There may be some good reason; I do not know. Those are the points that I should like the noble Lord to explain.
This Bill, as the noble Lord said, is based on the Vienna Convention, and the Convention itself was produced as a White Paper to this House in May, 1961. I would ask: what is the reason for the delay in introducing this Bill? Have
46
we been waiting for anything? I see that a number of States have already introduced legislation, or done what is necessary to accept this Convention. What have we been waiting for? Has it been the heavy legislative programme that we have had which has prevented us from passing the legislation? It cannot have been the complexity of the matter, because, as the noble Lord himself said and indicated from his speech, it is not a difficult Bill to prepare. I should be grateful if he could give us the answer to this question. And how many other countries have up to now passed similar legislation? I should be glad if he could tell us that.
There is one more point of explanation which I should like. In the Schedule—I think it is in Article l—a diplomatic agent is defined as,
"the head of a mission or a member of the diplomatic staff at the mission."
That would seem to mean that it is either one or the other: that it is the head of the Mission or the member of the diplomatic staff who takes his place in his absence. I take it that it does not mean that. Why is not the word "and" used so as to remove any ambiguity? I was rather puzzled about it on reading this Bill, because it seems to me to mean all the members of the diplomatic staff.
All these diplomatic agents get immunity both from our criminal jurisdiction and, generally, from our civil and administrative jurisdiction, even if it happens to be outside the scope of their duties. That is possibly a matter which is reciprocal and was agreed to by the Vienna Convention. But there are certain exceptions in Article 31(a), (b), (c). They relate to civil interests which the member of the diplomatic agency may have; and there, for instance, if he is dealing with matters in a purely private capacity, he is not protected. He can be sued, and damages may be recovered from him, or judgment may be awarded against him and execution may ensue.
Generally speaking, the only asset which members of a diplomatic agency may have is their house—the only tangible asset on which execution can be issued; and their private residence is excluded from the possibility of execution. Therefore it would appear that

47
any judgment against such a person in respect of his private actions would be largely ineffective. In fact, it would be ineffective unless he can be shown to have other assets in this country. I should be glad to know whether that is the intention.
Article 37 provides that this immunity applies also to members of the family forming part of his household. They also enjoy all the privileges and immunities which he has. I should like to point out what they are. Perhaps I am wrong in saying "all" he has, but the actual immunities and privileges are set out, I think, in Articles 29 to 36. They are most important, and I ask the House to remember that we are talking not of the actual diplomatic agent, but of members of his family, not defined, who form part of his household. Their person is inviolable. They are not liable to any form of arrest or detention. They have to be treated with due respect—whatever that may mean. Their private residence is inviolable, and so are their papers and correspondence. They are immune from criminal jurisdiction. They are also immune from civil and administrative jurisdiction, with the exceptions that I have already referred to. They will be exempt from the social security provisions. Incidentally, this also applies to servants of diplomatic agents in full-time employment.
Then the family is also exempt from
"all dues and taxes, personal or real, national regional or municipal,"
with certain exceptions. They are permitted to bring to this country, free from all customs duties, articles for personal use—and they, as we know, can form a large category of articles. Incidentally, members of the administrative and technical staff, together with members of their family—and I want to stress "of their family"—forming part of their household, receive the same privileges and immunities, except for general exemption from customs. But they may still import goods without duty at the time of first installation—that is to say, where members of the family of diplomatic agents may bring in property free of customs at all times, those who are members of the family of administrative and technical staff can do so only once, at the time of their entry into this country.
48
If we were starting ab initio, I think most of us would regard it as monstrous that all these privileges should extend to members of the family who comprise the household of the diplomatic agency or of the administrative and technical staff. I find myself in some difficulty because there is this Vienna Convention. I am not surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Molson is inviting us to look at this matter in six months' time. Six months' time would bring us to the fatal months of October and November; and it would appear that this Government may have the opportunity of washing their hands of the whole subject.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, it may not be a fatal month, but it will certainly be a fateful month.
LORD SILKIN: Well, it may even be fatal. I used the word "fatal" deliberately, but I accept "fateful" as well. However, we have the Vienna Convention, we have signed it, and, having accepted the Convention—and, as the noble Earl said, most of its provisions have been in existence for 70 years, and I am very anxious that we should enact them and put them in statutory form—I find it difficult to say that we should not pass this Bill. But there is a Committee stage, and if it is open to us to discuss all these exemptions and privileges at that stage I should like to examine more closely whether it is inevitable that these privileges should be granted to members of the family.
I would invite the House to consider for a moment what this means. I can understand the position of the diplomat: that if he commits an offence, even a criminal offence, he should be immune from prosecution. I imagine that in such a case representations would be made to his own country and, if it were a serious offence, he would be recalled and no doubt dealt with in his own country. But does that necessarily apply to members of the family? Let us take the extreme case where a member of the diplomatic agent's family commits murder—I will not deal with shoplifting, but such cases have been known. In the case of murder it is monstrous that we ourselves should not be in a position to deal with such a case when the murder has been committed against a British subject. But such a person could claim diplomatic immunity and get

49
away with it. I feel that this is a matter which we ought to examine more closely on Committee stage.
I suppose the most likely offence to-day is the motoring offence. I understand from The Times of last Saturday week that there were something like 2,000 parking offences committed by persons who claimed diplomatic immunity. In some cases these were offences committed in the course of their duty, but as regards diplomatic agents they are, of course, exempt even when these offences are committed outside their duties. Some of these diplomatic agents or members of their family may have gone to Brighton over the week-end and committed motoring offences which have caused great disturbance and obstruction on the road; but they are completely immune, even though the offence was committed not in the course of duty but in the course of pleasure, and committed not necessarily by the diplomatic agent but by a member of his family. It may have been committed by his daughter-in-law or by his son-in-law who happened to be living with him as a member of his household. I suggest it needs a lot of looking at, and I hope that when the time comes we may have a number of Amendments dealing with this matter.
To the noble Lord, Lord Molson, I would say that while I have considerable sympathy with his Motion, which I imagine he is not going to press, I should find myself in some difficulty in supporting it if it came to a vote, simply because I feel that we ought to ratify the Convention, with such modifications as may be necessary, and that the best way of dealing with it is not by moving that the Bill be read in six months' time. This is a measure which one would like eventually to pass by agreement, and I hope we shall get a sympathetic hearing for any Amendments which we may put forward in due course.
4.46 p.m.
LORD MOLSONrose to move as an Amendment to the Motion, to leave out "now" and insert "this day six months". The noble Lord said: My Lords, in putting down my Amendment to the Motion, I was responding to an invitation from my noble friend the Leader of the House on March 5. It
50
may be within your Lordships' recollection that I elicited a certain number of interesting and rather startling figures about traffic and parking offences and, after the matter had been followed up for some time, my noble friend said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 256 (No. 46), cols. 219-20]:
"If noble Lords want to debate this question, I suggest we ought to do it properly and in order, and not allow Question Time to become a small debate."
I shall be reverting again to, and asking for an explanation from my noble friend about, the administration of the motoring laws.
Before I do so, however, I should like to support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, about the objections in principle to these diplomatic immunities. I fully recognise that, after their having been in existence for something like 200 years, it is going to be extremely difficult to alter them; but an occasion like this, when Parliament is being asked to codify in the law of England the immunities of diplomats and the whole diplomatic entourage, is surely an occasion when one is entitled to consider what is the general principle. The main purpose of these immunities has been stated by Oppenheim as being based
"on the necessity that envoys must for the purposes of fulfilling their duties be independent of the jurisdiction, control and the like of the receiving States."
I do not suppose there is a single noble Lord who would disagree with that; in other words, the immunity should be such as to enable a diplomat to discharge his proper functions. But in that case the immunity should be confined to his official functions and should not attach to the person in his unofficial capacity. I feel that, in the first place, these immunities are too wide; secondly, that they apply to far too many officials; and, thirdly, I see no reason why they should apply to private servants.
In considering what diplomatic immunity is needed, I think we might consider the history of Parliamentary privilege. There was a time when your Lordships and another place cast their net extremely widely and demanded that everybody who had anything to do with them should enjoy Parliamentary

51
privilege. On page 83 of the first edition of Erskine May it is said that
"not only are persons of both Houses of Parliament free from arrest on mesne process or in execution; but that formerly the same immunity was enjoyed in regard to their servants and their property. The privilege was strained still further, and even claimed to protect members and their servants from all civil actions or suits…although many cases that will he given apply equally to members and to their servants according to the privilege in those times, the latter have, at present, no privilege whatever."
This was done in a series of some six Acts of Parliament, and the preamble to the fourth one says this:
"the previous laws were insufficient to obviate the inconvenience arising from the delay of suits by reason of privilege of Parliament"
and it proceeds in a wide category of cases to provide that
"no such action … shall at any time be … delayed by or under any colour or pretence of any privilege of Parliament."
Parliament, therefore, came to draw a clear distinction between privileges which are necessary in order to enable Parliament and its Members to discharge their proper functions, and the very much wider rights which it was found were really intolerable to other subjects of the Sovereign. Whatever may have been the justification and the lack of inconvenience in the case of these diplomatic immunities at an earlier time, they are becoming steadily more and more burdensome. In the first place, there are a great many more missions; secondly, the members of the missions are perpetually increasing in numbers: and, thirdly, there are a large number of international organisations, some of them almost of a trading nature, to whom these same immunities have been extended.
I find from my researches that there are 83 foreign missions in this country, and the number of persons enjoying diplomatic immunity is now 3,439. In the case of representatives of the Commonwealth who also enjoy the same, there is a further 2,581, making a total of 6,020. In addition to that, there are 464 persons who enjoy immunity as regards their official acts. The fact that there are those 464 persons who are protected as regards their official acts shows that it is quite a workable proposition to confine privileges and immunities to official acts. Then there
52
are various other immunities which are granted to another 306 persons. I should like to ask my noble friend whether he can explain a little who are the people referred to in these different categories. Who are technical and administrative officers? Is a Press attaché, for example, or a cultural attaché a diplomat within the meaning of this Bill?
As regards private servants, I had been intending to say, and to argue, that there could be no possible justification for extending exemption from British income tax from the private servants of the head of the mission to all the private servants of all the members of the mission. But my noble friend disarmed me by making it quite plain that he did not really intend to defend that, except on the ground that it was a sort of quid which we have had to give for the quos which he thought we had gained in other clauses. But it really is a very extraordinary state of affairs, and not one that is likely to commend itself to most of the people of this country.
My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend what is meant by outside "the course of their duties"? Is this the same thing as "within the scope of their employment" in the Common Law case? If it is, of course, it means that, even though a person may have been expressly forbidden to do something by his employer, if he does it, it still may be within the scope of his employment, and he will enjoy complete exemption. My Lords, these matters are of very considerable importance.
I mentioned the large number of people who enjoy these complete immunities. I would also remind your Lordships of what my noble friend Lord Derwent told us on March 5. The London County Council in one year issued 1,975 Excise-exempt licences. There were 50 traffic accidents in which no proceedings could be taken because diplomatic immunity was pleaded. I should like to know what is the procedure in such cases. Nothing could be done in the courts. If somebody is injured by a diplomat or his chauffeur driving a car recklessly, do the Foreign Office make representations to the head of the mission and ask for compensation; and, if so, how is the compensation assessed?

53
There were 2,000 fixed-penalty notices in one year as regards parking offences. In some respects, these parking offences may be even more exasperating to the people of this country than the accidents; because one acquits diplomats of any intention deliberately to run down any of Her Majesty's subjects, but I think there are a great many cases where they deliberately park where they are not allowed to do so, knowing perfectly well that they are immune. Again, I should like to know what is being done about that. There is complete immunity in the case of diplomats, and here I repeat my question: to what extent do the chauffeurs of diplomats enjoy immunity? I take it that if a chauffeur drove his employer's car on a Sunday and went away with a friend, that would not be in the course of his duties—or would it be? One does not know. But if he were driving the car home—and it is a well-known thing that some chauffeurs are allowed to drive their cars home—even though there was no diplomat in the car, and although he was not on any diplomatic mission, I take it that the chauffeur would enjoy immunity.
My Lords, I think that a number of your Lordships felt some disquiet at what my noble friend Lord Derwent said, about the instructions which had been given by the Commissioner of Police as to the different treatment that was to be accorded by the constables to persons enjoying diplomatic immunity, and other people, if, for example, they were thought to be either driving dangerously or causing an obstruction. I think that this is the opportunity promised by my noble friend, when we might have an explanation from the Government as to how in fact, in an administrative way, they get round the inconveniences which must be caused by these immunities which are extending to an ever-increasing number of people.
There is also the question of contracts—the taking of flats and houses. I believe that, because a landlord cannot sue for rent, it is an invariable practice to ensure that the rent is paid well in advance: but that, of course, does not apply to dilapidations, and I should like to know from my noble friend a little about how this works. It is extremely difficult for us to obtain any information on this matter. It is no doubt done quietly, and by official
54
approaches. When I was in an official position, I did come across one case, and through the courtesy of the present Minister of Works I have been able to check up exactly what happened. This is, I think, a striking example; and because it happened in another capital and concerned a foreign diplomat of yet another country, I feel that there is no harm in giving it as an example. A foreign diplomat inherited the lease of a Paris flat from his father. He pleaded diplomatic immunity, in order to prevent the French landlord from evicting him, and then sub-let the flat to the British Foreign Office. The rent, limited by French law, was 200,000 francs per quarter; he sub-let it for 530,000 francs per quarter. So he used his diplomatic immunity to obtain possession of a flat to which he was not entitled, and sub-let it in order to make two-and-a-half times the legal rent. That is a case which actually came to my knowledge. I have no doubt that there must be a great many others; and what has happened in Paris might well happen even in London.
My Lords, Oppenheim, in talking about this subject, says that these wide diplomatic immunities are difficult to justify. He says:
"While in some respects the principle of diplomatic immunity from suit is open to the same sort of objections as is the immunity of Governments,"—
he had previously been dealing with the objections to that in these days, when Governments trade—
"and while arguments in its support often partake of a certain degree of artificiality, it does not in general give rise to serious difficulties or to abuses resulting in denial of legitimate legal remedies. This is so on account of the widely adopted practice of voluntary waiver of immunity".
If my noble friend can say that in point of fact practically all the missions in London do waive immunity, and make certain that these immunities are not used in order either to defeat legitimate expectations in the matter of contract or to deny justice to injured persons, then I admit that a great deal of the apparent objection to this Bill will, at any rate for the time being, fall to the ground. Will he therefore tell us how this strange and unsatisfactory system of exempting such a large number of people from the law does, in fact, work, and assure us that it is not going to

55
result in any great hardship to our people? My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
Moved, as an Amendment to the Motion "That the Bill be now read a second time", to leave out ("now") and insert ("this day six months").—(Lord Molson.)
5.5 p.m.
LORD MCNAIR: My Lords, I am not quite clear whether I am speaking on the Bill or the Amendment, but in either case what I shall say will be very much the same, and therefore it does not greatly matter. I am strongly in support of the Bill and strongly against the Amendment that it be read six months hence, which is the conventional method of rejecting a Bill. I can quite understand that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Silkin, and the noble Lord, Lord Molson, should be reluctant to grant these extensive privileges and immunities to diplomatic persons within our midst. In this country we are all nurtured on the rule of law, and we do not like having in our midst a privileged class who are not subject to the same rule of law. Nevertheless, we have realised in the course of our history that, in the interests of good government, it is sometimes necessary to make exceptions to the rule of law.
One instance I shall mention is the one to which the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has already referred—Parliamentary privilege. Your Lordships and Members of another place enjoy that Parliamentary privilege which enables them to speak their minds freely and fearlessly upon a matter before them, without looking over their shoulders and wondering whether they are exposing themselves to legal proceedings. I doubt whether any of your Lordships would be willing to give up that Parliamentary privilege. The noble Lord, Lord Molson, referred to a certain Act of Parliament which diminished those privileges and thereby subjected the former holders of those privileges to the jurisdiction of our courts; but here we are faced with something quite different, because we are considering circumstances in which British diplomatic representatives abroad are going to be exposed or not exposed to the jurisdiction of foreign courts. We might be perfectly willing to diminish
56
the privileges and immunities of persons if, thereby, we were going to increase their subjection to British courts: it is quite another matter when we consider some of the countries in which members of our Diplomatic Corps must serve.
I could not attempt to answer the many questions that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has put, but I do not doubt that the noble Lord who leads the House will, either in his reply or during the Committee stage, be able to deal with them. I will merely observe that when the noble Lord, Lord Molson, referred to the officials of International Organisations who have been somewhat in the public eye recently, I think I am right in saying that this Bill does not deal with them. The noble Lord the Leader of the House will correct me if I am wrong.
Now as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, indicated, diplomatic privileges have a long history. I could refer your Lordships to opinions given to Queen Elizabeth I by her legal advisers upon the privileges of diplomats accredited to the Court of St. James; and during the last 400 years there has been built up a mass of customary international law and also, of course, a mass of English Common Law to correspond with it, and what we are now being asked by the Government to do is, first of all, to convert that customary International Law into the much clearer and more solid form of a code, and to convert the English Common Law into statutory law, because the Statutes mentioned in the Schedule to this Bill touch only a very small part of the matter in hand.
That, in itself, is a worthwhile process, a process we ought to support—namely, the conversion of this mass of international customary law into a code, because in its form of custom it is obviously much more likely to give rise to controversy than it will be in the form of a code. I feel sure that a British diplomat serving in some country which has newly joined the family of nations and is not very familiar with the methods of dealing with diplomatic representatives would be in a much stronger position when he could point to a Convention and say: "There is a Convention; your country has ratified it, my country has ratified it and I claim the benefit of it".

57
The essence, as I understand it, of the matter in hand is reciprocity. A good deal of our discussion hitherto has been centred on what happens in the United Kingdom as a result of these immunities and privileges. What is much more important, from my point of view, is what is happening in the foreign countries to which we send our diplomatic representatives. Your Lordships must remember that some 60 or 70 new States have been added in the last few years. They are all making gallant attempts to learn the business of statehood, to learn how to govern their countries; but it is a very difficult task, and one does not require much imagination to realise that many of those countries have very little experience or tradition in matters of police and not much experience in the administration of justice and so forth, so that many foreign diplomats in those countries are placed in a very precarious position.
If we want them to be in a position to discharge their functions efficiently, freely and fearlessly, then we must try to give them all possible protection that is available, by extending to them, in particular, those practices and customs which have been elaborated by International Law and Governments during the past few centuries. So I suggest to your Lordships that you must not think too much about parking places in London and that sort of thing; you must consider what is happening and what is likely to happen in very remote parts of the world; and you must do your best to surround our diplomatic representatives, their families, their staff and their servants, with all that is reasonably required to enable them to fulfil their task.
My Lords, I have one final point and it is this. I have already stated that some 60 or 70 nevi States have been added to the family of nations in the past ten or twenty years. Now, the Governments of the old-established States and their international lawyers are doing all that is possible to try to integrate those new States into the old-established family of nations, to encourage them to study and adopt the existing rules of International Law. That is worth doing, not only in the interests of the smoothness of international relations, but also to avert the possibility of a division between the old States and
58
the new States—which would be a disaster. Therefore, I sincerely hope that your Lordships will give a Second Reading to this Bill and bear in mind our duty to secure all possible safeguards for our diplomatic representatives serving abroad.
5.15 p.m.
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, I have listened to the whole of this debate, and I cannot yet make up my mind whether I shall vote for the Amendment or for the Second Reading of the Bill, despite the very clear and lucid explanation we have had from the noble Lord the Leader of the House. I agree with the main premise that no privileges should be given that are not reciprocal; in other words, not received from other nations abroad. But I feel constrained to make an immediate observation on that. With regard to motoring offences—which, from the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, have been considerable, and which have been the subject of Questions in your Lordships' House; the United States have been much quicker to act. I read in the Press some time ago that they have already taken action regarding motoring offences. The Americans are much quicker "on the draw" (to use one of their phrases), and if any action is taken against their diplomats they immediately retaliate. I believe that to be correct. Generally speaking, people have contempt for weakness; and if you show it, you usually get the worst of the bargain.
I should like an explanation about payments of rates. Reference was made to charges which would or would not be paid with regard to those servicing functions. What are they? Are rates to be paid for the fire brigade, for sewers, for road-cleaning or for what? We should all be happier if we knew precisely what part of the rates is to be paid by the various officials in the foreign Embassies. Then I come to Article 33 of the Convention, which, to a layman like myself is, I submit, somewhat nebulous. The explanation here. so far as I can see, is that if any British subject or non-foreign national is employed, he will receive the full social security benefits to which he is obviously entitled; and the Embassy will pay for his stamps. I take it that is what it means. But what is the position? We

59
have had many cases where foreign nationals have been employed by foreign Embassies, have paid no contributions to our social services, yet have drawn the benefits. I should like some clarification on that point.
Next, I come to a very important point with reference to the increasing number of delegations coming to this country which are being granted diplomatic immunity. We also have this situation with regard to international conferences. I know that there is a certain amount of reciprocity here, because I believe that one of the fascinations, or attractions, of going to Strasbourg, to the Council of Europe, is that the delegates get diplomatic immunity. But there are often international quasi-Government conferences taking place in London. There was the International Postal Convention which took place a few years back. The delegates were all granted diplomatic immunity. I should like to know what is the position—and if it has been clarified—with regard to future delegations. Because it is no good having a Convention like this agreed to, and subject to British legislation, if it is possible for other delegations that come here, and further classes of people, to be given diplomatic immunity.
I have had one or two unfortunate experiences with regard to diplomatic immunity, if I may be pardoned for mentioning them. Once I had a constituent of mine who had a brand new car destroyed because a piano was thrown out of a hotel room on top of it. It was nearly impossible for him to get compensation and this was finally achieved only by putting down a series of Questions to the then Mr. Anthony Nutting and suggesting that those at the Embassy concerned should be declared persona non grata. There was also the experience at the Yorkshire-Middlesex match last year, when a diplomatic car was parked right outside the Grace's Gates. A more heinous offence I cannot envisage, except doing the same at a Test Match.
These people have had a good, long run for their money. I am glad that the Convention, despite the high falutin' language used in the Preamble to the Vienna Convention, sees fit to agree to
60
a certain amount of limitation. But the fact remains that these people are a privileged class, the number of which tends to grow, and 1 think something should be done to limit this. We cannot help the number of new States having their Embassies here and bringing their staffs with them, but if there is going to be a plethora of international delegations and quasi-governmental bodies coming over here and automatically being granted diplomatic immunity, then I think that there is a prima facie case for supporting the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, to reject the Bill and have it read in six months' time.
I feel that the Foreign Office are far too slow in copying other countries. One constantly reads in the Press, when there has been any abuse committed by a British diplomat abroad, that action is immediately taken by (to use the jargon) the sending State. I think that we have to get far tougher with these diplomats, because the position is becoming a constant source of annoyance, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, pointed out, their absolute defiance of traffic regulations, especially in the Metropolitan Police Area.
5.23 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, my voice is still a little hoarse, and I hope your Lordships will be patient with me. I intervene only because for many years I was in the Diplomatic Service, and therefore I know something of the question about which we are talking. It is my opinion, and it has long been, that for years past there has been a serious abuse of diplomatic immunity. I have said so in this House many times. We have had two full debates, initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Jowitt, and the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Strang, himself. This abuse is common knowledge. One has only to read the newspapers to appreciate that. Not so long ago there was a case about a chauffeur. It is high time that something was done about it. I welcome this Bill. I am not going to go into the details of it—they have already been discussed by noble Lords, and there are all sorts of technical points which ought to be gone into—but I welcome the fact that the Foreign Office at long last has woken up and is going to do something about

61
this. It should have been done long, long ago. It has been nothing short of a scandal.
The giving of diplomatic immunity started as a perfectly legitimate measure for the protection of the diplomatic representatives of foreign Powers, so that they could act without duress from the country in which they were staying, so that they could say what they thought and not be afraid of the consequences. I believe that I am right in saying that it was started by the Venetian Republic. It was strictly limited to the Minister Ambassador and his personal staff. Even in my day, a few years ago, one read one's list, and decided who should and who should not be on the list for diplomatic immunity, with extreme care. Now there are all these telegraphic conventions, and heaven knows what. I really do not know how many bodies have been covered up to now by this immunity—but I have given my noble friend notice of this question. This is all wrong. It was never intended to be used in this way and it is being abused.
I am sorry to have to admit that it was a man in the Foreign Office who was partially responsible for this: the late Sir Cecil Hurst, a great and good man, who was our legal adviser when the League of Nations was being inaugurated. It was he who insisted at that time that all bodies that emanated from the League of Nations must enjoy diplomatic immunity. I think that he had very small idea of the way in which that immunity was to be abused. I will return to my original point, that I welcome this question's being overhauled properly, as I am sure it now will be. Finally, I would ask my noble friend whether he could tell me actually how many bodies have been covered in the past and how many will be covered in future, if this Bill becomes law.
5.27 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am fairly grateful to your Lordships for the reception you have given to this Bill. I am afraid that it rather reminds me of our British weather. Some days are very wet and cold and windy, as demonstrated by the speech of my noble friend Lord Molson; we also have some days of sunshine and showers—most of your Lordships' speeches seem to be like that;
62
but occasionally we get a lovely spring day, like the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord McNair, with which I agree in every aspect, and I am very grateful to him for having made it.
Before I come to what my noble friend Lord Molson has said and the Amendment which he has moved, I would, if I may, like to try to answer some of the many questions that have been put to me by those noble Lords who have spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked me a number of questions about the clauses of the Bill and what they meant. The first question he asked was whether or not there were countries who gave to our missions immunities which were less than those which would be obtainable under the provisions of this Bill. There are about a dozen of them, who, of course, already come under the Diplomatic Immunities Restriction Act, 1955, and it will be necessary to continue this restriction under the relevant subsection of the Bill.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, does that mean that in due course the Government intend to restrict the provisions?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords, in exactly the same way as they are now under the other Act. The noble Lord asked me what subsection (2) of Clause 3 meant, as he had read it at length and did not quite understand it. I am not a lawyer hut, as I understand it, the purpose of this subsection is to ensure that children born in the United Kingdom to persons whose immunity is withdrawn by Order in Council under subsection (1) do not in fact become citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies merely because of their birth in the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord also asked me about the change of words, which did not seem to have any change of meaning, in Clause 5. The purpose of the amendment to these words is to bring the terms of this subsection into line with the framework established by the Bill. I believe that at the moment it is not possible to say precisely what persons are within Section 14(1) of the 1919 Act. The position of a head of a foreign diplomatic mission is clear; the position of a member of his official staff is less clear. The only purpose of this is to make it entirely clear in the framework of the new Bill.

63
The noble Lord also asked about subsection (3) of the Article and why the Bill did not come into force immediately after it received the Royal Assent. I understand that the drafting of subsection (3) is standard form and is included in the present Bill to allow for it to be arranged that the coming into force of the Act coincides with the entry into force, in respect of the United Kingdom, of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Missions; and under Article 51(2) of the Convention it will enter into force for the United Kingdom on the 30th day after the deposit of the United Kingdom's instrument of ratification.
The noble Lord also made some play with the delay there has been in introducing this Bill, because he said, and quite properly, that the Convention had been published for three years. The reason for that is that naturally we needed to study the Convention very carefully, and there have been certain inter-departmental discussions which are necessary. But, more particularly, the reason is the one he gave—namely, that the Convention itself did not come into force until last month, and there was in the preceding Sessions a great deal of what we consider to be more important legislation which we thought should have priority over this. I think I told the noble Lord in my original speech that there are, so far, 22 countries which have ratified the Convention.
My noble friend Lord Killearn asked me about the numbers of those who have had complete immunity up to now and will have it after this Bill becomes law. The total staffs of missions in London is at the moment 5,039, and these, of course, under the present system, have complete immunity. When the Bill is passed, the diplomatic staff—that is, the diplomatic agents under the Bill—will total 1,439. These are very rough figures, because there are probably some grey areas in between which one cannot decide until one has tried to put the Bill into practice. The administration and technical staff will be 2,794, and the service staff 552. So your Lordships will see there is a considerable decrease in the number of those who are entitled to full immunity.
The noble Lord, Lord Hobson, asked me three questions. He asked, first of
64
all: what are the functions under the rates which are beneficial, and those which are not? I cannot go into the list of them now, but I think there are some obvious examples. For instance, any rate levy for the purpose of education, which would not be payable by the foreign mission, would be one, and there are other examples of that sort. If at a later stage the noble Lord would like me to go into detail I will certainly do so.
The noble Lord also spoke about International Organisations and the immunity which members of these International Organisations get. These are completely excluded from this Bill. We are dealing here only with the diplomatic representatives of foreign countries. The noble Lord also asked me about foreign nationals—that is what I have written down, but I am not sure now that I understand what the question was. Would the noble Lord be so kind as to repeat it?
LORD HOBSON: The question, quite briefly, is this. British nationals working for a foreign Embassy obviously get the social benefits and the payments are made. What is the position of the foreign national: does he get the benefit of British social services without payment?
LORD CARRINGTON: For the purposes of the Bill, he is exempt from paying a contribution towards the National Health Act. But he could be prevented from taking advantage of the National Health Act by a regulation under the National Health Act itself, which instituted the National Health Service. I think at the moment these people are entitled to get benefit from the National Health Service in the same way as any visitor to this country is entitled to do.
I come now to what my noble friend Lord Molson has said about this Bill. The difficulty is that he very much dislikes the whole thing and would be quite happy if there were no diplomatic immunity at all for foreign nationals in this country. Probably all of us can sympathise with the noble Lord in some of the things he said. For instance, it is most annoying when we see cars parked for hours at parking meters—
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, my noble friend is quite incorrect. I was at pains to say that it was essential that there should be immunity for them in so far as their official activities are concerned, but that it should not extend outside their official activities.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am sorry if I misinterpreted what my noble friend said. That is the last thing I wanted to do. However, I got the impression that he did not like this very much, and did not like things as they now stand. There are, it seems to me, really three legs to this matter. First of all, there is the advantage which, as the noble Lord, Lord McNair, has said, we get from the codification of the law, and the package deal which we also get from the Vienna Convention. I think there really is some advantage, as the noble Lord opposite said, in having down in black and white for the first time an international law which applies to everybody who has signed it and subscribed to it. This is the first time it has happened, and I think we gel advantage from it. While we may lose in some respects, I am sure that we gain in others, and I think we must, whether we like it or not, regard this, to some extent, as a package deal.
The second thing (I think I should say this in fairness to the members of diplomatic missions in this country) is that the abuses that we find under this Bill are very limited indeed. It is true that there are a large number of parking offences—some 2,000—but the other sort of offences which one can think of, like disputes between landlord and tenant and so on, are very few and far between; and, generally speaking, they are settled. It is difficult to settle these things when one has no sanction. There is, naturally enough, the sanction of declaring a diplomat persona non grata, but one wants to do that only in extreme cases. But we have found when there is a dispute between a landlord and a diplomat who. for example, has rented a house, the Foreign Office steps in. We talk to the head of mission. We try to get them to agree, but if we cannot, we suggest that there should be some private arbitration about the matter; and generally speaking we find these things are cleared up. I think it would be quite wrong if your Lordships
66
went away, as a result of this debate, thinking that members of diplomatic missions in London abuse privileges which they have as a result of their diplomatic immunity. It really is not so, and it is necessary to settle few of them which come to the Foreign Office.
I absolutely agree, as I said earlier, about the motoring offences; I think they are most irritating. We are proposing to take a rather sterner line, in so far as we can, in regard to these offences, and we have already brought to the attention of heads of missions the fact that, although there is immunity from the penalty of breaking the law, there is an obligation on all diplomats to conform to the law, and they are expected to do so. Although the United States Government in Washington, who have a rather larger proportion of these offences than we have-they have, I think, 8,000 parking offences as opposed to 2,000 in this country—sent out warning notices and so on, they have not yet withdrawn immunity of diplomats from the jurisdiction in respect of motoring offences. So they are in conformity with us in that respect.
But I think the overwhelming reason why your Lordships should agree to this Bill and take the rough with the smooth is the reason which the noble Lord, Lord McNair, advanced so cogently: that is, that we must remember that we ourselves have diplomatic missions abroad, and we have them in countries which are quite unlike our own. I believe, without mentioning any names, we could all think of countries in which we might have to serve where if we did not have the diplomatic immunities which are set out under this Bill we should find ourselves not only inconvenienced but perhaps sometimes in very great danger and in great difficulties. We must always remember, when we are discussing these matters, that there are fellow citizens of ours serving this country abroad who would find it most difficult to carry on their job in the service of this country unless they had these immunities. It is for that reason—and I think that is the strongest reason of all—that I ask my noble friend whether he would be good enough to withdraw his Amendment, and I ask your Lordships to read this Bill a second time.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I feel that my noble friend has said a great many things that have really set my mind, to some extent, at rest. We can pursue some of these matters a little further on the Committee stage, and I therefore ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL
5.41 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. It has come to us from another place, where it passed through all its stages with remarkable rapidity, in fact passing "on the nod" every stage until it reached Third Reading. At that time, there was a debate upon it in which every Member who contributed supported the Bill. I hope that we shall find the same unanimity in our House with regard to it.
Your Lordships will probably recall that last year certain experiments were made by the Minister of Transport with regard to the introduction of speed limits throughout the country. Over a series of weekends the universal speed limit of 50 m.p.h. was introduced experimentally on every ordinary road in the country—that is to say, excluding motorways. It was not a very successful experiment. I think my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that on the first weekend there was a certain amount of observance of the speed limit by motorists; on the second weekend the observancé was by no means so marked, and in subsequent weekends the special limit was virtually disregarded altogether. I do not believe that that result came as much of a surprise to my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport, because I think he and his Ministers also recognise the fallacy of seeking to impose upon all classifications of road in this country one single speed limit: the same speed limit for a winding lane in South Devon as that applied to a normal main
68
road in the country, or to a dual carriageway built virtually to the standard of a motorway. Therefore, I am quite sure that it is only by the imposition of realistic speed limits that we shall succeed in getting them observed by road users all over the country.
I certainly do not blame (and I hope that none of your Lordships will) my right honourable friend the Minister for the failure of his experiment. His hands were completely tied by Parliament, because the powers which we had given him to introduce these temporary and experimental speed limits were powers which enabled him to do so only over all the roads of the country. The object of the Bill which I am now introducing to your Lordships, is to grant to the Minister powers to introduce, experimentally or temporarily, speed limits which can be varied by him according to different classifications of road.
If I may turn to the Bill itself, I would say that it is about as badly drawn a Bill as any that I have ever come across. I only hope that your Lordships will acquit me of any responsibility in this connection, because I did not draw the Bill myself. The main purpose of the Bill is contained in Clause 1(1), and the difficulty throughout the Bill is that it does not really do anything at all. All it does, by Clause 1, by reference to an earlier Act, the Road Traffic Act, 1962, is to enlarge the powers given to the appropriate Minister by Section 13 of that Act. The "appropriate Minister" throughout the Bill always means the Secretary of State for Scotland, in regard to matters appropriate to Scotland, and the Minister of Transport, in regard to matters appropriate to England and Wales. The Bill does not extend to Northern Ireland, and so there is no "appropriate Minister" for Northern Ireland.
Section 13 of the Road Traffic Act, 1962, subsection 1(a) was the section to which I referred just now in which Parliament had given the Minister powers to make temporary or experimental speed limits applicable to all the ordinary roads of the country; that is to say, to all roads excluding motorways. Clause 1(1) of this Bill extends that power so as to grant to the appropriate Minister
"power to make such an order …in respect of roads of any class specified in the order"

69
or, alternatively,
"in respect of all roads other than roads of any class so specified."
The subsection then goes on to explain that roads
"may be classified by reference to any circumstances appearing to the … Minister to be suitable for the purpose, including their character, the nature of the traffic to which they are suited, or the traffic signs provided thereon."
Subsection (2) of Clause 1 is a very mysterious clause indeed. It provides that:
"Subsection (4) of the said section 13"—
that is, Section 13 of the Road Traffic Act, 1962—
"shall apply in relation to any limit imposed by an order made by virtue of this section as it applies in relation to a limit to be observed on all roads."
That somewhat mystical phraseology means that it will not be necessary for the Minister to put up traffic signs all along the roads of our country to indicate where these new speed limits are being introduced. Obviously, as I think your Lordships will agree, that would be completely impracticable. Having regard to the nature of the classification of the roads to which these varying speed limits will apply, I think that it is also quite unnecessary, because the nature of the classification is likely to be that there will be a universal speed limit of, say, 50 m.p.h. on all roads throughout the country, other than motorways and except on specially classified types of road, such as dual-carriageways, clearways, or something of that sort. Those are perfectly easy classes of road for any road user to understand and to get to know, and therefore the necessity for specially marking them with speed limit signs does not appear to arise.
Returning to the Bill again, Clause 1(3) is "curiouser and curiouser". It says:
"This section shall be construed as one with the said section 13."
The interpretation of that mystical phraseology is that the Bill does not confer upon the appropriate Minister a power to impose a temporary or experimental speed limit on special roads—which again means motorways—as, in fact, the appropriate Minister already has certain rights to impose temporary or experimental Teed limits on motorways, under Section 37 of the Road
70
Traffic Act, 1960. That is an explantion, which I hope is sufficient for your Lordship's purposes, of what the Bill seeks to do. It is, in my submission, a Bill which gives the appropriate Minister powers that will achieve two objects: one, to assist the traffic to flow more freely upon the roads; and, second, to introduce a greater element of road safety than exists at the present time. I hope that your Lordships will give the Bill a fair wind, and I beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Brentford.)
5.51 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I must admit that when I first picked up this Bill I thought it looked a simple little Bill, and I am bound to say that at first glance I wondered what it was all about. It seemed to me that the Minister had all the powers he could possibly need under Section 13 of the 1962 Act. Clearly, as the noble Viscount has told us, that was not the case; hence this Bill, which had an easy passage through the other place. Rather surprisingly, as the noble Viscount mentioned, it had all the Second Reading speeches on the Third Reading of the Bill. Up to that point not a word beyond "I beg to move" had been said upon it.
As I understand the present position, the speed limits at experimental periods have to be general ones, such as an overall 50 m.p.h., or, if they are not general ones and certain classes of road are selected for speed limits, the selected roads must have signs indicating the speed limits applicable to them. As I see it, this Bill will make it possible for the Minister to impose a speed limit of 50 m.p.h. upon Class II roads or, say, a limit of 60 m.p.h. on all classes of roads, without having to erect signs indicating this fact. That is how I understand it. If that is not so, I am sure the Minister, when he intervenes, will tell me so.
The difficulty I see about this Bill will be that of clear identification by the motorist of the classes of road to which the varying restrictions will apply. I must admit that, with the exception of a motorway and a clearly marked clearway, I never know, for most of the time, what class of road

71
am driving on. I do not look at the signpost to see whether the route indicator is preceded by an "A" or a "B"—whether it is road "84307" or road "A4307". The "A", of course, indicates a trunk road or Class I road, and in the case of a "B" a Class II road. There are a variety of roads in this country. I think the simplest definition of the classes would be "motorways" and the three other classes of roads Class I, II and unclassified. But there is the difficulty of some being called "trunk roads" and others "clearways"; and, I suppose, when we get the Worboys Report implemented we shall then have "primary" roads, which will further add to the confusion of the motorist as to the road on which he is actually driving.
So under this Bill confusion will be caused if the Minister makes a general order for, say, a 50 m.p.h. restriction for Class I roads and part of such a road has a good dual carriageway or a four-lane road upon which the imposed limit is clearly seen by the motorist to be nonsensical. As I understand it, and the noble Viscount has told us this, it is the case that this fact made something of a nonsense of the general restrictions of past years. It was found that motorists in the first week tended to accept the speed limit. Then, in the second week, it was found that once they came to a dual carriageway, a clearway or something of that sort, they immediately started to speed up to the old speed that appeared to be operating on those roads—and that was understandable.
I see something of this sort happening in my own home town area. There is a 30 m.p.h. restriction operating all the 24 miles between Cardiff and Treherbert. Through the Treforest Trading Estate, which is about half way between the two towns and in my town area, there is a good dual carriageway, and immediately motorists come to it, despite the fact that there are no derestrictive signs, away they go at 40, 50 or 60 m.p.h. If the local mobile police find that their book is a little light for a period, down they go to this Trading Estate dual carriageway road, and they soon find enough cases to make their book pretty heavy.
The cases are fed into the local court machine, where we, the magistrates,
72
churn them out as fast as possible, and I must admit that I get a little sick before the morning and afternoon is over of hearing: "£5; licence endorsed", which is the usual charge in the court for exceeding the speed limit on this particular stretch of road. Of course, the local motorist has no excuse, and seldom tries to make one; he just pays out, and that, except for the fact that his licence is endorsed, is the end of it. But strangers invariably excuse themselves by saying: "I never thought that this could be a restricted road". I must admit I have some sympathy for them, but we go on churning out "£5; licence endorsed" for those just as easily as we do for the others.
An order made for a class of road that has wide variations of road type within it is bound to be confusing to the motorist unless it is clearly marked and (this is important) unless it is seen by the motorist to be reasonable; and motorists cannot be expected to see a general restriction as being reasonable when, as part of the road upon which is put a general speed restriction, there are dual carriageways or four-lane roads.
Then there is a question of enforcement, and here we get on to the old problem of a sufficiency of police, of radar checks and the like. If the Minister makes an order, I think he must, and we must, see that everything possible is done to enforce it. I do not care what methods are employed to trap the law breaker, for I do not regard it as some sort of sporting contest between the police and the motorist. We say, and the statistics of road accidents clearly prove this, that stupid speed kills; and we ought to use every means possible to catch the potential killer. To those who say that such traps as radar are a bit below the belt, I say that their complaint reminds me of the burglar who said that the police ought not to wear rubber-soled boots at night.
I regard this Bill, provided that everything possible is done to ensure that it is enforced, as a sensible measure which will enable the Minister to exercise a greater degree of flexibility in this matter of the temporary or experimental speed limits. But it will fail, as the general speed limits in the past years

73
have failed after the first weekend, unless the limits imposed are obviously sensible and the roads are clearly defined in the mind of the motorist and unless there is adequate enforcement.
6.1 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I must first of all congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, on the most novel way in which he asked your Lordships to agree to the Second Reading of this Bill. His conscience almost got the better of him before he had finished. I shared his mystification when 1 read this Bill. I turned to the Proceedings in another place to see whether they would enable me to understand it properly. I do not understand it even now-I must be quite frank about it. I believe I know what is the intention of the Government, and I think I sympathise with it. But I am going to make this prediction: the experiment that this Bill is supposed to authorise will be as abject a failure as the last one was. As the noble Viscount said, it was a failure, and it failed because it was absolutely impossible to enforce it. It will be absolutely impossible to enforce this experiment as it is set out in the Bill.
I want to ask the noble Viscount this question—I must address this question to him because he introduced the Bill. Did he ever consult the police to ask their views about this and whether it was possible to enforce this? I now address another question to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, the Minister who is going to intervene and, I can only suspect, give this Bill his blessing. The Minister has to make orders under this Bill. Will the Ministry of Transport, before they make the orders in conformity with this Bill, consult with the police authorities whether the police think this is possible of enforcement, or are we going to follow the usual course that we have followed for years and years, loading the Statute Book with a lot of Statutes which are absolutely unenforceable, and then wonder why the law is brought into disrepute?
The failure of the last experiment was due to the fact that it was unenforceable. The value of any experiment lies in its enforcement. We can get a true idea of whether or not a particular experiment is a success only if it is being enforced
74
to the letter. I say that, in this case, this is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for the very good reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has pointed out. Lord Chesham's colleague in another place, the Parliamentary Secretary, in explaining the Bill, said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 693 (No. 96), col. 1717];
"One of the difficulties up till now has been that though there are different kinds of roads easily identifiable at the Ministry …"—
they are not easily identifiable to motorists, because he went on to say—
"The important thing is not whether or not the roads are signposted but whether or not they are easily identifiable to the man in the motor car."
He further said, in talking about the 50 miles an hour speed limit in the last experiment being unduly restrictive [col. 1718]:
"But this is unduly restrictive on most dual carriageway roads and even on some single carriageway roads as well."
I am an ordinary motorist. I can identify a dual carriageway; I can identify a clearway; but I am hanged if I can identify a single carriageway road which, in the opinion of the Ministry of Transport, should be restricted unless, as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said, there is a sign to tell me so.
I quite agree that if we are going to have speed limits we want a variation in them. If we are wedded to speed limits, let them be sensible. The reason why the speed limit laws break down is that in quite a lot of cases the British public regard them as nonsense; and this Bill will only make the nonsense worse. Under this Bill the Minister could have innumerable variations of the speed limit. We already have a 30 miles an hour limit and a 40 miles an hour limit, and now we are going to have a 50 miles an hour limit and any variation it may please the Minister to have. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that he will not get away with this experiment by trying to save the money it will undoubtedly cost; it is a costly thing to signpost all the unidentifiable roads, and that is where the danger will come. The danger will not come on the clearways or the motorways or the dual carriageways. But there are many single carriageways, as the noble Lord's colleague said, where

75
a 50 miles an hour limit is too restrictive, with another road within 100 or 200 yards, or on the same road, where a 50 miles an hour limit would be very dangerous. What are you going to do?
The defence that comes to my mind, if you are caught, is to say, "I am the man in the motor car. I thought it was identifiable as a very good road". I hope the noble Lord will not be tempted to say—I do not think he will— "It is not for the Ministry to consult the police; it is for us to consult the Home Office". I do not know whether the noble Lord has consulted the Home Office about this, or whether they have consulted the police; but I should think that when they have discussions with the police they will get the answer loud and clear: "This is absolutely impossible of enforcement". Go ahead! I am not going to oppose the Bill. But I am very certain that in six months' time, or whenever it may be, I shall be able to say, with the noble Lord, Lord Champion: "We did warn you". We warned the Government about the last experiment, but they took no notice. We said: Never have an experiment in limiting speed unless you can enforce it. If you cannot enforce it, all you are doing is to bring the law into disrepute.
6.10 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, while I think I must have a few remarks to make on detailed points, on the underlying principle I do not disagree with virtually anything any noble Lord has said, and naturally I do not disagree with anything that the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, has said, because it is perfectly true that the Government welcome this Bill very much indeed. My only query, so far as my noble friend is concerned, concerns the fact that he does not much like the drafting of the Bill. I would refer him to the Long Title, which describes it as:
"An Act to amend the provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1962 …"
In a Bill of this kind it is rather difficult to amend the provisions of another Act without reference back in that way. As a piece of Parliamentary drafting it is always a little more difficult than a straightforward Bill introduced to produce a new point. But I am quite sure
76
that the drafting does what it is supposed to do.
The more important point that I think I discern in what has been said is that, if the Bill is a little difficult to follow, it has left one or two apprehensions (I hesitate to use the word "misapprehensions", although I might almost do so) in the minds of the noble Lords, Lord Champion and Lord Lucas of Chilworth. Their real apprehensions have, I believe, become a little overdone, but I think that I shall be able to say quite a bit that will set their minds at rest. Both noble Lords—certainly the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, gave me this impression—seemed rather to think that a new kind of experimental power was being introduced by this Bill. That is not so. The Bill's object is to amend the experimental speed limit power which the Minister already has. As I understand it, the object is to import into his existing power a most desirable amendment: not to create confusion—a point to which I shall come back in a moment; not to create problems of enforcement, but to help in finding a solution to these problems: in fact, to do the very thing the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth wants done; that is, to enable experimental orders of this kind when they are to apply to roads of this kind, to be enforced properly.
I can tell the noble Lord that we do consult, and have consulted, with the police; and, whether it has been done through the usual channels or otherwise, the effect is exactly the same: we have got round the table with them, if the noble Lord would like it that way. Furthermore, before we introduce any experimental speed limit order of this kind, we discuss the whole thing thoroughly with the police. Naturally, we are of one mind with noble Lords who have expressed their views on this subject of enforcement. I do not think there is any question that, if we have sensible orders, we must have proper enforcement. We believe that this new flexibility in what are only temporary and experimental general speed limits—not otherwise—is going to be a useful one. It will help their enforcement and success, and therefore safety, because they will be more realistic and, therefore, will be better respected. If they are better respected, it means a higher level

77
of respect, not only on the roads concerned but also on other roads; and this, of course, is to the benefit of everybody, including the police, with their problems of enforcement.
The noble Lord, Lord Champion gave us an example of a dual-carriageway with a permanent speed limit on it. I want to make it quite clear that the sort of order we are discussing bites in no way on any road, however many carriageways it has, if it is subject to a permanent speed limit. It bites only on roads which have none. I wanted to get that absolutely clear. I do not think there can be the confusion which both noble Lords, Lord Champion and Lord Lucas of Chilworth, fear on this matter. This is the particular point on which I should like to set their minds at rest. Despite what may be said (I will come back to this in a moment), there can be no question of the kind of confusion that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, feared. If anybody had it in mind to act in the way he imagined, there would be confusion: on that I agree with him completely.
The whole essence of this matter, as we see it, is that these exceptions to a general limit would take place only on a road which is readily and easily identifiable and recognisable by a motorist. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, talked of roads that could be readily identified in the Ministry, by classification numbers, from maps, and in that kind of way. That is perfectly true. But no reasonable person—certainly not my right honourable friend-would expect any motorist to do anything of the sort. We regard this power as having value only where a road that is excepted (either exempted or having put upon it a higher limit than the general one) can be instantly recognised by any motorist as a road of a particular type.
At the present time what we have in mind for the use of this power is dual-carriageways. The reason for that is that, studying our experiment last year—and, I should prefer to say that it was inconclusive, rather than that it was a complete "flop"; because it cannot be a complete "flop" if you learn something from it—we are now building some quite good roads. And while one can argue that on many roads, and in
78
crowded conditions on certain special occasions of the year, there is a case for an overall limit, quite often on a dual-carriageway, such as the A.1, it is unreasonable to ask and expect people to keep to a speed limit. If there is a limit on a good broad road, with little traffic on it, that creates exactly the situation that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, says he does not like. It causes unnecessary work in enforcement for the police, and it fills the courts in a rather dull sort of way. There will be no question of exempting or excepting a road by reference to its being a trunk road or a Class I road. We agree with the noble Lord that that is an unreasonable way to do it, and nobody has the slightest intention of being unreasonable. We hope that this is a power which we shall be able to use to help people: not to make things more difficult for them but to try to make them more reasonable for them.
One point that I ought perhaps to mention, as one which may interest your Lordships, is when, if your Lordships pass the Bill, we may be expected to make use of this power. I do not think that in any case it would be during this summer; because, even assuming that your Lordships were to pass the Bill and it received the Royal Assent somewhere about June 10, it still could not come into operation until July 10; and then it needs four weeks after the notice of intention to make this so. Therefore in effect it is going to be too late for this summer. In any case, I doubt whether we should want to do anything of this kind this summer, because we have already announced the speed limits on selected roads. We found from last year that it is not a good thing to do to have two sorts of order applying at the same time. It is extremely confusing for people. I do not think this is entirely reasonable and it makes interpreting results more difficult. Therefore, I think it should be at a later stage, but not during the summer holiday period. I think also—and I hope that this may further reassure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—that the proper, reasonable and sensible use of this power will call for careful planning and proper consultation which is what we propose to have. Rather than rush it, we prefer to make sure that what we regard as a valuable new power

79
should be used in a considered way to produce the best possible results and, we confidently hope, increased road safety.
6.21 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, I should like to express my thanks to those of your Lordships who have been kind enough to take part in this debate and who, by and large, subject to certain exceptions and variations, have generally supported the Bill. I believe the principal anxiety of the noble Lords, Lord Champion and Lord Lucas of Chilworth, was with regard to difficulties concerning classification of roads, but I think what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in the way of the assurances he has given as to the type of classification and the object and intention, by which roads will be classified so that all road users can freely recognise to which classes of roads the varying speed limits apply, should set their minds considerably at rest.
I was also most delighted to hear the assurance given by the Minister in regard to intentions to make the speed limits realistic. I am quite sure that this matter has led to a great deal of the difficulty in the past, and that if in fact the speed limits are realistic there will not be anything like the same problems regarding enforcement. I hope, therefore, with these two points particularly in mind, that your Lordships will be prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

POLICE BILL
6.23 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Derwent.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AIREDALE in the Chair.]
Clause 13:
Collaboration agreements
13.—(1) If it appears to the chief officers of police of two or more police forces that any police functions can more efficiently be dis-
80
charged by members of those forces acting jointly, they may, with the approval of the police authorities for the areas for which those forces are maintained, make an agreement for that purpose.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved, in subsection (1), after "functions" to insert "including the policing of rivers". The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to highlight the need to increase river patrols in general, and in particular the need for a joint force for the policing of the upper reaches of the River Thames—that is, between Teddington Lock right up to Lechlade, a distance of 125½ miles. The Thames Conservancy, for the purposes of inspection and control of navigation, patrol an area of river between Cricklade and Teddington, a distance of 136 miles, and this stretch of river is divided into four districts. To do that work I understand that the Thames Conservancy has twenty navigation officers, who come finally under the Secretary of the Thames Conservancy. But these officers are mainly concerned with navigational offences and offences with regard to the locks along that part of the river. Their task is not to curb the increasing vandalism which is prevalent on this part of the river.
To deal with this problem a joint force should be set up under a collaboration agreement between the county constabularies of Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire, as well as the county borough police watch committees of Oxford and Reading. I understand that the Police Federation are in support of such a scheme, although they had certain reservations to make with regard to the shortage of manpower. That is why it is right that I should mention to your Lordships that members of the River Thames Society would willingly volunteer as special constables and loan their own boats if required to do so. The River Thames Society was formed
"to promote and preserve the amenities of the River Thames for the good of all who, by profession or inclination, pursue their business or pleasure on or adjacent to the River".
Already seven members perform voluntary duties as members of the Thames Division (Metropolitan Police) Special Constabulary.
The need for a joint force is certainly apparent if one considers that, over the last few years, there have been such cases of vandalism as those I am about to mention. In the Windsor district there has been serious damage to craft and injury to scullers by airguns; also air gun damage to lights in the streets and public parks adjacent to the river in Windsor, Eton, Maidenhead and Reading. Moorings of vessels have been cut. Many wild river birds have been maimed by hooligans. There have also been many reports from amenity societies of damage to trees and shrubs by the river, especially in Reading and Caversham. Seats, et cetera, have been damaged or thrown into the river at Windsor and Maidenhead; public refreshment places by the river have been damaged at Henley and Reading; riverside public conveniences have been damaged. Bronze gates weighing half a ton each were stolen from Twickenham Bridge. Life-saving equipment has been damaged, destroyed or removed, and I am told that at Barnes, in London, such damage to a life line resulted in the death by drowning of a young child only six years old. Therefore, it is right that I should remind your Lordships of the words of my noble friend's right honourable friend on April 27 last, during the course of a debate in the other place on juvenile delinquency and hooliganism. I quote his words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 694 (No. 97), col. 9O]:
"One point I wish to make clear is that when young people misbehave the forces of law and order must be capable of dealing with them resolutely. It is our duty as honourable Members to see that those forces exist."
Therefore, while realising that the words of our Amendment may be quite unnecessary, I hope that my noble friend will be able this evening to give the Committee an assurance that his right honourable friend is proposing to take advantage of the powers conferred upon him by subsection (5) of Clause 13, to instigate an agreement between the parties concerned for the setting up of a joint river police force to patrol the upper reaches of the Thames. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 5, after ("functions") insert ("including the policing of rivers").—(Lord Merrivale.)
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD DERWENT): May I, first of all, say to my noble friend that this Amendment is quite unnecessary. Under this clause the policing of rivers is fully covered. I am pretty certain that my noble friend moved this Amendment to raise this question of the Thames. He said that in the upper reaches of the Thames (and I think he was referring to the Thames above Teddington) there is a good deal of vandalism, and that the river there is inadequately policed. The Thames Conservancy have been in touch with the Commissioner of Police about this problem—and I would add that, as this is a matter for the Metropolitan Police, this subsection does not "bite", for there is no question of cooperation between two police forces—and he is sympathetically considering whether he can extend his river patrols up the river as far as Staines. There are, however, considerable technical difficulties which he is at present discussing with the Conservancy. That is the present position. These discussions are going on, and I hope the Commissioner will be able to do something. May I go hack to the Amendment? It is unnecessary, and I hope that my noble friend will therefore withdraw it.
LORD STONHAM: May I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that the Amendment would cover amalgamations of police forces, for the purpose of protecting the upper reaches of the Thames beyond Staines? It seems to me that, in speaking of the discussions which are now going forward with regard to the river police, the noble Lord envisaged some improvement only in so far as policing the river banks as far as Staines is concerned. Even if the Amendment is unnecessary, could he not be a little more forthcoming and encouraging, and indicate that this matter is being considered in the upper reaches? I think it is of some importance that positive steps should be taken to organise defence and protection against this very bad vandalism.
LORD DERWENT: I was referring particularly to the river as far as Staines, because we are dealing with the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police, the river police. I can assure the noble Lord that above Staines, and in fact

83
along any river, this clause covers cooperation between police forces who look after a particular area. I was giving the additional information about the Thames Division only because my noble friend asked for it; but any policing of rivers is covered by this clause.
LORD MERRIVALE: I thank my noble friend for the few remarks he has made. They were not very encouraging, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that my noble friend is not going very far; nor are the police. Staines is a little further than Teddington Lock, but it is still a fair distance from Lechlade, for instance, which, in effect, is what I was asking for. There is a lot of vandalism on that part of the river, and I am very disappointed that my noble friend cannot give an assurance that he will have conversations with the other police authorities affected. He said that at the moment the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police go up to Teddington Lock, and that they might patrol as far as Staines. That is fine. But I can see no reason why other police forces should not be encouraged to patrol further up the river.
With regard to the consultations with the Thames Conservancy, I can assure my noble friend that I have contacted them, and, so far as I can gather, they are in favour of a proposal such as I have adumbrated to your Lordships today. So I would ask my noble friend whether he will look at this matter again, because all he has said is that the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police would possibly extend their activities as far as Staines. He has not referred at all in his answer to what I asked him, which was whether the Minister could take advantage of the powers which he has under subsection (5) of Clause 13, to have consultations with the other police authorities concerned to see whether, in effect, it would be feasible to police the river above Staines.
LORD DERWENT: I think we really must talk to this Amendment. I added the information about the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police, but the Metropolitan Police have neither the equipment nor the men to police right up to the source of the Thames. I can assure my noble friend that police forces
84
bordering on rivers are fully aware of their responsibility for policing the rivers; and if, in any particular part, there is any thought that comes to the notice of my right honourable friend that a river is not being properly policed (I am talking about the banks, of course), then he will use the powers under this clause. It is not every part of the river that is suitable for boat policing. In so far as my noble friend's Amendment is concerned, any question of co-operation, and any powers which my right honourable friend has to enforce co-operation, should such a thing be necessary, are fully covered in this clause.
LORD MERRIVALE: That I fully realise, and that is why I said that no doubt this Amendment is unnecessary. What I would point out to my noble friend, with regard to the vandalism which is taking place, is that it is much easier for the police to be aware of it if they are patrolling by a craft, than if patrolling is carried out by the normal police forces operating on land.
LORD DERWENT: I would point out to my noble friend that where provincial police forces are concerned, the actual carrying out of the police duty is the responsibility of the chief constable. If he wants boats, and thinks that he ought to have them, he must go to the police authority responsible for seeing that the policing of the area is efficiently carried out. But it really does not add anything further to this Amendment, and I can only repeat that this Amendment is unnecessary.
LORD MERRIVALE: My intention, of course, is to withdraw this Amendment. I can only hope that the chief constables of the police authorities which I have mentioned will in due course take action and provide suitable patrols.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clauses 14 to 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Police Cadets]:
On Question, Whether Clause 17 shall be agreed to?
6.39 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: I am not proposing an Amendment to this clause, but I want to make a kind of psychological appeal to the noble Lord who is

85
in charge of the Bill. I am speaking on behalf of, and representing the views of, the Association of Municipal Corporations in relation to management of police cadets. Clause 17 gives a specific statutory power for the appointment of cadets, and places the power in the hands of the chief officer of police. The clause follows a recommendation in paragraphs 192 to 194 of the Royal Commission's Report, in which it is stated that responsibility for appointing cadets should be transferred from police authorities to chief constables.
In fact, the published evidence given to the Royal Commission shows that only the Association of Chief Police Officers asked that the change in the law provided for in the Bill should be made. The Association said (I am referring to the Association of Chief Police Officers) that difficulties had arisen in certain parts of the country where police authorities had taken a very active part in selecting as police cadets boys who might not be considered suitable by chief constables. They felt that all these boys were potential candidates for the Police Service, and that it was essential that they should be acceptable to the chief constable and that there should be standard conditions of service and rates of pay.
Neither the Association of Municipal Corporations nor anyone else that I know would for a moment dispute that only candidates who have the support of the chief constable ought to be appointed as police cadets, but this can be achieved without making the chief constable the appointing authority. Moreover, the negotiation of national rates of pay and conditions of service can be achieved without the cadets formally becoming part of the force. No evidence has been adduced to the effect that it is necessary for the proper control of cadets that they should be formally subject to police regulations. I am suggesting that it is not desirable that young men—or, perhaps I should say, boys, because the minimum age of recruitment for police cadets is 15—should enter what might reasonably be described as the closed society of the police service before it is necessary for them to do so, which is when they become constables. It is much better that they should feel themselves fully part of the general community, and appreciate
86
what that is; and that is easier for them psychologically if, as now, they remain local government employees, as indeed they are to be treated in this Bill under subsection (3) of this clause.
It is therefore suggested that the clause might be redrafted to provide that cadets should be appointed by police authorities upon the recommendation of the chief officers of police, and should be employees of the police authority for all purposes, though of course under the day-to-day supervision of the chief police officer. I hope that that suggestion may be considered by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill.
LORD DERWENT: I think my noble friend really has two things in mind. First of all, I think I will go into a little detail as to why the Royal Commission recommended that police cadets should come under the chief constables, although from one or two hints which my noble friend let drop I think he was probably thinking about their training and their general bringing up—because many of them are only boys when they join. At present, police cadets are employed without express statutory authority, and the Royal Commission recommended, as my noble friend said, that their present status should be reconsidered with a view to them.
giving chief constables control over
The Royal Commission held that the chief constable was obviously the right person to be in charge of the selection of cadets. By Clause 7 the chief officer is responsible for appointments to the rank of constable, and it would therefore be for him to decide, when the cadet had reached the appropriate age, whether he was suitable for appointment as a constable. The Royal Commission are a little more definite than my noble friend, because they said, as he quoted, that at present some
"police authorities appear to play an active part in enrolling boys for cadet service,"
but they went on:
"with the result that some of those selected are not acceptable to the chief constable".
There have been quite a lot of cases where the police authority have recruited cadets without his knowledge, as it were, and they were not acceptable when they reached the minimum age for constables.

87
I would, if I may, just take this opportunity of saying one more word about their training, because I think it is important, as they are boys. Many forces already have comprehensive training programmes for cadets. I say "comprehensive": I mean civilian training, apart from police training on a very wide scale. The object of these comprehensive training programmes is not only to foster an interest in the police service, but also to improve the cadet's education and develop his general knowledge and experience on as broad a base as possible.
In answer to my noble friend, may I just say this. A Working Party, consisting of representatives of the local authority associations and the police representative organisations, under Home Office chairmanship, is at present considering the conditions of service and training of cadets; and I would point out to my noble friend Clause 35, which empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations as to the government, administration and conditions of service of police cadets. May I also tell my noble friend that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is paying very particular attention to this, as are many chief constables and as will be other chief constables in the immediate future: of that I can assure him. So we now have two things: the local authority associations combined with the police arranging for the cadets' future training and conditions of service in consultation, but the actual control of them and the recruiting of them being in the hands of the chief constable. I hope that that will, at any rate to some extent, satisfy my noble friend.
LORD STONHAM: If the chief constable or the chief police officer in the police area is not in charge of the training of the cadets, can the noble Lord say who would in fact be in charge of them if the ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, were accepted?
LORD DERWENT: Presumably, the police authority.
LORD STONHAM: That would be somewhat odd, would it not? Whom would they get their orders from? That is what I am thinking of.
LORD MILVERTON: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I have nothing more to say.
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clauses 18 to 28 agreed to.
Clause 29:

PART 11

  CENTRAL SUPERVISION, DIRECTION AND FACILITIES
  Functions of Secretary of State
  Removal of chief constables &c.
  29.—(1) The Secretary of State may require a police authority to exercise their power under Part I of this Act to call upon the chief constable to retire in the interests of efficiency.
  (2) Before requiring the exercise of that power or approving the exercise of that or the similar power exercisable with respect to the deputy or an assistant chief constable, the Secretary of State shall give the chief constable or deputy or assistant chief constable an opportunity to make representations to him and shall consider any representations so made.
  (3) Where representations are made under this section the Secretary of State may, and in a case where he proposes to require the exercise of the power mentioned in subsection (1) of this section shall, appoint one or more persons (one at least of whom shall be a person who is not an officer of police or of a Government department) to hold an inquiry and report to him and shall consider any report made under this subsection.
  LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to leave out from the beginning of subsection (1) down to and including the second "that" in subsection (2), and to insert:
  "(1) Before approving the exercise of the power of a police authority under Part I of this Act to call upon the chief constable to retire in the interests of efficiency".
  The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee I should like to speak to both of the Amendments which stand in my name under this clause. The purpose of Clause 29 is to enable the Secretary of State to
  "require a police authority to exercise their power under Part I of this Act to call upon the chief constable to retire in the interests of efficiency."
  This is contained in subsection (1), and the remainder of the clause contains consequential provisions. In the opinion of the Association of Municipal Corporations it is constitutionally wrong that the Secretary of State should form an official opinion on the efficiency of

  89
  the chief constable. The Secretary of State is responsible neither for the appointment nor for the dismissal of the chief constable, and it should be for the police authority to decide in what circumstances it is right to require the termination of his services.
  So far as the Secretary of State is concerned, the efficiency of the policing of the area should be the test, and should the Secretary of State fail to be satisfied with the policing of the area he has the power to bring pressure upon the police authority to make use of their statutory power under Part I of the Bill; that is, Clause 5(4). It is also dangerous, I suggest, to give the central Government power to dismiss chief constables. The arbitrary dismissal of a large number of chief constables was a first step in the establishment of the totalitarian regime in Germany. To make this legally possible in this country, notwithstanding the safeguards in subsections (2) and (3), would, I suggest, be a mistake, and it would in any case tend to upset the system of checks and balances which is our Constitution.
  It is to be noted that the Royal Commission said in paragraph 291 of their Report:
  "A consequence of making the Secretaries of State formally responsible for the efficiency of police forces is … to entitle them to request the retirement of a chief constable on the ground of inefficiency."
  But the Secretary of State has, in fact, declined to accept the recommendation of the Royal Commission that he should be formally responsible for the efficiency of the police forces. Therefore, the corollary of the Royal Commission's recommendation no longer applies.
  In Committee in another place, the Home Secretary disputed this. He expressed the view that, because the Government were not accepting the recommendation of the Royal Commission, it was all the more important that he should have this power. There was the conceivable case of a chief constable who, in the view of the Secretary of State, was far from efficient and ought to be removed, and yet the police authority decided to do nothing about it. The Association of Municipal Corporations does not dispute that this is a conceivable case; but, should it arise, the Secretary of State has ample power of persuasion. He can threaten withdrawal of the grant from the
  90
  police authority. The effect of these two Amendments is, therefore, to take away the power proposed to be given to the Secretary of State and at the same time to retain the safeguards for the chief constable which apply in cases where the police authority themselves decide to exercise their power under Part I of the Act. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 17, line 13, leave out from beginning to ("or") in line 17 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Milverton.)
  6.53 p.m.
  LORD DERWENT: As my noble friend said, the effect of these Amendments would be to omit the power of the Secretary of State to call on a police authority to retire its chief constable in the interest of the efficiency of the force. May I say, for at least the twelfth time, "in the interests of efficiency". It does not necessarily follow that it is because of the inefficiency of the chief constable in person. Apart from that, power for the Secretary of State to initiate the compulsory retirement of a chief constable was recommended by the Royal Commission, who said:
  "It is, in our view, essential that the reserve power should be available in the hands of the Secretaries of State."
  It is essential that the ultimate power to compel the retirement of a chief constable on grounds of inefficiency should rest with the Secretary of State, because it is generally agreed—certainly it was in another place; and 1 think it will be here—that the Secretary of State must have more power than he has had in seeing to the efficiency of the police forces. Without this ultimate power he cannot do so. My noble friend seems to forget that my right honourable friend will be advised by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary who go around their areas whole-time. Advice, in the first instance—and there will doubtless be consultation by my right honourable friend with other people—will come from the Inspectors of Constabulary who tell him if a particular police force is not being run as efficiently as it ought to be. It is possible that my right honourable friend might have a difference of opinion with a police authority about whether the chief constable should be allowed to remain in office, and he might well have to exercise this power. Such a situation, however, is

  91
  likely to be very rare. I would also remind the Committee that when this Bill comes into force, should my right honourable friend use this reserve power—and it is a reserve power—he will be answerable to Parliament for his decision. That is something quite new as regards provincial police. For those reasons I cannot accept these Amendments.
  LORD BURDEN: May I say just a few words in support of the Amendment? It seems to me that the clause as it stands is yet another instance of the ever-increasing encroachment of the central Government on local authorities. Without the power which this clause gives, the Secretary of State—which in fact means the Civil Service Department—has adequate powers to act if things go wrong with a police authority. He can make representations to the police authority, and if those representations arc ignored he has the very substanial power of withholding the police grant. The Minister has said that, as the clause stands, the Secretary of State will be responsible to Parliament for the exercise of his discretion. I should like him to elaborate that point. Does he imply that if the Secretary of State takes action under the clause as it stands such action will be reported to Parliament? Or would it simply be left to a Member of another place, or a Member of your Lordships' House, to raise the matter in debate or on a Question?
  Frankly, while it is true that the Royal Commission indicated that this power should be given to the Secretary of State, this was conditional on the Secretary of State's assuming responsibility for the police forces in this country. It was a double-barrelled recommendation; and the second recommendation of the Royal Commission the Minister has specifically turned down—and a good job too! But he takes this other line in regard to the chief constables. After all, if this clause stands, it is going to make a breach between the chief constable and the police authority. The chief constable will not recognise the police authority in the ultimate. He will say that he is responsible to the Secretary of State and not to the police authority. I feel that the clause may cause great difficulties between the chief constable and the police authority,
  92
  and I hope that the Minister will reconsider what he has already indicated to us.
  LORD DERWENT: May I reply to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Burden? He has taken the view that my noble friend took: that, since the Secretary of State has not taken formal responsibility for efficiency, he should not have the power to retire the chief constable. But this does not follow. If anything, the absence of formal responsibility makes this reserve power even more important; because the object of this Bill is to see that the Home Secretary can take a more active part in seeing that police affairs run properly. Unless he has the reserve power, he cannot do that. On the question of Parliament's position, up till now the Home Secretary has not been able to answer Questions in Parliament about provincial police forces. As he is now taking additional responsibilities under this Bill, he will in future be able to do so, and I presume that Questions will be raised, in the ordinary way, in both Houses.
  LORD BURDEN: The point is that it will be for a Member of another place, or a Member of your Lordships' House, to raise a matter after action has been taken by the Minister.
  LORD DERWENT: I do not know whether the noble Lord really thinks that a chief constable is going to be dismissed because his force is inefficient without the whole of the police authority knowing of it. I cannot imagine that it will happen as he describes. The Secretary of State will tell the police authority that the force is inefficient, and that he thinks it is the chief constable's fault, and he will ask for him to be retired. And if they do not agree, they will then start to argue the matter. It really will not happen at the last moment.
  LORD BURDEN: Will the Home Secretary draw up a code defining efficiency? And who is going to define inefficiency? There is no definition of inefficiency.
  Lord MILVERTON: I am grateful to the Minister for the trouble he has taken in explaining what I still consider to be the wrong view, but I am not

  93
  prepared to carry the matter any further. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 29, agreed to.
  Clause 30 [Reports from chief constables]:
  7.2 p.m.
  LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to add to subsection (1):
  "and the chief constable shall submit a copy of the report to the police authority at the direction of the Secretary of State if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the matters specified in the requirement are connected with the discharge of the functions of the police authority".
  The noble Lord said: Clause 12 recognises the right of a police authority to obtain information from the chief constable regarding the policing of their area. Subject to the restrictions in subsection (3) of that clause, it is theoretically possible for police authorities to ask their chief constables for the same information as may be requested by the Home Secretary under Clause 30. Indeed, this is likely to happen where information is required about an occurrence within their knowledge. However, where knowledge of any circumstances gives rise to a request and it has gone to the Home Secretary through, for example, an inspector's report, the police authority may be unaware of them. If they are relevant to the discharge of the police authority's duties, then any information which the chief constable gives the Secretary of State ought also to be made available to the police authority, and this Amendment would provide for this.
  Moreover, very exceptionally, circumstances could arise where there was disagreement between the chief constable and the police authority on a matter affecting the functions of the police authority, and unless an Amendment on the lines proposed is included, then the Secretary of State might receive a partial account made from the chief constable unbeknown to the police authority, and the Secretary of State, on the basis of this account—I am not suggesting that it would be a deliberately biased account, but it would be delivered from one angle—might be minded to give advice to the police authority which was not based on an appreciation of the full facts of the matter.
  It is not suggested that the police authority should be kept informed of informal consultations between the Home Office and chief constables on what might be called professional or technical matters, and the Amendment is so framed that the police authority would not be concerned with these. The use of the words "copy of the report" is intended to make clear that the Amendment would not catch reports made by chief constables to the Home Office by word of mouth, but, if it was thought necessary, it could be reworded to make quite clear that it applies only to formal written reports. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 17, line 36, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Milverton.)
  LORD DERWENT: The effect of this Amendment, as my noble friend has said, would be that where the Secretary of State called for a report from a chief constable, a copy of the report would go to the police authority, if it related to matters connected with the discharge of the functions of the police authority. The copy would be supplied by the chief constable at the direction of the Secretary of State, if the Secretary of State was satisfied that it related to such matters.
  May I draw attention to the background of this clause, which is primarily intended to put on a statutory basis the long-established practice of the Secretary of State to obtain such reports as he needs from chief constables. In Scotland, this practice was given statutory recognition in the Police (Scotland) Act, 1956. One practical result of giving the Secretary of State this power will be, in spite of the doubts expressed by noble Lords opposite, to enable questions to be asked in Parliament seeking information about provincial police forces. It has never been suggested in the past, so far as I can trace, that copies of reports sent by chief constables to the Home Secretary should be made available to the police authority. Therefore, in so far as the clause is giving statutory recognition to an existing practice, there is no scope for any reference to the police authority.
  The second objection is one of principle. It is essential that the Secretary

  95
  of State should be able to rely on being able to obtain quick, full and accurate information from a chief constable and that the chief constable should report to him with complete candour. Any arrangement under which the chief constable's reports would be made available to the police authority would be bound to impede the candour with which he reports to the Home Secretary.
  There is no question of going behind the back of the police authority in having this direct link between the Home Secretary and the chief constable. That link has always been there and is now being given statutory authority. Furthermore, the police authority themselves will be approached by the Home Secretary when he wants information and comments on a matter directly within the authority's responsibility. There is the same contact between the Secretary of State and the police authority as there is between the Secretary of State and the chief constable. To depart from what has always been the practice in this matter, from what has worked well and from what I believe is essential so as to get information with complete candour, seems to me to be wrong and I must resist this Amendment.
  LORD STONHAM: The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has doubtless noticed that there was no speaker from the Opposition Front Bench on the previous Amendment. That was because we were satisfied with the explanation which the noble Lord put forward in rejecting the Amendment, but on this occasion it does not appear to us that he is right. He made a considerable point of the need, which is not disputed, for the Home Secretary to be able to rely on speedy and accurate reports from chief constables. He also made the point, which again is not disputed, that a chief constable ought to be able to report to the Home Secretary with complete candour. There may be times when he may be saying something in his report which would not be acceptable to the police authority or appropriate to be reported to the police authority. But all these things are taken care of by the Amendment and the explanation which the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, gave. Indeed, I
  96
  understood the noble Lord to say that if the principle was conceded he would not be averse to some different form of words to safeguard the position.
  It seems to me a most reasonable thing for a police authority to think that it would be extremely useful if they received a copy of a report made by their chief constable to the Secretary of State, always with the proviso that it could be done only with the consent and on the authority of the Secretary of State, who would have the responsibility of deciding whether the matters in the report came within the functions of the police authority.
  I think that this is a most reasonable suggestion. The noble Lord said that this clause gives, as it were, statutory effect to an existing procedure (these are not his exact words), and there is no room for extending it to ensure that in certain circumstances the police authority would have a copy of the report, but I must say that I do not agree. If we are giving statutory force to something which has been the practice for some time, then surely there is every reason for making a modest extension of that statutory privilege in order to keep police authorities informed on matters on which they have every right to be informed and where the Secretary of State would decide that they have the right to be informed. I think that on this Amendment we must support the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Derwent will have another look at it.
  LORD DERWENT: The noble Lord has not dealt with what I feel is my strongest argument against the Amendment: that is, the need for complete candour in the relationship between the chief constable and the Secretary of State. If this Amendment were made, a chief constable making a report to the Secretary of State would never know whether he was going to be asked or directed to submit a copy to the police authority, and the candour would probably be less than candid. That is the main argument. There are the other arguments, with some of which the noble Lord has agreed, but on the question of complete candour, it is absolutely essential for the chief constable to be able to

  97
  say to the Secretary of State, as he can to-day, what he thinks is correct.
  If it is a question that affects the police authority the Secretary of State, as to-day, will refer it to the police authority if he thinks it necessary. But if a chief constable reported to the Secretary of State never quite knowing whether words he was saying to the Secretary of State were going to be repeated back to him, that would be an impossible situation. One cannot run a police force in that way. I am afraid I cannot give way on this one.
  LORD STONHAM: I did mention the point about candour. I recall saying that the report would go to the Secretary of State and he would be in a position to decide whether the nature of the report—meaning the matters with which it deals and, presumably, the language which is used—would make it fit to submit to the police authorities.
  LORD DERWENT: The point the noble Lord has not dealt with is that when the chief constable wrote the report he would not know whether it was going to be divulged or not.
  LORD BURDEN: Surely a police authority ought not to be tried and condemned on the report of a chief constable which may attack or reflect on their work without knowing what is in the report. Surely any man, and especially a man of the stature of a chief constable, would not be lacking in candour in regard to a police authority if they were not doing the right thing so far as the police under his control were concerned. We are not wedded to this form of words, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, agreed, but we feel, as my noble friend Lord Stonham put it, that the police authority have the right to have knowledge of any report dealing specifically with the exercise of their functions. We are not asking for reports to be sent which may be outside that scope. The clause would remain, and the copy of the report would go to the police authority if, in the view of the Secretary of State, the police authority ought to have knowledge of its contents. My noble friend Lord Stonham did not suggest that every report from the chief constable should go to the police authority. It is a limit-
  98
  ing Amendment which I should be quite ready to support.
  LORD DERWENT: I think the noble Lord has not read the Bill. We are not talking about the chief constable getting fed up and writing rude things about the police authority to the Secretary of State (which I cannot imagine any chief constable doing). These are reports called for by the Secretary of State on matters that he wants to know about the policing of the area. Having been asked for a report by the Secretary of State, it is essential that the chief constable should be able to answer with complete candour. If any criticism is to be made of the police authority, that will doubtless be done in one way or the other by the Secretary of State, and not by the chief constable. These are reports for which the Secretary of State is asking. He wants a confidential report and a report made with complete candour, and for that reason we cannot put anything into the Bill which compels the Secretary of State to decide whether he should or should not give the report to the authority. If the chief constable thinks that his confidential report will be broadcast by the Secretary of State, then he will not give it with complete candour.
  LORD MILVERTON: I do not want to take up the time of the Committee in repeating what has already been said, but I must say it seems to me that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill visualises what to me should be an unthinkable state of affairs between the chief constable and the police authority. I should have thought that the chief constable would never mind any report, however candid, being sent to the people who are called the police authority. But we are once more brought up against the idea that the word "authority" seems to be a complete misnomer and becomes increasingly less appropriate. I must thank the Minister for the trouble he has taken in explaining the Government's point of view, but I cannot say I am satisfied. I do not wish to take this Amendment to a Division, but would rather let it be negatived.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  Clause 30 agreed to.
  Clause 31 agreed to.
  Clause 32 [Local inquiries]:
  7.20 p.m.
  LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, after subsection (5), to insert:
  "(6) Any person attending any inquiry held under this section may be represented by counsel, solicitor or any other person."
  The noble Lord said: Clause 32 empowers the Secretary of State to set up tribunals for local inquiries into the policing of an area before which witness's may be summoned to appear. Our Amendment seeks to provide that
  "any person attending any inquiry held under this section may be represented by counsel, solicitor or any other person."
  This seems to me a necessary and a reasonable provision. There have been many tribunals of one kind or another. They are, of course, a useful and necessary means of ascertaining the truth in certain circumstances, but their procedure has caused a great deal of misgiving among members of the public—a misgiving, I understand, which is fully shared by the legal profession. Even the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, would probably agree, in the light of his experience of some of these tribunals, that the procedure is by no means highly satisfactory.
  Inquiries by such tribunals are not trials, although with a judge or a barrister in the chair they appear to the public to have some of the trappings of a judicial proceeding. Although they are not trials, the publicity given to the proceedings often has the effect of putting the witness on trial by public opinion, sometimes with disastrous results to the individual. It is very different in a case of a proceeding before the courts, because there there is a recognised procedure which serves the double object of helping in the ascertainment of truth and in protecting the witness.
  The witness's evidence in an ordinary court of law would have been available to counsel in the form of a proof of evidence, which has the advantage, of course, of cutting out irrelevances and directing the counsel's attention to the points on which the witness can speak. In fact, a witness trial without such a procedure is quite unthinkable. When the witness is in the box under examination-in-chief, he is under the protection of the court and also of the counsel representing the party to the
  100
  action that has called him. When he is under cross-examination, he is under the same protection. The result is that the truth is arrived at easily and expeditiously, and the witness is protected all the time.
  When a witness is called before a tribunal, it is not necessarily the case that he will have given a proof of evidence to anyone before he gives his evidence. Although the chairman of the tribunal will, of course, in all cases do his best to protect the witness, in fact the protection in this way can never be wholly effective. It is much more likely that the truth will be arrived at, and that the witness will be protected, if he is represented by a lawyer both before and during the course of the inquiry. It is not suggested that, in this case, through this Amendment, legal representatives should have the right to appear as advocates. The extent to which they will participate in the proceedings must, of course, be at the discretion of the tribunal. So far as I understand it, the obvious case seems to be that it is sufficient that the chairman of the tribunal should protect the witness and have the discretion to grant the right of legal representation if he considers it necessary.
  Surely, this is not enough. The chances are that the witness may have become muddled and confused before even the need for protection arises in the mind of the chairman of the tribunal. In any case, the witness's evidence will be clearer and more satisfactory if it has been properly prepared in advance under the recognised procedure for the courts. As I said at the beginning, this seems to be a most necessary and desirable procedure if we are to get more expeditiously and completely the truth at such inquiries, and also if we are not going to have witnesses unfortunately victimised merely because they have not had the advantage of legal representation at the appropriate time and all the time. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 18, line 44, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Stonham.)
  LORD DERWENT: I shall take my answer rather slowly, because this is a legal matter and I should like the noble Lord to listen carefully. This clause empowers the Secretary of State to hold

  101
  a local inquiry intro any matter connected with the policing of any area. It is a very wide term of reference. The matter under inquiry may or may not be very important. This Amendment would entitle a person attending such an inquiry to be represented by counsel or a solicitor or by a friend, whereas the clause, as drafted, confers no such right.
  The noble Lord is quite right in thinking that the Government's view would be, as in the case of other tribunals, that it would be for the person holding the inquiry to decide which of those attending could be represented. It may well be that, in principle, in the absence of an ex press restriction, a person who has a statutory right to appear before a tribunal of this kind has a right to be represented if he so wishes. There are a number of statutory provisions under which parties—and I point out to the noble Lord that word "parties"—are given an express right to representation before particular kinds of statutory tribunals. But in the present case there are no parties to the inquiry—no parties, in the legal sense, in the same way as there are parties to a case. No person is given a right to appear in a way that would attract the particular statutory provisions applicable to certain tribunals where parties are entitled to be represented. There are no parties in that sense here.
  I do not think it can be argued that in this form of tribunal, any more than most other forms of tribunal, any person subpoenaed as a witness before a tribunal of this kind has a right to legal representation under that general principle, or should be given such a right by Statute. It is, however, recognised that inquiries into certain matters connected with the policing of an area may involve consideration of a person's or authority's conduct or efficiency. It may be an individual, or it may be a police authority. This would be almost inevitable if the inquiry were in the nature of a postmortem on something that had happened. In such a case, a person's or authority's interest would be affected by the inquiry, and he ought to he allowed representation, if he wished, where he or the authority's interest was affected. I cannot imagine that the type of person, normally a well-known barrister, who would be
  102
  appointed to hold an inquiry would ever refuse representation to a person whose interests were likely to be affected, because that is the normal procedure at this sort of tribunal. If the person's or authority's direct interests are not affected, representation is not allowed; but if they are likely to be affected they are normally allowed representation by the person holding the inquiry.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I interrupt the noble Lord, on a point of clarification? If this disturbs the flow, so to speak, perhaps he will deal with it at the end. Would anybody whose interests are not affected want to bring a solicitor or barrister to help him on such an occasion? In other words, the point would not arise unless their interests were affected.
  LORD DERWENT: The point is that when a general inquiry opens it may not appear that any individual's interests are involved, but as the inquiry goes on it may appear that a particular interest is affected; and that is the moment when permission is given for the person to be represented. It is a perfectly normal thing. Section 2(b) of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act empowers a tribunal to authorise or refuse (it is a normal thing) the representation of—and here I quote:
  "…any person appearing to them to be interested …".
  The same thing, with a slight variation, applies in the case of inquiries by Royal Commissions. This is a perfectly normal procedure and I think it is unnecessary to depart from it here.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I do not want to labour this point, but my noble friend Lord Derwent has just mentioned the 1921 Act, into which I had occasion to inquire not very long ago. I wonder whether he would bear this in mind when he is considering the conduct of these inquiries, particularly if they are of a mildly disciplinary nature or inquiring into something which has gone wrong? It has been found, under the 1921 Act, that to allow the tribunal itself to act, as it were, as prosecutor or as cross-examiner has the most unsatisfactory effect of making that tribunal appear to the public to be biased on one side or the other. This practice was tried before the war under this particular Act

  103
  and was found to fail. Instead of that, the more recent practice has been to bring in, I think, the Treasury Solicitor and somebody briefed by him, in order, as it were, to put the case into which the inquiry is to be held.
  I do not know how that can be adapted to this particular circumstance, but I do hope that the eminent barrister, or whoever it is going to be, who is to hold this inquiry is not going to have to do so entirely on his own until the occasion arises whereby somebody's interest, as my noble friend has said, appears about to be prejudiced, when there is some case to call for a representative on his behalf.
  LORD DERWENT: I would, if I may, without saying anything more at the moment, say that I will bear that in mind. If there is anything further I can say about that particular point later on, I shall do so. I do not think it entails an amendment of the Bill in any form, because it would not be appropriate in the Bill. My noble friend is really talking about current practice. Of course that will be borne in mind.
  LORD STONHAM: I cannot compete or dispute with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, on current practice in the legal profession. I must leave the field entirely to him. But it seemed to me that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, failed to deal with the point I tried to make, about the need for legal representation not arising in the mind of the chairman, in some cases, until it was too late to prevent damage from being done.
  As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has said he will look again at the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, with the possibility that it may be referred to at Report stage. If that is what he has in mind, I would ask him to look also at this particular point, because I feel that there is a real danger here. I cannot see why the Secretary of State should want to be hard and fast about this and not include, as the Amendment suggests, provision for representation by counsel, solicitor or any other person. At the beginning of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, referred to "parties" and particular cases of a statutory inquiry, and he said that here there were no parties in that sense.
  104
  The trouble is, of course, that parties appear because the tribunal makes them appear; and at that point I would ask the noble Lord to imagine a situation. An allegation has been made—one which had not previously been thought of—about a person who did not seem likely to appear in a particular inquiry. At this stage the chairman decides that the person must be called. There is no earthly chance of legal representation for that person, and this does seem to me to be a distinct weakness.
  I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, to consider the procedure in the Bill at the moment, which could permit a very serious injustice or hardship falling on a person, innocent or guilty, against which he could not be protected. Then I would ask him to consider the sort of machinery which exists when there is an appeal, if you like, under the National Insurance Act, where people are allowed persons to represent them. I shall be representing a person before a National Insurance appeal tribunal some time this month, and the Minister has agreed that I should do so.
  The woman in question is an Austrian whom I have not seen for fifteen years. Formerly she was my constituent, when I was a Member in another place. Her children, who were then only a few months old, are now over sixteen years of age. It is a question of an appeal under the Act. She cannot come over; she has asked me to represent her; and I am allowed by law to do so. It is not a matter of life and death, or character, or anything of that kind. It is a reasonable procedure. That is all we are asking for here, and we are asking for it in sure and certain knowledge, in the light of cases that have happened in the past in tribunals where we know there has been character assassination, which situation might be provided for if there were legal representation. We want to provide against such happenings here to members of the public, the police or anything else. I really would hope that the noble Lord would at least say, without any kind of a commitment, that he would look at it again.
  LORD DERWENT: I am quite prepared to have a look at it again. I do not think we are going to get very far. If anyone thinks he is going to be involved adversely in an inquiry of this

  105
  kind he can apply in advance to be represented. He does not have to wait until something blows up. If something did blow up unexpectedly he would probably not already be represented. If that is the point, I will have another look at it to see whether we can meet the noble Lord at all.
  LORD STONHAM: I am extremely grateful for the assurance that the noble Lord will look at it again. Of course I shall in a moment beg leave to withdraw the Amendment, but I would just ask the noble Lord to consider the possibility that he or I could ourselves be subject to an allegation of which we have no knowledge and we could then be summoned before a tribunal. That kind of position could arise. As he is going to look at it, I will not labour the point further, and I ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 32 agreed to.
  Clauses 33 to 45 agreed to.
  Clause 46:

PART III

  POLICE REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS
  Police Advisory Boards for England and Wales and for Scotland
  46.—
  (3) Before making regulations under section 33 or section 35 of this Act, other than regulations to which subsection (4) of section 45 of this Act applies, the Secretary of State shall furnish a draft of the regulations to the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales, and take into consideration any representations made by that Board.
  7.39 p.m.
  LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to leave out subsections (1) and (2). The noble Lord said: With your Lordships' permission I will speak to Amendments 23 and 24 together. Clause 46 provides for the establishment of Police Advisory Boards which would supersede the existing Advisory Police Councils which were established under the Police Act, 1919. The purpose of the Police Advisory Board is to enable the Secretary of State to have in existence standing machinery through which he may be advised, in particular, of matters in respect of which he may make regulations other than
  106
  those matters of pay and conditions of service which are dealt with by the Police Council for Great Britain. No useful purpose would be served by the Police Advisory Boards, and the Amendments provide for an alternative method by which the Secretary of State can obtain informed advice.
  Presumably the membership of the Boards for England and Wales would follow that of the existing Police Council for England and Wales and all the bodies representing the police authorities and the uniformed service would be invited to make nominations. In the opinion of the municipal corporations it is more satisfactory that the Secretary of State should consult those bodies direct rather than have standing Advisory Boards. When necessary he can set up ad hoc committees of their representatives, as he did in the case of the Committee on Higher Police Training even though this was formally constituted as a committee of the Police Council, and he can also call ad hoc meetings of representatives of all parties concerned in any particular matter. One reason for preferring the ad hoc basis is that it is more flexible. The appropriate persons can be chosen for each occasion, whereas members of the Advisory Board are normally appointed for a fixed period.
  However, the main reason is that representatives on Advisory Boards speak for themselves as individuals knowledgeable about the matters under consideration, rather than as spokesmen for the bodies by whom they are appointed. It may be otherwise with the bodies representing the Service, but this is certainly the view of the municipal corporations and, I understand, of the county councils, themselves. It therefore appears that if the Secretary of State wishes to take the advice of these associations representing police authorities on matters which are appropriate for consideration by the proposed Advisory Boards, then he will also have to consult the associations in addition. This is the practice which has generally been followed, I believe, hitherto, but it seems to involve unnecessary effort unless the Home Secretary needs guidance independent of that offered by the bodies which represent police authorities and the Service. Also the local elected representatives who would be nominated for

  107
  the proposed Advisory Boards are men who have many claims on their time.
  The effect of the Amendments proposed is, therefore, to provide for consultation direct between the Secretary of State and the representative bodies of the police authorities and of the uniformed service. The Amendment at line 42 is based on a precedent in Section 11 of the Police (Scotland) Act, 1956. Under this Act consultation is provided for alternatively through the Police Council for Scotland or in the way which has been proposed should be substituted now. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 25, line 30, leave out subsections (1) and (2).—(Lord Milverton.)
  7.43 p.m.
  LORD DERWENT: The effect of these two Amendments is to delete the provision in Clause 46 for the establishment of Police Advisory Boards for England and Wales and for Scotland, and to provide that the regulations to be laid before a Police Advisory Board under Clause 46(3) shall, instead, be submitted in draft to the local authority and the police associations. May I say, first of all, that all the police representative associations support the establishment of these Advisory Boards as the successors of the Police Councils for which the Police Act, 1919, made provision. It is plainly right that the Secretary of State should have available to him a body fully representative of service and local authority opinion which he can consult on matters relating to the efficiency and development of the police service. The Association of Municipal Associations argue, as I understand the argument, that it is common practice in other fields of local government for a Minister to consult the Association direct, as the need arises. It is also the practice in the police field, and nobody has suggested for one moment that direct consultation should cease or that everything will necessarily be dealt with through the Advisory Boards.
  As regards the Advisory Boards themselves, the Association of Municipal Corporations will have ample opportunity, in its police committee or otherwise, to consider any proposal to be placed before the Advisory Board so that, like any other organisation, it will be able to
  108
  instruct its representatives as to the line they are to take. The essential point is that there should be a meeting of minds in the Advisory Board and that the members should have an opportunity of hearing the issue argued out by all concerned, by the various associations and federations. This is of great value to the Secretary of State and to the members, and the Secretary of State would have great difficulty in taking the more positive role envisaged under the Bill (and one must remember the Secretary of State is taking a much greater role under this Bill than before) if there were not a forum of this kind, the Advisory Board, in which new proposals can be discussed and tested in argument before a decision is taken. Of course it is always open to the representatives of any particular body to reserve that body's position, and the Secretary of State would take that into account. But he could not give an undertaking that in all matters put to the Advisory Boards separate discussions should be carried out with the local authority associations; there may certainly be cases where such discussions would be appropriate, but it would depend on the circumstances. I might add that under subsection (2) of Clause 46 the various associations will be consulted on the constitution and proceedings of the Advisory Boards.
  Finally, the noble Lord is rather in favour of going back to Police Councils. May I say that the statutory Police Council for England and Wales has not met very frequently in recent years, and my right honourable friend has already made it clear, in another place and elsewhere, that he intends to make much greater use of the Advisory Board. In view of what I have said, hope that my noble friend will withdraw these Amendments, because I do not think that to go back to the old system would be wise or advantageous to any member of these Advisory Boards.
  LORD MILVERTON: I thank the noble Lord for his careful and constructive reply. My Amendment was only an attempt to straighten out what seemed a cumbrous system and I do not wish to pursue it any further. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 46 agreed to.
  Clause 47 [Membership of trade unions]:
  7.50 p.m.
  LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved, in the proviso in subsection (1), to leave out "chief officer of police" and to insert "police authority". The noble Lord said: Clause 47 deals with membership of trade unions by members of police forces, and provides in general that members of police forces should not be members of trade unions, the Police Federation being established to take care of the interests of members of police forces in relation to pay and conditions of service. It will be noted that there is a proviso to subsection (1) of Clause 47 to preserve the trade union membership of a person who is in membership at the time of joining the police force, if the chief officer of police agrees. A matter of this kind affecting the rights and liberties of the individual should not, in the Association of Municipal Corporations' opinion, be left to be decided by another officer of the force, albeit the chief constable, against whom there is no right of appeal. It is of sufficient importance to justify consideration by the police authority, and that is the object of this Amendment. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 26, line 8, leave out ("chief officer of police") and insert ("police authority")—(Lord Milverton.)
  7.50 p.m.
  LORD DERWENT: The effect of this Amendment would be that the police authority, instead of the chief officer of police, would have the power to give consent for a police officer to remain a member of a trade union he joined before becoming a member of the force. I would point out to your Lordships that this power was given to chief officers, and not to police authorities, in the identical provision in the proviso to Section 2(1) of the Police Act, 1919, which first imposed a statutory prohibition on police membership of trade unions. There has been no alteration there.
  The prohibition of police membership of trade unions was imposed in the interests of maintaining the impartiality of the constable as an officer of the law and in the interests of police discipline. The chief officer, as the authority with
  110
  the direction and control of the force and with the responsibility for its discipline, is therefore clearly the appropriate person to judge whether consent should be given for an officer to retain his union membership. In the Government's view it would be wrong to depart from the provision in the 1919 Act.
  My noble friend said that there is no appeal. The reason why there is no appeal, and why there never has been an appeal against the chief constable's decision, is that the decision whether or not he can remain a member of a trade union is taken in the course of the main decision whether to accept the man as a candidate for the force at all. It is taken at the same time. The chief constable decides whether a man is to be appointed a constable. It is at that moment that the man, too, must decide whether to stay a member of the trade union. The whole thing is done as one operation. It is entirely within the chief constable's discretion. The present provisions about membership of unions have operated without difficulty, and, so far as I know, without controversy for over 40 years.
  LORD MILVERTON: I thank the Minister for his reply. I do not wish to pursue this matter any further, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 47 agreed to.
  Clause 48 [Liability for wrongful acts of constables]:
  LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved, in subsection (1) to leave out "chief officer of police" and insert "police authority". The noble Lord said: Once more the view of the municipal corporations is that liability in respect of torts committed by constables—
  LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but is he speaking to Amendments Nos. 26 to 34 inclusive? I think they are on the same point.
  LORD MILVERTON: I beg your Lordships' pardon. I ought to have asked the permission of the Committee to speak in regard to Amendments Nos. 26 to 34; they are all tied up together. The view of the municipal corporations

  111
  in regard to torts committed by constables is that the responsibility should be placed upon the police authority for any police area, and not upon the chief officer of police. These Amendments are all designed to make that provision accordingly: that liability should be placed upon the police authority and not upon the chief officer of police. It was the recommendation of the Royal Commission, following the evidence which it received from a number of bodies and from Professor Wade of Cambridge University.
  In a footnote at page 65 of their Report, the Commission refer to the suggestion put to them that liability should attach to the chief constable. They do not indicate the source of this suggestion; nor do they adduce reasons for their statement that they think such an arrangement is open to objection. However, the Association of Municipal Corporations is strongly of the opinion that the arrangement is open to objection, and for these reasons: that the clause as worded would leave the conduct of proceedings in the hands of the chief constable, which is not at all satisfactory when damages or costs are awarded against a chief constable and will have to be paid out of the police fund. Since the police authority are liable to pay, they should surely have control over the conduct of proceedings.
  It may be that in many cases the chief constable would ask the clerk of the police authority to act for him, but he would not necessarily make this request. A chief constable may instruct a solicitor and engage leading counsel without any reference to the police authority. In any event, the clerk may not wish to act for the chief constable; and, indeed, the police authority may not wish him to act. It will come about, therefore, that an action could be settled, with damages met out of the police authority funds, although the police authority had taken no part in arriving at the settlement.
  This matter was raised in Committee in another place, and the Home Secretary stressed that the chief constable would be indemnified from the police funds only if a settlement was approved by the police authority. The inference, of course, was that a chief constable
  112
  would, out of prudence, consult the police authority before arranging a settlement. But if he failed to do so, or he did so at too late a stage in negotiations, the police authority would obviously be reluctant to make him pay the extreme penalty of personally bearing the damages; and if the matter went to court, anyway, the police authority would have no option but to pay damages awarded, even though the chief constable might not have handled the case as the police authority, on the advice of their clerk, might have wished.
  The Home Secretary also suggested in another place that it was more appropriate that the chief constable should be vicariously liable because he, unlike the police authority, was entitled to give orders to police officers. This argument is a theoretical one which I suggest carries less weight than the practical considerations which I have just mentioned. In any event, there are limitations even to the extent to which the chief constable can give police officers orders, because the latter are independent in their capacity as law enforcing officers of the Crown. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 26, line 23, leave out ("chief officer of police") and insert ("police authority").—(Lord Milverton.)
  LORD DERWENT: Clause 48(1) makes the chief officer of police vicariously liable for the wrongful acts of police officers. I agree with my noble friend that the Amendments would instead—as recommended by the Royal Commission—put this liability on the police authority. The Government consider that it should attach to the chief officer, and I hope to be able to satisfy my noble friend that that is the right way of dealing with it.
  In considering whether the chief officer or the police authority should be liable, it is necessary to bear in mind the nature of the liability. At present a police officer is in law alone responsible for his own wrongful acts. Of course, he exercises independent functions by virtue of his office—that is the present position—whereas where there is the ordinary master and servant relationship in other walks of life the employer is vicariously liable for his employees' torts committed in the

  113
  course of their employment. In such a case, the employer, rather than the employee, is usually sued.
  Where the alleged tort arises directly out of instructions the employer has given to the employee, or otherwise in the course of his employment, the employer is obviously the right person to defend the action. He is the person to keep an eye on the employee's conduct, because the employee is his servant and subject to his control. That is the ordinary position. In the case of police officers, the chief officer of police comes much closer than the police authority to being the employer in this sense (although under the Bill a police officer will remain an independent officer of the Crown and no master or servant relationship will exist.) The officer is under the chief officer's direction and control, in the same way as, with an employer and employee, the employee is under his employer's direction and control, and the police authority cannot give the constable any orders. In the Government's view, it follows from those provisions that the chief officer of police. as the person having the direction and control of the force, should be vicariously liable for wrongful acts committed by members of the force. This is the effect of Clause 48.
  The Bill has been carefully drawn to ensure that the chief officer will be indemnified from the police fund for any damages which he agrees to pay to the complainant only if the settlement is approved by the police authority. The police fund will therefore be liable for the chief constable's damages only where the amount has been approved by the police authority or awarded by the court. Moreover, I would add that there is no known recent case under the present arrangements where a police authority has refused to meet, administratively, the costs and damages of a defendant police officer in circumstances for which there would be vicarious liability under the clause. There has not been vicarious liability before, but there has been no case given against a police officer where these costs and damages have not been paid. In view of what I have said, I hope I have persuaded my noble friend that, in spite of what the Royal Commission said,
  114
  the Government have taken the right course in this matter.
  LORD MILVERTON: I thank the Minister for his courteous and lucid explanation of the reason why he cannot accept these Amendments. I should even like to thank him for the consistent negative which he has maintained so steadfastly and so well. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 48 agreed to.
  LORD DERWENT: As we have now reached an important and perhaps lengthy Amendment, this will no doubt be a suitable moment to break off.
  House resumed.