Lords Sitting of 12 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
The Lord Nathan—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

FUMES FROM LOTS ROAD POWER STATION
2.35 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: 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—

(1) whether the London Transport Board are proposing to modernise the Lots Road Power Station;

(2) if so, what the daily emission of sulphur dioxide will be after modernisation;

(3) at what height (at a distance of a quarter of a mile from the power station) will this emission of sulphur dioxide endanger We or health at times when the weather is unfavourable, e.g. when there is a light south-west wind on sunny winter days or cloudy summer days; and

(4) what action they are taking to restrict the emission of noxious gases from this station and to protect the public against these dangers.]

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, the station is at present being modernised and converted from coal to oil. The sulphur content of the fuel will be limited so that emissions of sulphur dioxide will not after modernisation exceed 25 tons daily—which is several tons less than at present—and will probably be less than that. The waste gases will all be discharged through the two existing 275 ft. chimneys and the four existing 162 ft. chimneys will become redundant.
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In accordance with the Alkali Act the Ministry of Housing and Local Government's Alkali Inspectorate have satisfied themselves that the best practicable means of restricting noxious emissions will be adopted. The modernisation will eliminate grit emission from the station, and reduce smoke emission, as well as reducing and dispersing the sulphur dioxide, and thus will give additional protection to the public. It is not possible to forecast precisely what concentrations of sulphur dioxide will be found at different heights and in different weather conditions.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that Answer, and ask him for this further information? Is he aware that Dr. Burgess, the Scientific Adviser to the London County Council, has estimated that even if the sulphur dioxide daily discharged were 18·7 tons, as he estimates it will be at first, this could reach undesirably high concentrations at heights over about 120 feet at a distance of a quarter of a mile? Is he further aware that on this basis the station will entirely wreck a most promising housing scheme being prepared by the Chelsea Borough Council, of a type that his Minister would be likely to approve? Finally, may I ask my noble friend whether Her Majesty's Government seriously suggest that it is either necessary or desirable to discharge such a volume of poison into the atmosphere of central London, or do they share the expressed fears of the medical officer of health?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am aware of the first part of the supplementary question of the noble Lord. I am not aware that it will wreck the scheme to which he has referred. I would point out, as I said in my original Answer, that there will be an improvement after this modernisation and, therefore, the station cannot affect the planning of the scheme as the atmosphere is worse now than it will be in the future. But if there are any difficulties about this particular scheme with high blocks of flats, I would suggest that the authorities concerned should discuss this problem with my Department.
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, will the noble Lord state on what evidence his statement is made, and why these conditions of almost atmospheric purity are

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to prevail when the same do not occur at Bankside Power Station controlled by the Central Electricity Generating Board, which is also oil-fired?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, my statement is based on the technical evidence which we have and have been given, and I hope the noble Lord will assume it is correct, as I do. As for the rest of the question, of course we are always operating under the Clean Air Act which is going ahead and making a great improvement in the general atmospheric conditions.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, am I to understand that the noble Lord said that although in fact it is probable that there will be slightly less poison discharged, it will be discharged from the lower chimneys and not the higher ones?
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Lord heard the complete contrary, I am afraid, of what I said.
LORD FARINGDON: I am very glad to hear it.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, while I feel certain that the Chelsea Borough Council will adopt the suggestion of having discussions with my noble friend's Department, there have, of course, already been discussions with the Scientific Adviser of the London County Council, who takes the view that any building above 120 feet will be extremely dangerous. Is it really desirable that, for as long in the future as one can foresee, a site a quarter of a mile from this station should be one at which a high building would be impossible on the ground of danger?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I do not think I can continue the scientific discussion with the noble Lord.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, has the policy been considered of removing these undesirable features of London where the opportunity arises, as in this case? Is it really essential that this power station should be rebuilt at Lots Road, which is a valuable site and could be used for much more effective purposes, when its removal would prevent 25 tons of sulphur dioxide from descending upon the population? Are
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there not other sites outside London where this could be placed?
LORD HASTINGS: I am sure there is an answer to the noble Lord's question, but I should prefer notice of it.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as the former Member of Parliament of one of the Fulham constituencies for eighteen years, I am aware of the fact that the people of Fulham objected over a long period to the fumes emitted from this station. Could the noble Lord tell me what the medical officer of Fulham has to say on the matter?
LORD HASTINGS: I am afraid I cannot tell the noble Lady.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I quite appreciate that the noble Lord has not had notice of my question, but will he draw the attention of the authorities to the possibility of removing this power station altogether from its present site now that the opportunity arises?
LORD HASTINGS: Yes, I certainly will, my Lords. But if these discussions take place between the Department and the authorities interested, no doubt all these matters will come to light.

LONG-TERM PRISONERS AND DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY
2.42 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 whether they are aware of the anomaly that prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment prior to 1957 are imprisoned with capital offenders who since 1957 have been sentenced on the grounds of diminished responsibility to fixed and relatively short terms of imprisonment, and whether they will review the cases of prisoners who have served seven or more years and whose crimes were committed under conditions of diminished responsibility.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD DERWENT): My Lords, I am not aware of any anomaly. All life

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sentences are reviewed regularly on the merits of the individual cases.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that in Wakefield Prison alone there are some 150 capital offenders, most of whom were sentenced after the 1957 Act; and that it is very difficult for a man who, in 1956, shot his wife's lover to understand why he must stay in prison when a man who committed a precisely similar crime in 1960 is about to he released? That is the kind of anomaly to which I refer.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am still not quite clear what the noble Lord means. I take it he means it is anomalous that prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment should he in the same prison as those serving shorter fixed sentences. I take it that is the anomaly to which he is referring.
LORD STONHAM: The anomaly to which I refer is the fact that men sentenced prior to the Homicide Act, 1957, who were, even when their crime was committed under diminished responsibility, given life sentences, are still in prison, whereas men sentenced after the Act was passed for precisely similar crimes were given fixed sentences of medium-term duration, and are now being released after a much shorter period of imprisonment.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is getting a bit muddled. It is true that some prisoners sentenced to fixed terms after successfully pleading diminished responsibility will serve shorter periods than are normally served under life sentences, but this is no ground for separating the two types of prisoner; and some diminished responsibility prisoners have been sentenced to very long terms of imprisonment indeed.
LORD STONHAM: While accepting that, I am not in the least bit muddled on this point. It is the —and I will indeed send the noble Lord particulars—that there is this very considerable difference in treatment simply because some men were sentenced prior to the Homicide Act, 1957, and others after it.
LORD DERWENT: I do not quite know what information the noble Lord wants out of me. I can only repeat that I do not see any anomaly in the two
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types of prisoner serving together in the same prison.
LORD STONHAM: The information I want from the noble Lord is that he will review the sentences of these men who have been in prison since prior to the passing of the 1957 Act.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, all life sentences are regularly reviewed.

GENERATING COSTS AT TRANSPORT POWER STATIONS
2.45 p.m.
LORD HOBSON: 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 cost per unit generated at Lots Road London Transport Board Power Station and Stonebridge Park British Railways Power Station.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, this is the kind of matter which my right honourable friend normally regards as falling within the nationalised transport Board's sphere of responsibility for management. I regret, therefore, that I cannot give the noble Lord the information he has asked for.
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the information is readily available, so far as the power stations of the Central Electricity Generating Board are concerned, and that the cost is 0·6343d. a unit? Is he further aware—although I am unable to prove it but happen to know—that the cost per kilowatt hour, which is the cost per unit, at Lots Road and at Stonebridge Park is in advance of the figure I have quoted for the Central Electricity Generating Board? Is this not an added argument for transferring the Lots Road station elsewhere or for the London Transport Board to acquire their electricity from the Central Electricity Generating Board? Further, is it not another reason for not closing down the Broad Street—Richmond line, which is supplied with electricity by Stonebridge Park? And why are these

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figures not available in the Reports of British Railways and the London Transport Board?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I regret that I think I shall have to disclaim the majority of the noble Lords' numerous supplementaries, because I have had some difficulty in relating them to the Question on the Order Paper. But, in point of fact, to begin with, if the noble Lord is aware of these figures I cannot see why he asked me for them. Secondly, I am sure that the Board, whatever may be their position, have good reasons for their electricity-generating practice.
LORD HOBSON: Can the noble Lord say why power stations controlled by the Central Electricity Generating Board must, in their own accounts, lay before Parliament the cost per kilowatt hour, and why the three power stations remaining under the control of the Minister of Transport do not do likewise?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, for the reason that they are under the control of the London Transport Board or the British Railways Board and not the Minister of Transport.
LORD HOBSON: Will the noble Lord say why the cost does not appear in the Report of the British Transport Commission?
LORD CHESHAM: Frankly, my Lords, I was under the impression that it did. I think the noble Lord will find that the figure is given in the London Transport Board's Report for 1963.

NORFOLK AIR BASE AND PROPOSED RAIL CLOSURE
2.48 p.m.
LORD WISE: 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 Majety's Government whether, in view of the relinquishment of Sculthorpe Air Station by the American Forces, and the probability of its future use for industrial and residential purposes, the decision to close the passenger railway service to Fakenham and other nearby stations will be held in abeyance.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, there is no R.A.F. requirement for the airfield after the U.S.A.F. have vacated it, but the Ministry of Defence have still to establish whether either of the other two Services need it. If the station is not required for defence purposes it will, in the usual way, be offered to other Government Departments and will come on the market only if none of them wants it. It would not, therefore, be reasonable for my right honourable friend to ask the Railways Board to delay the closure of the Fakenham services in case some development takes place on this site at some time in the future.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, can the Minister not say whether or not planning is part of transport; that there ought to be a transport relationship to planning; and that, therefore, if there is likely to be industrial or domestic development in this area, the transport arrangements ought to be part of the consideration?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think I have frequently said that my right honourable friend is anxious about these situations, and does take into consideration developments when he comes to consider whether or not to give his consent to a passenger closure proposal. I think I have said that many times. But in this particular case, there are no plans before him, and, as I have just explained, there are none at the moment.
LORD SHEPHERD: But, my Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that if, as I take it, there are very serious considerations taking place for the development of this airfield for industrial purposes, and the Minister proceeds to close this service for passengers, then whatever chance there may be of developing this area will have gone for good? Would there not be a case for the Minister's delaying his decision in the matter to ensure that, if it is possible to develop this airfield for industrial purposes, that will be done?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I must ask the noble Lord to study the terms of my reply. He suggests that this planning is well under way; but my information is that the question is almost a hypothetical one.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that East Anglia is included in the South East Plan for development? Is he not further aware that this site will be used either by a Government Department or, if they do not require it, for industrial purposes; in other words, that there is bound to be a number of people employed and living in that area? Is that not an argument for deferring action until the Government know the nature of the development which will take place?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that such planning and use are hypothetical. I have explained the position at present, and the noble Lord has again brought forward something which does not seem consistent with my reply, and I think that it is rather unreasonable to suggest delaying action.
LORD WISE: My Lords, it is within my information that this particular line between East Dereham and Wells will be closed on or after October 1. Would it not be sensible and decent on the part of the Minister to hold in abeyance the closing of this line until after the General Election?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I know what are the noble Lord's views about the use of this base, because he told the House on April 15 what they were. But, as I understand the position, those are the noble Lord's views.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord said that the situation with regard to planning in East Anglia is fluid; and, indeed, it was inevitably fluid in the South East Plan. Can the Minister assure us that, where these railways are closed, they will be closed in such a way that they can be reopened, if that should be necessary, in the near future?
LORD CHESHAIVE: My Lords, I hesitate to correct the noble Lord; but I have not said any such thing. The only plan I mentioned is for the use of Sculthorpe air base. I have made no mention of a plan in East Anglia being fluid. I explained carefully the position regarding Sculthorpe air base.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform you that it has been agreed through the usual channels that the discussion on the Committee stage of the Housing Bill shall be adjourned at 5.30 p.m. There will then be further consideration of the Police Bill on the Committee stage, which it is hoped to conclude.
MERSEY RIVER BOARD BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
PRESTON CORPORATION BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to revise Statute Law by repealing obsolete, spent, unnecessary, or superseded enactments. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

MACDUFF HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
2.55 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Second Report from the Select Committee.
The Committee reported as follows:
1.—PICTURE OF THE HOUSE IN SESSION
The Committee were informed that the picture of the House in session has been completed and is now exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
The Committee decided that a reproduction of the picture should be produced and referred the matter for implementation to the Sub-Committee on the picture.
2.—LIBRARY
A report from the Sub-Committee on Library for the year 1963 was laid before Committee; also a recommendation from Sub-Committee regarding provision of an conditioned basement store, with which Committee agreed.
3.—ACCOMMODATION
The Committee recommend that Peers who have received a Writ of Summons and taken the Oath and have subsequently disclaimed their Peerages for life shall, so long as they are members of the House of Commons, be allowed to use the Library, the Dining Room and the Guest Room of the House of Lords, and shall be entitled to make reservations in the Dining Room and the Cholmondeley Room.
4.—REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT
The Committee were informed of the resignation of Miss M. Riddell, Superintendent of the Refreshment Department, who will be leaving in July, and of the appointment of Miss Sheila R. Wilson in her place.
5.—HOUSE OF LORDS' ESTIMATES
The Committee appointed Lord Shepherd in the place of the late Earl of Lucan to the Sub-Committee on the Estimates.
6.—PARLIAMENT OFFICE
The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee of the following appointments:—

(a) Mr. Robert Westby Perceval, Clerk Assistant, additionally the Clerk of the Journals,

(b) Mr. Peter Gordon Henderson, Reading Clerk additionally the Principal Clerk of Public Bills,

(c) Mr. John Egerton Grey, Chief Clerk, Public Bill Office from 14th January, 1964,

(d) Mr. Michael Addison John Wheeler-Booth, Senior Clerk from May 16, 1964,

(e) Mr. John Michael Davies, Clerk in the Parliament Office from January 10, 1964.

7.—OFFICIAL SHORTHAND WRITER
The Committee were informed of the negotiations with the Treasury in regard to the remuneration of the Official Shorthand Writer.
8.—HOUSE OF LORDS' APPEALS
The Committee authorised an increase in the charge for the employment of outside typing assistance for the Lords of Appeal.
9.—REVISED SCALES OF PAY
The Committee sanctioned the application of the following Establishments Circulars:—

(a) E.C. No. 8/64 Central Pay Increase,

(b) E.C. No. 12/64 London Weighting to analogous grades of the staff of the House of Lords.

10.—LORD GREAT CHAMBERLAIN'S DEPARTMENT
The Committee approved a revision of the conditions of service of the Custodian staff and the appointment of four additional Custodians. The Committee also authorised a
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revised scale of salary for the Staff Superintendent, with effect from 1st April, 1964.
11.—SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE
The Committee approved a Supplementary Estimate for the year 1963–64.
12.—PALACE OF WESTMINSTER
The Committee sanctioned the payment for additional Police required for the opening of the Palace of Westminster to the public for a further day in each week during the Easter and Whitsun recesses.
13.—RETIREMENTS
The Committee sanctioned the payment of the following awards under the Superannuation Acts:—

(a) pension and additional allowance to Miss Rosalys Joan Griffith, M.B.E., on her retirement on 1st June, 1964,

The Committee instructed the Clerk of the Parliaments to convey to Miss Griffith their warm appreciation of her long and valuable service.

(b) pension and additional allowance to Mr. William Matthew McLean Clark, a Senior Custodian, on his retirement on 1st April, 1964,

(c) pension and additional allowance to Mr. Arthur George Smith, a Custodian, on his retirement on 13th April, 1964,

(d) death gratuity to the Legal Personal Representative of the late Senior Custodian John William Haigh who died on 16th March, 1964,

(e) death gratuity to the Legal Personal Representative of the late Custodian James George Pitt who died on 5th March, 1964.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move That this Report be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, if there are any questions that any noble Lord would like to ask I will do my best to answer them. I do not think there are any particular points to which I ought to draw the attention of the House. I beg to move that the Report be agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EMERGENCY POWERS BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
2.57 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Lord DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Power of Corporation to make loans to housing societies]:
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to add to subsection (2):
"Nothing in any such direction shall prevent the Corporation making a loan to cover the full extent of the loan needed by a housing society."
The noble Lord said: The Bill contemplates that £100 million will be provided for the use of the new Housing Corporation to be set up under the Bill and that £200 million will be provided by the building societies to assist the housing societies to carry out their activities. On the Second Reading I suggested that there was at least a doubt as to whether the building societies would be in a position to advance the whole of the £200 million, and I suggested that there might be cases where the money, particularly for loans, would not be found by the building societies. Since the Second Reading debate I have had some communication with the members of the building societies and I have been informed that they are in some difficulty; and perhaps, if I am not too technical, I may explain in a few words what that difficulty is.
The building societies are by Statute required to have a reserve of 2½ per cent. of their assets. The assets are defined as the monies that are outstanding, regardless of what they are able to set off against them. If the building societies were to increase their assets to the extent of £200 million, they tell me that they would be in some difficulty about the reserves. I mention that, not because the noble Lord or I can help them out of that difficulty, but because I understand that it is a genuine difficulty on their part, and it at least raises doubts
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as to whether they will be able to find the £200 million required. In these circumstances, I want to ask the noble Lord whether he contemplates that the activities of the housing societies will be curtailed, or whether the Corporation will be authorised to advance the full amount required by the housing societies: that is, the one-quarter which the Corporation would normally have provided and the three-quarters which the building societies would have provided on first mortgage, so that the housing societies' activities can be carried on.
I recognise that if the building societies were not coming forward at all—I do not contemplate that, but they may not come forward to anything like the extent that the noble Lord and I hope they will—to the extent that they did not come forward the £100 million provided by the Government would be used up more rapidly. That £100 million would provide something like 30,000 houses, if my mental arithmetic is correct, and that would go quite a long way, having regard to the speed with which housing associations have been carrying on in the past. I am prepared to agree that, with the encouragement of this Bill, they may go more rapidly, but it will take them quite a long time and this would give the Government time to consider the matter, if it should turn out, as I think it will, that the building societies are not able to provide the amount contemplated. Therefore, I am asking the Government to agree to this Amendment, which would authorise the Corporation to advance the full amount of a loan and not to be dependent upon the building society.
If the noble Lord tells me that the Corporation are already able to do so under the Bill, I would prefer that it should be done in simple language, rather than in circumlocutory or inferential language. So much legislation can be interpreted by expert lawyers as meaning something which the ordinary layman would not understand, that I would prefer that it should be written into the Bill in some such language as this—I am quite prepared for the noble Lord to tell me that my language is defective: the Corporation can advance the full amount of the loan to a housing society in order that it can carry out its activities. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Silkin.)
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Lord has put forward an interesting argument, which we started on Second Reading. The noble Lord suggested then that building societies would have difficulty in finding the £200 million. I inquired at that time and our information was that, at a rate of £40 million a year, they would have no difficulty, but I admit that the question of a 2½ per cent. reserve was not mentioned at that stage. This is a point into which we can inquire.
Coming to the Amendment and its precise intention, when I first saw it on the Marshalled List, I thought to myself: the Housing Corporation already have this power; therefore, what would the harm be in making it explicit?—and it would be rather agreeable if we could start off the Committee stage by agreeing to the noble Lord's Amendment. But on looking into the matter closely it has not turned out to be so simple as that. Under the Bill at present, the Housing Corporation can advance the whole of a loan to a particular housing society, if they cannot raise two-thirds of the money from a building society, but that is really in the nature of a reserve power.
As I explained on Second Reading, the whole intention of the Bill is that this should become a major new field for building society activities and we hope in due course, after the expenditure of £100 million by the Housing Corporation and £200 million by the building societies, that these cost-rent and co-ownership housing societies will go ahead, perhaps with the sole assistance of the building societies. This will be when the movement really gets going properly as we hope it will. Therefore the intention is that the Housing Corporation money, coming from the Exchequer, should supplement the building societies' money and be spread as widely as possible.
To come to the precise difficulty of the noble Lord's Amendment (I should not dream of saying that his language was defective; it certainly is not defective for the purposes of the Amendment), but it would not only have the effect
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of making explicit that the Housing Corporation could advance the whole of the money for a particular housing project, which it is not prevented from doing in the Bill, but it would also have the positive effect of preventing the Minister for all time from ever limiting the power of the Housing Corporation to make loans up to the full cost of a housing society's scheme. It is not the intention behind the operation of this whole scheme that the Minister would deem it necessary in the early days to limit the Housing Corporation by giving special directions of that nature, but if it was found that the money advanced by the Exchequer was being used up disproportionately, the Minister might wish to control it to some extent, and if this Amendment were accepted he would not be able to do so.
Looking forward, it raises what would essentially be a matter of Government policy. The power exists to make loans up to the full cost, but there is in the background this right of the Minister to say how this power of the Housing Corporation should be exercised, and we believe that it would be wrong to insert something in the Bill which would not actually give the Housing Corporation any more freedom than it has at the moment but would completely tie the hands of the Minister for all time. I hope that the noble Lord will see the difficulty.
LORD LINDGREN: I am a little perplexed by the reply which the noble Lord has given to my noble friend Lord Silkin. Surely the normal relationship of the building society is to the individual lender and borrower rather than to the group borrower for the purpose of group housing. This question is not new, as the noble Lord suggested. In the 1920s and 1930s the old Ministry of Health, through the Public Works Loan Board, lent money to public utility societies in order that they could provide group housing as a public utility. Surely the nearer we can get to a direct relation either, now, with the Housing Corporation or, as it was in the old days, with the Minister through the Public Works Loan Board, the better. This really makes a tripartite organisation and the loyalty of the building societies is to the individual borrower. After all, the Tory Party talk about a property-owning democracy.

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That is not necessarily a group-owning democracy. If the building society is going to fulfil its primary purpose of service to the individual borrower, it is likely to have less and less available for the group borrower, which is likely to be the housing society. Why cannot we go back'?—but perhaps it is an argument against myself to go backwards. After all, the old arrangements in the 'twenties and 'thirties as between the Ministry of Health, the Public Works Loan Board and the public utility societies worked very well indeed. Why try to alter them now?
LORD TAYLOR: We appreciated the nature of this Amendment, and it is, as the noble Lord has explained it, a prevention of the power of direction by the Minister to the Corporation. What we had in mind was that we wanted this Corporation to be as autonomous as possible and to he free to make its judgment sensibly in the light of whatever the situation was, without having the feeling all the time that the Minister might make a direction to it in this particular respect, especially as we felt that there was the danger which my noble friend mentioned always in the background.
This Corporation will have a difficult job to do, and I think the expectation expressed in another place, that under it 10,000 houses a year might be built, is a very optimistic one. It will, as I say, have a difficult task to carry out, and the greater freedom the Corporation can have in carrying out its task, the better. I hope your Lordships will accept this simple Amendment to give the Corporation a little more freedom and to make sure that it is not liable to receive a direction which the Minister himself says he does not want to give.
LORD HASTINGS: We believe that the Corporation has all the freedom necessary to get to work and make a success of the job. I am a little surprised at the criticism by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, because on Second Reading noble Lords had some critical remarks to make on the question of the Housing Corporation running housing societies on its own, developing land, managing it and so on. That is really what they are now leading up to, and arguing that that is what the Housing Corporation should do rather more frequently
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than we hope it will need to. If it needs to do it, we shall not interfere unless it becomes excessive.
The whole question is tied up with the amount of money available, as the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, said, and there seems to be a difference of opinion in the Committee whether the money will come from building societies or not. We believe that it will. Certainly we must remember that the building societies cannot lend it unless and until the Housing Corporation first puts in its money. The more money the Housing Corporation puts into its own self-owned housing societies, so to speak, the less will he available as a second mortgage taking up the building society's loan. We think we have the right balance; that the Housing Corporation will not be tied at all in this respect, and that we shall get a lot more money this way. If we are going to use up the £100 million loan straight away in order to promote the spread of these housing societies, then we shall perhaps have difficulty in getting the building societies into it. We want to get them in from the very beginning. We have to watch how much Government money will be made available. We do not want to tie the hands of this Government, or any future Government, in that respect.
LORD SILKIN: I did not understand that there was any difference of opinion between us as to the policy of this Amendment. The noble Lord says that the substance of the Amendment is already incorporated in the Bill. I find it a little difficult to discover where it is; but I will take his word for it. All I was asking was that, if the powers are already there, then let it be stated quite explicitly so that anyone who reads the Bill will see that they are there. The noble Lord's view is that if it is made too explicit the Corporation might take full advantage of it and might not use the building society's money, or something of that kind. I do not quite understand what the difficulty is in making something explicit which is already in the Bill.
However, I will not pursue the matter if the noble Lord will undertake to look at it again and see whether, even if he has reservations about it, he can find a form of words which will meet his difficulties. After all, on the most

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optimistic figures this £100 million will last for three years; and my own view is that it will last much longer. Even if we did not get a penny from the building societies—and I have never suggested that we shall not; I merely suggested that they might be in some difficulty in finding the whole of the £200 million at the very worst the £100 million will last for three years from the time when the money begins to be used, which is possibly four years from now. So there is no danger of this money being rapidly spent. But, even if it were, it is already in the Bill. They can still do it. The only issue between us is whether what is already in the Bill should be made quite clear and explicit, or whether it should be left to inference.
LORD HASTINGS: Of course, the Housing Corporation has to get its money through the Minister of Housing and from the Treasury on certain terms and conditions. I do not think this Government or any Government would wish to have their hands tied as to the terms and conditions which they could make at the time of making new loans. It is only to safeguard that position that we are making this particular objection now. I appreciate that the noble Lord wishes to have it written into the Bill that the Housing Corporation can, if necessary, give a 100 per cent. loan. If we can devise some form of words which will make that clear, without at the same time for ever prejudicing the Minister's position, we will look at it again from a legal point of view and try and produce something to satisfy the noble Lord on that point. However, I must say now that we shall certainly have to safeguard the Minister's long-term position and not nut in words which would mean he could never give a direction on that point.
LORD SILKIN: With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to add to subsection (4):
Page 4, line 24. at end insert—
"The Corporation may make directions requiring the participation of representatives of tenants of a housing society in the management of the society in such numbers and in such manner as they may direct."
The noble Lord said: I hope that I shall have better fortune with this Amendment than I had with the last. This is a proposal that the Corporation may give directions to a housing society requiring them to appoint representatives of the tenants to the management committee of the society. As the people most concerned with the management, it seems to me eminently sensible and right that they should play some part on the committee of management. It is democratic, and the tenants will certainly be able to make a contribution to ensure that the property is well conducted. In addition, it will be an education for the tenants to realise some of the difficulties of management, and what are the factors giving rise to cost; and I think they would help in economic management.
It seems to me eminently desirable that in proper cases (and this would be left to the Corporation) a number of tenants should be on the management Committee. I do not put it higher than that. This is quite discretionary on the part of the Corporation. There is no indication in the Amendment as to how many tenant representatives should be on the management committee, but my own view is that in every single case there would be advantage in having tenants on the management committee. So much trouble is caused by ignorance of tenants about the facts of management. If only they were on the committee they would develop a sense of responsibility and begin to understand some of the problems, and I think they would be a great help to the housing society. I hope the noble Lord will be sympathetic to this Amendment, even if he should like to play around with the words. I am sure the sense of it is right. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 24, at end insert the said words—(Lord Silkin.)
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Lord thought that his suggestion was eminently sound and reasonable, but I am afraid I do not find it quite so easy to agree with him as I did on the previous Amendment. The aim of the cost-rent housing societies is to have large and soundly based societies operating, not in a very limited sphere, but over a fairly wide area, with perhaps a number

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of schemes. One can imagine that in one of the larger provincial cities the society might have an estate in the city and others within commuting distance outside. To give the tenants of those societies an effective voice in management would, of course, mean appointing a representative to the management committee for each and every estate. That would soon add up to fair numbers and, as the noble Lord knows, a committee requires to be highly expert and able.
To have a great many people on a committee who do not know the expert angles of these housing societies and their management, and to have too many such people on a large committee, would make things very unwieldly and not very efficient. If the intention of the noble Lord's Amendment—as I think it is—is simply to have some representation of the tenants' needs for particular estates and personal matters on those estates, one might consider the likelihood that, among the members of these housing societies, there will surely be people who have a good deal of knowledge in these matters. For instance, members of local authorities might well be living on housing society estates, and would be able to contribute their knowledge and experience to this work. Just to put in a permissive power—I realise it does not have to be permissive—without showing that there is a clear need for tenants automatically to be on a management committee, does not commend itself to the Government.
We feel that the powers of the Housing Corporation—and, after all, the Amendment asks the Housing Corporation to give directions, and that the tenants should be on the management committee—are clearly defined in the Bill. Their only power over the housing societies, once these have qualified for their loan and been approved of, is the power the Housing Corporation has to give them a direction for handing over completely to itself or to another society, on the grounds that they are not efficient. We really do not think it would be a good thing for the Housing Corporation to interfere more or less in day-to-day management, and to say, "Look here, we think you ought to appoint Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith to such and such a management committee." We feel that we must get really good people of the
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right calibre to run these management committees of a housing society (which may have several estates and may perhaps be getting larger all the time) and people who have the necessary expertise, and we feel we might not get such people if they felt they had the Housing Corporation at their back all the time interfering with their powers. We really do not think it would be a good thing to put this into the Bill.
If, as the result of experience, it is decided that tenant participation in management would be desirable, it would probably be better to write that into the rules of the housing societies as an obligation, or to allow them to choose whether they wanted to operate in that way. Therefore, I hope the noble Lord will see, perhaps, the unwisdom of putting this into the Bill, and will be inclined to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD SILKIN: I am rather impressed with what the noble Lord has just said, and perhaps I shall get good marks for it on the later Amendments. I agree with him that it is not desirable that the whole of the Corporation should be giving directions to the housing societies. They should be left with the greatest amount of autonomy possible. In these circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Provision of land for housing societies
3.—
(5) If, after the Corporation have acquired any land, it appears to the Corporation that there is no housing society, whether in existence or about to be formed, to which the land can suitably be sold or leased, and that the land is capable of being used to provide housing accommodation for letting, the Corporation may prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme for the Corporation themselves to undertake all the operations required for the provision of such housing accommodation on the land (including any operations which might have been carried out by a housing society in connection with the provision of the housing accommodation) and for the Corporation to retain the housing accommodation and keep it available for letting so long as the scheme has not been terminated in any manner provided for therein.
(6) Before submitting to the Minister a scheme under subsection (5) of this section

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the Corporation shall send a copy of it to the local authority in whose area the land to which the scheme relates is situated.
(7) Where a scheme under the said subsection (5) is submitted to the Minister by the Corporation, the Minister, on being satisfied of the lack of any housing society to which the land to which the scheme relates can suitably be transferred and that the requirements of the last foregoing subsection have been complied with, and after considering any representations which may be made to him by the local authority in whose area the land is situated, may, if he thinks fit, approve the scheme; and if he does so the Corporation shall have power to carry through the provisions of the scheme.
3.27 p.m.
LORD LATHAM LORD LATHAM moved, in subsection (5), after "letting, the Corporation" to insert:
"shall offer it to the local authority or, if there is more than one such authority with jurisdiction, authorities in whose area the land is situated having powers to provide housing accommodation under Part V of the Housing Act 1957.
(6) Where the provisions of the last foregoing subsection have been complied with and no offer is accepted, the Corporation".
The noble Lord said: It may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I indicate that, related to the purpose and subject matter of this Amendment, are Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7. Before coming to the basis of this Amendment, I should like to make one or two general comments. There is in local authority circles some concern that the apparent effect of Clauses 3 and 5 is to create a national housing authority which, although subject to ministerial control, is to be vested with housing powers which appear to be quite outside the broad scope of its functions as set out in Clause 1. The local authorities would like to be reassured that the Minister's control will be exercised in such a way as to prevent the growth of the Corporation's activities in this direction, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give an assurance on that point to the comfort of the local authorities or housing authorities.
To take the narrower aspect of Clause 3(5) of the Bill it will enable the Housing Corporation itself, if it has acquired land and no housing society is available to utilise it, to prepare a scheme to provide on that land housing accommodation for letting. Clause 5 will enable the Corporation, in certain other circumstances, to prepare a scheme to acquire a housing
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society's interest in land, and itself to undertake operations for the provision, or continued provision, of housing accommodation.
When the measure was under consideration in another place the issue was argued at considerable length. It was stated that if the Housing Corporation acquired houses for use by a housing society and there was no society in being, or likely to be formed in the area, it was apparent there was no demand in that area for cost-rent housing. In such circumstances the demand undoubtedly would be for local authority housing, and therefore the local authority, with housing powers, should first be given the opportunity of acquiring the land. Surely that is the proper course to take, especially having regard to the shortage of land available generally for local authority housing and to the onerous obligations which are cast upon local authorities for the provision of adequate housing.
The Amendment was withdrawn in another place on the Parliamentary Secretary's undertaking to write into the Bill a requirement on the Corporation to submit to the appropriate local authority a copy of any scheme prepared by the Corporation before it was submitted to the Minister and a provision enabling the local authority to make representations against the scheme. That, I should have thought, was reasonable. These Amendments were subsequently carried into the Bill, but, even so, local housing authorities remain unconvinced by the clause as it is now drawn. They hold the view that before the Housing Corporation prepares and submits a scheme in any of the circumstances mentioned in Clauses 3 and 5, the land, the subject of the scheme, should first be offered to the local authorities in the area having Part V housing powers. That is the purpose of the Amendment, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 19, after ("Corporation") insert the said words.—(Lord Latham.)
LORD HASTINGS: As the noble Lord, Lord Latham, has said, this subject was discussed thoroughly in another place. An Amendment was then moved by the Government, as a result of which the Housing Corporation is required, before submitting

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any scheme to the Minister, to send a copy to the local authority so that they are aware of it; and the Minister is then under an obligation to consider any representations which the local authority may make. The Government feel that there is no reason for the local authorities to think that we are trying to build up some sort of national housing authority which might usurp local authority powers or which might get out of hand. After all, we have just been discussing the limitation of the money that will be available. Noble Lords have said that they will be surprised if the Corporation build as many as 10,000 houses a year. That is not very large compared to local authority operations.
LORD LATHAM: Surely that is a point in my favour.
LORD HASTINGS: I do not follow that, I must say. The noble Lord seems to think that the Corporation is not going to get on with local authorities, or will take land from them, and so on. But all these powers are very much under the control of the Minister and we feel that the Housing Corporation does require these powers.
On the one hand, noble Lords opposite are arguing that the Corporation should have more powers in one respect, but less powers in this respect. But here again we are at variance. It does not follow that, just because the Housing Corporation have to lay out a scheme and prepare it for a housing society before they can actually get one to take over, or even, if necessary, to build the houses and run the scheme themselves, there is going to be no demand. They must go into that aspect very thoroughly, and they will make their investigations to find out whether there is a real demand for a cost-rent scheme. But in some areas, possibly, until they actually have a scheme going themselves they are not likely to find anybody who is willing to come along and take over the scheme and start a housing society on sufficiently sound and expert grounds. Therefore the Corporation must have this reserve power. But, of course, they will first have to convince the Minister that there is a real potential demand for cost-rent houses. Therefore, to oblige them, as the Amendment would, to dispose of land to the local authority just because they have not go a housing society going would vitiate from the very
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beginning any chance in the future of getting such societies in that area or region, as the case may be, and we certainly do not want that to happen.
LORD LATHAM: On that point, it is specifically stated in the clause that the Corporation may make a scheme only if there is no society in existence and if it appears that a society is not likely to exist.
LORD HASTINGS: I am afraid I have not quite taken that point of the noble Lord. I was going to point out a particularly serious matter regarding this Amendment. That is, that the Housing Corporation would be required here to hand over land to the local authority which they had originally bought voluntarily and had acquired by agreement. Surely it would not be a right thing, either legally or morally, for the Corporation to be forced to sell to a local authority land which they had previously acquired by voluntary agreement and had bought in their own right. The noble Lord may say that it does not apply quite in the same way to Clause 5, and that may be so. But again, in that respect, it still would not mean that because a housing society had run into difficulty and the Corporation wanted to hand it over to another society, or take it over themselves, there was no more demand for cost-rent housing in that area.
If the local authority were allowed automatically to take over the land from a housing society which was failing financially, one wonders what they would do with those tenants. After all, they have acquired their security, and the local authority would probably not wish to run the housing society purely as a housing society. More likely its houses would go into the general pool of local authority houses for rent. But, in any case, all these matters are within the power of the Minister; and when land has to be disposed of, when the Corporation has to run its own housing society, it has to consult the Minister in the first place, who must determine whether there is a need for this, and he will consult with the housing authority and will receive their representations before he decides. When it is a matter of the Housing Corporation wishing to transfer from one society to another, or take over a housing society, again they

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must consult the Minister, and the housing authorities are brought into the consideration both by way of information and representation in their own right as a third party.
Again, on the disposal of the land we run up against the custom which was established after the Crichel Down case, that property acquired compulsorily should in the first place be offered to the owners from whom it was bought, and only after that to the local authority. I do not think noble Lords would wish to change that. That also was a matter which was talked about in another place and an Amendment was brought in to satisfy the opinions expressed on both sides of this question. I hope therefore the noble Lord will accept the Minister's assurance that there is no reason for local authorities to fear any damage to their interests as a result of the clauses as at present drawn.
LORD FARINGDON: The noble Lord seemed to me to take a curiously contrary view from that of the Crichel Down case. I would entirely agree with him that to buy land compulsorily and then allocate it to some other purpose is morally wrong. The opposite is the case which might arise under this clause, and what the noble Lord said, and said quite correctly, is that the Corporation would have bought the land voluntarily and must not therefore (I did not quite follow his argument) part with it to a local authority, who of course could have made a compulsory purchase order.
I do not think the noble Lord fully appreciates what we are trying to get here. In another place it was agreed, and an Amendment has in fact been inserted, that the Corporation will notify the local authorities affected of any scheme that they may be putting forward. What we are concerned about is any land which is not in urgent use or does not automatically suggest a use, as clearly in this case it would not, because the land would not be left in the hands of the Corporation if there were a lively demand for cost-rent housing. There clearly would be an effort on the part of the Corporation at pump-priming and the starting of something which did not show a natural inclination to take root and flourish.
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In those circumstances it would seem very probable that the demand for housing would be a demand for local authority housing, and all we are suggesting is that before the land is put to what must be a problematic use by the Corporation the local authority should be given an opportunity to develop it for local authority housing. I hope the noble Lord will consider this seriously.
LORD HASTINGS: I do not think I misunderstood Lord Latham's arguments. We are not trying to prevent local authorities from getting land. It is simply a question of priorities. If the noble Lord will read Clause 3(5) he will see that it refers in the third line (line 16) to a housing society "whether in existence or about to be formed". I dealt with that part of it originally when I said the Corporation must make sure there is going to be a demand for cost-rent schemes or even co-ownership schemes in a certain area. Unless it can convince the Minister there is such a demand it will not get permission to go ahead and run a scheme of its own. If it can convince the Minister it must have a chance to try to induce people to come and take it over, and that might perhaps be the beginning of a housing society in that area. To make it obligatory, as this Amendment would, on the Housing Corporation, in the event of its failing to find a housing society in the first place, to offer it straight away to the local authority is not, in our opinion, the purpose of this Bill; it is not a good thing. I think I have appreciated the noble Lord's argument, and I think I have given the reason why we do not want to accept it.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: If the Housing Corporation has acquired the land for the purpose of housing, presumably there must have existed in its mind a good, or at any rate prima facie, case for acquiring that land for the purpose of housing. Therefore, it does not seem obvious to my mind after that is done that a question should arise in the mind of the Minister or others as to whether that land is suitable for housing. One must assume prima facie it is suitable for housing. Then we get to the point that there is no local housing society existing or in the process of formation. The question then is

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whether the Housing Corporation itself should develop the land or whether first of all it should make an offer to the local authority to transfer the land to them.
I cannot see that Crichel Down comes into this. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Farinedon. I remember the Crichel Down case very well. I was a bit sorry that the Minister of Agriculture felt it necessary to resign on that occasion. I thought that probably it should have been a civil servant, or even the Parliamentary Secretary, rather than him. However, that is off the point. There was a case where land was acquired and then not used for the purpose for which it was acquired (if my memory is correct), and the argument was that the people from whom the land had been compulsorily acquired ought to have the chance to take it back again. It was a sustainable argument.
However, this is a case where land is purchased by the Corporation for housing purposes—"acquired" I gather is a better technical term; it may be acquired compulsorily or not; it may be by free negotiation. That seems to me not altogether relevant to the argument before the Committee at the present time. The point is reached where the Housing Corporation has acquired land for housing purposes but there is no housing society in existence or in prospect. The question then is whether the Housing Corporation develops it, floating a subsidiary of its own, or whether it should first offer it to the local authority. I should have thought, in view of the great responsibilities that the local authorities have for housing (which are considerable, and many of them are terribly worried about the long waiting lists they have for the letting of houses) they ought to have the first opportunity of taking that land—by agreement or otherwise: presumably by agreement—from the Housing Corporation. That seems to me to be a natural thing to do.
If the local authority does not require the land, if it has no useful purpose for it, or if the land is of such value that it does not particularly want to have it, all right. Then under the Amendment the proposals of the Minister whereby the Housing Corporation could go ahead could then apply. It seems to
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me that this is a sensible Amendment which takes account of the needs of local authorities, especially for the reason given by my noble friend Lord Latham, who said that local authorities are in some degree of anxiety as to whether this new set-up will tend to usurp the powers and opportunities of the local authorities. It may not be the case, but one can understand the apprehension.
Therefore, I do not think the Minister has met the case for the Amendment; I do not think he has proved the case against it, and I hope that he will think again. I appreciate that the amending words which have been put in the Bill as a result of discussion in another place are an improvement; I admit that. But I think that the Amendment moved by my noble Friend Lord Latham has a good case, and I should have thought the Committee would be wise to approve it.
LORD HASTINGS: If I may answer again, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, I would suggest this to him. If there is no prospect of a housing society, to such an extent that the Housing Corporation do not start laying out or developing the land at all, then land has of course been acquired and is not to be used for the purpose for which it was acquired, in which case whether bought voluntarily or compulsorily I think it would be expected to be offered back to the original owners. If land has been developed and it is found impossible to keep the housing society going and it is not transferred to another housing society, or the Housing Corporation does not wish to take it over itself or the Minister does not agree to the scheme, then if the land was compulsorily purchased it would presumably be offered back to the original owners. But I am sure it would be highly unlikely that any owner could buy fully developed land. And the local authority would come into the picture at once by way of second offer.
In any case, of course, if the land had not been developed and went back to the original owner and the local authority wanted it, they could always apply for a compulsory purchase order in the ordinary way; we feel that that is the best procedure. There is nothing to prevent the Housing Corporation, under Clause 3, from selling the

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land without the Minister's permission if it has been voluntarily acquired. They could approach the original owner, but if he did not want it they could sell it to the local authority. If the land had been compulsorily acquired and developed, and the owner, as I surmise, would not be able to buy it—the scheme having fallen through and the housing society having folded up and its purposes could not be achieved in any other way—then naturally the Housing Corporation, with the Minister's permission if it had been compulsorily acquired, without if it had not, would be perfectly free to sell it to the local authority. It is not prevented from doing so. That is the point.
I feel that really there is not a great deal of difference between us on this matter, and that, in the normal course of procedure which takes place with this sort of development, what noble Lords wish to see happen would very likely happen in due course—with the one exception that we do not agree to denying the Housing Corporation a chance to start its own housing society in the first place where one does not exist. That is the only substantial difference; and, with the Minister's assurances and with what was written into the Bill as a result of Amendments in another place, I hope noble Lords will feel that they do not need to press this Amendment.
LORD SILKIN: In all these matters there is a balance of advantage and disadvantage. I should have thought that here is a case where there is no housing association or society ready to take it up, and I think we must take into account the present urgent needs of local authorities for land. The Minister himself has stressed that over and over again. There is a tremendous demand for land, and local authorities are going to have pressing and urgent problems before them, especially in certain parts of this country. Take the South-East, for instance, where we have to face an increase in population of 3½ million over the next 15 years or so.
Is it seriously to be contended that where there is no housing association ready to carry out a development the local authority should sit by and see a doubtful project—and it would be doubtful—carried out by the Corporation,
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rather than that they should hate the opportunity, which they may not take, of acquiring the land for their own purposes? I may say that there is no reason why the local authority itself should not cater for the same type of population as would be catered for by the housing society. If the noble Lord is aware of development in Roehampton and that part of the outskirts of London, he will know that this is a splendid piece of development, carried out by the London County Council for people who are rather above the normal income limit catered for generally by local authorities. It gives a local authority fluidity and flexibility, and enables them to discharge their functions to house people who are on their waiting list but who are in a position to pay a somewhat higher rent.
It seems to me that, on the balance of advantage, it would be desirable in such a case to let the local authority have the opportunity of acquiring the land. I do not think there is a lot between us. If they really want the land they could say so, and the Minister would probably decide in any case. But I think that they ought to have the opportunity. On balance, I would say quite frankly—I say this not without some hesitation—that the advantage lies in their being offered the land, so that they can use it for their statutory purposes rather than that in this doubtful case the Corporation should use it where there is no society in existence.
LORD HASTINGS: Really, I think the crux of this question is the wisdom and discretion of the Housing Corporation and its management, because in most cases I think it is most unlikely that they will buy land unless they are quite sure that they are going to be able to establish a housing society in that place. Should they buy some land well in advance in order to get it at a bargain price, they may well come to the realisation, in due course, that they are not going to be able to establish a housing society, and they will not attempt to do so. I think they would probably go to the Minister for these special powers to establish and run their own housing society where they were absolutely convinced that there was a demand and that they ought to go ahead. In other cases I do not think

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they would ever go to the Minister, and would dispose of the land.
So we come back to the land and to whom the land should be offered. We feel that if it is not going to be used, it must be offered back to the original owner, in the first place, who may have good reason to buy it. He may have been reluctant to part with it and may want it for agricultural purposes still; but because he was friendly and well disposed to the idea of a co-ownership scheme in the area—
LORD SILKIN: May I interrupt for a moment? The noble Lord is not suggesting that the land should go back to the original owner. The Bill provides that the land should be utilised for development by the Corporation. The question of returning it to the original owner does not arise at all.
LORD HASTINGS: It arises if the Corporation decide that they do not want to use that land after all. That is the point. What the noble Lord wants to do is this: once the Housing Corporation have bought land, if they do not want to use it, the land must, in the
first place, be offered to the local authority. We do not think that is necessarily the case; but we have safeguarded the local authority's position by putting in the proviso that they should be informed of what is going on, and of allowing them to make their representations to the Minister. I do not think we can meet noble Lords further than that.
LORD LATHAM: All arguments heard, the real point here is that the local housing authority should have priority to acquire the land which is available. That is surely proper, having regard to the immense obligations and responsibilities which the local housing authorities carry. The noble Lord has really not answered the impressive submissions that have been made from this side, especially by my noble friends. In those circumstances, I must press the Amendment to a Division.
4.3 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 20; Not-Contents, 64.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Hughes, L.

Shepherd, L.

Amwell, L.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Archibald, L.

Lawson, L.

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Chorley, L.

Lindgren, L. [Teller.]

Taylor, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Williams of Barnburgh, L.

Faringdon, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Wise, L.

Hobson, L.

St. Davids, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Albemarle, E.

Effingham, E.

Long, V.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mancroft, L.

Ampthill, L.

Elton, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Atholl, D.

Falkland, V.

Meston, L.

Auckland, L.

Falmouth, V.

Milverton, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Ferrers, E.

Monsell, V.

Boston, L.

Ferrier, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Bridgeman, V.

Forster of Harraby, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Buchan, E.

Fortescue, E.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Cawley, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

St. Just, L.

Clwyd, L.

Goshen, V. [Teller.]

Sandford, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Greenway, L.

Sinha, L.

Conesford, L.

Hastings, L.

Somers, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Hereford, V.

Soulbury, V.

Coutanche, L.

Horsbrugh, B.

Spens, L.

Craigton, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Crathorne, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Croft, L.

Ilford, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

De La Warr, E.

Kinnoull, M.

Suffield, L.

Derwent, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Swinton, E.

Ebbisham, L.

Lincoln, L., Bp.

Twining, L.

Eccles, V.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5:
Schemes for Corporation to provide housing accommodation in place of housing society
5.—(1) If, in the case of any housing society, it appears to the Corporation—

(a) that the society is experiencing difficulty in providing housing accommodation on any land which it has acquired or in managing housing accommodation provided by it on any land, or is in any way failing to perform its functions as a housing society in relation to any land, and that accordingly it is undesirable for the land in question to remain in the hands of the society; and

(b) that there is no other housing society, whether in existence or about to be formed, to which the society's interest in the land in question can suitably be transferred; and

(c) that the land is capable of being, or continuing to be, used to provide housing accommodation for letting,

the Corporation may prepare a scheme for the Corporation to acquire the society's interest in the land and to undertake all such operations as may be required for the provision or continued provision on the land of housing accommodation for letting (including any operations which might have been carried out by a housing society in connection with the provision of the housing accommodation) and for the Corporation to retain the accommodation and keep it available for letting so long as the scheme has not been terminated in any manner provided for therein; and the Minister, on being satisfied of the undesirability of the land remaining in the hands of the society and of the lack of any housing society to which it can suitably be transferred, may approve the scheme, and if he does so the Corporation shall have power to acquire for the purposes of the scheme the society's interest in the land and to carry through the provisions of the scheme.
LORD HASTINGS: Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 go together, and are little more than drafting. Amendment No. 10 should really be read at the same time to get the full sense of the subsection. I said that they were little more than drafting. They do a little to clarify the necessity for submission of the scheme to the Minister and also to clarify the Minister's discretionary powers. He does not have to agree to the scheme; he may do so if he thinks fit. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 17, after ("prepare") insert ("and submit to the Minister").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS: I beg to move this Amendment formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 26, leave out ("and") and insert—
("(2) Where a scheme under this section is submitted to the Minister by the Corporation,").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS: I beg to move this Amendment formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 29, after ("may") insert (",if he thinks fit,")—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.10 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, after subsection (3), to insert:
"(4) The Greater London Council shall be a local authority for the purposes of this section."
The noble Lord said: Now that we have decided the form of Clause 5, at any rate for the time being, the situation is that the Corporation can go forward in the circumstances that we have discussed. It will have to notify the local authority, and I believe that there is in this clause—I have not refreshed my memory—provision that if there is more than one local authority concerned the Corporation will notify severally those concerned, of their intention to go forward. The question is whether in the Greater London area the Greater London Council should be regarded as one of the authorities. The noble Lord may say that obviously it is, since it has housing functions, it can build houses in certain circumstances, and in other cases it has a concurrent jurisdiction with the borough councils.
I think once again, as I have argued before, that it is better to make quite sure. If it is the intention that the Greater London Council should be one of the authorities who would be informed of the proposals of the Corporation, then I think it should be stated in the Bill. If it is not the intention, then I think it ought to be, because it is a housing authority, and I am sure the noble Lord would be the last to want to whittle away those limited powers which are left to the Greater London Council. It has a certain amount of housing powers, and I think it should be quite clearly recognised that it will be an

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authority which will be consulted on any appropriate scheme in which it might be concerned. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 42, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Silkin.)
LORD HASTINGS: As the noble Lord said, if the previous Amendment had been accepted then the Greater London Council would have been entitled to have a priority on land disposed of by the Housing Corporation at the same time as the appropriate London borough council. If that had occurred I do not quite know who would have had priority, but, in any case, that is a hypothetical situation. At the moment we are concerned whether the Greater London Council should have the same opportunity as the London boroughs to make representations when the Minister is considering a scheme prepared by the Housing Corporation.
The Greater London Council is left out deliberately, and therefore the Government do not agree with the noble Lord that it should be included and have the right to receive information when the Housing Corporation is going to dispose of land or to purchase it. The reason for this is that the London borough councils will, as we all know, be the primary London housing authorities after April 1, 1965, which is something less than a year ahead, and we feel that the London borough councils are the appropriate authorities to be informed and to make representations to the Minister. When we are concerned with housing societies, cost rent societies or co-ownership schemes in a particular locality, it must surely be the borough councils' which will have the necessary local and intimate knowledge about those schemes and the land involved. They are surely in a far better position to make up their minds upon what they wish to say and do about these matters, in the event of their having that opportunity.
As the borough councils are the primary housing authorities, we think it would be wrong to bring into the picture the Greater London Council, which, after all, is mainly going to have power in respect of placing the overspill London population outside London, and only limited powers for dealing with a limited overspill from one borough council area to another, in order to help the borough councils. It will not have the primary
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housing powers which London borough councils will have. Therefore, we think it would be wrong to bring it into the picture and, in a way, put it in the position of having some default authority over the London borough councils who might not wish to exercise their powers under this clause—it might even disagree with what the London borough councils wished to say. This really devolves upon the point which we discussed very fully last summer at the time of the London Government Bill, as to the respective housing powers of the Greater London Council and the London borough councils, and the Government are not disposed to change their mind at this stage. Therefore I must ask the House to reject this Amendment.
4.17 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I should have thought that by now the Government would have got over their prejudice against the Greater London Council as compared with the boroughs. After all, if you take the recent elections, although the Greater London Council has a good Labour majority the great majority of the boroughs have Labour majorities, too. Therefore, I should have thought it was about time the Government got rid of their bias against the Greater London Council, which they have inherited because of their political bias against the London County Council, and were impartial between the Greater London Council and the boroughs.
My noble friend's Amendment does not say that the first offer of an option shall be given to the Greater London Council. The Bill provides that in certain circumstances the Corporation must inform local housing authorities of the difficulties which they are in, and give them a chance to make representations to the Minister. Surely that ought to apply to the Greater London Council as well as to the boroughs. If, for example, an estate, which has been acquired by the Housing Corporation with an intent to develop, is situated within three London boroughs, it is not going to be easy to divide up that land between the three and get a good estate with the proper amenities on it. In such a case it may be desirable for the Greater London Council to develop it instead of the boroughs. Alternatively,

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if the estate is entirely within a borough's area—it depends on the size of the estate—it may be desirable that the borough should do it.
In any case, the power is in the Minister's hands, and I think there ought to be some degree of impartiality and equality of opportunity as between the Greater London Council and the boroughs. I am sorry that the prejudices which undoubtedly animated the Minister and his colleagues last summer should be possessed even at this time, when they can see what an unholy political mess they have made of the whole set-up, from their point of view; though that does not detract from my belief that it was, nevertheless, a gerrymandering Bill.
LORD HASTINGS: I must admit that I was not altogether surprised at the noble Lord's speech, but I did say that we were returning to the subject of the London Government Bill which I do not think is very relevant to this situation. I can assure the noble Lord that we have no bias against the Greater London Council, and we wish it very well. It has a great task to do, but it is not a primary housing authority and we do not think it is very much concerned with the Housing Corporation's activities under this Bill. Therefore we feel it is quite enough that the local authorities who are housing authorities, should be informed, and in the Metropolitan area that would be the London borough councils. We feel that it is much better and more appropriate to leave it that way, and so I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Lord.
LORD SILKIN: The noble Lord has not dealt with two situations in which it would be desirable that the Greater London Council should be in the picture and should at any rate be informed. As the clause now stands, all we are concerned with is whether they should be informed that there is no housing society in the background available to undertake the development, and that the Corporation is proposing to do it. That is all that is being asked for, and it does not seem to me to be a very revolutionary proposal. Nor it is to indicate that the Greater London Council is the senior member of the authority. It is simply one authority with others who are interested.
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I would suggest there are two situations in which the Greater London Council might be interested. One is where the land is in the area of a number of local authorities, as my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth has just indicated. In that case it would be difficult for a number of adjoining London boroughs to deal with this land, even though it was essential for it to be dealt with. That might be one of the situations in which they might all wish the Greater London Council to deal with it. The other is as to the out-county areas, where, as the noble Lord himself has indicated, the Greater London Council is the appropriate body to deal with overspill.
If land becomes available in the immediate vicinity of the Greater London Area, is it not reasonable that the Greater London Council should be informed that it is proposed to develop that land, and, therefore, that they should be able to make representations about it? So I think the noble Lord is mistaken in deliberately cutting out the Greater London Council, and I would suggest that he thinks about it again. There may be other circumstances in which it would be proper for the Greater London Council to be informed of what is going on, but I think that, at any rate in those two, it would be eminently desirable that they should have the opportunity of making representations.
LORD HASTINGS: I am not so sure that the noble Lord is right in respect of Inner London and overlapping boundaries, because I believe the local authorities will have powers to arrange matters amongst themselves; and it is probably less likely to happen there in any case, when we are talking of the activities of the Housing Corporation.
LORD SILKIN: They may not always be able to do it.
LORD HASTINGS: There is perhaps something in his argument about overspill and land becoming available; but, as he says, it is purely a matter of information, although representations come into it as well. But, in view of what he has said, I should like to give it a second thought. I do not feel very confident that we shall come back with any new Amendment, but, in view of what the noble Lord has said, I will give it a

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second thought and discuss it further, and I will let him know what we propose to do.
LORD FARINGDON: I am glad to hear what the noble Lord has said. May I suggest that, when he is reconsidering the matter, he should also reconsider the fact that the G.L.C. is, after all, going to be the overall planning authority, and that it may well need to be informed of the projects of the Corporation?
LORD SILKIN: In view of the noble Lord's promise, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 11.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 6 and 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Building society advances to housing societies to which Corporation have made loans]:
4.25 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection (2), to leave out it paragraph (b) and insert:
"(b) any advance which, in accordance with section 21(7) of the Building Societies Act 1962, a building society is treated as having made by reason of a transfer—

(i) from one housing society to another, or

(ii) from a housing society to the Corporation, or

(iii) from the Corporation to a housing society,

of the mortgagor's interest under a mortgage securing an advance made by that building society."
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment, and an attempt to clarify the wording which was criticised by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, during Second Reading. This was the subsection which the noble Lord criticised during Second Reading. He said it was unintelligible. We have changed the wording and tried to break it up so as to make it more easily readable and more intelligible. The purport of it is that when the assets—and the liabilities, of course—are transferred from one housing society to another housing society, or from a housing society to the Housing Corporation, the loans which have been made by building societies shall not be counted against their quota as a special advance a second time, which they are if such a
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thing happens under the present Building Societies Act. Under that Act a transferred mortgage is counted a second time for the purposes for the limitation of 10 per cent. This is to remove that bar so that once a loan is made it can be transferred at the direction of the Housing Corporation without counting a second time against the building society's new limitation of 15 per cent. for these loans to housing societies. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 40, leave out paragraph (b) and insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD SILKIN: I am very glad the noble Lord and the Government have had second thoughts about the original provision. I do not know whether this completely re-enacts what was in the clause, or whether they have taken the opportunity of amending it, but, whichever it is, it is certainly much clearer than the original.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 9 to 12 agreed to.
Clause 13:

COMPULSORY IMPROVEMENT OF DWELLINGS TO PROVIDE STANDARD AMENITIES
Improvement of dwellings: improvement areas Declaration of improvement area
13.—(1) If a local authority are satisfied that any area in their district contains dwellings lacking one or more of the standard amenities and that, of the dwellings in that area which are so lacking, at least one half—

(a) are so constructed that it is practicable to improve them to the full standard, and

(b) will, after they have been improved to the full standard, be in such condition as to be fit for human habitation, and will be likely, subject to normal maintenance, to remain in that condition and available for use as dwellings for a period of not less than fifteen years,

the local authority may cause the area to be defined on a map and may pass a resolution declaring the area so defined to be an improvement area for the purposes of this Part of this Act.
LORD TAYLOR LORD TAYLOR moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "half" and insert "third". The noble Lord said: We are now into Part II of the Bill, and the purpose of this Amendment is to make it a little easier for local

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authorities, when they are drawing up the improvement areas within which the compulsory provisions of the Bill operate, to draw up suitable areas. Originally, the Bill said that one-half of the houses in the area should be capable of being brought up to full standard before the area could be declared an improvement area. Then, for a technical, drafting reason, during the Committee stage in another place the Minister himself introduced an Amendment to make it a quarter. Then he amended it back again, and made it one-half. This rather peculiar series of events led to a lot of discussion in another place, but we thought that the proper place between a quarter and one-half was one-third, and that one-third was a very reasonable figure.
In fact, a local authority can get round whatever figure is put here by simply drawing a different kind of improvement area. If one-half of the houses in it must be capable of being improved, it has merely to draw an area which includes another half which are not capable of being improved, and that is its area. But this may result in its drawing rather arbitrary and stupid areas in order to get the results that everybody desires. The greater the freedom that can be given to a local authority in drawing up an improvement area the better, and I must say that the Minister in another place said that he was greatly impressed with the argument that the local authority should be free, or should have the maximum degree of freedom.
Then he went on to make a lot of argument about the waste of resources—at least, I think it was on this occasion that he was doubtful about waste of resources—by including a lot of houses in an improvement area which could not be or were not going to be improved. That does not really arise, because the improvement area can be adjusted to any size of area the local authority cares to draw. This is really a matter of flexibility. I hope that the Government will accept this Amendment which seems to me to be reasonable and harmless.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 13, leave out ("half") and insert ("third").—(Lord Taylor.)
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Lord's Amendment would, at first appearance,
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seem to be reasonable, but I think I shall prove in the course of my remarks that it is not quite as harmless as it looks. I am not suggesting, of course, that the noble Lord wishes it to be harmful; but its effects might not be quite what we wish to see. I hope the noble Lord will agree with me. There was a lot of discussion in another place and there was a change of figures—perhaps the thing had not been fully worked-out and all its implications realised at that time. But the stipulation that at least one-half of the dwellings lacking amenities shoud be capable of being improved to full standard was introduced for quite a limited and particular purpose. But it has led to this sort of discussion and Amendments of this kind.
It was really the local authorities' associations who suggested that compulsory improvement to a reduced standard should be inserted in the Bill. It was not suggested in the Government White Paper on Housing which foreshadowed this Bill. We talked only about compulsory improvement to the full standard. The local authorities pointed out that in some areas which are quite reasonable and where you can bring about these full standard improvements there would be a few scattered dwellings which were jammed in an awkward angle between roads, or one or two that were much smaller and too cramped to be improved to the full standard. It was therefore reasonable, rather than leaving some houses entirely unimproved cheek by jowl with those improved to the full standard, that they should at least have a minimum of some form of improvement. That is how the reduced standard came into the Bill—in order to satisfy this very reasonable argument of the local authorities.
At the same time, it has always been the intention of my right honourable friend to issue administrative advice to the local authorities that they should keep the proportion of such dwellings in an improvement area down to an absolute minimum. The noble Lord talked about flexibility. Certainly we need flexibility; but there can be some very different situations. I should like to sketch one or two. Shall we take, for example, an area where there are 100 houses, none of which has been previously improved? One would expect

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in such an area that it would be reasonable to say that at least 80 per cent., or even 90 per cent., must be improved to the full standard; because it would be rather ridiculous to plan an area where out of 100 houses only 50 were improved to the full standard and 50 to a much lower standard. It is not quite the idea that we have of priorities or what we are aiming at in designating improvement areas.
On the other hand, if, of those 100 dwellings in a similar area, 80 had already been improved, that would leave only 20 to be improved. Therefore if we take only half as the figure that are improvable to the full standard we are left with only 9 which are to the reduced standard; and 9 out of 100 is not a very large amount. But if you apply the standard of 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. to all areas, then you might well not have the flexibility which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, suggests is desirable in all cases.
LORD TAYLOR: May I interrupt? The noble Lord has got me a little fogged, because in this clause I did not see anything about reduced standard. This is only a decision about whether an area shall be an improvement area and not the degree of improvement to which these houses shall be subjected. As I read the clause, it said that at least half of the houses must be capable of being improved to the full standard; but it said nothing about the reduced standard. Is that correct?
LORD HASTINGS: It comes in indirectly. If they cannot be improved to the full standard the assumption is that the others cannot be improved at all or will be improved to a reduced standard. It does not have to be written into the Bill for that conclusion to be reached. But there must be at least half of the houses which are improvable to the full standard. The reascn for this is that we are aiming primarily at designating areas which are substantially well-built, well-constructed and eminently improvable, which will last at least fifteen years and perhaps a good deal longer. If we reduce the qualifying numbers, so to speak, and rather encourage the local authorities to declare areas where only 25 per cent. of the houses can have the full five-point standard and the others are all of lower standard, then really we are spending a
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lot of money on areas which are bordering on what we should call "twilight areas". This is a question of priority. We want to get the two million or so houses of this kind which we believe exist up to the full five point standard—and better, if we can, with discretionary grants as well.
With that job ahead, and all the new building that has to be done, we feel it would be rather wasting effort and money to declare compulsory improvement areas in places which should be coming up for redevelopment at the end of a decade or so. That will have some reference to a later Amendment about the time factor that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and noble Lords opposite generally, are submitting. On this particular point, we feel that we want to concentrate our efforts on areas which are reasonably worth while improving because at least half the houses are already good.
We have to remember that when the local authorities designate an improvement area they will be thinking in terms of general environmental improvement, of streets, open spaces, parking lots and of the Clean Air Act; and they will be spending a good deal of money on these things themselves as well as compelling people to improve houses. We feel that that would not be justified if there were not a reasonable number of houses which could be improved to full standard. Therefore we think that to go below half is, in the circumstances, not necessary. Because, in the first place, we could find plenty of areas which conform to that qualifying proportion. Also, it would be undesirable generally to go below this level. I hope I have explained the matter sufficiently clearly for the noble Lord, on second thoughts, to agree with my argument.
LORD SILKIN: This is largely an administrative question. It seems to me, while giving full weight to what the noble Lord has said, in so far as I have been able to understand him, the fact remains that if we leave the proportion at one-half we shall be encouraging local authorities to declare much smaller areas than they otherwise would. In order to deal with a large area, as they might wish to, they might find it difficult to reach the figure of one-half. Therefore they would be forced

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to divide it up into a number of smaller areas and deal with them piecemeal, which would be both undesirable and uneconomic. It was for that reason that we thought we would make it easier for local authorities to deal with a comprehensive area by reducing the qualification to one-third. It is largely a matter of administration, and I should have thought it was a matter upon which the local authorities themselves would be the best guide.
I do not know whether they have been consulted about this alternative of one-half or one-third, but I imagine that if they were they would all plump for one-third. I suggest that it might be possible, between now and Report stage, to consult them and see what they think about it. There is no political or ideological difference in this matter. It is purely administrative.
LORD HASTINGS: I did explain that local authorities had suggested that they could compel people to improve only to a reduced standard because they did not want to leave some houses out altogether, but I do not think they ever had in mind the bulk improvement of houses which cannot be improved to the full five-point standard of amenities. We feel, on the whole, that while they may declare areas as large or as small as they want—because it may be convenient to take blocks or terraces, as the case may be, it is better to give a firm lead here, to indicate what we are aiming at and the sense of priority we feel necessary. It seems to me, in view of all the difficulties, that a half is the right proportion, and that it is better to come down firmly on that than to have too much variation from one part of the country to another.
LORD TAYLOR: I think that the noble Lord and I are approaching this matter from different angles. We are thinking that the remaining half or two-thirds, as the case may be, might be houses which did not need improving at all, or were relatively good. It was a question of drawing convenient areas for precisely what the noble Lord mentioned—general improvement, smoke abatement and so on—and it was a shame to force a certain rigid pattern upon local authorities because they would have to mop up half and not exceed half in the total area they
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declare. That was why we thought it was a better thing, not because we anticipated any difference in the number of houses improved, but merely to give local authorities greater discretion in what they are doing. That is why we still hope that the noble Lord will take another look at this and see whether one-third will give them greater flexibility, without prejudices the position with regard to the generality of housing improvement.
LORD HASTINGS: It may not be immediately apparent, but I am sure that, on second thoughts, noble Lords will realise that we are not counting in the houses mentioned those which are already improved and of a good standard. The Bill refers only to one-half of the remaining houses which lack standard amenities, as is stated in Clause 13. On the whole, I think that I must stand on this point. If we thought about it again and came to any different conclusion, I would let the noble Lord know, but I cannot give him any undertaking on this matter.
LORD TAYLOR: I am grateful to the noble Lord for pointing out the slip in the opening. I see his point, but I still think that, on balance, ours is probably the better one.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
4.45 p.m.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES had given Notice of several Amendments relating to improvements, of which the first was, in subsection 6(a), after "if" to insert "(i)". The noble Lord said: Amendments No. 13A and 13B, 13E and 13D, 15A, 20A and 20B, 21A and 21B, 22A and 22B and 35A should be read together, because they all seek to accomplish the same purpose. So far as I can ascertain, they cover all the clauses which will be affected by any decision of this kind, although I should not like to give a guarantee that I have found them all. And perhaps I should mention, in passing, that Amendment No. 15A refers to Clause 17 and not Clause 18.
I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said about the origin of improvement to the reduced standard. Perhaps it would be helpful if I reminded your Lordships that, in the terms of Clause 39, the full standard of

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improvement includes seven items. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said there was a five-point standard—
LORD HASTINGS: It used to be a five-point standard. In this Bill hot and cold water supplies have been put in separately, but they were previously included with the bath and sink.
LORD HUGHES: The full standard is
"…(a) a fixed bath or shower, which … is to be in a bathroom;
(b) a wash-hand basin;
(c) a hot and cold water supply at a fixed bath or shower, which, if reasonably practicable, is to be in a bathroom;
(d) a hot and cold water supply at a wash-hand basin;
(e) a hot and cold water supply at a sink;
(f) a water closet; and
(g) satisfactory facilities for storing food."
The reduced standard is only the last three of these items.
In another place there was a good deal of discussion on the merits of the insertion of a fifteen-year period. The Ministers did not claim that there was any magic in the period of fifteen years: they admitted that it was an arbitrary period. Some period had to be selected and it was felt, having regard to the cost of doing the improvements to full standard, to the work involved and the calls on available labour, that that might be a fair period. The Ministers pointed out that there might be a greater demand on labour than could possibly be met, and that there was an obligation to ensure that that labour would be used to the best advantage, so that a period should be fixed which gave some guarantee of producing results and of making the best use of the limited amount of labour. That argument I accept as being valid.
I find it interesting that this should be mentioned on this Bill, having regard to what a former Prime Minister was saying yesterday in relation to the ability, or otherwise, in 1951 to build more than 200,000 houses. One of the things which was very much in the minds of my right honourable and noble friends at that time was that the ability to build a great number of houses in the preceding year was very much affected by the fact that a percentage of the available labour was being used on the repairing and rebuilding of houses which had suffered war damage,
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with a consequent reduction in the number of new houses that could be built. The same argument is being advanced on this Bill, that the more of the available building labour force that is devoted to improving houses, the less there is available for building new houses, and there must be some rational allocation of labour as between these two different aspects of housing need. That argument I accept in its entirety.
I submit to your Lordships, however, that if it is reasonable to accept a period of fifteen years as being the minimum life for a house which is to have all of the standard amenities provided, it is reasonable to suggest a lower period for houses which are going only to be improved to about a bare minimum to make them reasonably fit for human habitation—a hot and cold water supply at the kitchen sink, a water closet and satisfactory facilities for storing food. One of the arguments advanced in another place for reducing the standard to ten years was that, if the period of fifteen years remained in, there were going to be numbers of families in some areas—and in others there might only be a few—who, because of the fixing of the limit at the period of fifteen years, would be compelled to continue to inhabit houses which were the worst houses in the area, for periods of upwards of ten years or even of fifteen years. Members in another place drew attention to the fact that some of the houses to which closing orders had been applied had been occupied for the past twenty years, and were still so occupied.
If we take the grants provided as being some guide to the cost of doing these alterations, we see that the amounts allowed for these three items contributing to the reduced standard are less than half of the total. So from a financial point of view—and I must admit straight away that the Minister in another place pointed out that he did not consider the financial aspect was by any means the most important; but it is not one that can be completely disregarded—having regard to the fact that the grants, and presumably the cost of improving a house to the reduced standard, would be somewhat less than the cost of improving it to the full standard, it would be reasonable to say that economically a figure of ten years for that reduced standard was nearly

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as good as a figure of fifteen years for the cost of improving to the full standard.
However, like the Minister, I am not concerned primarily with the financial aspect of it. What I am concerned about is that we should seek to reduce to the absolute minimum the number of people living in houses which are the worst in an improvement area, and for which, because of the need for making a selection, nothing at all is being done. These people are being subjected to the most trying living conditions imaginable, and it seems to me—and I am sure it must make the same impression on your Lordships—that it must aggravate their problems if they see round about them improvements being carried out to houses next door, houses on the other side of the street and houses in the adjoining street, which are already better than their own houses for which nothing is being done.
I accept that, even if my Amendments are agreed to by the Government, there will still be houses in that category, because there will be houses which, for example, are so structurally unsound or so damp that it would be a complete waste of money to spend anything on them in the way of improvement, whether to the full or to the reduced standard. But if a house is to be improved even to the reduced standard, it is accepted that it is structurally suitable for such a conversion. Neither the fifteen years' period nor the ten years' period in any way affects the quality of the house which is to be adapted.
In view of the fact that the three Ministers in another place (the Minister of Housing and Local Government, his Under-Secretary and the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland) who were dealing with the Bill all admitted that they claimed no magic attaching to the figure of fifteen years, but they thought, having regard to all the balances, it was preferable to accept the figure of ten years which my honourable and right honourable friends in another place suggested, I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, on this occasion —although he has been quite immovable in regard to all the Amendments going before, even though he has been so friendly in his implacability—to indicate the Government's willingness to
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accept or to have a look at this proposal, even though he does it in an unfriendly fashion. Quite frankly, I would much rather be accepted with animosity than rejected with kindness.
I would suggest to your Lordships that, in this proposal, I have at least submitted to the Government a case for re-examination, because I think that if they will do this they will bring a great deal of hope to many people who do not see themselves as having any prospect of getting a new house within the next decade, and obviously the next best thing to a loaf of bread is half a loaf of bread. I suggest to your Lordships that this series of Amendments which I have put forward gives that measure of additional hope to those whose housing conditions are amongst the poorest in the land. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 16, after ("if") insert ("(i)"). —(Lord Hughes.)
LORD HASTINGS: There has, it is true, been a lot of discussion about this in another place, but I am still a little surprised at the particular wording of this Amendment and the way in which the noble Lord has presented it, for the following reasons. The first is that he has left in that, where houses can be improved to the full standard, they must be quite definitely worthy houses which will last at least fifteen years. If we accepted the Amendment, the result would be that at the end of ten years, designated improvement areas, which at one time looked very nice and done up well in every corner and all the streets and terraces, would suddenly have a lot of gaps starting to appear, because at the end of that time, according to the noble Lord, the houses would not be lasting longer than that and they might well be demolished, and you would begin to get a sort of patchwork in your compulsory improvement areas, because they would really be improved to the reduced standard. These would be scattered about and could then be demolished as unfit.
LORD HUGHES: Perhaps I could intervene for a moment. If I understood what the noble Lord said in reply to my noble friend Lord Taylor, the other half of the houses, or the lower

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figure, as the case may be, were not fit houses, but houses so bad that they were not capable of improvement to the full or the reduced standard; there would be some element of houses to which nothing was being done at all. So presumably these houses even in the improvement area are going to be demolished at some time during the fifteen years period, in any event. So whether the number of houses to be demolished are to be the worst lot only, or the worst lot and the second lot, seems to me to be beside the point.
LORD HASTINGS: That really brings me on to the big point the noble Lord was making, in talking about compelling people to inhabit houses which could be improved only to the reduced standard for fifteen years, instead of ten years. It seems to me that his whole supposition is based on the fact that the houses are going to be so mixed up that in a compulsory improvement area you will have houses which will last for fifteen years, or perhaps many years more, and yet quite a number will in any case have to be demolished in less than ten years.
Then we come to the question of priorities. We do not think that what the noble Lord fears will happen. The area will be chiefly well constructed and, therefore, worth improvement as a whole. Yet some of the houses that will last perfectly well for fifteen years are in a cramped condition, and it is impossible, for one reason or another, to build in all of them the full standard amenities. That can be done with only a few. We do not consider that these areas are going to be "twilight" areas. It seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, had in mind "twilight" areas, which require development between slum clearance and full standard improvement. Those are areas which we know must be demolished and completely redeveloped. But that is not the Government's first priority. Our priorities are to clear the slums; to keep up with the increase of population as regards new houses, and to improve the better houses before they become less good. Those are the priorities.
Therefore, it is not really a question of accepting reduced standards in houses which would otherwise be called unfit or at best "twilight". It is only reduceing
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standards to the three points, instead of the five (or, as I call them, the seven points) in the Bill, on the grounds that there simply is physically not room to put in all the standard amenities. So I think we are talking about different areas, and it is not a question of compelling unfortunate people to live in houses which are not fit at all, but which might be made quite reasonable with the addition of the standard amenities, even below three points, because in the main they are going to be in an area which has been compulsorily designated, and the majority will be improved to the full standard. There will also, of course, be environmental improvement.
Local authorities are not going to embark on that in respect of an area which is due for redevelopment at the end of ten years and classed as a "twilight" area. Therefore, I think the argument of the noble Lord is not very realistic, because I do not think that is the sort of situation we are going to run up against. Perhaps I should have said at the beginning that the first Amendment which the noble Lord moved comes under a subsection dealing with Scotland, but as it is a general point throughout the whole Bill I am replying on behalf of my noble friend Lord Craigton. In respect of tenements, again we have the awkward situation in which, at the end of ten years, some tenements down to the reduced standard would be considered habitable for only ten years, and other people on a different floor would be in premises habitable for the full standard of fifteen. I do not know how you are going to demolish one fiat in a building and not the others; it does not seem quite logical. But that is not an important point. I am pointing out the rather anomalous positions that can arise.
When we turn to the economic aspect, again we want to get the best value for money—talking of the national purse, so to speak, because this money is coming out of the Exchequer and the local authority's purse in the form of public expenditure and grants. We must therefore keep our priorities right. We feel that we cannot undertake any more from the point of view of expense and labour availability, and that we should be wasting our resources in both senses if we reduced this qualifying standard for the

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reduced standard of amenities to ten years. Financially speaking, of course, one has to remember the other partner in this, who is the landlord. We are not now dealing with bad landlords, as we shall under Part IV, but with reasonable landlords, who will be persuaded, often voluntarily, to improve their dwellings. If they do not, then they will be compelled to do so. But there is no question of chasing them or harrying them. They are perfectly respectable people who, for one reason or another, have not yet improved their buildings which they have let. Therefore, one has fairly to state the landord's case.
We must consider the fact that, with the present permitted rent increase of 12½ per cent., will take this type of landlord more than ten years to recoup his share of the cost of the works. In fact, we reckon it will take him twelve years. Therefore, he would actually be out of pocket if we reduced this even on the lowest standard to ten years. For all these reasons, we believe it would not be a good thing, and that it is not necessary to accept the noble Lord's Amendment, and I hope he will believe that my explanation has been genuine. I am sorry that I have not been a bit ruder, which apparently he would have liked rather better.
5.6 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: I am sorry the noble Lord has said what he has, particularly as I did not understand a great deal of it. He succeeded, obviously to his own satisfaction, in rebutting my arguments. A good many of the suggestions he attributed to me I did not make. I was not concerned with "twilight" areas. It may be that we are arriving at different conclusions because we each have a degree of ignorance of part of the problem. I must admit that I am not particularly familiar with the slums and poor houses in England and Wales. I am knowledgeable of those in Scotland. I would submit that by what the noble Lord has said, he has made it equally clear that he would disclaim any knowledge of housing conditions in Scotland, because the conditions he envisaged as not being possible are the very conditions which exist throughout the Scottish cities.
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It is because of the existence of these conditions that it was necessary to put subsection (6) into this clause applying to Scotland a reference both to improvement to the full standard and improvement to the reduced standard, whereas in England and Wales there is only to be a reference to improvement to the full standard. The fact is that in Scotland you can have a street consisting of unbroken lines of tenements, one of which is in the ownership of one individual or company and which might be much better than an adjoining tenement, and the one beyond that may be better or worse. If you are unable to deal with the ones which are capable of improvement to the full standard, the Bill as it stands would be completely unworkable in Scotland, because you would have a street of 300 houses comprising fifty tenements, and you would have to make perhaps thirty different improvement orders in order to accomplish your purpose. But by making improvements to the full or to the reduced standard you can bring into one area the whole of the houses comprising that line of tenements. For that reason, it may well be that a different form of treatment is required for the Scottish problem than for the English.
This pinpoints most clearly how necessary it was for the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, to apologise for this Bill's being both a Scottish and an English Bill, because it is attempting to deal in one measure with conditions which are so different in the two countries. But even allowing for the difference, I cannot believe that there would not be advantage in permitting the improvement within the limits laid down by the Ministers for making the best use of labour—of allowing a minority—because it must, for the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has stated and which I accept, inevitably be a minority of the total houses. I think it is wrong to suggest that these houses are not capable of improvement on the estimate which the local authority is making—and everyone concerned has made it abundantly clear that the local authority must make an estimate as to the possible life of the building. They may estimate that a building has a life of fifteen years, and then find at the end of ten years that their estimate was wrong; or they

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might estimate that a house had a life of only ten years and find, twenty years later, that it was still there. But having regard to the fact that the local authority are making the best estimate possible, I still think there is a good case—in my opinion an overwhelming case—for permitting that small proportion of the total number, whose houses, for whatever reason, cannot be improved to the full standard, because there is no guaranteed life of fifteen years, to get that benefit if the houses could have a life of only ten years.
What, in my opinion, would have been the most telling argument against my proposal was the first one which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, started to advance. But it was untenable for the simple reason that in the area there would already be houses which were to be abolished within the period because they were not capable of being improved to the full or the reduced standard. That being accepted, as I think he did accept, then what, to my mind, was the only valid argument against my proposal was withdrawn. In these circumstances, I must say that the impression I had is that the noble Lord is adhering to the Bill as it stands because it would appear that he wishes to carry his bat to the end of the innings. That does not seem to me to be serving a useful purpose at all.
I think I made it perfectly clear when I spoke on Second Reading that I have no great opinion of this Bill. I did not seek to move any Amendments to Part I of the Bill because, quite frankly, I think that so far as Scotland is concerned Part I will be a dead letter. I am not prepared to say that no houses will be built in Scotland under Part I; I believe that some houses will be built. But it will be so small a number that they will make little or no contribution to the solution of the problem. I think that Part II of the Bill is another kettle of fish altogether. It can be made to make a helpful contribution to those who are in the worst housing conditions. Accepting that position, I felt myself under an obligation, as my noble friends have done, if I saw ways of making the Bill more capable of serving that purpose, to put forward Amendments to that end. Having regard to all this I still hope that the Government will consider accepting this Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS: I will say, very briefly, that of course there is nothing to prevent the local authorities from demolishing those buildings about which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is talking. Our argument is that if they are going to be demolished within the forseeable future—say, up to ten years—then they should not have money spent on them on improvements. That is all it amounts to. Therefore, I am afraid to say that we do not see our way to accepting this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clause 16:
Immediate Improvement notices
16.—(1) If when the improvement notice is served on the person having control of the dwelling the local authority have received from the person who is then the tenant occupying the dwelling his consent to the improvement of the dwelling to the standard provided in the preliminary notice, the local authority shall in the improvement notice require the person having control of the dwelling to carry out the works specified in the improvement notice within twelve months (or such other period as may be prescribed) from the date when the improvement notice becomes operative or such longer period as the local authority by permission given in writing may from time to time allow.
5.15 p.m.
LORD SILKINmoved, in subsection (1), to leave out "twelve" and insert "six" [months]. The noble Lord said: This Amendment is one of a series of Amendments all having the same object. In fact, I might have moved a similiar Amendment to Clause 15, but I have not done so because I am hoping, perhaps vainly, because the noble Lord has shown no signs of being at all flexible about this Bill, that he might be prepared to look at all these times again. On the occasion of the Second Reading I pointed out that the machinery of this Bill was so complicated and so lengthy that it might well take five years before anything happened. The noble Lord contradicted me and said three years.
I think my five years is right, and I could, if need be, prove that it is right, allowing for the fact that there are appeals possible to the county court and

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appeals from the decision of the country court afterwards. But I will not trouble the Committee to establish the point. I should be quite content to say that it is going to be very slow. Even the noble Lord himself admitted to three years, and I should be prepared to base my argument on three years. But it is very slow, and is too long when one has regard to the condition of these houses, many of which possess none of the amenities which are regarded as essential, and which are going to have a short life in any case.
I was looking at the various provisions to see whether any of the steps that are required could be omitted. That would be one way of curtailing the period. On the whole, I should not be prepared to recommend that any steps should be omitted, but I think that all the periods which are given in the Bill could be curtailed. Let me take the one under Clause 15, which we have passed, but which I think is material. It says, first of all, that when the local authority are determined upon dealing with a particular area they notify the people concerned and take into consideration the representations they make. Having considered these, the local authority have two years from the time after the proposals have been discussed before they take further action, hoping, I suppose, that in the meantime the owners will be doing something voluntarily; but there is no obligation on them to do so.
There may be different arguments as regards each of these clauses, but in the clause with which I am dealing, Clause 16, after the improvement notice has been served—at the end of the two years or such longer period as may be allowed —the local authority serves a notice on the person who has control of the premises, who then has another twelve months or such longer period as may be permitted in order to deal with the matter. This is not the end of the position, because if he does not deal with the matter he gets another notice under Clause 17. While I am not at this stage objecting to the various steps, I think that these periods of two years, twelve months, twelve months, and then under Clause 19 another twelve months and under Clause 21 another twelve months, could be curtailed.
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I do not want to argue this matter in detail, because I see the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, is getting very impatient and wants to talk about police. I shall be quite content if the noble Lord will promise me that he will look at the whole question once more and see whether these periods can be cut down, so that once it is decided that an area should be dealt with it can be dealt with within a reasonable time and the tenants have some hope that these various amenities will be provided for them within, say, a couple of years. I would suggest that is not an unreasonable aspiration. This Bill says, "Twelve months—two years—or such longer period"—it could be longer. If the objective could be two years from the time when the local authority decided to define an area to the time when some action was taken, that would be satisfactory, and the noble Lord could distribute that period among the various steps as he pleases. If the noble Lord is prepared to accept that suggestion I will not proceed with these Amendments, and shall be very glad to withdraw them pending the Report stage. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 26, leave out ("twelve") and insert ("six").—(Lord Silkin.)
LORD HASTINGS: I can assure the noble Lord that I share his sense of almost frustration about this matter. One wants, obviously, to get on as quickly as possible, and it is not due to any laggard feelings on the part of my right honourable friend or myself or the Ministry of Housing that these periods have been put in. We realise that they represent rather a shot in the dark; they are experimental, and it is for that reason we have put into the Bill in brackets (and here the noble Lord was not quite right; it is not "or such longer period") "or such other period as may be prescribed".
LORD SILKIN: I did not overlook that; but when you say in the Bill "twelve months", you must have some very special reason for making it shorter. if you say "twelve months" in the Bill it will be twelve months or such longer period. Otherwise, why not put in "shorter period"?
LORD HASTINGS: It seems better to give more time than is necessary in the

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first place, rather than involve the local authority in having continually to give extensions of the time for carrying out work. They would be able to do this, but it means a lot more paper work and nuisance for them. We would rather be on the generous side than on the mean side in respect of time.
Going back to Clause 15 for a moment, and the two-year period after designation of an area in which an improvement notice must be served, I would point out that if the local authority were to serve them all at the same time, all over its area, people would have to finish the job of improvements all at the same time all over the area. It stands to reason that the general improvement throughout the whole area, assuming there are several individual areas where this sort of thing can be done, must be staggered. It is a question of the building labour available. Even in respect of one area it is not always easy to get the builders to finish a job within six months. You have to queue up.
We are not wedded to the period of twelve months in all these cases, or the original two years, but we feel it is better to give a reasonable time—on the generous side—so as not to worry the local authority unduly, but to leave a power to prescribe a shorter period if we find, in the light of experience after a year or two, that these matters can be done in half or three quarters of the time. I hope the noble Lord will be willing to leave it at that. I can look at the matter again, but I do not think there is time to consult local authorities, and all that sort of thing, to see what they think. They have probably been consulted—I am not quite sure, but I think almost certainly—and have come to the conclusion that this is the better way to approach matters.
LORD SILKIN: I am sure the noble Lord is wrong. This period of twelve months in Clause 16, is not the period in which work is required to be done; it is merely the period in which somebody is making up his mind for a notice to be served: that is all. I cannot, for the life of me, see why that period should not be curtailed. I think each case should be looked at on its merits. The noble Lord might have something in his favour if we were talking about the period in which the work was required
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to be done. But these periods are not that; they are pure machinery, matters of giving notice and people replying to notice, and all this time is wasted before anyone attempts to do any work.
I think that if the noble Lord is serious about this Bill he will be well advised to have another look at these periods, and if he comes back and tells us he cannot see how some could be curtailed but he is prepared to curtail others, that will be reasonable. But to say outright that he cannot do anything is just stonewalling. I am sure he would not wish to do that.
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Lord has made a slight error. Clause 16 says quite definitely that
"the local authority shall in the improvement notice require the person having control of the dwelling to carry out the works specified in the improvement notice within twelve months".
I think there are five of these similar Amendments for a reduction of time from twelve to six months. There is one case where it is not a question of carrying out work; that is where after the five-year period the local authority can serve a final improvement notice within twelve months. That is the only one which does not deal with carrying out the work, and there might be a different argument in respect of that.
I am informed that the local authority associations were consulted and thought that the two-year period in Clause 15 and the twelve months period for doing the work were reasonable; that has been accepted by them. I hope the noble Lord will agree with me. We can shorten this period if necessary, but it is really rather easier to do that under Ministerial direction than it is to cause the local authorities continually to have to give extensions.
LORD HUGHES: With regard to the words in brackets—" or such other period as may be prescribed"—I take it the person doing the prescribing would be the Minister.
LORD HASTINGS: That is right.
LORD SILKIN: I am very disappointed that this is a matter which the noble Lord is not even prepared to recommend should be looked into. He admits it is very frustrating. He admits it may take years before the

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work can be carried out. But he is not even prepared to consider seeing whether these periods can be shortened. That gives one an indication how seriously the Government are looking at this Bill. I will not press the matter any further. If the noble Lord is prepared to stand on that, I will come back on Report. I am very disappointed indeed.
LORD TAYLOR: Perhaps we were at fault in not putting down the Amendment to Clause 15 to which my noble friend Lord Silkin referred, because I think that is the more serious one—where the local authority has the delay of two years. Would the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, be prepared to look at that point, in particular?
LORD HASTINGS: Of course I am going to consider and discuss all these matters. I did not want to give the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, an undertaking in terms that he might expect that we should give any different answer. I think I have given all the argument and the answers. Now I know that the local authority associations have been consulted, I do not think it is likely that there will be any reason why we should change our minds. However, I will look again at these matters and discuss them further—I have already done so to a great extent; but for the reasons given, I think we shall not be able to improve upon this. I will not say that my mind is completely closed in regard to this matter —it is not at all; it is only that it has been convinced that this is actually the right thing to do.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: The noble Lord says that the local authority associations have been consulted. Does he mean that the local authority associations agree with the Government?
LORD HASTINGS: I did say that they thought the two-year period in the one case and the twelve-month period in the others were reasonable. I cannot say more than that, because I have not the detailed information. But I will inform myself more fully upon it.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Suspended improvement notices]:
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: As has been pointed out, Amendment No. 15A is, in fact, an Amendment to Clause 17 and not, as shown, to Clause 18, so that it should come before Amendment No. 15. Does the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, move Amendment No. 15A?
LORD HUGHES: I am sorry that, after all that explanation, I am going to say that I am not moving this Amendment.
Clause 17 agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS: I think this was the agreed time for my noble friend Lord Derwent to take over with the Police Bill. Therefore, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

POLICE BILL
5.33 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 MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 49:
Investigation of complaints
49.—(1) Where the chief officer of police for any police area receives a complaint from a member of the public against a member of the police force for that area he shall (unless the complaint alleges an offence with which the member of the police force has then been charged) forthwith record the complaint and cause it to be investigated and for that purpose may, and shall if directed by the Secretary of State, request the chief officer of police for any other police area to provide an officer of the police force for that area to carry out the investigation.
(2) A chief officer of police shall comply with any request made to him under subsection (1) of this section.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, to leave out all words after "record the complaint and" in subsection (1), down to the end of the subsection, and to substitute
"refer it for investigation by the Regional Committee of an Independent Board of Inquiry

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(hereafter referred to as the Inquiry Board) constituted for that purpose by the Secretary of State".
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 35, and hope that it will suit your Lordships' convenience if I take with it Amendment No. 36, which seeks to add two more subsections to the clause. I think it is generally agreed that some change is necessary in the present methods which are pursued in investigating complaints made by members of the public against police officers. The Government at least agreed to this, because in Clause 49 they suggest one method whereby, in their view, the present system of inquiry can be improved. Later on my noble friends will be suggesting another method, and in the Amendments which stand in the names of my noble friends and myself we suggest a method which we naturally think is the only one which properly meets the requirements.
We believe that the present method of investigation of complaints against the police is a major cause of the lessening of public confidence in the police, because justice is net seen to be done, and there are far too many cases where it is genuinely felt, rightly or wrongly, that justice has not been done. In our submission, justice cannot be seen to be done, and public confidence cannot be restored, so long as complaints against one police officer are investigated by another police officer. That stumbling block will not be removed by calling in an officer from another police force to do the investigating, as is suggested in this clause. I submit that we need a system of inquiry which is completely fair to both police and public, and in which justice can be seen to be done to both. The system should also be one which will relieve the police of the burden of a great mass of frivolous, malicious, ill-founded and totally unjustifiable complaints. In my submission, the Amendments which I now move satisfy both these essential requirements.
I would ask your Lordships to consider the change, under the Bill as it now stands, from the present procedure. At present, without the Bill, a chief constable has wide discretion. He can, and I hope does, put a great many of the complaints he receives where they
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belong—straight into the wastepaper basket. Nevertheless, at moments, complaints do take up, and to a large extent waste, an inordinate amount of time, particularly the time of fairly senior police officers. For example, on April 27 The Times reported that
"Councillor William Collins, chairman of the Bournemouth Watch Committee, is to make a statement at the next town council meeting about the vast increase recently in the number of complaints about the local police force.
"He is concerned about the amount of time being wasted by senior police officers in investigating frivolous and trivial complaints, and believes that criminals are behind many of them.
"Under recent legislation every complaint has to be looked into by three senior police officers and the chief constable; previously the chief constable could use his own discretion in deciding whether or not to investigate.
"Councillor Collins is expected to press for the restitution of the chief constable's discretion. He said today: 'It is necessary because the situation has now assumed such serious proportions that senior officers are having to work overtime to deal with the complaints. Some of these are fantastically trivial. … While they are investigating complaints, senior officers cannot be fighting crime'. He went on: 'This is fully realised by the criminals who complain, and I am quite sure that this is the motive behind a tremendous number of the complaints.'"
The points that I would underline from that quite authoritative statement are: first, the vast increase in the number of trivial complaints; secondly, the great amount of time wasted by senior police officers; and thirdly, that while they are investigating complaints they cannot be fighting crime. This is the present set-up as conditions are now. Despite Councillor Collins' statement (I am quite sure the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will agree with me), the chief constable has discretion as to how he deals with complaints.
The gravity of the situation becomes even more apparent when one considers the reply given by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, a few days ago. In answer to a Question by my noble friend Lord Willis about the case loads of C.I.D. officers and the amount of their overtime work, Lord Derwent said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 257 (No. 70), cols. 1137–38]:
"In broad terms … the average case load per operational detective in England and Wales in urban forces may be said to be in

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the region of 250 a year. … In the Metropolitan Police the number of complaints of crime investigated by C.I.D. officers on divisional strength in 1963 was 322."
He went on to say that the weekly hours of overtime in provincial forces in England and Wales in the last four months of 1963 were approximately 10½ for chief inspectors, 91 for inspectors, 8 for sergeants. In the Metropolitan Police the figures were: chief inspectors, 17½ hours; inspectors, 20 hours; sergeants, 1500BE; hours; women police sergeants, 10½ hours; constables, 14 hours; and women police constables, 9¾ hours a week. That is overtime, and I do not think my noble friend Lord Willis overstated the situation when he called that an appalling picture, because experts consider (as he said) that 50 cases a year was a fair case load for a C.I.D. officer, compared with the average in the Metropolitan police of 322.
No one imagines that they can possibly do justice to that number of cases. I would ask your Lordships particularly to notice that inspectors in London averaged 20 hours' overtime a week. That means 64 hours every week of the most exacting and responsible work imaginable, and it is inspectors who in most cases would be called on to inquire into complaints against the police. That, I would emphasise, is the dangerous, impossible situation now—even without the changes proposed in this clause.
Last week the Scottish Police Federation held their conference at Callander in Perthshire, and on May 7 The Times carried this report:
"Chief Inspector McCulloch, chairman of the joint central committee of the federation, said 'To-day we are inundated with malicious complaints, most of which are made by accused persons. It has been realised that attack is the best method of defence and any allegation will help to confuse the issue.
"This destruction of the police image is bad enough in itself, but in addition, no matter how frivolous the complaint, it has to be investigated, which takes time and manpower.
"The result is that far too many police officers are engaged in making inquiries about other police officers instead of serving the public in a more useful fashion.'"
Surely the Home Office and the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will accept that evidence from such an authoritative source as Chief Inspector McCulloch, particularly his remarks that they were" inundated with complaints" and that
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"far too many police officers are engaged in making inquiries about other police officers instead of serving the public in a more useful fashion".
I do not think the noble Lord will dispute this expert and informed evidence, from places as far apart and dissimilar as Bournemouth and Glasgow, that the police are over-burdened with the work of investigating these complaints and that they dislike police officers investigating complaints about other police officers. Yet if Clause 49 is not radically amended the position of the police in respect to complaints will be infinitely worse than it is now, and the burden of investigation very much greater, for the chief constable will have no discretion—no convenient wastepaper basket. No matter how many complaints he receives, and however ill-founded they are, he will have a statutory duty, first, to record every one (for it says so in the clause), presumably with full details. Secondly, he will have to investigate every one. If Councillor Collins is correct, that means, in Bournemouth, an investigation by a committee composed of three senior police officers and the chief constable, with the assistance no doubt of junior officers, clerks and typists. Finally, if it appears to be a serious complaint of substance, he may call in an officer from another force—almost certainly one who is already working a 64-hour week—to spend whole days, or perhaps even weeks investigating the complaint.
I submit that that will be the effect of the Government's proposals, and that, we are told, is what the Police Federation want; although, according to Chief Inspector McCulloch, it is not what the Scottish Police Federation want. And I cannot believe anybody else wants it, either. Certainly not any responsible member of the public—because, while heaping fresh and unnecessary burdens onto the police, the Government's proposals do nothing at all to restore public confidence. They still call for investigation of the police by the police. They still want secret inquiries, and they still refuse to allow justice to be seen to be done. In fact, in Clause 49 the Government give us the worst of both worlds, and I say quite candidly that if my Amendments are not accepted I should prefer to leave matters as they are and

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eliminate Clause 49 altogether, rather than heap extra burdens onto the police which do not serve any useful public purpose.
However, if the noble Lord and the Government wish to take a constructive step forward, begin to restore public confidence in this matter and at the same time relieve police of a heavy burden of unnecessary work, then they will accept these Amendments. They would have the effect of limiting the chief constable's responsibility to the mere recording of the complaint and forwarding it to the independent inquiry board which we propose should be set up. He could of course, if he wished, send with the complaint a note for the information of the board, whose chairman, I suggest, should be a lawyer. In most cases that would virtually be the end of the matter, because in my experience, which extends over some twenty years—and I must have seen in that time many thousands of complaint—most of them are untenable, even on the complainant's own statement. Others which were matters of internal discipline within the force would be outside the terms of reference.
This answers the point which is often made that these questions of discipline are always rigorously investigated. Indeed they are. I sometimes think that disciplinary offences in the police force are dealt with very much more harshly, and perhaps with less justice to the offender, than is the case with such offences in the Armed Forces. I am not concerned with complaints of that kind, but solely in relation to complaints by members of the public about the conduct of police officers towards members of the public. The inquiry board, in some cases, would ask for information on certain aspects of a complaint and, if the answer satisfied them, that would be the end of the matter. There would remain a proportionately small number of complaints which required further inquiry, and perhaps the attendance of witnesses at a hearing.
In our view, a properly constituted board would be competent to conduct such an inquiry, and we think that it would be right for the complainant and police officers, if they wished, to be
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legally represented. It surely cannot be disputed that the findings of such an inquiry board would be unhesitatingly accepted by the public and, in my submission, the knowledge that complaints would be subject to such impartial investigation would completely restore public confidence. It would relieve the police of a great burden of unnecessary work, and relieve the force, also, of a small number of very unsatisfactory officers who, because they are wrongly shielded by a mistaken though understandable loyalty, do a great deal of damage to the public image of an otherwise splendid force of men.
It is a matter of great cost and great difficulty for innocent people to prove their innocence in the face of police testimony to the contrary. Three years ago we had the "Kiss in the car" case, in which a young couple were awarded £5,200 damages and costs. The police constable involved remained in the force. A few weeks ago the same police officer, with another, was involved in a case where two plaintiffs were awarded a total of £1,050 damages and costs. A disciplinary board found him guilty of making a false arrest and a false statement—in other words, he committed perjury—but he was allowed to resign from the force, and no word of apology was sent by the police to the decent, respectable men he placed in such jeopardy. In this case they were extremely fortunate in being able to establish their innocence, through the help of a famous pathologist, but other people are not so fortunate. It is humbug to suggest that there are not a few bad policemen, or to deny that they secure the conviction of innocent people, who, once convicted under present arrangements, need a miracle to establish their innocence.
The present set-up is not good enough, either for the police or for the public, but an independent Inquiry Board would put an end to injustices of this kind. If the Government want to end them, now is the chance to do so. I think that the clause as it stands is demonstrably unworkable and useless and will certainly do more harm than good, but the Amendments which we now propose would beneficially transform the clause. They merit, and I trust

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they will receive, your Lordships' support. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 20, leave out lines 20 to 24 and insert ("refer it for investigation by the Regional Committee of an Independent Board of Inquiry (hereafter referred to as the Inquiry Board) constituted for that purpose by the Secretary of State ").—(Lord Stonham.)
5.53 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: We are discussing Amendments Nos. 35 and 36 together, and I think we had better start by seeing exactly what these Amendments do. The intention of these Amendments appears to he to require the Secretary of State to set up an independent Inquiry Board organised in regional committees, whose functions would be to investigate complaints against the police except where the chairman of the Board certified that a complaint was concerned solely with internal discipline, that there was no case to answer, or that the complaint was trivial or frivolous. On completing the investigation the Board would report its findings to the chief officer of police concerned, the police authority and the complainant.
The fundamental objection to any arrangement of this kind was summarised by the Royal Commission in paragraph 478 in this way. They said:
"To go further than this"—
that was, the Royal Commission's own recommendations—
"would in our view be unnecessary and unwise, and might in the end produce much greater dissatisfaction among the public than it would remove. Above all we think that the interests of the public can best be served by resisting any innovation which may weaken the strength and resolve the police in their fight against crime."
Those were the words of the Royal Commission, and the Government share this view, although the Government's own proposals do, in fact, go rather further than those of the Royal Commission to meet the interests of the complainant.
As your Lordships are capable of reading the Bill I am not going through all the procedure for deciding whether a complaint is or is not a serious one. But what has been set down in the Bill is not going to make any additional work for the chief constable. The proposals
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in the Bill—I shall only mention one or two with reference to this point—are these. In future, every complaint received must be at once recorded—that is, put in a book—and it does not necessarily follow, of course, that the chief constable will do it with his own hand. These complaint books must be open for inspection by the Inspectors of Constabulary and the police authority, as part of their duty under Clause 50 to keep themselves informed as to the manner in which complaints are dealt with. So the books are available for inspection.
The only other point as regards the method of handling complaints is this. Under the Bill, the chief constable is responsible for investigating the complaints. That does not in fact mean, of course, that the chief constable rushes round and looks at each complaint himself, but he sends on officer. There may be a big inquiry, or it may be a trivial offence, but the public will then know that, not only the chief constable but two other people, an Inspector of Constabulary and one or more of the police authority, are looking into how these complaints are dealt with. That does not really involve very much extra work.
May I give my principal reasons for resisting this Amendment? First of all—and this is the least important—as drafted it is quite inadequate. The constitution and proceedings of the Inquiry Board would have to be defined in some detail if the arrangement were to be workable. Secondly, the Amendment overlooks the fact that the investigation of a complaint is of the same character as any crime investigation by the police. These inquiries may be spread over a period of time, and the investigating officer in a complicated case may be assisted by one or more officers. Really, it is very difficult to see how the Inquiry Board would have the facilities for undertaking investigations of this kind, unless they were to employ trained police officers—which, of course, would defeat the purpose of the Amendments.
The third reason, which is of the utmost importance, is that investigations into crime—and the complaint may well turn out to be crime before it is finished with—are always treated as confidential. No one can tell at the outset

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of an investigation into a complaint, whether prima facie evidence of a criminal offence will be disclosed. It would introduce a novel and entirely unacceptable principle to have such inquiries conducted by persons appointed to a board constituted by the Secretary of State. Criminal investigations are confidential. Fourthly, it is implicit in the Amendment that the police cannot be trusted to investigate complaints properly and impartially, and the Government, at any rate, do not accept that view. The Government's own proposals are based firmly on the conviction that chief constables can properly be entrusted with these duties. But I would remind your Lordships that they will, of course, be accountable for the manner in which they handle complaints to the police authority, to the Inspectors of Constabulary and, in the last resort, to the Secretary of State. Frankly, I can find no merit at all in these Amendments, and I would ask your Lordships to resist them.
LORD STONHAM: I regard that as a most unsatisfactory reply, first and most importantly because it made no real attempt to answer the case that was made. One or two of the points that the noble Lord made do not really stand up. He just said that the Government do not accept the view that the police cannot be trusted to undertake these investigations impartially. But the Government themselves are implying that there are occasions when a particular police force cannot be trusted to undertake impartially an inquiry into a complaint against a member of that force: otherwise, they would not make provision for a chief constable to call in a member of another police force to make the inquiry. That is the whole crux of the difficulty that we are up against at present in these inquiries into (and this is what it boils down to) a small number of apparently bad cases. That is really what we are concerned with: neither of us is concerned with the great mass of complaints. I could not have put it more clearly: the great mass of complaints is either trivial or without foundation.
The other matter which the noble Lord quite failed to deal with is this. He brushed off the substantial evidence
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that I produced, first of all, of the very great weight of work which is falling on the police now. This was not my evidence: this was the evidence of the police themselves and of the chairman of a watch committee, to the effect that the complaints were building up and causing a great volume of work to fall on the shoulders of senior police officers. It is quite useless for the noble Lord to say that the present Clause 49 does not mean a considerable increase in the volume of work of chief constables. I am, of course, aware that a chief constable cannot personally deal with and record every complaint. The work will devolve on officers to whom he delegates, and presumably only certain very serious matters will be referred to him personally. Nevertheless, the work falls on the Police Force as a whole, some of the senior members of which already are, as the noble Lord himself said last week, working an average of 20 hours' overtime a week.
However, under this clause, a chief constable is not merely obliged to record the complaint: he has to cause it to be investigated, and there may be a direction to him from the Secretary of State about it. It is a very much more complicated process than now applies, and the Government have deliberately introduced it in the hope that it will improve the present situation; otherwise, there is no purpose in it. I have submitted quite clearly that it will not improve the climate of public opinion, because justice will not be seen to be done; and, at the same time, it will throw a considerable extra burden on the police, which I think should be avoided at all costs. I genuinely think the Bill would be better with a clause improved in the manner I have suggested. But, if that cannot be done, then certainly it would be better without this clause at all.
LORD DERWENT: I will repeat only two things. What I cannot accept in any circumstances is that anyone except a police officer should investigate what may well he a crime. That is the first thing. The second thing is that criminal investigations must be confidential. Both these Amendments would prevent either of those things from happening.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
6.4 p.m.
LORD SOMERS LORD SOMERS moved to add to the clause:
"(4) For the purposes of this section the expression 'member of the force' shall be deemed to include a traffic warden."
The noble Lord said: I have heard it said that this Amendment is totally unnecessary, but I am afraid that I cannot look at it like that, and I will try to explain why. The British police forces are among the finest in the world. They have a very high standard of discipline and courtesy to the public, and it is very seldom indeed that any cause of complaint comes against them. Of course, there are exceptions—and, considering the inanity of the behaviour of the public as a whole, I do not think it is very surprising that the patience of the police is sometimes strained beyond breaking point. But in my view the same thing cannot be said of traffic wardens. They have not that tradition behind them, and, being a very new force, they are sometimes a little overzealous in their anxiety to obtain cases. Of course that is exactly and precisely what they have been told to do, and I am not blaming them for that: but they are sometimes a little over-officious in doing so. I think that, considering the respect that we have for the British police, to allow complaints to be made against them but to allow the traffic warden to go scot-free would be totally unjust.
I have a sneaking feeling that my noble friend Lord Derwent is going to say that traffic wardens are not police, and that they do not come under the legislation of this Bill. I can only say that in practice they are, since they make their reports to the local police station; and they are, of course, under the supervision of the police the whole time. I feel most certainly that, in view of the respect which we all have for the police force, this Amendment is only just. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 27. line 29, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Somers.)
LORD AIREDALE: I should like to support this Amendment. I understand that one of the latest Ministerial pronouncements on this matter was made in Committee in another place, when the Minister said that his advice to a person
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in dispute with a traffic warden was to approach either the police authority or the chief constable. I should have thought that was unsatisfactory as being uncertain; and, further, I should have thought that it was somewhat academic, from the point of view of the public, whether the traffic warden was a policeman or a civilian. He is a person in uniform carrying out police duties, so far as the public can see. I should have thought that a member of the public, knowing that if he has a complaint against a police constable he can go to the chief constable, who is under a duty to investigate the matter, was equally entitled to suppose that if he had a complaint against a traffic warden he could similarly go to the chief constable and have his complaint against the traffic warden investigated. I should have thought, also, that it was most unsatisfactory that there was a chance that he might be sent from the police authority to the chief constable, or vice versa, and a danger that neither would investigate the complaint.
Then there is the question of answerability to Parliament. I understand that at any rate the practice has grown up for the Home Secretary to accept responsibility for answering questions in Parliament relating to traffic wardens employed in London, and this, I think, has arisen because the duties of traffic wardens in London have come under the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolitan Area. We know that the employment of traffic wardens is gradually going to extend throughout the provinces, and, for the sake of uniformity, the Home Secretary will presumably wish to answer in Parliament for traffic wardens employed in the provinces as he does for traffic wardens employed in London.
I should have thought the proper means for this to be possible would b3 for the Home Secretary to call on the chief constable concerned to furnish a report under Clause 30 of this Bill. If there is no duty laid upon the chief constable by this Bill to investigate complaints against traffic wardens in his area, the matter is going to be most unsatisfactory. He is going to reply to the Home Secretary, "I was not aware of any duty laid upon me to investigate these complaints against traffic wardens. If it had been

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so, presumably it would have been inserted in the Police Act, 1964. But it is not there". It will be there if the Committee accept this Amendment; and I very much hope they will.
LORD WALERAN: I should like to speak to this Amendment, which is also in my name. As I understand it, a traffic warden is screened, administered, paid and disciplined by the police. He is not a traffic meter attendant engaged by local councils; and I should have thought that the traffic warden would welcome the protection of any case against him being examined by a senior police officer. I understand, after talking to one or two senior police officers, that they are quite happy about this; and I hope that my noble friend will be able to accept the Amendment.
LORD DERWENT: This Amendment would apply the provisions about the investigation of complaints against a member of a police force to complaints against traffic wardens. I would not suggest to my noble friend that his Amendment is unnecessary; I would merely say that I think it is inappropriate. If this Amendment were carried, the effect would be that a chief officer of police would be required to record a complaint against a traffic warden and cause it to be investigated immediately, calling on the help of another chief officer at his discretion, or if so directed by the Secretary of State; and the report of the investigation would then be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions unless it showed conclusively that no criminal offence had been committed.
Really, these provisions are inappropriate to the circumstances in which traffic wardens are employed. They are civilians employed by the police authority; in other words, by the local authority. They do not have the same powers as police officers in relation to members of the public; they have no power of arrest, or power to stop and search; and there is no compelling reason why they should be subject, as policemen are, to a discipline code which specifies a list of offences, lays down formalised arrangements for investigation and prescribes a scale of punishment which may be awarded. That is the case in respect of the police; but no list of offences, procedure for investigation or scale of punishments is laid down in respect of
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traffic wardens. If unsuitable for the job they are in the ordinary way discharged by the police authority.
It is true that traffic wardens act under the direction of the chief officer of police. It is therefore appropriate that the chief officer should investigate complaints against them. But the concept of an elaborate procedure for the investigation of complaints, with the submission of papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions, unless it is clear that no criminal offence has been committed, would be wholly inappropriate to the limited range of a traffic warden's duties and powers.
The remedy available to a person aggrieved by the action of a traffic warden is to complain to his employer, which is the police authority, and not to the chief constable. In respect of complaints, a traffic warden is more akin to other local authority employees than to the police. Complaints are no doubt made from time to time against all kinds of local authority employees who come into contact with the public. Arrangements are made locally for handling these complaints, without any elaborate statutory provision.
The police are in a different position. They are not local authority servants; they have their own discipline code and they have special powers and duties which make it especially important that complaints against them should be properly and adequately dealt with. None of this applies to the traffic warden. He has very limited duties. He is the servant of the local authority, the police authority; and if anyone has a complaint against him the police authority should be notified. Really, to set up this very elaborate and cumbersome procedure (which is suitable for the police) for somebody who really has limited duties seems quite unnecessary. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD AIREDALE: I am much obliged to the Minister for what he has said, but I do not understand why he labours the point about the code of offences to which the police constable but not the traffic warden is subject. I should understand it if this clause which we are discussing had said: "Where a police constable offends against his code

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of offences then there shall be an investigation." It does not say that. It says that where the chief constable receives a complaint from a member of the public against a member of the police, and so on. Why all this tremendous difference between the police constable and the traffic warden? Why bring in the Director of Public Prosecutions? If a complaint is made against a police constable in uniform then, admittedly, there is a possibility under this clause for reference to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Members of the public do not regard traffic wardens in uniform as so very different from police constables; and, although I have no evidence that it has ever happened—and I hope it never will happen—there must be a possibility, or even a probability, in this wicked world that one day there is going to be a pretty serious allegation of bribery against a traffic warden. Why not take this opportunity to have the chief constable required to have the investigation made? Why this complication? Members of the public will have to remember that in the case of a police constable they must go to complain to the chief constable and in the case of a traffic warden they have to go to complain to the police authority. Why introduce this confusion into the mind of the poor man in the street? I implore the Minister to think again about this.
LORD DERWENT: I am surprised to hear the noble Lord say that the public do not think there is much difference between a policeman and a traffic warden. I wonder what would happen if the noble Lord found himself arrested by a traffic warden. The police are a disciplined body with a code of offences and very elaborate procedures to deal with complaints against them. The disciplinary authority for constables is the chief constable. The authority for wardens is the police authority. It is quite a different authority. Complaints must be directed to the employers. It is no good complaining to somebody who does not employ them. To use this elaborate procedure because a member of the public wants to complain about a traffic warden is absurd.
LORD AIREDALE: Will the noble Lord deal with the question of answerability
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to Parliament? Take the case of the traffic warden in the provinces particularly. The Home Secretary will not be able to call for a report from the chief constable under Clause 30 as in the case of a police constable. Upon whom is the Home Secretary going to call for information in the case of the traffic warden?
LORD DERWENT: The traffic warden is in this respect no different from a road sweeper employed by the local authority; and the Secretary of State is not going to answer complaints about a road sweeper.
LORD SOMERS: I must confess that I am very disappointed. I cannot understand the distinction which my noble friend draws. After all, a traffic warden is perfectly capable of disciplining the public. I cannot see why he should not suffer the same discipline in return. Does my noble friend really suggest that it is perfectly feasible to make a complaint against a policeman but not against a traffic warden?
LORD DERWENT: My noble friend is quite wrong. The traffic warden has no power of disciplining the public. He is allowed to put a ticket in a car, and to carry out duties of that kind, but he has no power of disciplining the public. A police officer has that power, but not a car park attendant or warden.
LORD SOMERS: Perhaps we interpret the word "discipline" in slightly different ways. If I have to pay 10s., I consider that I have been disciplined. I am not surprised that my noble friend is not accepting this Amendment—in fact, I should have been surprised if he had done, because it would have been a unique case during the day. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment
LORD WALERAN: As I have my name to this Amendment, before my noble friend withdraws it (because we have no wish to divide the House), may I say that I am not sure that I am at all happy on this point? I am not sure that the Minister did not virtually say that they were an undisciplined mob, because he talked about the police being under a code of discipline
LORD DERWENT: I said that they were a disciplined force.
LORD WALERAN: Are traffic wardens not a force? Perhaps it may be more helpful, if we were to talk this matter over and raise it on some other part of the Bill before Report stage. I am happy to join my noble friend in asking leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.23 p.m.
LORD WILLIS LORD WILLIS moved to add to the clause:
"(4) The Secretary of State shall appoint for each police area a panel of persons not to exceed ten in number composed of such persons as the Home Secretary may deem suitable for the discharge of the functions conferred upon them by subsection (5) of this section, being persons resident in the area and not being members of or employed in any police force.
(5) There shall be furnished to each member of such panel as soon as may be after the end of each month a copy of all entries recording complaints against members of the police force for the area for which such panel is appointed, and any member of such panel shall be entitled to have access to all reports, statements and other documents relating to such complaint whether brought into being before or after such complaint is recorded, including any report thereon furnished to the Secretary of State in relation thereto, and shall furthermore be entitled to be present when any steps are taken in the course of any such investigation into such complaint, and to be present at the hearing of any disciplinary charge arising out of any such complaint, but shall on such occasions as he is present act as an observer only and take no part in any such investigation or at the proceedings during any such hearing, save that he may put any questions to the officer of police conducting such investigation or presiding at such hearing relating to such investigation or hearing.
(6) The members of any such panel may report as to such investigation or hearing direct to the Secretary of State who shall take such report into his consideration but save as aforesaid the members of any such panel shall not disclose to any person other than to members of the panel to which they belong any matters coming to their knowledge concerning any such complaint investigation or hearing in the exercise of their functions under the previous subsections, and save also that before making any such report to the Secretary of State they shall furnish a copy of such report to the officer of police in charge of any such investigation or who presides over the hearing to which the report relates."
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Longford, I beg to move this Amendment. Once again this Amendment raises the key question of the relationship between the public and the police, the basic question which started off the Royal Commission on
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its long trail many years ago. As I said on Second Reading, this Bill is a tremendous improvement and takes us a good way along the road, but I still think that it could go a little further and that the Minister and the Government have been a little half-hearted on this question of complaints. I accept a great number of the arguments the Minister raised in the debate on an earlier Amendment about the need for police inquiries of this kind to he conducted in the normal way, and for them to be confidential, because they may lead to criminal proceedings afterwards, and there is no reason why they should be on a different basis. This Amendment does not interfere with that situation, but suggests that there should be a representative of the public, an observer, sitting at these inquiries or hearings.
I hope that the Minister will not hold me too closely to all the wording of this rather long Amendment. The basic idea is to have in every police area a group of people who will be appointed by reason of their position, knowledge or experience, but will be independent of the police force. One of these people, we suggest, should be entitled to receive from the chief constable notices of complaints by the public, and should then be entitled to sit in, probably at the final hearing—I accept that it is impossible for an observer to trudge around in all the inquiries leading up to a hearing—in the position of an observer. It may be asked: what would this achieve, since this observer could not speak on behalf of the complainant or of the chief constable? I think that it would achieve something important, because it gets round this problem that has been raised in the debates over this Bill. The Bill still retains the old principle (although certain features have been altered) that a member of the public can make a complaint about a policeman to a policeman, and it will be investigated by a policeman and decided by a policeman. This is the objection which many people have to the whole system, and it is largely retained in this new Bill, though I accept that there are various checks up and down the line which would lead to an improvement.
This simple suggestion of having an observer chosen from a serious body of

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people would mean that the chief constable would know that somebody quite independent was sitting there, watching, listening, and knowing whether the inquiry was being conducted on a completely fair and reasonable basis. We must not make idols of chief constables and bow down before them as being perfect men. We have known one or two examples in the last few years of chief constables who have fallen slightly below the very high standard which the vast majority of them accept and maintain. It is in their interests and in the interests of the police generally, and certainly in the interests of the public, that we should have some independent observers at these hearings. That is why I should like the Minister to consider this Amendment very seriously—not necessarily the complete wording, but the spirit of it. If I may borrow from the language of the discussion on housing that preceded this Committee stage, I would ask the Minister: please do not stonewall on this one. As a matter of fact, when I listened to the end of our last debate I thought that, compared to the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, my noble friend Lord Derwent is like Trevor Bailey compared with Denis Compton. I hope that my noble friend will not completely stonewall this ball. He was not willing to accept my noble friend Lord Stonham's lion, but will he accept my lamb?
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 29, at end insert the said subsections.—(Lord Willis.)
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: Before my noble friend does not stonewall, could the noble Lord opposite tell us whether he is seeking not only the safeguards which he is proposing in Amendment No. 38, but also the others in No. 39, to which his name appears?
LORD WILLIS: Yes; I do not think that they are mutually exclusive.
LORD DERWENT: I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I repeat a certain amount of what I have already said and deal at some length with this Amendment, because it is the last opportunity at this stage of the Bill to consider this problem in detail. This Amendment was moved in another place. It would establish in each police area a panel of up to ten persons, living in
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the area and appointed by the Home Secretary, to observe the manner in which the chief constable handles complaints against members of his force. Every member of the panel would be sent a monthly return of all recorded complaints, and would have access to all the case papers relating to each complaint, including any report sent to the Secretary of State. The members of the panel would be entitled to be present during the investigation of any complaint, and also to attend any disciplinary hearing which might arise out of it. They would act only as observers, but would be entitled to put questions to the officer in charge of an investigation or to the presiding officer at a disciplinary hearing. The members of the panel would be able to report direct to the Secretary of State, sending a copy of their report to the officer in charge of any investigation or to the presiding officer at a disciplinary hearing. The Secretary of State would be required to take any such report "into consideration".
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, will not agree with this argument, but it is true that the fundamental objection to any arrangement of this kind is that it implies a lack of confidence in the chief constable as the head of a disciplined force. Indeed, this Amendment extends this lack of confidence to officers appointed to carry out investigations. It goes further than the other Amendments in expressing this lack of confidence. The Bill entrusts the chief constable with the control and direction of his force. He and his subordinates are trusted to act impartially in investigating allegations of criminal offences, and in arriving at a decision on whether or not to prosecute individuals. I am not talking about complaints: that is what chief constables are entrusted to do in the ordinary course of their duty. A body of men trusted to discharge these duties, which affect the good name, and possibly the livelihood, of members of the community ought to be trusted to investigate complaints against members of their service fairly and impartially, subject to the general provisions as to complaints procedure, which are in the Bill.
But, apart from this fundamental objection, the Amendment, which proposes to set up a panel with a very

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vague roving commission, would be likely to have a most disrupting effect on the police. It says nothing about the regulation of the procedure of the panel or about the allocation of cases to its members. But, leaving this on one side, nothing but confusion could result from the proposed statutory right of panel members to intervene at any stage of the investigation of a complaint. Investigating officers would never know when a panel member was going to intervene, and would constantly be diverted from their primary task of getting at the truth by means of a thorough investigation.
There are also (we have had this point before to-day, but I will repeat it) objections of principle to associating an outside person, however carefully selected, with police investigations. The procedure proposed would cover all complaints against police officers, and the investigation might therefore relate to an allegation of crime, in which case it would be of the same nature as any criminal investigation by the police. As I have said before, when an inquiry starts it is not known whether there will be a criminal offence—or not until, perhaps, the investigation is halfway through. It is of fundamental importance that such investigations should be treated as confidential: the whole basis of police inquiries would be undermined if a member of the public were entitled to be present when they were undertaken.
I would remind the noble Lord that the officer whose conduct is complained of will know nothing of the detailed course of the inquiries, except to the extent that he is directly involved: he will not know what is going on in the investigation. The report of the investigation is similarly confidential and, as a matter of principle, ought not to be disclosed. The same consideration applies equally to any report called for by the Secretary of State. It would inhibit candour in reporting if, as the Amendment proposes, a chief constable were obliged to furnish a copy of such a report to an outside person.
Apart from these objections of principle, the proposed procedure would be extremely difficult to work in practice, which perhaps is almost as important. Police investigations consist in part of a search for, and examination
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of, material evidence (it might be a search for bloodstains, and so on; but actual material evidence), and in part of a series of inquiries by the investigating officer of possible witnesses—one investigation, as the noble Lord knows, leading on to another. Statements may be taken from a large number of people; the investigation may be spread over a considerable period of time, and in a complicated case the investigating officer may be assisted by one or more other officers. It would be difficult to afford an observer an opportunity of being present throughout such an investigation, since an investigation follows no predetermined programme and timetable. Moreover, Clause 49(1) requires a complaint to be investigated "forthwith". By the time the panel received their monthly return the investigation might well have been concluded.
Then the presence of an observer would be bound to detract from the authority of the chief officer holding a disciplinary hearing, particularly if, as is proposed, the observer could intervene by asking questions in the course of the proceedings. It would hardly make for good order in a court, for instance, if a specially designated member of the public were to have the right to put questions to the judge whenever he felt like doing so; and although proceedings before a chief constable are not as formal as those of a court, they nevertheless affect the future career, and indeed the livelihood, of the officer appearing before him. It is surely inconsistent to place full responsibility on the chief constable to decide disciplinary cases (subject to appeal to the Secretary of State) and then to proclaim in a Statute, as is now proposed in this Amendment, Parliament's lack of faith in the chief officer to conduct a disciplinary hearing with complete fairness.
I would once again emphasise that the reforms proposed by the Bill, which go beyond the recommendations of the Royal Commission, have been carefully drawn up in such a way as to give what the Government regard as the limit in reassuring public opinion that complaints will be effectively dealt with in future, without, however running risks with the morale of the police. The Amendment appears largely to disregard these new

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constructive reforms and proceeds on the basis of complete distrust of constituted authority in this disciplined service. In my view, this Amendment is wrong in principle, and in practice it is quite unworkable.
6.37 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Willis for moving this Amendment at short notice. I am quite sure that, while he may disagree with much that the Minister has said in reply, he will at least be grateful for the depth and extent with which he has dealt with the Amendment. If I am right, the Minister's main criticism of the Amendment lies in two points. The first is that the Amendment shows a lack of confidence in the police authorities and the duties which they will be required to perform under this Bill. My noble friend Lord Stonham illustrated in his speech that there have been a few cases in which police authorities have been lax, and that proper complaints that have been made, for one reason or another, were not perhaps detected and perhaps, for one reason or another, were not investigated as thoroughly as they should have been, and it was only when another incident occurred that the full story came out.
I think the noble Lord must recognise that there is in the country an unfair criticism and unfair suspicion of the police as whole. I think the Committee will recognise that, so far as the police are concerned, whereas for 99 per cent. of their life they behave impeccably and render great service, for that small fraction of 1 per cent. where they fail, they can well be quite unfairly damned. I am happy to believe that in the future, as the calibre of our chief officers increases, these investigations will take place properly. But what I think the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, must appreciate is that the public have a disquiet, and that one of the best ways of removing that disquiet is to see that (shall I say?) some independent people, unconnected in any way with the police, have some access to what may be going on and can satisfy themselves that within their area the conduct is beyond reproach.
I believe that the principle behind this Amendment, that there should be a panel of ten (it may he a different number,
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and could even be smaller, but ten is the figure we have suggested) independent and respected persons, perhaps of something of the standing of magistrates, to whom these complaints could be sent and for them to be satisfied, is a right one. It may well be that we could find some administrative way of avoiding what the noble Lord certainly implied, because I accept from him that perhaps the system and administration that is recommended here might be cumbersome and unnecessary. But there should surely be some way, so long as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, would agree that there is some advantage in some outside independent and respected body being satisfied as to the conduct of the police and the way in which complaints have been investigated.
I was reminded a few moments ago of the fact that we in Parliament set up committees as watchdogs. Many years ago, away back in history, we know that there was abuse of political honours, and it was felt right that respected Members of Parliament should be on a committee to look at those who were recommended for political honours. This was not done through any lack of confidence in the Prime Minister or other people who might recommend persons for political honours. It was done to satisfy the concern in the public mind as to the manner in which political honours were awarded.
I would suggest that there is in some way a similar position here. There is concern in the public mind as to how complaints against the police are investigated, and because the three individuals mentioned in the Bill are persons very closely connected with the police themselves, and not independent in the strict sense. I think the public would be happier, and I think the police themselves would reflect a better image in the public mind, if this independent body could review the complaints.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, spoke about a judge. Nobody, he said, would say that we should have a committee to decide whether a judge has conducted a case properly. I think that was the point.
LORD DERWENT: No. I do not want to be misunderstood. I referred to just having somebody, a member of the public—mark you, a member of the public, and

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not counsel—interrupting a judge to say what he thought.
LORD SHEPHERD: There is quite a difference, of course, because the judge is not a prosecutor. He is not prosecutor and judge.
LORD DERWENT: This is an investigation; there is no prosecution yet.
LORD SHEPHERD: But the difference here is that in this particular case the chief of police and the inspector are members of the police, and they may well be in the position of being the prosecutor, investigator, and of course, the judge. This is quite different. I think the noble Lord must agree that the persons in the Bill who are called upon to see that these complaints are dealt with satisfactorily may well have to wear two or three different caps at the same time.
LORD STONHAM: Four—defending counsel too.
LORD SHEPHERD: I think that would be unlikely, because the person under complaint would appoint his own defence, his own friend. I think the noble Lord must accept that these three persons may well be in the position of having to prosecute and judge, and the public may feel—
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt. Whom is the noble Lord talking about when he says, "these three persons"?
LORD SHEPHERD: In the case of Clause 49 is it net the chief of police, and in Clause 50 is it not the inspector of constabulary and also the chairman of the watch committee? These are three individuals who are closely connected with the police.
LORD DERWENT: In no circumstances can the chairman of a watch committee initiate a prosecution; nor can an inspector of constabulary.
LORD SHEPHERD: No, but they are all within the same interested organisation, and they may have some question of loyalty involved in their decisions. I hope the noble Lord will bear that in mind. I think the main concern that we have—and I think it is shared outside—is to provide the police with the best possible image, upon which the police depend. I think that image will
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be all the greater if there is no appearance of a closed shop; circumstances in which the public have had complaints being dealt with completely behind closed doors and by the police themselves.
I appreciate much of the case the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, made about administration and the amount of paper which may have to be passed around. But if the noble Lord would agree to consider the question of being able to create a panel (if that is the right word) of outside persons of considerable respectability (if that is the right phrase) to whom complaints could be referred, who could be satisfied (shall we say?) on the final papers, I think my noble friend would not press the question of their attending the inquiry themselves. But at least they should see some written evidence in order to know whether a right conclusion has been arrived at by the authority.
I am quite sure there is some way between the two sides in this matter, and I hope the noble Lord will not close his mind to this point. I think it is of great importance. I am quite sure my noble friend Lord Willis will not press the Amendment as it is now drafted, but if the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, would undertake to consider the case that I have tried to make out, and which my noble friend undoubtedly made out, for putting this little window into this problem, it would be much appreciated.
LORD DERWENT: I must state frankly that my mind is closed on this matter, and I will explain why. I quite see that public opinion has to be reassured, and we have gone as far in that direction as we want to go. I think the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in particular, rather forgets that what this Bill has done is quite new. Nothing can be concealed now. Although he may think that the chief constable and the inspectors of constabulary are too involved, I really cannot accept that the police authority, finding something irregular in the complaint book, and something which has not been properly dealt with, would be so in favour of the police that they would not take action. That is more or less what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said; and I cannot accept it.
When I say that my mind is closed, it is for this reason. We cannot in any

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circumstances accept that a member of the public should be present at police investigations which may well become criminal investigations. It would make the operation of the police quite impossible, and for that reason alone, if not for all the other reasons I have given. I say my mind is closed. I am very sorry that I cannot meet the noble Lord in any way. We have gone as far as we think right. Quite apart from that, we think that if we went any further it
would affect the morale of the police.
LORD WILLIS: I realised earlier on that the noble Lord's mind was closed—I thought I heard the doors crashing together quite early. I regret this, because I think, as my noble friend Lord Shepherd has said, that we should have been prepared to discuss the thing on a different basis. The noble Lord mentioned this question of lack of confidence implicit behind this Amendment. But lack of confidence exists now; this is the problem and this is what the Amendment, and the Police Bill come to that, were designed to try to stop; to try to call a halt to this fading image.
As I said earlier, I accept the fact that considerable steps have been taken which I think will help towards this; but we still have, to use the analogy again, the doors closed at this particular point of contact. The noble Lord used the analogy of the court, and how could we have somebody interrupting a court? I would remind the noble Lord that the court is open to the public; the public can see the operation of the court and they can see what the judge is doing.
LORD DERWENT: I admit that I was perhaps speaking rather without thinking. If it will help the noble Lord I will withdraw my analogy about the court.
LORD WILLIS: I cannot believe that the noble Lord ever speaks without thinking; but it was, in fact, a bad analogy. There is little more to say on this. I commend the Amendment to your Lordships, and I hope that we can go further forward with it.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 49 agreed to.
Clause 50:
Information as to manner of dealing with complaints
50. Every police authority in carrying out their duty with respect to the maintenance of an adequate and efficient police force, and inspectors of constabulary in carrying out their duties with respect to the efficiency of any police force, shall keep themselves informed as to the manner in which complaints from members of the public against members of the force are dealt with by the chief officer of police.
6.52 p.m.
LORD WILLIS LORD WILLIS moved to omit all words after "shall" and to insert instead:
"satisfy themselves that complaints from members of the public against members of the force are satisfactorily dealt with by the chief officer of police."
The noble Lord said: Having abandoned the lion and the lamb we now come to the mouse. This is a very tiny Amendment which is designed, once again, to fit into this general pattern of restoring the relationship between police and public, helping the public to see that justice is visibly being done. Since the police authority is to some extent representative of the public, we are proposing with this Amendment merely one thing, the strengthening of their powers, or a more direct injunction to them.
Once again, I would stress the fact that I do not stand on any individual word in this Amendment. It can be argued that the words "satisfy themselves" are no stronger than "keep themselves informed". But I think it is necessary in this case, since this is a new Bill and it will be going out to police authorities, that they should have a clear idea of their responsibility in this matter; that they should have a clear understanding that there is some public concern in this matter, and that they should therefore take special steps in this area where the police touch the public most nearly, on this question of complaints. I think it would be a good move if the police authority were given stronger direction on this matter through the Bill. It does not reflect any lack of confidence in the police constable, in the carrying out of inquiries or anything of this sort. In the police authority we shall have an interested body of experienced people, of whom one-third will be magistrates, and therefore eminently suitable to the noble Lord. This body could well be entrusted with this job of keeping a special eye on the question

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of complaints; going a little further than keeping themselves informed, and satisfying themselves directly that these investigations are being carried out in a satisfactory way. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 27. line 33, leave out from ("shall") to end of line 41 and insert the said new words. —(Lord Willis.)
LORD DERWENT: This particular Amendment, like the others, but rather more subtly, strikes at the root of the principle which I am trying to maintain: that the chief officer of police should he responsible for handling complaints. For how could a police authority satisfy themselves that a complaint had been satisfactorily dealt with unless the authority were to have a right to call for the case papers, including confidential documents such as crime reports, and even summon witnesses so as to form their own estimate of their credibility?
LORD STONHAM: Will the noble Lord explain how they are going to keep themselves informed as the clause now stands?
LORD DERWENT: They are going to keep themselves informed that complaints have been dealt with in a proper manner.
LORD STONHAM: How?
LORD DERWENT: They have to keep themselves informed, under the Bill, of the manner in which a chief officer of police deals with complaints. What the Amendment seeks to do is to see that he satisfactorily deals with complaints. How can they tell whether he deals with complaints in a way that is satisfactory unless they call for case papers including (and this is the point) confidential documents, such as crime reports, and even summon witnesses? How can they know without doing that? Such a procedure would be tantamount to reopening the case after a chief constable had dealt with it. That would mean putting the officer complained of at risk twice. It is one thing to say that the police authority are to keep themselves informed as to how a complaint has been dealt with; that if they are not satisfied then there are various steps they can take. But to put it in the Statute that they have to
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satisfy themselves that it has been dealt with satisfactorily, is going too far, because it is asking them to do something they cannot really do. It is not possible for them, without, as I say, calling witnesses and so on; and that means putting the officer complained of at risk twice.
LORD AIREDALE: I have never heard anything so unsatisfactory in my life. The clause says:
"The police authority shall keep themselves informed as to the manner in which complaints are dealt with by the chief officer of police —"
so that in the unlikely event of the chief constable dealing with complaints in a thoroughly lax and unsatisfactory manner, if the police authority keep themselves informed of the lax and unsatisfactory manner in which the chief constable is investigating complaints, then they will have fulfilled their function under Clause 50. What is the use of that? Surely we can have one of two things. Either we can say that the chief constable shall have exclusive control of this matter, and the police authority must keep out of it because, for one reason or another, they cannot have access to case papers, and so on. Alternatively, if the police authority are going to have any sensible function at all in this connection, surely they must exercise that function, not only by keeping themselves informed, but by satisfying themselves that the chief constable has acted in a satisfactory manner. If my leave is sought for this Amendment to be withdrawn, I will say, "No".
LORD DERWENT: I think the noble Lord is a little unwise to be so positive. It is the duty of the police authority to see how the complaints are dealt with —that the method of dealing with them is right, and so on. That is laid down in the Statute; and if something unsatisfactory appears, the chief constable at once becomes at risk with the police authority, and he may find himself losing his job. But to put in a Statute that the authority have to prove that each case has been dealt with satisfactorily is to provide for something which they cannot, in fact, do; because they have not the facilities. It is one thing if something is wrong and they find it out and notice that there has been carelessness. But, when they have not seen

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the evidence and have not been present at the investigation, to say in a Statute that it is their duty to see that every case is dealt with satisfactorily goes much farther than ensuring that nothing is wrong with the manner of the investigations. It would be virtually impossible to fulfil such a duty, in spite of what the noble Lord says. They have to see that the complaint is dealt with properly; but to say that a particular case is dealt with satisfactorily means that they need more information than they will have or can have.
LORD AIREDALE: How will they "keep themselves informed"? Those are the noble Lords words and they are words in the Bill, that they
"shall keep themselves informed".
How can they do that?
LORD DERWENT: The words are:
"… informed as to the manner in which "—
informed not about each individual case, but about the manner in which the chief constable deals with cases.
LORD STONHAM: That is precisely what my noble friend wants by his Amendment. Reference has been made in earlier discussions to Lord Derwent's skill at stonewalling. On this occasion it seems to me he declared his innings closed before he even went out to bat. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, that the answer we have had is completely unsatisfactory. At an early stage of the first speech which the noble Lord made in reply to my noble friend, he asked how my noble friend expected members of the police authority to satisfy themselves. Where would they get the information from? They would have to call for reports and papers.
I ask the noble Lord very seriously to say how he expects Clause 50 to be implemented in practice, or is it just a form of words from which the Government expect nothing whatever to happen? It requires the police authority, in carrying out their duty with respect to the maintenance of an adequate and efficient police force, to keep themselves informed as to the manner in which complaints from members of the public are dealt with. They will need a good deal of information about the force if they are going to decide whether or not it is efficient, and this
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question of efficiency is directly related in the clause to the manner in which complaints are dealt with.
The noble Lord has not yet told us how we were wrong. I submit that if the police authority are going to satisfy themselves or keep themselves informed as to the manner in which complaints from members of the public are investigated, then they must get information, and information is not just a glass of sherry with the chief constable and a chat about "how things are going on, old boy". It really means hard information, hard facts, which must at times consist of written reports, written information—indeed, perhaps answers to questions on specific points.
The police authority, in discharging their duty to ensure that the police force was maintained efficiently and to keep themselves informed about complaints, would be quite entitled to write to the chief constable and ask, "How do you deal with a certain type of complaint? "They could even ask him how he dealt with an individual complaint, a matter which became public in the area. It would be perfectly within the competence of the police authority to ask questions of that kind. The chief constable would have the right to say, "I must ask the Home Secretary first if I have got to answer that particular type of question". But if a body is going to keep itself informed, then obviously it must have information. Therefore that part—and it was virtually the whole—of the noble Lord's answer to my noble friend actually goes.
There is, indeed, nothing between us in the clause and the Amendment, except that we require that members of the police authority should satisfy themselves that this function is satisfactorily dealt with, and the noble Lord says that they have only to keep themselves informed as to the manner in which they are dealt with. In both cases the police authority must have information. I feel that we must know more about how the noble Lord expects Clause 50 to be carried out in practice, and what the real difference is in practice between that and the proposals of my noble friend.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I am wondering whether all this is not getting just a little out of proportion. if your

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Lordships look back to subsection (1) of Clause 4 you will see that the general duty is laid on the police authority to see that the police force is made adequate and efficient. What the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, have been talking about seems to me only one small corner of that general duty. If you are going to try to pinpoint and lay down the manner in which every single duty should be performed, we shall be here a long time. I myself would be content to rely on the general power under Clause 4(1).
LORD DERWENT: May I try once more to explain the difference between the two wordings? I think the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has got it and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, have not. What the police authority have to do is to inform themselves of the manner in which complaints are dealt with. What the Amendment asks is that the police authority shall see that the complaints themselves are satisfactorily dealt with and that the police authority cannot do because they have not the facilities for doing it. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, says he does not see the difference between satisfying themselves about the manner in which complaints are dealt with and seeing whether a specific complaint is satisfactorily dealt with, which is what the Amendment says. To me they are quite different.
LORD WILLIS: I do not really see the objection, if you take this question of information. What I do not think the noble Lord has answered fully is what the police authority are going to do with that information when they have it, once they have kept themselves informed. Suppose they keep themselves informed about the manner in which complaints are dealt with and are not satisfied with the manner in which complaints are dealt with. They have specific duties under the Bill. They have specific duties under the Bill. They can refer it, presumably, to the Home Secretary or take other action—take it up with the Police Council, and so on. But they cannot, in fact, find out if it is unsatisfactory unless they get a certain amount of information.
This Amendment was not intended to supply the police authority with a detailed record of evidence, and so on, of every individual case, but to lay
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upon them the clear duty to satisfy themselves—not just keep themselves informed—that complaints were being satisfactorily dealt with. There is an area of difference here, and I think it is rather important.
LORD DERWENT: Now I see what the noble Lord means. Then I would say that this Amendment is quite unnecessary, because the duty of the police authority is to see that an efficient force is maintained, for which purpose they are entitled to ask questions within their particular purview, and they must get an answer. If the chief constable says it is not a matter for them and refuses to answer, then the matter has to be referred to the Secretary of State. If the chief constable is wrong, then of course again he puts himself in danger of losing his job. In fact the last point, this new point which the noble Lord has raised, is already covered under the Bill. This Amendment is quite unnecessary. The actual wording of this Amendment in itself is impossible to carry out. I must make it quite clear that the police authority is entitled to ask questions and get answers on certain matters, and if they affect the efficiency, and if there is dispute as to whether they should be answered or not—I cannot see dispute arising very often, but should it arise—it must be referred to the Secretary of State.
LORD AIREDALE: I should have thought the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, underlined the necessity for this Amendment. He referred to Clause 4(1), the duty of the police authority to secure the maintenance of an adequate and efficient police force. I should have thought that included an adequate and efficient chief constable who adequately and efficiently investigates complaints, and that they should satisfy themselves that he does and not merely keep themselves informed whether he does or not.
LORD DERWENT: Perhaps I may add one last word. The noble Lord has not been listening to what I said. The word "efficiently" is not carrying out what the noble Lord, Lord Willis, wants. The Amendment is creating a new statutory duty, from the sheer wording, for the police authority, which they

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will not be able to carry out. But the point that is worrying him is already covered under the Bill, as my noble friend said.
LORD WILLIS: I can assure the noble Lord that I have been listening most carefully, and I understood a great deal of what he was saying. But I am not entirely happy in the matter, so I should like to press the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 50 agreed to.
Clause 51 agreed to.
Clause 52 [Impersonation, &C.]:
7.10 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, after subsection (1), to insert:
"(2) Any person who, not being a constable, wears any article of police uniform in circumstances where it gives him an appearance so nearly resembling that of a member of a police force as to he calculated to deceive shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment makes it an offence for a person to wear police uniform (or uniform having the appearance of police uniform) in circumstances where he might so closely resemble a police officer as to be likely to be mistaken for one. Clause 52 at present provides only for the offence of impersonating a police officer and the possession of police uniform for an unlawful purpose. The new offence will be somewhat wider in scope than these offences, in that it will not depend on an intention to deceive or the existence of an unlawful purpose.
Nevertheless—this is important—the mere wearing of police-type uniform will not necessarily be an offence. The uniform must be worn in circumstances where it is "calculated to deceive". I understand from my legal advisers that this expression is well known to the courts and "calculated" does not mean "intended" but "likely". To paraphrase the new provision, at the cost possibly of legal precision, it will be an offence for a person to wear a police-style uniform if the combined effect of the uniform, what he is doing, and other relevant circumstances, is that he is likely to be mistaken for a policeman. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
LORD WILLIS: I was going to ask how this would affect people on the stage who deliberately wear police uniform in order to try to deceive, and my poor friend Jack Warner.
LORD DERWENT: I think I have answered that by my paraphrase that it will be an offence for a person to wear a police-style uniform if the combined effect of the uniform, what he is doing —he is, remember, on the stage—and other relevant circumstances, is that he is likely to be mistaken for a policeman. Jack Warner will not be mistaken for a real policeman, as he is on the stage. I am not being offensive to him, but I think we can accept that.
The Amendment arises from a study made recently by the Home Office and chief officers of police of some problems raised by the wearing in public, by various people, of uniform which is barely distinguishable from police uniform. These people include members of organisations, notably private security organisations, as well as, sometimes, individuals who may or may not have a criminal purpose in wearing police clothing. Where a police-type of uniform is worn in public places by people who are not members of the regular police force there are two dangers which give considerable concern to chief officers of police.
One is conduct and discipline. The regular police are expected to show a high standard of conduct and discipline at all times, particularly while they are wearing their uniform in public. These standards are not always observed by other people who may wear pseudo police uniforms. Secondly, the wearing of a police-type of uniform can in itself provide favourable opportunities for crime, since the activities of someone assumed to be a police officer (for instance, trying the handles of parked cars) do not readily give rise to suspicion in the minds of passers-by, who are therefore less likely than they would otherwise be to report what they have seen.
Security organisations will have to consider whether the uniform of their guards brings them within the scope of the new offence. But provided their guards could in no circumstances be mistaken for police officers, they will

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be unaffected by the Amendment. For instance, supposing the members of a security organisation functioned only indoors and never wore their uniforms outside the buildings they were guarding, I imagine that it would not greatly matter if their uniforms were rather like police uniforms. But if there were nothing distinguishable between their uniforms and police uniforms, and they were to go into the street they would be running a risk. They would have to consider this, and if they are in any doubt we at the Home Office are available to advise them. In fact, this is what has happened with a great many security organisations. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 19, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Derwent.)
VISCOUNT AMORY: I want only to say that I am glad to hear what my noble friend has said. It is a great many years ago that I acted in the chorus of The Pirates of Penzance. I was then told that I was the image of a policeman. From what my noble friend has said, I imagine that it will be all right if I receive an invitation to do this again on the stage, but that I must be careful not to walk home through the streets of my local town wearing the uniform.
LORD STONHAM: I agree that it is a splendid thing that the noble Viscount has had his anxieties on this score relieved, but I think there is a rather more important and serious point in this Amendment, which I say at once we warmly support and welcome. The noble Lord mentioned just the kind of case that we have in mind, where there is a real danger of persons who are not police officers genuinely being mistaken for police officers. They are the private security forces, most of whom, I should have thought, do operate outside, in the street. Many of them, as I understand it, are actually clothed in secondhand police uniforms from which the badges have been removed arid which have been cleaned up.
I submit that that sort of thing ought to be prohibited. To sell a secondhand police uniform to the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, so that he can cavort about the stage, would be perfectly all right; but it is not right to do it to the members of a private security force, who will be going about the streets in
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vehicles and who will be dressed exactly like policemen, except that the badges will have been removed. Therefore, although the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, invited the proprietors of such private security forces to seek the advice of the Home Office to avoid infringing this requirement, I hope that he will be a little more explicit now.
For example, there is a well-known private security force which clothes its men in uniform, but in a green uniform —a totally different colour. Nobody would imagine, or for a moment be mistaken into thinking, that those uniformed men were police officers. But when men are dressed actually in police uniform apart from the badges, then most people, I think, particularly if those men act in a firm or arbitrary manner, or tell people what to do, or attempt to do so, will think of them as being policemen. I know that this would be an offence under the Amendment which the noble Lord now moves, but since the numbers of private security forces are growing I think he should be more explicit now, or perhaps agree to consult his right honourable friend about the possibility of prohibiting the sale of discarded police uniforms to organisations which propose to use them for clothing their employees, who are members of a private security force. I hope he can tell us something more on this point.
LORD DERWENT: I think that all I need add on this matter is that the police forces have been consulted and are satisfied. The more reputable private security forces of course differentiate themselves most vividly. But if others do not, they are now running a risk. I think this is satisfactory. It has been discussed with the police forces including the C.I.D., and I think we may take it as being all right.
LORD WALERAN: I should like to ask my noble friend to clear my mind on one point. It is in relation to police motor-cyclists and the ordinary fellow in the street who may have a blue mackintosh with shoulder straps, a black crash helmet, black leggings, and a type of machine similar to that used by the police. This kind of wear is impossible to distinguish from police wear for it is very like it. These articles are sold in

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the shops and many people type of protective clothing. those people be affected situation?
LORD DERWENT: I can tell my noble friend with absolute confidence that the motor-cyclist is all right. If he wears clothing that is normally worn by a civilian it is quite all right, because he has no reason to be a policeman rather than himself, if the noble Lord sees what I mean. It would neither be a uniform nor be calculated to deceive. This Amendment is aimed at distinctive uniforms which look like the uniforms of the police force; but the noble Lord's friend, or the noble Lord himself, on a motor-cycle would not be in any sort of uniform, and so would be quite safe.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 52, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 53 to 64 agreed to.
Clause 65 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, after subsection (3), to insert:
"(4) The Secretary of State may by order repeal or amend any provision in any local Act, including an Act confirming a provisional order, or in any instrument in the nature of a local enactment under any Act, where it appears to him that that provision is inconsistent with, or has become unnecessary or requires modification in consequence of, any provision of this Act or corresponds to any provision repealed by this Act; and any statutory instrument made under this subsection shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."
The noble Lord said: I should like to speak to Amendments 41 and 41A together, because 41A is consequential on 41. This new subsection will give the Secretary of State a general power to repeal and amend local Acts in consequence of provisions of the Bill. Much of the existing law about police administration was laid down, somewhat sketchily, in the nineteenth century Statutes repealed by Schedule 10. From time to time these general provisions were filled out by provisions in local Acts, which may be unnecessary or need modification after the Bill becomes law. The Amendment enables the Secretary of State to carry out this tidying-up operation.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 16, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD STONHAM: I quite understand both the need and the reason for this, and indeed there may be a whole mass of local provisions of all of which it is impossible at present to be aware. Can the noble Lord say whether the local authority associations have been consulted about this Amendment? It comes rather late in the day so far as the Bill is concerned, and it seems to me that perhaps it might have been thought of earlier. If the local authority associations have been consulted and are satisfied with it, we have no objection.
LORD DERWENT: I will not say that they have been consulted on any possible future Bill, but I will give an undertaking that the local authorities will be consulted before an order is made modifying a local Act.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: I beg to move Amendment 41A.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 17, after ("under") insert ("subsection (2) of").—(Lord Derwent.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 65, as amended, agreed to.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3: PROCEDURE IN RESPECT OF AMALGAMATION SCHEMES MADE BY SECRETARY OF STATE
1. Where the Secretary of State proposes to make an amalgamation scheme under subsection (2) of section 21 of this Act, he shall give to the police authorities for the police areas proposed to he amalgamated a notice describing the general nature of the proposed scheme and specifying the period within which objection may be made thereto.
3. If, within the period specified in the notice, any police authority or council to whom the notice is given gives notice to the Secretary of State of an objection to the proposed scheme or any feature of that scheme, the Secretary of State shall, before making the scheme, cause a local inquiry to be held in respect of that objection by a person appointed by him (who shall not be an officer of police or of any Government department).
VISCOUNT AMORY VISCOUNT AMORY moved, in paragraph 3, to leave out "that objection" and insert "the proposed scheme". The

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noble Viscount said: The object of this Amendment is to widen somewhat the scope of the public inquiries provided for when objections are made to amalgamations promoted by the Secretary of State.
Clause 21 authorises the Secretary of State to promote amalgamation schemes when he considers they will be expedient for efficiency. Schedule 3 deals with the procedure for making such a scheme. The Secretary of State has said, I understand, that in practice, before promoting an amalgamation scheme, he will invite the police authorities to consider voluntary amalgamation. It follows that the Secretary of State will be taking the action proposed in Clause 21 only when objections are made. Schedule 3 gives police authorities the opportunity to state objections at an independent inquiry, and I would emphasise the word "independent"; and also the Secretary of State must consider the report before deciding to approve a scheme, and a copy of the report has to be laid before Parliament with the draft of the statutory instrument.
I ought to declare an interest because I have the honour to be the President of the County Councils Association. Our members are at one in their concern about what they believe to be a weakness in the proposals. The weakness is that the inquiry is to be limited to considering objections, and is not going to be allowed to consider the merits of the scheme itself. This inquiry is an independent inquiry, not an internal departmental inquiry. In those circumstances it would appear highly desirable and important that the person holding the inquiry should hear argued the reasons for, as well those as against, the proposals, otherwise it is difficult to see how he could reach an independent and fair judgment.
I submit that the wider scope which I am proposing in this Amendment would be wholly in accordance with precedent as regards general practice in such matters. The Police Act, 1946, lays it upon the Secretary of State to show that any amalgamation suggested is "expedient in the interests of efficiency"; and the Royal Commission, in paragraph 289 of their Report, said that under that Act the Secretary of State must show expressly at the
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inquiry that greater efficiency would result. The proposals in the Bill seem to me to throw the onus entirely on the objectors to prove their case, and, by doing this, I should have thought tilted the balance somewhat in favour of the Secretary of State's proposals in a matter where it is important that the balance should be evenly held between central and local Government, and in fact, where in doubt, there should be a slant in favour of the status quo.
Secondly, I should have thought that the person holding the inquiry would be hampered if he considered the objections without hearing argued the merits of the scheme itself. That, I think, was the view expressed by the Franks Committee on Administrative Tribunals and Inquiries. If I may quote a few words of their Report, they said:
"The right of individuals to state their case cannot be effective unless the case of the authority, with which they are in dispute, is adequately presented. An objection cannot properly be considered or developed in isolation from the proposal objected to."
The third point is that, unless police authorities are given a full statement of the Secretary of State's reasons for the proposal and an opportunity to cross-examine departmental witnesses, they in their turn would be hampered, too. The Secretary of State himself sees some force in this, because on January 16 in another place he gave an assurance that an inspector would be present to explain the proposals. But I should have thought that a simple Amendment to the Bill was better, in a matter like this, than such an undertaking from a Home Secretary, because even Home Secretaries come and go.
Lastly, I think it is significant that, even in cases under Acts that do not specifically so provide, it has been found desirable, in practice, for consideration to be given at inquiries to the merits of the proposals, as well as into the objections. Examples are the Local Government Act, 1929, and the New Towns Act, 1946. The point I want to make is that the purpose of an independent inquiry is not primarily to inform the Minister, who will already know the police authority's objections. That is the distinction, I think, between an independent public investigation and a departmental inquiry. That distinction, I am informed, was clearly drawn in the

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judgment in the case of the Magistrates of Ayr v. the Lord Advocate in 1950. In that case it was held that the Secretary of State was not entitled to proceed with the scheme.
Apart from the merits of this particular case, I think many will feel concerned lest this procedure becomes a precedent in future cases. I have little doubt that my noble friend, when he replies, will remind your Lordships that the Royal Commission favoured in this case that the inquiry should be limited as proposed in the Bill. But it is not apparent in the Report that in fact the disadvantages of that limitation were brought to the Royal Commission's attention. These amalgamations do affect the interests of the public, and of private people, too. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary suggested in another place, when a similar kind of proposal was made, that it would amount to an obstacle, if adopted, to the Government's programme of amalgamations. I should be sorry if I thought that were so, because in general I am strongly in support of the proposals in this Bill, but I should have preferred to regard my Amendment as a safeguard rather than an obstacle. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 34, line 29, leave out ("that objection") and insert ("the proposed scheme").—(Viscount Amory.)
LORD MTLVERTON: I do not wish to detain the House at this time. I rise merely to say that the case that has just been so lucidly and convincingly put before the Committee has the complete support of all the authorities concerned, because in this case the views of the Association of Municipal Corporations coincide entirely with those of the County Councils Association. It is to be hoped—and I am confident of this—that this will be the exception in this Committee stage, and that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will finish in a blaze of enlightened reason by allowing this Amendment to be approved.
LORD STONHAM: In order to make it unanimous, may I make it clear to the noble Lord that the lucid and cogent case which has now been put forward has the unanimous support of all the noble Lords now sitting on the Opposition Front Bench.
7.34 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: I do not think that noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench ought to make up their minds till they have heard me speak. The effect of the Amendment would be that a local inquiry concerning a proposed compulsory amalgamation scheme would be held in respect of the scheme generally and not, as is the present effect of the Bill, into objections to the scheme. The need to reduce the number of separate police forces by a series of amalgamations was fully accepted by both sides of the House in the other place, and I think that at this stage of the Bill we can say that it is fully accepted here as a matter of principle. It is essential not only that adequate powers should be available to support this policy, but also that the procedure should not be allowed to frustrate it.
Under the proposals in the Bill, the Secretary of State will be bound by the reference in Clause 21(2), as my noble friend said, to "the interests of efficiency", and his power to make a compulsory amalgamation scheme will be exercisable only where he considers that it is expedient in the interests of efficiency to do so. It is right, I think, that the responsibility for judging whether an amalgamation would be in the interests of efficiency should rest on the Home Secretary, who, in exercising this judgment, will be advised by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary. At the same time, it is important that the Home Secretary, in reaching his decision, should give full weight to any objections to his proposal. The Bill therefore provides for the setting up of an inquiry under an independent person to hear any such objections, and the inquiry will be specifically into the matter which is the subject of the objection.
May I interpose here that my right honourable friend has undertaken that the case for him will be put at the inquiry by one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary. He will put the Home Secretary's case. If the Home Secretary decides to proceed with the amalgamation scheme, the scheme—I am talking about procedure now—together with the report of the inquiry, must be laid before Parliament. In the course of any debate on a Prayer for its annulment Members of Parliament will then be fully informed

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both of the Home Secretary's proposal and of the objections to it, so that that is all aired in public.
I regret to say that I do not like the Amendment for this reason, and for this reason only. I believe that the form of inquiry provided for in the Bill is going to do what my noble friend in fact wants, but we do not like the Amendment because it would extend the scope of the inquiry to cover the whole scheme, whatever the nature of the particular objections raised and however limited their scope. If, of course, there were a complete case against the scheme, that would be heard at the inquiry, but if there were only certain objections my noble friend's Amendment would still make the whole subject of the scheme debatable at the inquiry, and that would be unnecessary. We cannot accept the Amendment for those reasons, if for no others.
But I think that what my noble friend wants is that, in the event of its being unnecessary to cover the whole scheme, the Home Secretary's case will be heard and the objector's scheme will be heard. Then, at the end of the day, if the Secretary of State says, "I am going ahead with the scheme, having taken all this into account", the scheme is then debated in Parliament, and it is up to Parliament to give the final decision. In view of what I have said, and in view of the fact that if the Amendment is carried it will make for inquiries into matters which, in fact, were not raised as objections, I hope my noble friend will see his way to withdrawing his Amendment.
VISCOUNT AMORY: I own that I feel very disappointed indeed. I think my noble friend is a hardhearted man, and I felt pretty sure that I was going to turn up a lucky timber this evening. I see so much eye to eye with him on so many issues that I felt sure I had a distinct pull over the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and the noble Lord, Lord Willis. I think my noble friend would have slept better if he had found it possible to give me some crumb of comfort. I own that I am not very much comforted by what he has said, or by the objection that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and my noble friend see to this Amendment. As 1, frankly, do not feel comforted, I think it would be rather pusillanimous on my part to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. The
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powerful cohorts that were supporting me have temporarily left the battlefield, and therefore it may well be that my view will not prevail and I may be over-whelmed by a force majeure.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Schedules 4 to 8 agreed to.
Schedule 9 [Minor and Consequential Amendments]:
LORD DERWENT: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 22, at end insert—

(" The National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946.9& 10 Geo. 6. c. 62.

In Section 78 for the words 'that Act' there shall be substituted the words 'The Police Pensions Act 1948'.")

—(Lord Derwent)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 9, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 10 [Enactments Repealed]:
LORD DERWENT: May I speak to Amendments Nos. 44, 45 and 46 together? These Amendments repeal the statutory provisions requiring the appointment of standing joint committees, together with associated provisions. The Bill already transfers from standing joint committees their police functions, and since the Bill was introduced an amendment has been made in the Administration of Justice Bill to transfer their other functions. The way is now clear, therefore, to repeal the provisions requiring the appointment of standing joint committees, as was done in the other case. The Amendments mark the final demise of standing joint committees, and these bodies, which were formed ad hoc in 1888, have played for over three-quarters of a century a notable and distinguished part in county administration. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 58, column 3, leave out lines 17 to 25 and insert—

(" Section 30. Section 34(3)(c). Section 66.

In section 78(1) the words 'either alone or jointly with the quarter sessions '.

Section 81(7) and (8).

Section 93.")

—(Lord Derwent.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: I beg to move Amendment 45.
Amendment moved—
Page 58, line 54, at end insert—

(" 21 & 22 Geo. 5.c. 45.

The Local Government 9 (Clerks) Act 1931.

Section 5(4)

In Section 15 the definition of 'Joint committee'.")

(Lord Derwent)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: I beg to move. —
Amendment moved—
Page 58, line 58, at end insert—

("23 & 24 Geo. 5. c. 51.

The Local Government Act 1933.

Section 157 (2). In Section 159(1) the words from 'including' to the end.

In Section 305 the definition of 'Standing joint committee'.")

(Lord Derwent.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DERWENT: This Amendment adds to the Repeal Schedule the Police Federation Acts, 1959 and 1961, which made minor changes in the constitution of the Federation. The substance of these Acts will be repeated in the Regulations to be made under Clause 44, and when these Regulations come into force the Acts should be repealed. The Police Federation have been consulted. I beg to moved.
Amendment moved—
Page 60, line 53, at end insert—

("7 & 8 Eliz. 2 c. 38.

The Police Federation Act 1959.

The whole Act.

9 & 10 Eliz 2. c.51.

The Police Federation Act 1961.

The Whole Act.")

(Lord Derwent)

LORD STONHAM: As I had the pleasure of seeing both the Acts through all their stages in your Lordships' House, I should like to know whether it is the case that, under this Bill, the changes made by these two Acts which we are now repealing will continue without
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alteration. And, as I shall not be speaking again, I should like, whilst regretting the noble Lord's success at stonewalling, to thank him for the very courteous manner in which he has discharged his task.
LORD DERWENT: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his kind remarks. I do not say the changes will not be altered in the Regulations, but the substance of them will not be altered.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 10, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with Amendments.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS (ANÆSTHETICS) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
HARBOURS BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
SUCCESSION (SCOTLAND) BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.