Lords Sitting of 14 April 1965

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

LORD COLE
George James Cole, Esquire, having been created Baron Cole, of Blackfriars in the County of London, for life—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
The Lord Birdwood—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

ROLL OF THE LORDS
Garter King of Arms, attending. delivered a Roll of the Lords Temporal in the Forty-third Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
2.46 p.m.
LORD COBBOLD: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a Message from Her Majesty the Queen, signed by her own hand. The Message is as follows:
"I have received your Address praying that the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1965, be made in the form of the draft laid before your Lordships' House.
"I will comply with your request."

PROPOSED MORECAMBE BAY BARRAGE
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: 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 have any statement to make as to the inquiry regarding the Morecambe Bay barrage proposal.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, the Water Resources Board has been asked to examine this possibility as one means of meeting the needs for additional supplies of water in the North-West which are expected to develop between now and the end of the century.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while congratulating the Government upon initiating this imaginative inquiry, may I ask whether I am right in thinking that the said inquiry is of a technical nature to establish the engineering practicability of the scheme? May I further ask that, simultaneously or concurrently, an economic inquiry be made, because any such scheme as is contem? plated must affect the economics, the industry and the commerce of a wide area, and it would be a pity if the one inquiry had to follow the other, thus perhaps delaying for many years what might prove to be a very valuable improvement of our North-West countryside.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, as the noble Lord is perhaps aware, a Question about this matter was asked in another place and answered by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. It is, of course, the business of that Department to examine the economic aspects of this matter, which they will do. But there is also the question whether there is a practicable water scheme here, and no doubt, as my original Answer, I hope, made clear, there will be a real need for additional supplies of water in the North-West. There can be no doubt about that. That question must be examined, as it is being examined now. The origin of this inquiry was carried out by a sub-committee of the North-West Study Group of officials which was set up by the last Administration. A good deal of work has already been done, though matters have not reached the stage where one can put a technical question and be sure it is the right one.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, the noble Lord indicated that it is the task of some Government Department to make an economic inquiry. Does he mean by that that such an economic inquiry is being made?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, what I mean is that there is no doubt that additional supplies of water will be needed. People have to drink and wash, whatever the economic circumstances in the North-West are in the fairly immediate though not quite immediate future, and it is in order to meet that need that the possibilities of this scheme are being examined.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, since we have this very real need for additional supplies of water in the North-West, would the noble Lord agree that it is very much in the public interest, that we should follow modern principles and try to find the water from the estuary instead of taking the easiest and cheapest way, which some would have us do, which is to extract from our all too precious lakes?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, there is no doubt that there are two alternative possibilities. I fully appreciate the noble Lord's interest in the matter, which I am sure is shared by many people, but the questions which are now being considered are the sort of questions that have to be considered before we can ask the water experts the right questions about method. They are matters for the Water Resources Board.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, as I understand it, the Water Resources Board are required by Statute to make a general examination of the water resources of the country. It was not clear from the noble Lord's reply whether they have been asked to deal with this Morecambe Bay barrage proposal as an individual problem and give it priority as a matter of some urgency.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am sorry if my reply was not as clear to the noble Lord as it seemed to me. I said that the Board had been asked to examine this possibility of a Morecambe Bay barrage as one of the means of meeting the needs for additional water supplies, and it is in that way they are now
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examining it. There are, of course, other possible means. There is no doubt that additional water will be needed, and what we are trying to find out is the best way of providing it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask whether the other means the noble Lord mentioned are being examined simultaneously? In particular, I have in mind the Solway proposals.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I feel sure that the Water Resources Board will have in mind the other possibilities, too. The Question in the other place was somewhat broader than this one, and if the noble Lord will look at the Answer given there he will see that that is so. But for the moment I have been asked, and I am answering, about one particular project.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government bear in mind in this inquiry that if the scheme is perhaps too expensive for supplying water in the more plentifully supplied part of North-West England, it will nevertheless almost certainly be required to supply water in the drier parts of England, which may have to pay more for their water?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, that, of course, is the kind of question that the Water Resources Board are bound to bear in mind.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is deep concern lest there may be some spoiling of the beauty of the lakes if water supplies are taken from them, and that there is a great desire that the alternative course should be examined?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am indeed aware of that and, again, that is one of the matters which has to be examined at this stage. One cannot expect people to do without water to preserve natural beauty, but if we can give them water without impairing natural beauty, so much the better.

BACKGROUND MUSIC DURING FLIGHTS
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 whether they will repeat the assurance given on the 26th November, 1959, that B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. will not subject their passengers to compulsory background music during flight.]
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, this is a question for the commercial judgment of the Air Corporations. I am informed that at present neither B.O.A.C. nor B.E.A. have any plans for broadcasting music while aircraft are in flight.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his Answer? I recall that he was sympathetic to me on the earlier occasion referred to in my Question. Is he aware that such background music inflicts great suffering on many people, and, should either airline decide in future to subject their passengers to this unpleasantness, does the noble Lord agree that they should warn their intended victims before they pay for their tickets?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, my previous intervention on the noble Lord's last Question was to request that there should be no "commercials" in "natural breaks" in aircraft, but I entirely agree with the noble Lord that we should like peace in the air, if not on the ground, and I hope that there will be no necessity for warnings to passengers.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord again for his sympathy on this occasion and say that the particular words he used on the last occasion which comforted me were "the unfortunate captives".
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, this is not, perhaps, a permissible question arising out of the other, but it is relevant. I wonder whether my noble friend can tell me whether there has been any change in the rule prohibiting the smoking of cigars and pipes in aircraft.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I know the answer to that, but that is another question.

GOVERNMENT HOSPITALITY: MINISTERS' AND CIVIL SERVANTS' CONTRIBUTIONS
2.57 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what contribution Ministers of the Crown and civil servants make towards the cost of official luncheons and dinners which they attend and which are paid for by Government Hospitality.]
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's Question is, "None". There has been no change in the practice since the Government Hospitality Fund was first started in 1908.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is not a fact that civil servants, when they attend a Government function, are expected to contribute the equivalent of the meal they would otherwise have had? May I ask him whether he is also aware, as was certainly the case during the several years that I was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, that members of the British delegation, including Ministers and civil servants, always had to contribute to the cost of meals given by the British delegation in New York?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, the Question I was asked was about "official luncheons and dinners… which are paid for by Government Hospitality" and my information is that, as regards those luncheons and dinners, there is no contribution by either Ministers of the Crown or civil servants; and, further, that that has been the case since 1908. I am glad to hear that the noble Lord did well in America, but the question of what was paid for, and who paid for it, is quite different from the Question I am answering to-day.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will make further inquiries? If he will do so, I think he will find that civil servants in this country are supposed to contribute the equivalent of the value of the meal. I think that this is most important. I can see no reason why Ministers should not do the same, particularly in view of the necessity for curbing unnecessary and extravagant Government expenditure on entertainment, to which the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Shinwell, referred in the Budget debate in another place the other day.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am sorry to hear that there has been unnecessary extravagance over Government hospitality for the past 57 years. All I would say is that the question is a perfectly clear one. The Answer that I was asked to make is a perfectly clear one, too, and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of my informant.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, with respect to my noble friend Lord Colyton, may I ask whether it is not rather a mean and petty matter to make civil servants—and, for that matter, Ministers—pay a quota, being the fictional amount they would have spent if they had eaten at home—that is what it amounts to—when it is their duty to entertain important deputations or visitors? Should they not be trusted to do the right thing? If they eat modestly and reasonably, as I have done, at hospitality functions, should not that be taken as part of their essential duty? Are we not being too squeamish about shillings and pence?
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, can the noble Lord say why, if what he says is the case, members of a delegation, such as to the Council of Europe, are charged with a certain amount when they attend an official lunch? They certainly eat less at home than the cost they have to bear when they attend the lunch.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, with respect, I entirely agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale. As to the question put by the noble Lady, that really is
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about another kind of dinner or lunch. It is not about a dinner or lunch paid for out of the Government Hospitality Fund. If the noble Lady would like to ask me a question about this other kind of dinner or lunch—be it better or worse —I will do my best to answer it.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, are not Ministers who attend these functions sacrificing their livers for the good of their country?
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, agrees with my noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, will he make inquiries and ensure in future that civil servants are not called upon to make this payment from which Ministers are free?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I can only repeat, for, I think, the third time, that I have been told that civil servants do not, in the case referred to in the Question, make any contribution, and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of my informants. If the noble Lord would let me know the evidence on which he bases his statement I shall be glad to check the matter but as at present advised, I can only abide by what I have already said twice.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may ask the noble Lord one further question? He mentioned a very early date for the inauguration of the Government Hospitality Fund, but I think I am right in saying that the number of these official luncheons and dinners has enormously increased in recent times. Can he give any indication of what result in the national interest they are designed to bring about?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am afraid that it is not my business to keep count of the number of Government hospitality luncheons and dinners. The noble Lord has no doubt attended so many of them that he is in a position to say that they have increased. I am not: I have no idea.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he can get a very good idea simply by reading the Press?

NEW TAXATION AND ADDITIONAL CIVIL SERVANTS
THE EARL OF ARRAN: 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 how many additional civil servants will be required in their estimation to administer the new proposals contained in the Budget Resolutions.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, no additional staff will be required in the Customs and Excise Department, and no additional staff will be required in the Inland Revenue to deal with the proposed changes in the personal reliefs. In regard to the other new taxes, I regret that I am not in a position to give an estimate.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated in his Budget speech his intention to simplify the tax structure, it was reasonable to expect a reduction in the number of civil servants, particularly those working in the Inland Revenue and at the Treasury. Do Her Majesty's Government regard the proliferation of officials as a good thing?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Earl is assuming too much. As I said in my original Answer, it is too soon to make an estimate.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the machinery of the Inland Revenue is even now grinding to a halt through overwork? Tax rebate claims are two or three years in arrears, and civil servants are really overworked in this Department.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is an interesting point, but it does not arise on the Question.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, could the noble Lord say, although it is not yet known whether there will be a total increase and whether it will be large or not, if he yet knows whether it will be necessary to recruit more persons skilled in valuation, since I think the changes in the Budget may need some
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change of that kind; and, if so, whether he thinks they are available?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, no doubt there will be some need for a number, particularly in valuation and in regard to the capital gains tax. This matter is being looked at, and there are already a number of potential candidates —shall I say?—who are now undergoing training in this matter.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the Government have any idea of what the cost will be of those employed in the new housing scheme to decide what fair rents are?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, with the best will in the world, I think that is well beyond the Question on the Paper.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, in recruiting staff for these various new activities set up by the Government, will they remember that there is a large pool of unused talent in the shape of persons who are compulsorily retired from the Civil Service, banking professions and the like, at the age of about 60, and who are easily capable of performing good service for a short day?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's useful suggestion. No doubt we shall look at it.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government give an undertaking to let us know as soon as possible what the figures are likely to be?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I would suggest to the noble Earl that he should attend when we have the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. If he would like to put a question then, we will endeavour to answer it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at a suitable moment after 3.30 my noble friend Lord Hobson will be making a Statement on B.B.C. finance, and my noble friend Lord Shackleton will be making a Statement on the Army Reserves.
There is some doubt as to how long the proceedings on the Law Commissions

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Bill will take this afternoon. We shall have to see how we get on. But, in any event, the Committee will not continue beyond 7 p.m. to-day. If a second day is required, the Committee stage will be continued on Tuesday, April 27.

SAINT MARY, ALVERSTOKE, BURIAL GROUND BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
DURHAM MARKETS COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PATENTS (EMPLOYEES' INVENTIONS) BILL [H.L.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD RHODES): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law governing rights in respect of inventions made by employees. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la.—(Lord Rhodes.)
On Question, Bill read 1a. and to be printed.

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

LAND DRAINAGE (SCOTLAND) AMENDMENT ORDER 1965
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that paragraph 6(b) of Schedule 1 to the Land Drainage (Scotland) Act, 1958, shall be amended by substituting in sub-paragraph (2) for the figure of twenty pounds the figure of forty pounds. The purpose of this Order is to increase the maximum estimated cost per acre which limits the power of the Secretary of State to make an Improvement Order without the agree
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ment of all the owners involved. When Parliament passed the Land Drainage (Scotland) Act, 1958, it was subject to the Secretary of State's approval that a majority of interested proprietors should not be prevented from improving their land by the opposition of a minority, but it was also necessary to have certain safeguards for the minorities. These safeguards included the provision that, where there was not unanimity, the Secretary of State would make an order only if a majority were liable to meet more than half the cost of the work, and provided that the estimated cost of the work did not exceed £20 per acre.
This limiting figure of £20 was first mentioned in the Duncan Committee Report of 1950, and although when, some eight years later, the Act was passed the money value had so changed that £20 was no longer actually a relevant amount, discussions had taken place on that figure and it was found desirable to let it stand. We are, therefore, not merely considering changes in the value of money since 1958, but really the changes in the value of money since 1950. The figure of £40, in substitution of £20, has been accepted as being a reasonable figure by all those who have been consulted, and it is for this reason, and for no other, that this is suggested. I am well aware that it would be just as easy to suggest that the figure should be £30, £35, or £45; but £40 has been chosen as the figure which is acceptable to the parties and is likely to remain reasonable for some years ahead. I do not wish to suggest to your Lordships that this alteration is likely to result in a great increase in the number of schemes taking place, because the Act has been rather disappointing, and the number of schemes have been very few. If, however, any change for the better can take place, the substitution of this more realistic figure may well help to bring that about. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Land Drainage (Scotland) Amendment Order 1965, laid before the House on March 31 be approved.—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I for my part say that I welcome very much the announcement the noble Lord has made? We see no objection whatsoever to the change he is proposing. Indeed, we hope that the results may be

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better than he expects and that more schemes will now be made with the new level of £40.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LAW COMMISSIONS BILL
3.15 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.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
The Law Commission
1.—(1) For the purpose of promoting the reform of the law there shall be constituted in accordance with this section a body of Commissioners, to be known as the Law Commission, consisting of a Chairman and not more than four other Commissioners appointed by the Lord Chancellor
(2) The persons appointed to be Commissioners shall be persons appearing to the Lord Chancellor to be suitably qualified by the holding of judicial office or by experience as a barrister or solicitor or as a teacher of law in a university.
(4) A person who holds high judicial office may be appointed as a Commissioner without relinquishing that office, but shall not be required to perform his duties as the holder of that office while he remains a member of the Commission.
THE EARL. OF SELKIRKmoved, in subsection (1), after "the law" to insert "of England". The noble Earl said: I am moving this Amendment because the working of this clause seems a little curious. This Bill applies, so far as I can see, to the whole of the United Kingdom, with the exception of laws which can be amended by the Parliament of Northern, Ireland. We are told in the Explanatory Memorandum that there will be an English and Scottish Law Commission. I should like to know why the Parliamentary draftsmen are so coy that they do not want to use the words, "the Law of England". It is a very respectable phrase, which is held in extremely high regard in many places outside this country. If the Chairman of the Com
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mission goes to France to talk to the Minister of Justice, who asks, "What are you here for?", and he says, "I want to compare the Code Napoleon with the law", the Minister of Justice would, of course, say, "The Code Napoleon is the law".
I should have thought that it was just as well to be clear on this matter. But I think there is one detail which is even more important. Many places overseas hold the law of England in very high regard. It is practised, with modifications, in a great many countries. I believe it is the intention that they may perhaps take advantage from the work of the Law Commission, and that they may possibly in some cases follow the advice and guidance which is given. In those circumstances, I think it would be proper that the law referred to should be given its proper name. I have made the case, and I must be quite frank in saying that I do not want the Scottish Commission to be a sub-committee of the Law Commission. I want it to be quite clear that the Law Commission is dealing with the Law of England, and not vaguely trying to absorb, willy-nilly, the law throughout this Island into one. If I could have that assurance, I should be very grateful. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 5, at end insert ("of England").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): I Should like at once to give the assurance that the Government do not propose that the Scottish Law Commission should be in any sense a subcommittee of the English Law Commission. On the contrary, we are most anxious—and I personally am most anxious—not to offend any Scottish sus-ceptibilities. I think that all English lawyers are brought up to believe that Scottish law is better than English law, and I have no reason to doubt that that is so. So we always have rather an inferiority complex about Scottish law.
In this situation, I must, like Agag, walk delicately, and if I may approach the subject so courteously I would remind the noble Earl that we have in England a professional organisation for the English Bar, called The General Council of the Bar of England and Wales. I hesitate to remind Scotsmen of the fact

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that Wales is there, and if one begins talking about the English Bar Council one gets into a great deal of trouble; and it is not only Scottish susceptibilities that one does not wish to offend. For the law of Wales is just as much the law as the law of England. It is the same law, but it is also the law of Wales. We could, of course, have one Law Commission for England and Wales, and one for Scotland; or we could have one for England and another for Scotland and Wales. A Commission for Scotland and Wales would not be very practicable, because the law of Wales is the same as the law of England, and is quite different from the law of Scotland.
One could call it the Law Commission of England and Wales but, again, I am sorry to have to refer to the fact that there is a place called Northern Ireland. We do not always realise for what a lot of the law of Northern Ireland this Parliament of ours is responsible, because under Section 4(1) of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, the Northern Ireland Government: cannot legislate in matters of:

"(1) The Crown or the succession to the Crown, or a regency, or the property of the Crown…

(2) The making of peace or war, or matters arising from a state of war; or the regulation of the conduct of any portion of His Majesty's subjects during the existence of hostilities…

(3 The navy, the army, the air force, the territorial force…

(4) Treaties, or any relations with foreign states, or relations with other parts of His Majesty's dominions…

(5) Dignities or titles of honour; or

(6) Treason, treason felony, alienage, naturalisation, or aliens as such, or domicile; or

(7) Trade with any place out of the part of Ireland within their jurisdiction.

(8) Submarine cables; or

(9) Wireless telegraphy; or

(10) Aerial navigation; or

(11) Lighthouses, buoys or beacons

(12) Coinage; legal tender; negotiable instruments (including bank notes) except so far as negotiable instruments may be affected by the exercise of the powers of taxation given to the said Parliaments;

(13) Trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent rights; or

(14) Any matter…declared to be a reserved matter…"—

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which includes the Post Office. Obviously, some Law Commission has to be responsible for that.
Again, we could have one Law Commission for England and Wales, and another for Scotland and Northern Ireland. This, of course, was carefully considered by the Government, advised by the chief Parliamentary draftsman, who was kind enough to draft this Bill himself. But there must be a Commission to deal with Acts for Great Britain, such as the Income Tax Acts and the Merchant Shipping Acts, and it would be unfortunate if two Law Commissions were to be appointed, and it were then found that there were a number of Acts with which neither of them could deal. There has therefore to be, as it were, a main Law Commission; and the draftsman, I suggest, is right in saying in subsection (1) that the Law Commission shall be constituted for the reform of the law. Then when one asks the question, "What do you mean by ' the law"? "the answer is contained in subsection (5)…
"In this section 'the law' does not include the law of Scotland or any law of Northern Ireland which the Parliament of Northern Ireland has power to amend."
I hope that, having heard that explanation, the noble Earl will be satisfied. We certainly did not intend in any way at all to offend the susceptibilities of Scotland. The Scottish Law Commission will certainly be of an equal status to the other Law Commission. It certainly will not be a sub-committee, or anything of that kind; it is an entirely separate, independent statutory body. But we are faced with the difficulty that one must find some way of defining what is the law for which each is to be responsible. In a sense there has to be a main Commission. Of course, where Acts of Great Britain are concerned obviously the two Commissions will work closely together, and indeed that is specifically provided for in the Bill itself. For example, when one comes to consolidation there may be a great deal to be said for their both acting together at the same time. In the past the tendency has been rather for the laws of this country and Wales and any reserved in respect of Northern Irish law to be dealt with first and then for consolidation to follow in Scotland two or three years later. It may be that a lot could be said for dealing with them at the same time.

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Your Lordships will know that we have recently had a Solicitors Bill for the purpose of overcoming difficulties which have arisen since the decision in your Lordships' House in the case of Brown v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue. There is now a fresh Bill being introduced into your Lordships' House by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, to do exactly the same thing in Scotland. It might have been simpler to do the two things together. I am sure the two Commissioners will work very well together; and I hope that, with that explanation, the noble Earl will think it right to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD AIREDALE: So far as Wales is concerned, it came first in the argument of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and I do not know whether that is an indication that it is the most important. Can the noble and learned Lord tell us why it was that one of his predecessors found it quite satisfactory to call his distinguished book Halsbury's Laws of England rather than Halsbury's Laws of England and Wales?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have a great many distinguished predecessors, but I am afraid I cannot undertake responsibility for them. I do know, for the reasons mentioned, that our friends in Wales tend to be somewhat touchy on these matters.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his explanation. If this is purely a question of definition, I have no point so long as the matter is abundantly clear. However, I hope he will recognise that the Explanatory Memorandum gives a different story, and this means that in certain respects it is wrong. I hope he will not take exception to my raising this point because I think it is one of importance. I think the explanation he has given answers my point, and I therefore ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNEmoved, in subsection (1), to leave out "not more than". The noble and learned Viscount said: I can put the case for this Amendment quite shortly. All through the debates on the Bill we have been talking
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of five Law Commissioners, and yet as this Bill is drawn it merely provides that five shall be the maximum number —four and the chairman. The Law Commission could therefore consist of one Law Commissioner, or perhaps two Law Commissioners, charged with the duty of the reviewing of the law of England and with the other duties laid down in Clause 3 which we shall be considering perhaps later this afternoon. I think it is wrong that this Bill should be drawn in this way. I cannot see any reason for it. If there is a good reason, I hope the noble and learned Lord will tell us what it is, but I think that five is the minimum number of Law Commissioners needed if they are to discharge their task.
I am confirmed in my belief that this Amendment is right and the Bill is wrong by some very substantial evidence —namely, the Government's own White Paper which was published to tell us what the Government propose. The White Paper is entitled Proposals for English and Scottish Law Commissions, and at the bottom of page 2 of that White Paper one finds this:
"The Government therefore propose, subject to the approval of Parliament, to set up a Law Commission for England and Wales. This will consist of five lawyers of high standing appointed by the Lord Chancellor…".
This will consist, so it says here, of five lawyers of high standing appointed by the Lord Chancellor; and the purpose of this Amendment is to make this Bill agree with the Government's declared intentions in their White Paper. Therefore, it cannot be suggested that if this Amendment is agreed it will in any way operate to frustrate the intentions of the Government. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 8. leave out ("not more than"). —(Viscount Dilhorne.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is mainly a question of terminology. There is no difference between us as to the intention. The question is whether one puts into an Act of Parliament the general intention, or whether it is so worded as to leave room for exceptional circumstances which may arise yet cannot always be foreseen. It is the Government's intention that five Law Commissioners should be appointed. We think that five is the right number in any

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ordinary circumstances. There is no dispute about that at all. It is my expectation that five will in fact be appointed. but more often than not where statutory bodies are constituted it is usual to provide for "not more than" a certain number. There has to be a statutory maximum for financial reasons. The Treasury naturally require to know what the maximum number is going to be, and where a statutory body is being constituted that body can operate lawfully only if it is properly constituted. Therefore if one says it must always have exactly five, allowance has to be made for the fact that when somebody dies or retires some time will elapse before he can be replaced.
I agree this is not an insuperable objection. It can be said that there are to be exactly five but if one of them dies or retires the Commission may continue to operate with four members for a month, or whatever period is laid down. However, the usual thing to do is to say "not more than" so many. Everybody then knows that that is intended in general to be the number. But if this Amendment were accepted and a further Amendment made the position would be that when somebody died or retired the Law Commission would no longer be constituted in accordance with the provisions of the Bill and could do nothing further at all until somebody else had been appointed.
As I have said, in general the intention is that there should be five, and the Government will certainly appoint five. But one can never quite tell, looking ahead to the future. It might be that there was some outstanding solicitor whom the Lord Chancellor had been trying for some years to persuade to be a Law Commissioner. A vacancy arises because somebody dies or retires, and the solicitor is persuaded at last and says, "Very well, I will; but of course there are all my outstanding matters with my clients and I must have six months to clear up my affairs. If you can wait six months, I certainly will". That might be a sensible course for the Lord Chancellor to take. It might be three months. One can never foresee the circumstances. It might be that in ten or fifteen years' time the quantity of work to be done would be such that it could be managed by three.
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Certainly I agree that over a period of time five is the right number, but I suggest that room should be left so that exceptional circumstances can he provided for. It is not, I observe, suggested that the Scottish Commission should be tied to a fixed number; that is to be not more than five. I should have thought that was the sensible thing to do. I hope, therefore, that the noble and learned Viscount will be satisfied with the declaration of intent I have made, because there is no difference between us as to the general intention.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I must confess that I am not really satisfied by that answer. The answer is indeed on the lines I suspected it might be. The noble Lord says that this Government's intention is to appoint five. As the Bill is drawn there is no need to appoint more than one, and you can have your Law Commission. I think the Bill should state what number there should be. I appreciate the difficulty of the circumstance that you may have a sudden vacancy; I agree a further Amendment would be required to provide for that. But I see no objection to saying that the Commission should consist of four plus a chairman, and the addition of a provision to say that the Law Commission will be entitled to carry on and perform notwithstanding a casual vacancy.
I should not personally want to provide for a period, but I should like a stipulation here. I appreciate that the Government's intent is the view expressed in the White Paper and the view I am putting forward, but the Bill does not say so, and I think it should. If the noble and learned Lord accepted this Amendment, we could find some way perhaps of making a provision which would cover the exceptional circumstances he was contemplating. It would certainly not be my desire, indeed it would be unacceptable, that the Law Commission should cease to function because of the sudden death of one, or two, or three Law Commissioners. I entirely recognise that to cover that eventuality it might be necessary to put down a further Amendment.
That is quite a different point from the point whether the Bill should state what should be the number of Commissioners, bearing in mind that this may remain an Act during the lifetime of many other

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Governments, when people may not be able to remember the assurance given by the noble and learned Lord during the course of the passage of this Bill. I therefore think it is necessary and right that the statement of the Government's intention should be embodied in the Bill when it becomes an Act. I make no objection, indeed I welcome, a provision to provide for the kind of circumstances which the noble Lord envisaged in resisting the Amendment. He made some reference to Clause 2, which deals with the Scottish Law Commission. We can deal with that when we come to Clause 2. I am dealing here only with the Law Commission for England and Wales, and I ask the noble Lord to give further consideration to this matter.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: As the Amendment is in my name as well as that of my noble and learned friend, perhaps I may add this. I think it is a thoroughly bad principle to give powers, upon the grounds of flexibility or any other grounds, that are so wide that if they are abused they are very dangerous. It is open to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to reduce the Law Commission from the number of five stipulated in the White Paper to three. We should object to that most strongly. Therefore I think it ought to be made mandatory on the Lord Chancellor to appoint five Law Commissioners. Of course, the event may happen which he has indicated, that one may die or be ill or cease to serve for any other reason. But there is no difficulty whatever in putting in a provision, if the noble and learned Lord so wishes, that the reduced number may act—I think the time should be limited, for three months or something like that—until the number has been filled up again. Therefore I certainly suggest to my noble and learned friend that he should adhere to this Amendment and, if necessary, divide the House upon it. I think we are agreed that the number should be five, and therefore we should ensure that the number shall be five.
LORD SILKIN: I think there is no doubt at all that we all believe that five is the right number at the present time. But we have no assurance as to what will
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eventually turn out to be the proper number. It would be wrong to tie the hands of the Lord Chancellor to such an extent that he must have five, even where later events establish that they are not necessary. I do not believe that that will happen, but it could be that five would be a completely unnecessary number. The Lord Chancellor ought to be free to decide for himself, as experience dictates, what is the proper number to have, so long as it is not more than five. This is an Amendment designed, and there are a good many others on the List which are all designed, to fetter the hands of whoever is in control at the time. I see three former learned Lord Chancellors in the Chamber at this moment, and I am quite sure that not one of them would have accepted an Amendment of this kind.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: I am quite sure I would, if I may say so.
LORD SILKIN: I think the noble and learned Viscount has forgotten what he was like in the days when he was in that position. I myself have moved similar Amendments and I know exactly what he said in those days. He said, "These are my intentions, and you can rely on me to act with good sense and responsibility, but it is wrong to fetter the Government."
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: I think the noble Lord's memory is failing him.
LORD SILKIN: I do not think so. I have been on both sides. I have been on the side where I have moved Amendments of this kind; I have been on the side where the Opposition have moved similar Amendments, and the answer has always been the same: these are matters which must be dictated by experience and judgment, and we must rely on the holder of the office, the Lord Chancellor or whatever other position it is, to act with responsibility as experience dictates. I think the Committee will realise that five is accepted at the present time as the right number, but it may not always be so; and it might then be that noble Lords opposite would be the first to say that five were unnecessary and the job could be done with fewer. I do not think this contingency will arise for a good many years, but there may come a time when it will, and I think there should be flexibility.
3.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has made a most interesting speech, but your Lordships will have observed that it was an entirely different speech from the one the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made in defending the form of his clause. The Lord Chancellor said, quite clearly, as the White Paper said, that he had every intention of appointing and keeping five Law Commissioners. That is a perfectly clear statement. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has said he ought not to be committed in that way; he may easily find five is the wrong number.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I said very plainly that after many years it might well be found that they had got so far on with their work that three would be enough. My noble friend Lord Silkin is saying that experience will show; he is saying what I said.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Of course, if the Lord Chancellor does not want to be committed to a particular number that is quite a different thing, and that may or may not be right on merits. But what I wanted to point out was that there is a good deal of precedent for what my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds has said for putting it in the Bill, whatever is the intention. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that when Lord Jowitt was Lord Chancellor he constantly said, whether dealing with our legislation or legislation of his own, "If that is the intention, why not put it in the Bill?" I am not asking the Lord Chancellor to commit himself to saying, "I am always going to have five", if he thinks he ought not to have five. That is a matter of merits. But I suggest that the intention, whatever it is, ought to be put into the Bill.
LORD TANGLEY: I speak on this Amendment as a wholehearted supporter of this Bill. I believe that these Law Commissioners ought to succeed, and I earnestly hope that they will. If they are to succeed, I believe they must satisfy three conditions. I believe that they have to win and gain and hold the confidence of the Lord Chancellor; they have to win and gain and hold the confidence of Parliament, and they have to win and gain and hold the confidence of the public. I look on all these Amendments in that light. Not only does the question
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of numbers arise on these Amendments, but the question of the composition of the Law Commission arises. We have it quite clearly laid down that the Law Commission is to be appointed from among judges, solicitors, barristers and academic lawyers. I greatly hope that we shall see a blend of these different kinds of people on this Commission. That cannot be done with two commissioners, nor with three commissioners. It can just be done with four commissioners. To be quite sure, you must have five.
I believe that the Law Commission would command far greater confidence with Ministers, with Parliament and with the public if the real intention that there should be five Commissioners was laid down in this Bill. If not, at some time we are going to have a judge, or a barrister, or a solicitor, or some academic lawyer left out. If we are going to get the blend we must have five. I do not believe we can get the confidence which this Commission needs unless we have that blend, and that therefore we must have five. I earnestly believe that the Government, in the interests of this Bill, would be well advised to accept this Amendment. What I am saying colours my mind on this Amendment as on many other Amendments, in spite of the blandishments which the Lord Chancellor held out to solicitors. I do not think that the Government really ought to oppose this Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am quite prepared to look at this again, but I do not feel able to give any undertaking. There is no real difference of opinion between us except that I trust future Lord Chancellors much more than the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, does. They will be men of discretion and good sense, and I have no doubt that for a period of years five will be the right number. But, as I pointed out, if you have an Amendment of this kind it means that, on a death or retirement, the whole thing stops until there is a reappointment. Of course, that could be covered by a further Amendment, but this Amendment as it stands would make the Bill hopeless.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, says "Well, let us have a further Amendment providing for an exception until a casual vacancy has been

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filled". But then he declines to say how long that period is going to be. Does this not show the difficulty, which we all appreciate, that one does not know exactly what circumstances may arise from time to time and therefore does not know whether to provide for two weeks or two months? Would it not be right to leave these matters to the good sense of the Lord Chancellor of the day, just as we are doing in the case of the Scottish Commission, which nobody has suggested should comprise other than "not more than five" Commissioners. But we intend five: there is no real difference in intention. The sole question is whether we are to try to have some detailed Amendments to provide exactly how long, after a death or retirement, the Lord Chancellor of the day may take to fill the vacancy.
Here is a new body. We shall know more about it when we have had some years of experience of it. The day may come—it may be ten or fifteen years hence—when, having got through most of their work, it will be found that three will be enough. I am quite sure that it will not be for years. On these grounds, I am certainly prepared to reconsider it in the light of what the noble and learned Viscount says, but, I am afraid, without being able to give any undertaking about it.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: That is a small step forward, but I had hoped that the noble and learned Lord would take a larger step. He has again resisted the idea that the number of Law Commissioners should be specified in this Bill. I think it should be specified. I do not think that prescribing the number is in any way a reflection upon what future Lord Chancellors may or may not wish to do. It is an expression of Government opinion at this time as to what is the correct number. It may be that in thirty years' time—one cannot tell—the number may be reduced. It will always be possible to bring in a small amending Bill if that is required. But it is no good arguing against this particular Amendment, which would bring the Bill into line with the White Paper, to say that if this Amendment is carried into the Bill it will be necessary to make some provision for exceptional circumstances.
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That, I am sure, can be done, and will be done, if this Amendment is carried into the Bill.
The noble Lord has said that he will look at it again, but without giving the slightest undertaking that he would put down some provision to ensure that the number of the Commissioners is stated in the Bill to be five. Indeed, he has done a great deal to advance arguments against taking that course. I do not feel satisfied with that. I think the right course is to make the Bill accord with the White Paper, and then, at a later stage, as we can—or, indeed, in this Committee stage—put in a provision (I am not trying to draft it while I am on my feet, but Parliamentary Counsel have great skill in these matters) to ensure that the Law Commission do not cease to function because of what I may call a casual vacancy. If the noble Lord cannot go further than he has done, and undertake to put something in this Bill to show the number, I feel that I have no alternative but to press this Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I suggest to the Committee that this is really being rather unreasonable. I say that I am quite prepared to consider the Amendment. I come here to meet an Amendment. When I get here it is accepted that the Amendment proposed is hopeless—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: No, it is not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Then I am told that it is correct that you cannot constitute a statutory body which cannot operate at any time when it is not properly constituted; that you must have the exact number, and you must provide accordingly. The only Amendment proposed is to the phrase "not more than". In effect, it means four others exactly. It is agreed that that will not do. It is agreed that if you wanted that you would have to provide that during a vacancy by death or retirement there must be some period, long or short. It is agreed that there must be such an Amendment and, when I ask for time to consider it, I am then told "No, the Committee ought to divide", it being agreed that no Amendment has been put before the Committee which could make sense of the Bill. I think it is unreasonable.
3.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I am sorry the noble and learned Lord feels that. This Amendment was put down, I think, on the very same day as the Second Reading debate. The noble and learned Lord has had all the time from then until now to consider it. I have no doubt that he has considered it. This Amendment is not hopeless. It achieves its object of prescribing the number of Commissioners. It is quite true the noble and learned Lord's only ground for resisting it is that he thinks that a consequential Amendment is required. Well, that consequential Amendment can no doubt be made. I do not think it is unreasonable to ask the noble Lord for an assurance that he will put into the Bill a provision showing that five is to be the number of Commissioners. If he is not prepared to give that assurance I am afraid I must press the matter.
LORD SILKIN: I must say that I remember moving many Amendments of this kind and the noble and learned Viscount was prepared to give an undertaking to consider it; but I do not remember a single occasion when he was prepared to go further than that. He would never give an undertaking that the Amendment which we had moved from this side would be accepted in principle and that he would put down consequential Amendments. We certainly never got that from noble Lords opposite. We were perfectly satisfied—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: If the noble Lord will forgive my saying so, I think his memory is defective. On occasions I am sure I have given the clearest indication that, whilst perhaps I could not accept the Amendment in the form tabled, I would certainly try to meet it at a later stage. I am sure that that is within the noble Lord's memory.
LORD SILKIN: I know that I am getting very old, but I do not think that my memory is defective. I cannot remembed a single occasion when noble Lords opposite have said, "We will accept this Amendment in principle "which is what the noble and learned Viscount is really suggesting. When noble Lords opposite have been prepared to reconsider a matter we have been prepared to withdraw the Amendment, but they were always careful to
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say that they would give no undertaking as to what they were going to do.
LORD CARRINGTON: I have never before intervened on so technical a matter, but I am rather at a loss as to what the noble and learned Lord Chancellor is going to consider. Is he going to consider ways and means of doing what my noble and learned friend wants, or whether or not he wants to do what my noble friend wants? He has had ample time, as I understand it, to consider the merits of the case which he rejects. But if he is saying that he is going back to see how best he can implement what my noble and learned friend wants, then that is rather different.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendment I have come here to oppose —and, after all, the Opposition have had plenty of time to think out the terms of their Amendment—is agreed to be a hopeless one.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes: it has been agreed that there must be some provision for the Commission lawfully to continue and to remain lawfully constituted after a vacancy. The noble and learned Viscount has said, "Let us put in an Amendment to say that the Commission can continue to operate during a casual vacancy." I have had no opportunity to consider whether that is the right way to tackle the thing, or whether we ought to provide for a specific period. Surely if somebody is going to put down an Amendment it is his business to put it down in a workable form. And to come here and say, "I agree that there must be an addition but I cannot tell you at the moment what I think the addition ought to be because I have not thought it out myself", and to suggest some general phrase about a casual vacancy, is not, I suggest, treating others fairly. I desire an opportunity to consider whether or not I think this would be practical.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: May i say this to the noble and learned Lord? He has repeated several times that this Amendment is agreed to be hopeless. That is not agreed at all. All the Amendment seeks to provide is that the Commission shall consist of a chairman and

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four members. If that is a hopeless provision in the Bill, then Section 2(2) of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act must also be a hopeless provision. That reads:
"The Board shall consist of a chairman and eight other members."
There can be no doubt that there is provision in the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act as to what should happen in the event of a casual vacancy. But this Amendment is dealing with who shall constitute the Commission. There can be nothing hopeless about moving an Amendment to say that it shall consist of a chairman and four other members when there is a precedent in Socialist legislation in relation to the Coal Board saying that the board shall consist of a chairman and eight other members.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble and learned Viscount has himself said that the Coal Act contains specific provisions about retirement, so I understood.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I did not say that. I said that doubtless it does. I have not turned my hand to it at the moment, and if it does it will be a precedent for this Bill. But we can discuss only one Amendment at a time. The noble and learned Lord really must not say that this Amendment is hopeless or that it is agreed to be hopeless when there is this very good precedent for it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: With great respect, it is not a precedent if in a Bill there is a specific provision as to what is to happen on death or retirement. It is precisely because this point has not been taken in the Amendment that I have not had any opportunity to see what the precedents are.
LORD OGMORE: I think that the Opposition are being a little unrealistic in this matter, and indeed unfair to the Government. I have been in Government in this House, and I have also been in Opposition for many years, and time after time I have heard this sort of case put to the Government. If the spokesman said, "I should like a little time to consider it", invariably the Opposition has allowed him that opportunity. It would be quite improper on an
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occasion like this to confront the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor with a matter of this sort and put a pistol to his head. He has said that he wants time to consider it, and I think that the Committee should give him time. There will be another stage in the Bill. I do not think that we should harass him in this way. He has a difficult task to perform and I think we should try to help him. I have no doubt that after consideration the Lord Chancellor will come back and if he can meet the wishes of the Opposition will do so. I hope that the Committee will not divide, but if it does divide I trust that the majority will support the Government.
LORD CARRINGTON: If I may intervene once more, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor the same question I asked before, because inadvertently I think that he did not answer it. Is he going away to consider means whereby he can put into effect what so many noble and learned Lords have suggested should be in the Bill? I am no lawyer, and perhaps the Lord Chancellor is right in saying that this Amendment will not do. Is he going away to seek an Amendment to do what my noble and learned friend wishes to see put in the Bill, or is he going away to decide whether or not he agrees with my noble friend in principle?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am going away, it being agreed that this Amendment will not do without a further one. I am going away to consider the precedents. When I have considered the precedents I shall then be able to decide whether or not I think they can be applied to this case, without making it virtually impossible for a Lord Chancellor to take advantage of whatever the circumstances may be.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: May I say—
LORD CITRINE: Is this a duet? I was going to ask whether this Bill is properly entitled "Law Commissions Bill". It seems, on the face of it, that it should be called "Prevention of Unemployment among Lawyers Bill". Everybody who has spoken on this, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is a lawyer. We have heard it said that it is hoped that provision

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will be made for the solicitors' branch as well as the barristers' branch in the Law Commission which is to be set up. I have heard of these demarcation questions from time to time, and no doubt the matter can be resolved. The point at issue here is a matter of phraseology in the Bill, phraseology which is common form. I have met it time and again in nationalisation legislation, where the size of a board was described as "not more than…", leaving it to the Minister subsequently to determine the appropriate number. It is evident that noble Lords opposite have no confidence whatever either in the sense of fairness of the Lord Chancellor or of the equity of this subject as viewed by those on this side of the House.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The noble and learned Lord did go a little further to meet us in answer to my noble friend Lord Carrington. If I understood him correctly, he will endeavour to see whether he can meet the point of this Amendment—that is to say, to put in a provision saying that there shall be a chairman and four other Commissioners. There is precedent for that in the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, and he wants time to consider whether he can make the consequential provision for a casual vacancy which we have been debating. If that is the position, I should be the last to deny the Lord Chancellor the opportunity of considering that further provision. I think that is going a little further than he went originally. If that is the position, I think I can save time by asking now for leave of the Committee to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
House resumed.

REVIEW OF B.B.C. FINANCE
4.1 p.m.
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, it may be for your Lordships' convenience if I now repeat a Statement on B.B.C. finance that has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Postmaster General. If I may, I will use his own words:
"As the House knows, after the report of the Pilkington Committee, the previous Government asked the B.B.C. to undertake a major expan
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sion of their services. They were invited to launch B.B.C. 2, to develop self-contained television services for Scotland and Wales, to extend the hours of sound broadcasting, to undertake more adult education programmes and to make a start with colour television.
"In its first White Paper on the Pilkington Report the previous Government said (Command 1770, Paragraph 59).
'The proposals…will mean increased B.B.C. expenditure. The Government accepts its responsibility to see that the B.B.C. can secure sufficient income to finance adequate services.'
"This undertaking was not fulfilled.
"Last October, on taking office, the B.B.C. submitted to me an estimate for the five years ending March, 1969, which revealed that if the licence was not increased the cumulative deficit would rise to £125 million during that period. They asked for a combined licence of £6 and a sound-only licence of £1 5s. which would just be sufficient to meet this expenditure during that period.
"Faced with this mounting deficit, the Government has decided that the whole question of broadcasting finance requires further study and I shall be asking the B.B.C. to co-operate in this review.
"Meanwhile I shall not authorise any increase in the hours of broadcasting, whether by the B.B.C. or Independent Television. The date for the introduction of colour television cannot in any case be fixed until the implications of the Vienna Conference have been fully considered.
"In the meantime we cannot allow public service broadcasting to be destroyed for lack of finance, and I shall therefore be laying before Parliament shortly after the Easter Recess proposals to increase the licence fees from the 1st August, 1965, to £5 for the combined sound and television licence and £1 5s. for the sound licence.
"I shall also be introducing, on the same date, special cards which will be obtainable at any Post Office, on which people can affix National Savings stamps over the year to the number required to exchange their card for a licence.

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"The review will be completed as soon as possible. It must be seen as a part of the wider review of broadcasting policy which the Government is undertaking which includes the development of educational broadcasting, the allocation of the fourth channel and local broadcasting."
My Lord, that is the end of the Statement.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, while recognising that this is yet another effort to place responsibility on the last Administration for anything which this Government do which is likely to be unpopular, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is satisfied with the degree of financial control exercised by the B.B.C. over their own existing resources? Does the paragraph about a further review mean that their financial control system is going to be carefully investigated? Secondly, I should like to ask the noble Lord this. He has announced the increases for what is called "public service broadcasting." Is the effect of this that those who wish to see only I.T.V. will now have to pay a further sum to the B.B.C. in order to do so?
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, those are three questions in one and it is almost, again, a speech. I will endeavour to remember the three questions. First, let me say that there is no implication whatsoever that the B.B.C. do not control their finance properly. Secondly, what is implied in the Statement, beyond peradventure, is the fact that we are going to look into the whole question of B.B.C. financing. With regard to the statement that one would be able to look at I.T.V. and would have to pay for a licence, that is perfectly true; but logic is a good servant and a bad master, as no doubt the noble Viscount knows full well. But, of course, there are many other obligations of the Post Office involved, even when the I.T.V. does the television.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Statement he has just made, with the information contained in it, has appeared fully this morning in the Daily Express and the Daily Sketch? While I am sure that your Lordships are very grateful that we should be told about it too, may I ask
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when we are going to hear a Government Statement which has not already appeared in the newspapers?
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, I deeply regret that. But, quite frankly, I think the answer is intelligent anticipation in the light of the B.B.C. Report and Accounts, published last year.

CALL-UP OF "EVER-READIES"
4.7 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to intervene to repeat a Statement which is being made by my right honourable friend the Deputy Secretary of State for Defence in another place on the Territorial Army Emergency Reserve, and which, for the benefit of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, I may say has not appeared in the newspapers. The Statement is as follows:
"The House will recall that this Reserve—the Ever-Readies—was set up in 1962 to provide a source of individual reinforcement for units under strength in areas of tension. Its members are all volunteers who receive a special bounty of £150 a year in return for an obligation to serve for up to six months. The Ever-Readies have done very well during training in overseas theatres with Regular Army units. So far none of them has been called out for service under their liability.
"My right honourable friend has now decided to exercise his powers under Section 3 of the Army Reserve Act, 1962, to call up about 175 members of the Ever-Readies for Service with the Regular Army in the Middle East, in the Far East, and with the United Nations force in Cyprus.
"The necessity for this step springs from the fact that the Army has been engaged continuously in emergency operations overseas for over two years. This has had a cumulative effect and creates difficulties which are serious though, I hope, temporary. We now have on emergency tours overseas without their families a brigade headquarters, nine infantry battalions, two armoured car squadrons, one artillery regiment, two engineer squadrons and about 600 individual soldiers. The

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result is that many men in the Army have not had much opportunity of home service and of being united with their families. The long-term effect of this on recruitment and re-engagement in the Regular Army cannot be disregarded.
"The officers and men to be called out are mainly infantry together with small numbers of officers and men of the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Intelligence Corps and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
"The men selected for call-out will receive their orders within a few days. All of them will get at least a month's notice of call-out. This is the first occasion on which members of the T.A.E.R. have been called out for normal service with the Regular Army, with whom they have been undergoing periods of training. I am sure they will discharge their obligations with credit."
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for having repeated that Statement. I am glad to think that the "Ever-Readies"—the idea of the late Government some three years ago—are proving useful; but, of course, it shows not only that the Army has emergency commitments, both in the Middle East and in the Far East, but also that, even though recruiting has been not too bad just recently, there is still a shortage of manpower in the Army. But that we can debate later on this Session, on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Thurlow.
I would ask just two very short questions. First, am I right in thinking that all these men are going to be called up for the full six months of their obligation? Secondly, although I do not exactly remember (perhaps I should, but I do not) the conditions on which these men signed their obligations in the Ever-Ready "Service, I hope the Government will watch very carefully to see that they are not put at a disadvantage in their normal occupations when they return from this overseas service.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I should like to acknowledge that this is a useful piece of legislation that the previous Government introduced and on
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which we twitted the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at various stages; and clearly these men, who have not hitherto been called out although they have freely undertaken the liability, for which they have received a generous bonus, will be able to fulfil a very useful rôle. As I think the Statement made clear—indeed, it was in the White Paper—the Army is overstretched, and the effect on the lives of the men in the Army, with this worsening home/overseas ratio and the increasing amount of unaccompanied service overseas, is a serious one. To that extent there is a shortage, as we know; but I should prefer, as the noble Lord suggests, not to go into that, because it needs very careful examination.
It is proposed that the "Ever-Readies" will be called up for six months. If in fact they are not needed, then obviously they will be returned; but I think there is every likelihood that they will be needed, and the intention is that they should carry out their six months' service. Their position under the legislation introduced in this House by the noble Lord is fully protected. They are protected, as under the National Service Acts. They have taken on this liability, and it is right that some of them should, when the need arises, be called on to meet an obligation which they have freely, honourably and patriotically undertaken.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, may I express the hope that when this matter comes to be more fully debated on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Thurlow, the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, will be able to give us more precise reasons as to exactly why his right honourable friend hopes that this manpower situation is no more than temporary?
LORD REA: My Lords, might I ask the Minister if he could say whether his right honourable friend envisages this as a onetime operation, or is it the first of a series, possibly over a number of years?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I deal, first, with the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman? We have all known for years that there has been a manpower shortage. I hesitate to use the word "temporary" on any subject connected with Army recruiting. On the point made by the noble Lord,

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LORD Rea, I am afraid I cannot forecast what is likely to happen militarily in the world over the next year or two. After all, we have had a series of difficult situations; and I must stress that at the moment the Army is meeting very severe obligations under operational conditions. The purpose of calling these men up is because it is necessary. I would stress that this is not merely an exercise. These men arc needed. I hope more will not be needed, but I certainly could not give any undertaking on that.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether any consideration has been given to the position of young men who are at university now? Would it be possible to give some consideration which would enable them either to finish their course, when that is necessary, or at least to have their call-up postponed until such time as they have completed the more important part of their university training?
LORD SHACKLETON: I should not like to be too specific about compassionate factors. After all, these men, in return for a sum of £150 a year, have voluntarily—and I stress "voluntarily" —undertaken an obligation. They are not in the position of a man who is called up willy-nilly and who has not voluntarily undertaken a particular obligation. It is possible that special circumstances of a compassionate nature may arise in particular cases, but I would remind the noble Earl that this is an annual contract. There has been no obligation on anyone to repeat this contract. I think that if anyone undertook studies and drew £150 a year in the comfortable expectation that he might not be called on to honour his commitment, he would be taking undue advantage, or at any rate would have made a bad judgment.
LORD GRENFELL: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us how many "Ever-Readies" there are and is he perfectly satisfied that the call-up of only 150 will really satisfy the need in the sense that that number will be enough to alter the situation as it stands to-day?
LORD SHACKLETON: The number is somewhere round 6,000 to 7,000. The original target figure, I remember, was about 15,000, but, in the way of such targets, it has tended to be altered to meet the reality. The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, questions whether this call-up will represent a useful contribution towards solving the problem. My Lords, this does not represent an attempt to solve the general problems of the Army, but to meet specific operational needs in the Middle East and the Far East. The House will not want me to go into details, but I would say that this small call-up will strengthen those units where the need is particularly essential—and the noble Lord must realise that the position of a unit which is below strength under operational conditions is particularly unsatisfactory. This is precisely the need that the Territorial Army Emergency Reserve was intended to meet, and this is what this comparatively small call-out will achieve. So I assure the noble Lord that this is a very useful and effective measure.
LORD ROWALLAN: My Lords, can the noble Lord assure us that these "Ever-Readies" are protected under the National Service Acts? Because I remember one case at the beginning of the war of a young apprentice who, about halfway through his apprenticeship, joined the Territorials. He was embodied at the beginning of the war. When the time came for him to return to civil life, he applied to be allowed to continue his apprenticeship, but he was told that he had not been called up; he had volunteered. Therefore he was not entitled, under the Act, to demand to continue his apprenticeship. That young fellow had to go through life without having his apprenticeship completed, and it was a very grave disadvantage to him, of course, in his career.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I will not go back into past history and to the position of volunteers, but I can assure the noble Lord, quite specifically, that these men will be protected in the same way as were National Servicemen.
LORD ROWALLAN: I thank the noble Lord.

LAW COMMISSIONS BILL
4.20 p.m.
House again in Committee.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS VISCOUNT SIMONDS: moved, at the beginning of subsection (2), to insert:
"The Chairman shall be the holder of high judicial office and".
The noble and learned Viscount said: The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has asked me to move this Amendment which stands in our joint names. It is, I hope, a wholly peaceable Amendment. It seeks to ensure that one of the members of the Law Commission shall be a person holding "high judicial office" and that, being a member, he shall be Chairman of the Commission. I think that of the latter point there can probably be little doubt. When I first read the Bill I thought that as a matter of course a person holding high judicial office would be a member of the Commission. It seemed to be implicit in the several references—for instance, in Clause 1(4), in Clause 2(4) and so onto a person holding high judicial office. It seems to me clear that he would be a member. But upon further reading, I think my assumption was incorrect and that under the Bill as it stands it is left open to the Lord Chancellor to appoint a person holding high judicial office or not, as he likes.
Let me assure the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that although I greeted this Bill on its Second Reading with restrained enthusiasm, yet I would have him regard me as a partner in this undertaking now. I hope that he will not regard me as a hostile witness. I therefore want this Bill to be a success. I want the Law Commission to work smoothly and effectively. I am quite sure, as my noble and learned friend Lord Tangley said a short time ago, that it is essential to its smooth working that it should have the confidence of Parliament and of the public, and, above all, of the legal profession. Of one thing I am very sure: that the best way to secure that confidence is to ensure that one of Her Majesty's Judges should be a member of the Commission and should be the Chairman.
Perhaps it is not for me to say so, but I sincerely believe that there is no body of persons who have the confidence of
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Parliament and of the public in the same degree as have Her Majesty's Judges. As I say, it is perhaps not for me to say so, but, in the words of the old saying: "Conscious as we are of each others infirmities, we are yet proud we should stand so high in the public esteem". I do not know whether it is through a mistake of drafting that the Bill does not ensure that a person holding high judicial office should be automatically a member of the Commission—perhaps the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will tell us that. I see no reason why that should not be done. I beg him on this occasion to be conciliatory: not to take further thought, but to agree with the Amendment I am moving. It seems to me to be an Amendment which ought to commend itself to anybody, and I think that I shall be bound to press it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 10, at beginning insert ("The Chairman shall be the holder of high judicial office and").—(Viscount Simonds.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Naturally, I have thought a great deal about the Law Commission for many years, and for many years I have been trying to get it. Naturally, I am enthusiastic for it, and naturally I am most anxious that it should be a success; and if the noble and learned Viscount has become less lukewarm, then I am naturally delighted to welcome him as a companion in the venture. Naturally, I want the Commission to be a success, and in my opinion the Chairman ought to be a High Court judge. I have always thought that; and it is the intent too, as I understand it, in the case of the Scottish Law Commission. I have every expectation of being able to appoint not only a High Court judge but the High Court judge who, of all the High Court judges, in my opinion the Commission would be most fortunate to have. But the point here, as with the last Amendment, is simply the fact that one cannot always foresee events which might arise.
For example, there may be a very outstanding judge who decides to resign young; and he resigns. The day after he resigned, if he was interested in this sort of work, and a vacancy occurred the day after, the Lord Chancellor might well say to himself: "I could have nobody better than the former Mr. Justice Devlin

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(or, as the case may be, some other outstanding lawyer) as the next Chairman to take the place of the man who has just died, or retired. "But, of course, the day after he retires the judge is no longer a High Court judge, and so he becomes ineligible.
Then again, from time to time a county court judge is made a High Court Judge. Both noble and learned Viscounts know that this has happened in many cases, with great success. A Lord Chancellor may have decided that in the next judicial vacancy for a High Court Judge he is going to appoint a particular learned county court judge. Just at that point, a vacancy in the chairmanship of the Law Commission may arise, and the Lord Chancellor may say: "This outstanding lawyer, although a county court judge, whom I was about to make a High Court Judge would, I think, make an admirable Chairman of the Law Commission. "But he cannot appoint this man. He must wait until there is a High Court vacancy, make him a High Court Judge for a day; and he then becomes eligible. Of course, he would not be able to wait if the preceding Amendment were carried, for that would not allow the Lord Chancellor to wait; and he would have to make an appointment to fill the vacancy. But, assuming that he could wait, he must wait until there was a vacancy on the High Court Bench, make the county court judge a High Court Judge for a day, and then he would be eligible. Does this not show the unwisdom of Parliament's trying to tie down the Lord Chancellor of the day—who, after all, has great experience of appointments? He makes more appointments than anyone else.
All lawyers find cases in which they have to construe an Act of Parliament, where they are supposed to say what Parliament intended. The truth is that Parliament did not intend anything, because it did not think enough of the circumstances which might arise and did not foresee them. You get it in contracts, too, where the judge is supposed to ask what the parties to the contract intended in the events that have arisen. The true answer is that the parties obviously did not intend anything, because they never thought of it.
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The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, may remember a case in which the Epsom Grandstand Association sued a bookmaker in the county court for 25s. stand fees. The bookmaker defended himself. He bought a copy of the Act; he took it with him into the witness box and he said to the judge: "You read this. You will see that I am not liable to pay anything. "And the county court judge said: "Yes, the man is right. He is not liable." The Epsom Grandstand Association went to the Court of Appeal who unanimously said that he was not liable to pay anything and that this was the only possible construction. Then the Association, with difficulty, got leave to appeal to your Lordships' House, on condition that they would in any event pay the costs. The case did not quite finish in one day. That night one of their Lordships, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Asquith of Bishopstone, was taken ill. The next day, without asking anyone, the remaining Members of your Lordships' House went on and split two-two. Sometimes in those circumstances (and there are well-known cases; fot example, Paquin, Ltd. v. Beauclerk), the appeal is dismissed. But on this occasion, instead of dismissing the appeal, the Lords hearing the appeal decided to have the whole matter re-argued before five, who then decided the other way. I happen to know that Lord Asquith of Bishopstone was in favour of the bookmaker, so English law would have been different if he had not been taken ill.
The point is this. When Parliament approved and legalised the totalisator, they said that the bookmaker must be fairly treated and they did not want bookmakers to be overcharged, or to make it impossible for them to carry on their business as a result of being overcharged, so they provided that bookmakers must not be charged for their stand fees more than they had been charged in the corresponding meeting of the year before the Act was passed. At that time, there were always two meetings a year at Epsom; then a third meeting was put on. The bookmakers said that, as there was no fee charged for the corresponding week of the year before the Act was passed, when there was no meeting, they obviously could not be charged at all, but the Epsom Grandstand Association said that, on the

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contrary, it obviously meant that they could charge the bookmakers anything they liked: there was no maximum. It was no good asking what Parliament intended, because it never occurred to Parliament that there might be three race meetings instead of two.
There is always a statutory maximum to the number of High Court Judges, but from time to time occasions arise, with the increase in crime, when the Lord Chancellor has to come to Parliament to obtain an increase, and there are times when the number is up to the maximum. Suppose, with increasing work, the Lord Chancellor is being continually told by the learned Lord Chief Justice that Commissioners must be sent out for the day, because there are not enough Judges to do the work, and before he obtains authorisation for an increase from Parliament the Chairman of the Law Commission dies or retires, the Lord Chancellor may then feel in those particular circumstances that the ordinary work of the court ought to come first and that it would not be right to take away a Judge, who really cannot be spared from the trying of cases, and he would have to wait so far as the Law Commission is concerned until his Bill goes through and the number of Judges is enlarged.
Again, there is no difference between us in intention. It is only that I have greater trust and confidence in Lord Chancellors acting sensibly than noble and learned Lords have. They do not propose this for Scotland. All this is aimed at the English, the main, law provision. I suggest that the Lord Chan. cellor can be trusted to deal with the normal circumstances. I have declared what is the Government's intention and what my intention would be. So far as I am concerned, I shall certainly appoint a High Court Judge as chairman. I suppose that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, is more likely to succeed me than anybody else and he has said what he thinks. I should think that the Committee could easily leave it in our hands.
4.33 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: May I say a word from the point of view of the general public, which is one of the classes of people everyone is agreed should like this Law Commission and its functions?
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May I ask the noble and learned Lord to consider this? At the beginning he said that a Lord Chancellor might wish to appoint a county court judge or somebody of that kind. Frankly, I do not believe that the public would be satisfied with anyone who had not held high judicial office. They know the names of such people and all about them, and I do not think the public would like anyone else—for instance, an expert legal professor. May I ask the noble and learned Lord to consider, although I know that he does not like to consider possible Amendments not on the Order Paper, whether it would not be possible to provide that another member of the Commission could act as chairman for a certain period, if the chairman appointed died or was unable to sit, until somebody else who had held high judicial office was appointed?
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: I must say that I thought that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, whom I now regard as my partner, even my leader, in this undertaking, made some thoroughly bad points. We are not concerned with remote and very unlikely contingencies. I maintain that the broad principle, to which the noble Lord who has just spoken subscribes, is that a High Court Judge or other person holding a high judicial office—he may be a member of the Court of Appeal or even a Lord of Appeal, a Member of your Lordships' House—ensures public confidence in such a Commission. To talk about Epsom Grandstand, and I know not what, has very little to do with the application of that broad principle. I would ask the noble and learned Lord not to be difficult about this. but to concede, what I feel sure would be the wish of everybody, that a High Court judge should be a member of this Commission.
LORD SILKIN: We must consider remote contingencies. The noble and learned Viscount wishes to put an absolute obligation on this Commission to have as its Chairman a person of high judicial office. My noble and learned friend has put forward circumstances in which that may be difficult, if not impossible. I would suggest one or two others. We all have the greatest respect and reverence for people of high judicial office,

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for their learning and their character, but they are not necessarily always the best chairmen. It may be very difficult to find a suitable Chairman who is willing to act, and in that case one might have to accept somebody else. It might even happen—another remote contingency, but possible—that the Lord Chancellor of the time (we are not legislating for my noble friend in particular and this Bill will remain in force for a long time) has in mind somebody who is even better as Chairman than anyone possessing high judicial office who is available. Why should the Lord Chancellor of the day be fettered in appointing the best person he can? My noble and learned friend has expressed his intention of appointing a person with high judicial office as Chairman.
I do not think that he should be absolutely bound to find such a person, regardless of whether he happens to be the best chairman or whether there is such a person available, or of other conditions at the time. I do not believe for one moment that any of my noble and learned friend's predecessors would have been willing to allow himself to be fettered in this way. He would express his intention and desire to do the best he could to carry out this intention, but he would certainly not be willing to have it laid down in an Act of Parliament that he must carry out this particular method of appointing a chairman, whether or not it happens to be in the best interests of the nation. I hope that noble Lords will not press this.
LORD COHEN: I have already expressed my sympathy with the Bill and said that I wish to see it succeed. I do not wish to talk about any of the matters discussed on the Amendment, but one thing occurred to me, which I hope the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will consider. The Commission cannot function unless it has a Chairman, and there is no provision that I have noticed about what is to occur in the event of the Chairman's death. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will consider whether some provision could not be inserted to enable the Commission to function during a temporary vacancy in the chair. The same point really arose on the previous Amendment. I ask only that this point should be considered.
LORD TANGLEY: I hope that the Government will not continue to resist this Amendment. Speaking for myself, I am not in the least trying to fetter the Lord Chancellor or to make his work inconvenient in any way. What I am trying to do is to make sure that this Law Commission will function successfully. As I ventured to say on a previous Amendment, it must obtain the public confidence in that way. I do not believe it can obtain the public confidence unless the Chairman is either a High Court Judge or one who has held that office. I can think of many university professors, barristers and, in case the Lord Chancellor should take the words out of my mouth, even solicitors who would be excellent chairmen of this Commission, and probably better personally qualified than some High Court Judges. But that is not how they are looked upon by the public. The mere fact of having held the office of a High Court Judge, or of holding it, is the real guarantee of responsibility in this Commission.
A county court judge, with respect, will not do. I entirely support what the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said. I have the greatest respect for many county court judges, and they have been great successes, in some instances, on promotion. But in the public mind they deal with Rent Act cases, contracts, small debts and things of that kind, and they do not carry the same weight as a High Court Judge or one having experience as a High Court Judge carries. I believe (and this is the last Amendment on this clause where I will support the Opposition) that in this case the Government will be working more successfully for their Bill by accepting the Amendment than they will be if they continue to oppose it.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: May I say at once that I was not present at the Second Reading of the Bill. As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor knows, I am very much in favour of the Bill and, like, I think, all your Lordships, desire it to work. I am not here to advocate the position of a High Court Judge as the most suitable for the post of Chairman, but if, as your Lordships appear to think, it is necessary that the Chairman should be of high judicial office, then let it be so stated. Of course, I accept the intention as expressed by the Lord Chancellor. But

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this is a Bill looking to the future, and having heard the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, I can quite understand that in the future somebody may say that some professor is the best person to be the Chairman. And if that is the intention, so be it. But if it is not the intention, surely something ought to be done by way of amendment.
I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor would see fit to meet those who have moved the Amendment—and it might not suit them (I can see that he might be in a difficulty if he is confined to a present holder of high judicial office) but would it be possible to meet the position by saying that the Chairman shall be a person who either is or has been the holder of high judicial office?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cohen, is one which I will certainly consider. As to the rest, the proposal made both by the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, is not actually the Amendment which is proposed, because it would include somebody who has held high judicial office, which the Amendment does not include. I should like to think about it.
The difference between us is very slight. We all think that the Chairman of the Law Commission ought to be the holder of high judicial office. I can conceive possible circumstances in which there would be difficulties. No one who has spoken on the Amendment has said, for example, what he would want to happen if a vacancy arises at a time when the statutory total of Judges is already complete, the existing Judges are overworked and the Lord Chancellor is engaged in trying to get a Bill through to increase the number of Judges. Just at that point, is he to be bound by statute to take away a High Court Judge from his duties or have the Law Commission come to an end? If you provide all these things by statute, the body will not be lawfully constituted unless it is constituted in the way provided by Parliament. Nobody has answered this quite genuine point.
We are all agreed that in any ordinary circumstances the Chairman of the Law Commission ought to be a High Court Judge; and nobody thinks that stronger than I do. I am merely thinking it right, in relation to my successors, to have in
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mind that there may be exceptional circumstances, like those to which I have referred, in which the Lord Chancellor would have the most difficult task of either bringing the work of the Law Commission to an end or taking away a High Court Judge who was desperately needed to try the cases. It is precisely because Parliament so rarely seems to think of the sort of things which we afterwards find arise in real practice—and one wonders why Parliament never thought that they might happen—that I should still prefer to keep the position plain. But perhaps I might consider this matter further; and it may be that those who have spoken on the Amendment would also be good enough to consider the sort of point which I have envisaged as possibly happening, and see whether, in spite of that, they feel that there should nevertheless be an absolutely rigid provision in the Bill that the Chairman must at all times hold, or have held, high judicial office.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I am glad the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said that he will consider this matter further. If I may say so, he really has the whole House with him in trying to make this the best Bill we can make it. As a rather old hand here, hope I may say that he will appreciate this. There will be times when we shall be debating points where the differences between us will stretch rather wider than (hey do on the matter we are now discussing. We are nearly at one over this. May I say that it is not that we do not trust the Lord Chancellor. I would not give a guarantee that I would trust every Lord Chancellor, because I do not know what sort of Lord Chancellors we are going to have in the future. Delving back into the past, I think of one or two whom I should not have trusted in the way that I should trust the present holder of the office or my noble and learned friends Lords Simonds and Lord Dilhorne. But what we are really anxious about here is what may happen in the future. One or two speeches that have been made have suggested that a High Court Judge might not be the best man, and the best man might be some very good professor. But, as my noble friend Lord Derwent said about county court judges, a fortiori I do not believe that an erudite professor is going to carry that weight in the public mind, even if

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you get a person like Sir Frederick Pollock, whom we all knew in my young days. To those of us who tried to make our living by the law a great many years ago, Sir Frederick Pollock was a household word. If you had gone to the Epsom Grandstand you would have found that nearly every "bookie" knew who the High Court Judges were, but I do not suppose you would have found one who knew who Sir Frederick Pollock was.
There may be a balance of inconvenience, but, frankly, if I had to choose between the inconvenience of having a person who is a High Court Judge or, as it certainly ought to be, who has held high judicial office—and that gives a much wider range for this purpose—I should choose that possible inconvenience against the uncertainty of having somebody who would not carry weight with the public. I believe that if he does not put this in, the Lord Chancellor will be getting his Bill off to a very bad start. We want to get this Bill off to the best possible start, so that it may prove to be a success.
4.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: As my name is on this Amendment, perhaps I might say a word in support of it. I should like to echo the words of my noble friend who has just sat down about our approach to this Bill. It had its Second Reading, and we did not divide against it. None of the Amendments down in my name is designed to do anything but improve the measure. I think it is the general feeling that the Chairman of this Commission should be the holder of, or should have held, high judicial office. There is no argument about that at all. I think it is equally clear from what the Lord Chancellor said that, whether or not this Amendment is accepted, there must be some provision here for temporary tenure of the office of Chairman.
The noble and learned Lord has pul the question about what would happen when the establishment of judges was full to capacity and there was a vacancy as Chairman of the Law Commission. I should not be in the least opposed to the idea that there should be provision in the Bill for enabling him to appoint a temporary Chairman, for a period of limited duration, and not
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applying the criteria here, if that was desired, or for saying that for the time being the Commission could go on so long as the numbers did not fall below three. I think something of that sort will be required. If the noble Lord will say that he accepts the view—and it really is not seeking to impinge upon the proper degree of discretion which the Lord Chancellor has—that this wording ought to go into the Bill, then I am sure we can make further progress.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not think I can say more than I have said already. I should like to consider the point and to discuss it with some noble Lords who have themselves said that there may be some difficulty where the maximum number of judges has been reached. The noble and learned Viscount has not dealt with this point at all. If you are up to your maximum number of judges, and the Chairman of the Law Commission dies or retires, what is a Lord Chancellor to do, faced with this very difficult situation: that if this Amendment is put into the Bill, either the whole Commission has to come to an end, or he has to take somebody off his ordinary work until he can get a further Bill through. I should like to discuss this with the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: May I ask the Lord Chancellor a question, because I have not the numbers in my mind? Are there not something like 80 High Court Judges now? Is it not rather unlikely that, with that number, he will not be able to obtain one when the occasion requires, considering the importance which we all attach to this Law Commission? I cannot help thinking that that is such a remote contingency, that he was raising it to make difficulties rather than to help.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can assure the noble and learned Viscount that it is not a remote contingency at all. We are at the moment within one of the maximum and, as the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, knows, to the regret of both of us I am continually being asked to send out commissioners to do work simply because there are not enough High Court Judges available.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: It is one-eightieth.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The present total is within one of the maximum. I am hoping that Parliament will agree to increase the numbers shortly.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: I hope that I have assisted the Lord Chancellor in his task by suggesting that the Amendment might be extended to include those who have held high judicial office. I have often thought there was something to be said in favour of the retiring age, in the hope that we could build up a really strong panel of retiring judges who could do so many of the things which, apparently, they are required in the public interest to do, rather than take somebody who is fully occupied in trying cases. I hoped that by extending the ambit from which the Chairman was drawn it would meet to some extent the Lord Chancellor's difficulties.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is not the Amendment proposed, but it is what the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, also proposed, and that is why I should like to consider it.
LORD CITRINE: Is it not usual for judges from time to time, at the conclusion of a case, to reserve judgment, in order that they may consider all the facts that are put forward? What can be the possible objection to giving the Lord Chancellor an opportunity to do just that, rather than press him at this moment? With a somewhat depleted House, if the Amendment goes to a Division it is highly improbable that the result will properly reflect the views of the Committee.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: Would the Lord Chancellor be good enough to answer a question, for clarification? He has said twice that if the Chairman who is a High Court Judge vacated the chairmanship of this Commission, and there were no other High Court Judges available at the moment, the whole work of the Commission would come to an end. Is that so? It would seem to me that in a comparatively short space of time he would get a Bill through Parliament to appoint more Judges. Even assuming that that took six months, or something of that sort, does he mean to say that if this happened, and he could not produce another judge for six months, the whole work of the Commission would come to an end?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am afraid that that is the legal consequence That is why you usually say, "not more than" so many people; or, if you have a fixed number, make provision for what is to happen if somebody dies or retires, Otherwise, the body is not properly constituted. A statutory body is a body which exists only so long as it fulfils the conditions which Parliament has laid down for its constitution. So if you do have a fixed number, it is necessary, as the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has said, to add something to provide what is to happen on a casual vacancy. If you are going to say that this Commission is properly constituted only if a High Court Judge is Chairman, then in law it remains properly constituted only so long as that is so. I am not saying that it would not be impossible to add provisions, as has been suggested, for some temporary vacancy or, in the event of the judges arriving at their maximum number, that that should be a special circumstance entitling the Lord Chancellor not to appoint a new Chairman for such-and-such a period. But the effect of the Amendments if passed—
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: The Lord Chancellor would agree that the point can be taken care of, though not by this particular Amendment.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: I wish to be sweetly reasonable. I am not quite sure what the Lord Chancellor's mind is about this, but it seems to me quite easy to introduce something on the Report stage. If he will tell me that he intends to accept this Amendment, subject to a suitable further Amendment on the Report stage, I shall be very glad to withdraw my Amendment.
LORD SILKIN: I resent this pressure. I think it is very unfair pressure. If a person in charge of a Bill says: "I am prepared to consider what has been said in Committee", ought that not to be sufficient? Ought he to be required to say: "I accept in principle what has been said"—even if he does not—"otherwise, we shall force a Division"? If that is the attitude of noble Lords opposite, then we understand. But I hope that that is not going to be their attitude.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: I do not know whether or not the Lord Chancellor

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accepts this principle. Perhaps it is my own fault, but he has left me in doubt as to what his intentions are in this matter. Perhaps I may ask him the plain question: Does he intend to accept this Amendment, but upon Report stage, if he can find a further suitable Amendment, to bring in such further Amendment as he thinks will make the Bill work?
LORD BOOTHBY: May I, as one who has had a certain amount of Parliamentary experience, say that this is quite unprecedented? I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. The Lord Chancellor has made his position perfectly clear to the Committee. He has asked for time to reconsider the matter and that, in my submission, should be enough. He has given his authority to that, and it is sufficient. I have certainly never known an occasion in another place when, a Minister of the Crown having asked for time to reconsider a question, and having promised to do it, in consultation with those particularly concerned, he has been pressed to accent an Amendment, with the idea that he might ultimately bring in another Amendment on Report. I think the noble Lords will not mind if I suggest that we really ought to accept the assurance of the Lord Chancellor, and this Amendment should be withdrawn.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked what the Opposition view was with regard to this. As he and I know, with our experience in another place, which was perhaps longer than our experience here, there are different ways of saying that one will consider a particular suggestion. If you say that you will consider it without giving any undertaking, that holds out little hope of any change and then you pass on to the next business. If you say you will consider it and that you are in sympathy with the idea although it may not be practicable and there may be difficulty, then everyone knows that if possible the person in charge of the Bill will try to meet the point.
From what the Lord Chancellor said —I am not seeking to score any points or to criticise—I personally got the impression that the noble and learned Lord would be in sympathy with this proposal if he could find a way of solving
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the problems to which he drew the attention of the Committee. If that is so, and if I have interpreted correctly what the noble and learned Lord said, I think in fact it answers my noble and learned friend's question, that the Lord Chancellor is in sympathy with the proposal, he sees difficulties in regard to what may happen when a vacancy occurs owing to the limits, and he would like time to consider the matter.
LORD SILKIN: That is a very different thing from saying—
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: If the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting, I think I may be able to save time, as it is getting late. In view of what my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne has said I think I will ask leave to withdraw the Amendment now, hoping that the Lord Chancellor will be of a conciliatory frame of mind. I must tell him that if he is not we shall have our battalions again on Report because we attach great importance to this. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNEmoved to add to subsection (2):
"of whom not less than three shall have been actively engaged in the administration or practice of the law in the course of the year preceding their appointment."
The noble and learned Viscount said: I regard this as an important Amendment, and perhaps more important than any of the Amendments we have so far been discussing. In the course of the Second Reading debate I expressed the view that it was essential that lawyers with recent practical experience should be well represented on the Commission, and I said that if the Chairman was to be the holder of high judicial office, as I hope will be the case, at least two of the four of the other Commissioners should be lawyers with recent practical experience. If the Chairman is going to be a High Court Judge, as I now understand is to be the case, I would say that at least one member should be a member of the Bar with practical experience in the courts, and at least one member should be someone with practical experience as a solicitor. With the Judge, that means there will be three

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members who have actually been engaged in the administration or practice of the law.
This Amendment is intended to secure that, because I think it would be an improvement to the Bill if that were provided. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, in his reply on Second Reading, said this:
"I would suggest for his"—
that is to say, my—
"consideration that it is extremely desirable that the Lord Chancellor (I am not thinking of myself, but Lord Chancellors in future) should be as free as possible to appoint the men whom he thinks are the best men at the time."—IOFFIcFAJ, REPORT, Vol. 264 (No. 60). col. 1222, April 1, 1965.]
Whether the successor to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is free to appoint anyone to the Law Commission, assuming it goes on, may depend on the terms of employment the noble Lord makes with those he appoints as Law Commissioners, and this will be the subject of discussion on a later Amendment. However, I do not myself think that the Lord Chancellor will be getting the best men for the job unless he gets three men with the qualifications proposed by this Amendment. I do not think this Commission will command much respect unless it has on it a Judge and at least two other members with recent experience in the administration or practice of the law.
I would ask the noble and learned Lord whether he envisages a Law Commission without three such men upon it? I hope that is not the case, because if it is I do not think he will be getting the best men. When appointing a body of this sort, or creating it by Statute, it is by no means unusual to state all the qualifications which the members of the body should possess, and if this Amendment is accepted I believe that the noble and learned Lord and his successors will be as free as they need to be to find the best men. A somewhat similar Amendment was moved in another place, and resisted for reasons which I must confess I did not find convincing. It may be that the Minister without Portfolio was not free at that time to accept Amendments to this Bill.
In this connection I want to refer to something which has already appeared in the Press. Since the Second Reading my attention has been drawn to an article in
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the Guardian, which no doubt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has seen, headed "Five Likely Law Commissioners". I have made such inquiries as I can, and it would seem to me as a result of those inquiries that the persons named in that article as the likely Law Commissioners are in fact going to be the Law Commissioners, and that they may have a bearing on this Amendment. If I am wrong about this I will gladly give way to the noble and learned Lord here and now and be corrected, but if I am not wrong I will proceed upon the assumption that this article is well-founded. The article was by the legal correspondent of the Guardian and it names Mr. Justice Searman as the likely Chairman. I hope that is the case because I am sure that he will be a very good Chairman indeed. It then goes on to mention Mr. Neil Lawson, O.C. He has, I understand, retired from the Bar, and did so on March 31. I wonder whether Mr. Lawson was in the Lord Chancellor's mind when, in his reply on the Second Reading, he said this, in column 1222:
"Of course, as soon as you start to tie somebody's hands in that way, then if you have a leading member of the Bar retiring, young"—
and of course Mr. Lawson is a leading member of the Bar—
"the day before he retires he can be a Law Commissioner, and the day after he retires he cannot."
I would point out this is no answer to this Amendment, but this Amendment is so drawn as to enable the appointment of someone who has recently retired. If Mr. Justice Scarman and Mr. Neil Lawson are to be two of the Commissioners, they will be two with recent experience in the administration and practice of the law.
The others named in this article are Mr. Marsh, the present Director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. I do not think he would for one moment claim recent experience in the practice or administration of the law. The fourth name is that of Professor Gower, who taught commercial law at the London School of Economics and has been directing the law school at Lagos and advising on legal education throughout Nigeria. The fifth name is that of Mr. Andrew Martin, the co-author with

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the noble and learned Lord of Law Reform Now. The Guardian says that Mr. Martin is of Hungarian origin and received his legal education on the Continent, and has combined teaching law at Southampton with practice at the Bar. As I understand it, he carries on a practice in Private International Law and such practices do not, I think, lead to very frequent appearances in our courts. I am not sure whether Mr. Martin is to be regarded as actively engaged in the practice of our law. If he can be, then there will be three who satisfy the terms of this Amendment. If he cannot, or if the Lord Chancellor thinks it doubtful whether he can, then that is perhaps a reason for the resistance of this Amendment.
If this article is correct, what I think is serious is that the Law Commissioners will not include a single solicitor with recent practical experience. I must say that I do think the omission of such a solicitor would be a very great mistake. On Second Reading I expressed the view that it was essential that the Commissioners should be of the highest distinction in the law, and the Lord Chancellor said that he should he free to appoint the best man at the time. I must say that I feel some doubt whether a member of the junior Bar, a part-time teacher of law and a part-time practitioner of Private International Law, and co-author with the noble and learned Lord, can properly be regarded as coming within that category.
The Guardian, usually a very reliable paper, goes on to say this:
"All had some association with or have been actual supporters of the Labour Party."
On Second Reading I asked for an assurance from the noble and learned Lord that in selecting the Commissioners he would take great care to see that they were free from bias on one side or the other. I had not then seen this article. But that assurance was not given by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and if these are the men who have been selected, with that background —although I make no personal reflection upon them; I do not wish to do so—it would not be possible for the noble and learned Lord to give that assurance. I went on to point out that, should the Commissioners be a Left-wing body or have a Left-wing bias and use their powers for the promulgation of Left-wing
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ideas, the process of enactment was likely to be slow, and it would really be expecting too much if it was thought that agreement could be reached on an accelerated procedure of legislation for Bills that emanate from the Law Commission, if it is going to be, as appears from this article to be the case, apart from the judge, an entirely Left-wing body.
The noble and learned Lord resisted the suggestion embodied in this Amendment on the ground that he should be free to appoint the best man or to appoint those he regarded as the best men, whether or not they had any recent experience in the administration or practice of the law of England. I think he is absolutely wrong to assume that the best men for this work are those, and only those, who support his Party. His predecessors have for many years sought to secure a fair balance on benches of magistrates. I have no doubt the noble Lord seeks to do that, and I have no doubt his successors will seek to do so, too. But it does seem to me to be really very extraordinary indeed that the noble and learned Lord should have disregarded the need for a fair balance on the Law Commission, from which so much is expected. This Amendment will at least secure that there is an adequate number on the Commission with practical experience of law. I recognise, in the light of what I have said, that it may not perhaps go far enough, but I am reluctant to table an Amendment imposing on the Lord Chancellor the duty to secure a fair political balance on the Commission. It should not be necessary to do so, and I shall be content even now with the assurance for which I asked on Second Reading. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 13, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
5.16 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I cannot, I am afraid, accept this Amendment, but I can certainly give the assurance asked for. No appointment, of course, has been made, though there have naturally been preliminary inquiries to see who might be available. May I deal first with this political question? We all know that, before the war, from time to time a High Court Judge was appointed, not because his standing or practice at the

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profession warranted it but because he had sat and voted for a long time in another place the right way. When a Labour Government was elected after the war Lord Jowitt made it perfectly plain that, so far as a Labour Government was concerned, this practice was not going to continue. He made it clear that a Labour Government did not believe in "jobs for the boys", so far as legal appointments were concerned, and that he would pay no attention whatever to Party politics in making appointments. And we all know that he did not. Ever since then, the precedent having been broken, I believe that Lord Jowitt's example has been followed by successive Lord Chancellors. Every Lord Chancellor has some pressure put on him by his own Party (I know that this is true of my predecessors) to recommend "A" for Silk, or to make "B" a recorder, because he is a good member of the Party.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: May I interrupt the noble and learned Lord? I think he suggested that this wholesome practice was initiated by Lord Jowitt. Surely that was not so. Surely Lord Simon (I speak, of course, subject to correction) never made a political appointment. I do not think Lord Jowitt did. Nor, I am sure, did Lord Maugham. Nor, I think did Lord Caldecote; and I do not remember that Lord Hailsham did. There were considerable fears expressed that Lord Jowitt might not follow the wholesome example of his predecessors. Much as I admire what he did, I do not think he could claim to have initiated that practice.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Before the war a number of people were appointed (everybody in the Temple knows who they were) to the Bench because they had voted for a long time in another place, though their standing and practice at the Bar did not justify the appointment. But so far as I am concerned, Lord Jowitt having announced this principle, I do not propose in any appointment I may make of any character to pay the slightest attention to any question of Party politics at all, If I think that, on his practice, a man deserves to be recommended for Silk I shall so recommend, even if he is a member of the Labour Party; because
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it would not be fair that a man entitled to it should be kept back for fear that somebody might say, "It is done only because he is a friend of the Lord Chancellor "or" because he is a member of the Party." In the same way I shall not prefer anybody because he is a member of the Labour Party, or pay any attention at all to that fact. I am quite certain that is right, and so far as all legal appointments are concerned a Lord Chancellor should act on merit: he should choose whoever he thinks is the fittest man for the job, wholly irrespective of his political view.
I read the newspaper article which has been referred to. As a matter of interest, I may say that, as an ex-chairman of the Society of Labour Lawyers, I have a membership list in my possession. I looked at that list, and found that only one of the five names mentioned is upon it. It may be that those who are such enthusiasts for law reform that they are prepared to give up a large income and take a smaller one may be found more in the Party of reform than in the Party of reaction —it would not be surprising if that were so. I do not know whether this is necessarily so, because I remember that on the Bar Council some of the most enthusiastic law reformers were the young Conservatives. But I can certainly give this undertaking: whether in appointing to the Law Commission or making an appointment of any other kind, I will resolutely pay no attention whatever to the Party political attachments of those concerned.
The reason I cannot accept this Amendment is again because I am thinking of the position of future Lord Chancellors. I want the Law Commission to be a success. I believe in it. Perhaps I might ask noble Lords on the Liberal benches: Who do you think is most likely to produce the optimum conditions for a Law Commission—those who believe in it and have always wanted it, or those who, like the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, have always been against it and hope it will fail? I am the person, I suppose, who will be blamed first if it does not succeed.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The noble Lord must not say that I have always been against it and hope it will fail. I certainly hope it will not fail; I hope

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it will succeed. But I have said already —and I ask him to accept this—that these Amendments are designed to help it succeed. He may not agree with that. I said on Second Reading that I thought that the same object would be achieved by other methods. But he ought not say that I have always been against it. We did not vote against the Second Reading of the Bill, and these Amendments are put down with a constructive spirit.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: They are all Amendments designed to make it as difficult as possible for the Lord Chancellor to find the best men.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will substitute the word "calculated" for the word "designed". These men must have certain particular qualifications; they must be appointed for not more than three years; they must be whole time, and so forth. All the Amendments we are coming to are of that character. We do not know, until we try, how difficult it is going to be to get people.
Again, I do not disagree with the spirit of the Amendment. Knowing something of the work of the Law Reform Committee of the Law Society, rather more of the work of the Law Reform Committee of the Bar Council, and having been Chairman of the Executive Committee of Justice and knowing about their law reform committees, I think there is no doubt that the committees of Justice do the best work precisely because, not being limited to one branch of the profession, they usually comprise barristers and solicitors and academic lawyers. I agree that we want the mixture. But one has to consider for the future who may be available and what may happen in the years ahead.
The point is that in other appointments which he makes the Lord Chancellor is not tied down in this way. After all, nothing is more important than judicial appointments. Parliament does not say to the Lord Chancellor, "You must appoint a High Court Judge who must be an expert in patent law, two of them ought to be experts in Revenue law, one half of them ought to have had circuit experience and they should not be less
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than a certain age or more than a certain age". The sole qualification of a High Court Judge is that he should be a barrister who has been called ten years and that is all: there is no other qualification of any kind. You do not say, as this Amendment does, that he must have been practising as a barrister within a year of his being appointed a High Court Judge. We leave the whole thing entirely to the Lord Chancellor's discretion. It may be most desirable—it is, of course, desirable and is always the fact—that we have a certain number of judges with different kinds of experience. Of course the Lord Chancellor takes that fact into account at the time he makes an appointment. But we have found, in practice, that this matter is better left to the discretion of the Lord Chancellor.
When he makes recommendations for Silk (and this is important to the individuals themselves), the sole qualification is that the candidate should be a barrister. There is nothing to stop the Lord Chancellor from appointing as a Silk somebody who was called yesterday. I can well imagine its being said: "We really cannot allow the Lord Chancellor to appoint as a Silk a barrister who was called only yesterday." But in practice it has always been found that if appointments are left to the good sense of the Lord Chancellor of the time he will do the right thing. It may not always be realised that he is not concerned simply with legal appointments. He often makes appointments of lawyers as chairmen of agricultural land tribunals, the appeal tribunal under the Air Navigation Order, the betting levy appeal tribunal, the Children Act appeal tribunal, compensation appeal tribunals, the independent schools tribunals, the Lands Tribunal, nominated selectors under the Mines and Quarries Act, the national assistance appeal tribunals, the mental health appeal tribunals, various national insurance tribunals, nurses training institutions tribunals, National Service tribunals, pensions appeals tribunals, rent tribunals and many others. The Lord Chancellor has great experience of appointments and, while in most of these cases the chairman has to be legally qualified, Parliament has always trusted the Lord Chancellor with wide powers, feeling that he is to be trusted to exercise them responsibly.

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In the present case you are trying to lay down conditions which do not exist for High Court Judges, for county court judges, for recorders or chairmen of tribunals—in fact for anybody except a Law Commissioner. It is only in the case of the Law Commission that the Lord Chancellor is to be tied down and confined in this way, that
"not less than three shall be actively engaged in the administration or practice of the law in the course of the year preceding their appointment."
I personally have every intention of appointing not less than three with that qualification. But that is not the point. One has to consider the future, and who may or may not be available.
It may be that the leading member of the Bar does not want to leave the Bar, but the Lord Chancellor of the day puts a great deal of pressure on him, no doubt in the public interest, and says to him: "You really must come in as the chairman of this important new Government committee. You are the only one whom both sides in industry will trust." Not because he wants to, but because he thinks it his public duty, the man gives up his practice to do that work. It may be that after a year and a day there is a change of Government and the Committee ceases to function. If at that moment there is a vacancy on the Law Commission, might not a man like that, if he has been one of the leading barristers of the day, be an excellent Law Commissioner?
But under this Amendment the Lord Chancellor would be tied down. If it is a year and a day, and the man in question has not been in active practice for a year and a day, he is ineligible to be appointed a Law Commissioner. One would have the absurd position that this man, if he went to the expense of taking chambers, getting a clerk and conducting one case, would be qualified to be a Law Commissioner; but that, otherwise, Parliament, in its wisdom, has put it out of the power of the Lord Chancellor to appoint such a man. A solicitor of thirty years' experience who then does something else for a year does not forget what he has learned in thirty years. This is the unwisdom of trying to tie down the Lord Chancellor with restrictive conditions of this kind. And it is only in the case of the Law Commission that it is to happen.
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I This is a point to which the Government have given most careful attention to, and I am unable to accept the Amendment. It has been considered carefully, too, in another place. The Opposition there, perfectly properly, put down a number of Amendments; and a similar one (except that it did not refer to the year) was put down on the Committee stage. The Opposition, quite properly, kept the Government there for four days while these important Amendments (which are most of the Amendments that your Lordships have yet to consider) were argued. Some of those who were supporting the proposal said they thought that to require three Commissioners with those qualifications was putting it too high, but they considered that the Government should accept that at least two should have them. Having carefully considered that suggestion, and after everything that could be said on both sides had been said, the Government, which the public have elected, rightly or wrongly, refused to accept this.
Not deterred, and again quite properly, the Conservative Opposition (because I do not think the Liberal Members took part in this, although they have always supported the idea of a Law Commission) put down much the same Amendments all over again on the Report stage, though in this case they reduced the number from three to two. They argued on those Amendments until 3 o'clock in the morning-2.58 to be precise. I know, because I was there. Again, there was a full argument, and everything that could be said on the subject on both sides was said. Again, the Government, rightly or wrongly, thought that this ought to be left to the discretion of the Lord Chancellor of the day and that he ought not to be restricted in this way.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, referred to the troops to be brought up on the Report stage, and who no doubt are here to-day. We are under no illusion at all about that. There are 1,006 Lords in the House of Lords. If they all thought it their public duty to come here and vote, less than half could do so. Those best qualified to know vary as to whether, if your Lordships were all standing, as jammed as you can be, the figure would be 410.

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or 430, or 450; but it is certainly less than half who can possibly vote, and there would be no means of knowing the way those who were kept outside would have voted. We are under no illusion at all that, as your Lordships' House has a built-in Conservative majority of about 900 over all other Parties, we can carry anything against that. All we can do is to stress the fact that if the House passes this Amendment it will not be exercising its function of a revising character.
Short as is the time I have been in your Lordships' House, I have been here long enough to know that a Second Chamber fulfils a very useful purpose as a revising Chamber in observing things which have been missed in another place —a very useful function that is. When legislation goes to another place they say, "We are sorry, we did not notice that. It is obviously right." But this is not a matter of this kind; this is a matter in which there is a conflict of opinion between those whom, rightly or wrongly, the people have elected and those whom they have not. Everything that has been said in your Lordships' House to-day about this was said in another place, and of course the noble and learned Viscount knows quite well that I am not at liberty to accept this Amendment because the whole thing has been fully argued in another place, and on a conflict of this kind either they decide or your Lordships' House decides.
5.32 p.m.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: May I, at the risk of making matters worse, try to pour a little oil on troubled waters? I, for one, shall vote against this Amendment, for this reason. If the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is sympathetically considering, as I have no doubt he is, an Amendment which will secure that the Chairman is a person who either is now, or has been, in high judicial office it is inconceivable that the other members of the Commission will be appointed without consultation with him. I think that the House can trust the Lord Chancellor —and, after all, the noble and learned Lord has had this Bill at heart for years; he wants to see it work and knows as well as we do that it will work only if it has the complete confidence of the
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public and, above all, of the Bar and of lawyers generally—together with the Chairman, if that Chairman is a gentleman of high judicial office, to ensure that the constitution of the Commission is such as to command respect.
LORD TANGLEY: I, too, hope that this Amendment will not be pressed. I am partly reassured and partly alarmed by what the noble and learned Lord Chancellor has said about the constitution of the Commission. I should have thought it absolutely axiomatic, as I ventured to say on Second Reading, that there should be a practising barrister and a practising solicitor on this Commission. I do not think that it can work without it. I was not going to give any names because I do not necessarily believe what I read in the newspapers, but as these names have been mentioned I am bound to say that some are friends of mine and most of them, with only one exception, are acquaintances. If those persons were appointed, the verdict of the profession would be that one would have a High Court Judge, a practising barrister, and three Leftish dons.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but as he has mentioned an individual, a Leftish don, I ought to say this. I know how very little of the time of his practice is given to that work; I know the size of his practice; I know what his very large income at the Bar is, and regard it as very unfortunate that an individual should be attacked when he is not here to defend himself.
LORD TANGLEY: I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor persists in thinking that anybody who is trying to help him on this matter is attacking him.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Not attacking me, but attacking an individual in his reference to "a Leftish don", when I know the size of his practice at the Bar.
LORD TANGLEY: I am not expressing my own views about yersons some of whom are personal friends of mine. What I am bound to do, in view of the publicity given to these names, is to say that none of them could be regarded as practising solicitors, and all would in fact be regarded as Left-wing

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dons. Whether that epithet is justified or not, that is the impression which would be given, because they are not practising solicitors or practising barristers in any accepted sense of the term. None the less, in spite of that, the Lord Chancellor must be trusted to produce a Commission which will command public respect and support.
I do not believe that this Amendment will help him at all in that direction. The fact that a man can satisfy the Lord Chancellor that he has done a little legal work during the immediately preceding twelve months does not make him a practising barrister or practising solicitor. It might indeed be embarrassing to have to ask a barrister whether he has had a brief in the previous twelve months. It might also be embarrassing to ask a solicitor whether he has done anything for a client in the previous twelve months. It cannot be the right criterion to ask that sort of question.
Moreover, if a Lord Chancellor were minded to make some improper appointment, with this Amendment in the Bill, he could very easily drive a coach and horses right through it. It would be the easiest thing in the world to arrange that a barrister should qualify technically as a practising barrister during the preceding twelve months, and that a solicitor should qualify as a practising solicitor during the preceding twelve months.
LORD SILKIN: Has the noble Lord read the Amendment? It does say "actively engaged". You could not call a man "actively engaged" if you are doubtful whether he has had one brief in the past twelve months.
LORD TANGLEY: I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is trying to destroy the argument with which I was hoping to support his noble and learned friend.
LORD SILKIN: I am hoping to destroy a bad argument. I do not think it needs any bad argument to destroy the Amendment. I would rather destroy it by a good argument than by a bad one.
LORD TANGLEY: The Amendment says:
"actively engaged in the administration or practice of the law"
but it does not say what "actively" means.
LORD SILKIN: That is another matter.
LORD TANGLEY: The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is a very active person and there are other people who are perhaps less active, but one cannot say that any of us are totally devoid of some activity. This is not a distinction which will work. I submit that it cannot work. In fact, it is on a par with trying to define a gentleman by saying that a gentleman is a person who has been observed in at least one gentlemanly activity during the immediately preceding twelve months.
5.39 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I have listened to all that has been said. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor started by saying that he was not at liberty to accept this Amendment. He told us that it had been carefully considered by the Government in the course of the passage of the Bill through another place. But he then made some observations about the functions of your Lordships' House. There is nothing improper in raising a matter in this House; we can raise anything we like. There is nothing improper in raising a matter in this House in deliberations on a Bill, even though it may have been raised in another place. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a Government, of whatever colour it may be, may have second thoughts; nor is it beyond the bounds of possibility that some new arguments may be advanced. Having had this article drawn to my attention, and having heard that there is a great deal of talk about it, I thought it would be right to refer to it in the course of this debate. I should like to stress this.
I was very glad indeed to hear the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor say—as, indeed, I thought he would—what were the principles and policies that he was proposing to follow, with the appointment of Judges and Silks and other people to all kinds of judicial offices. I thought he was wrong in attributing the start of that process to the late Lord Jowitt. I think it is here that the noble and learned Lord has rather misconceived the point. This Amendment is not designed as a reflection upon him, or upon any future Lord Chancellor, or as limiting their proper discretion. But we are here setting up an entirely new body.

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There has not been a body of this kind in this country before. It seems to me that for Parliament to say, "We should like this body to have at least three people on it with particular qualifications" is not really asking very much, and not asking for something that is very wrong.
It is a common feature of our legislation, and of Socialist legislation, to lay down and prescribe in a Bill the qualifications that persons are required to have before they are appointed to a particular board. What we have in mind here (I do not mind people criticising the wording of an Amendment; we have no Parliamentary draftsmen to help us) has met with general approval in the Second Reading debate, and, indeed, from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. What we propose is that there should be a majority on this Commission with actual practical experience. I myself would say that the most desirable set-up would be one judge, one member of the Bar for a certainty, and one solicitor. That leaves a choice with regard to the other two. It could be two academics, or one academic or one partly academic. But for this body to be set up with that kind of membership would, I think, be right.
I am not quite clear—it may be my fault—about some of the things that the noble and learned Lord said. I am not sure that the Commissioners he proposes to appoint really fulfil those qualifications. So far as political views are concerned, I said on Second Reading, and I say again now, that I do not think it ought to be any handicap to any member of either branch of the legal profession to take part in politics. But if we are going to create a board like this, surely great care should be taken to see that there is not a natural political bias on the board, in one direction or another. The noble Lord, Lord Tangley, referred to three "Left-Wing dons". I do not have the pleasure of knowing them, but I know two of the others named. I should have thought, although they may not all be members of the Society of which the noble and learned Lord was such a figure in the past, that it was very undesirable not to secure, if possible, a balance of political outlook. I should have thought that in constituting a board of this kind that ought to be one of the objectives. I know that one
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cannot achieve that by tabling an Amendment, and I should be very reluctant to do so; and I am glad to have obtained from the noble Lord the assurance which he gave at the commencement of his speech.
I should like to take a leaf out of the Lord Chancellor's book and consider this matter—and perhaps he would, too —between now and the next stage, in the light of the other matters that are being considered. He is shaking his head, but here again I ask him merely to bear this in mind. I think there is nothing between us—at least, I hope there is not—as to the kind of people we want to see on the Commission. He wants a judge; he wants people with practical experience. So do we. But what is desirable is that we should seek to find some way of expressing that in this Bill, because—again I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Grimston of Westbury—I believe it will command much more public support if it is clear that the Commission must be so constituted. Having said that, I must ask leave to withdraw this Amendment. It is a slightly different one from the next Amendment. But I say that, while reserving the right, should I consider it desirable in the light of further reflection, to place it or a similar Amendment on the Order Paper at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS VISCOUNT SIMONDS moved to add to subsection (3):
"No person shall be appointed to the office of Commissioner for more than three years and every person appointed to the Commission shall be required to serve whole time."
The noble and learned Viscount said: My noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne has asked me to move this Amendment, and I can be very brief about it. It is an Amendment to subsection (3) of Clause 1, and it is intended to provide that a Commissioner shall be appointed for not more than three years. That is one part of the Amendment, and a quite separate part is that the Commissioners shall have whole-time appointments. I think that separate considerations apply to those two parts of the Amendment.
It struck me, when I read this Bill, that there is a very curious feature of it, in that no term is suggested. It is difficult to be precise upon these matters

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without looking through a great number of Statutes, but I should have thought that the usual course was to fix a term for the employment of any member of a body which is to be constituted. Of course, there is always power to reappoint for a further term, but it seems to me desirable from every point of view, both from the point of view of the public interest and from the point of view of the appointee, that he should be appointed for a term, and not for too long a term. I do not want to say anything at all hostile to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—there is no question of trusting him or distrusting him, as he seemed to indicate at one time—but this subsection gives power to the Lord Chancellor to appoint a member of this Commission for a term of five, ten or fifteen years.
The Commissioners, and particularly the Chairman of the Commission, are in most intimate contact with the Minister. Over and over again one sees that the Chairman is to report to the Minister, and so on. The exact relationship of the Minister to the Commissioners is not clear. They are a spurious breed. They are not exactly civil servants, I suppose, but what they are is not clear in the constitution. I feel very strongly that it is wholly wrong that one Lord Chancellor should have the power to impose upon his successor a Chairman of a Commission who will be brought into intimate contact with him all the time and who may be singularly uncongenial to him. It is not really proper or right, and, so far as I know, there is no sort of precedent for it. I should have thought that it was an elementary rule of administration that there should be a term provided. Whether it is three years or whether it is four years is not very important, but I think three years would be a very suitable term. I cannot say more about it than that. I do not know what view the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will take of the Amendment. He has not been very helpful so far, but perhaps he will he now.
The other question is as to the Commissioners being whole-time. As to that, I feel a great difficulty, because if they are not to be whole-time it is very difficult to draw the line and say what part of their time they are to give up. May I venture to say something out of my
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own personal experience?—and it is one advantage, if it be an advantage, of being very old that you have a very long experience. It so happened that when I was a Judge in the Chancery Division in 1940 Mr. Ernest Bevin asked me to be Chairman of the first National Arbitration Tribunal which was then set up to settle disputes. I asked him whether it was whole-time or part-time, and he said he did not think it would take up my whole time, so it was a part-time appointment. I can only tell your Lordships that there was endless difficulty in blending those two appointments—being a Judge of the High Court and being Chairman of the new Arbitration Tribunal. Either one had to postpone, most unwillingly, some case which one was engaged on and was trying in the High Court, to the great inconvenience of counsel and witnesses or whoever it might be, or—and it was a very difficult thing to do—one had to put off some sitting of the Arbitration Tribunal in order that one might deal with the affairs of the High Court. I give that as my personal experience, but it is an experience that can be multiplied.
Of course, it may be I do not know —that, being appointed whole-time to the appointment, the persons so appointed may find some time idle on their hands. I should hardly have thought so when I look at the catalogue of functions which they are intended to exercise. It will not matter if they are, for the time being, idle. At least, they will always be available for what I assume to be their primary duty: to act as Commissioners under this Bill. I therefore ask the Committee to say (a) that there should be a term of appointment; and (b) that the term should be of whole-time employment. Those are, I think, reasonable amendments to suggest.
May I add this? What I have said about a Judge applies equally to counsel. I do not know whether it would apply to professors—I am not sufficiently familiar with their course of life—but certainly it would apply to a barrister. How is he to carry on with part-time employment? Is he to go on circuit; and, if so, is he to absent himself from every sitting of the Commission while he is on circuit? Or is he to

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deny himself the opportunity of going on circuit? Take the case of a solicitor, whose duties may carry him abroad sometimes, or who may have to attend in court—and solicitors do attend in court. All these occupations it will be extremely difficult for him to adjust. He should be a full-time employee; and I hope your Lordships will accept the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 17, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Simonds.)
5.54 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can deal with this Amendment, I hope, shortly. I am sorry I cannot accept it, not because I am not anxious to meet any point which may be put, but because this is intended as another limitation on the Lord Chancellor, as though the people who were suitable for the appointment were always available in large numbers. In general, I agree entirely with what has been said. I think three years would probably be too short—less than three years, at any rate, would be too short. I agree with what the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, said on Second Reading. He said he did not think that the appointment should be for longer than five years. He said:
"I believe that it would not be right to appoint a Commissioner for so long a term as ten years—and I hope that we shall have an assurance that that will not be done. I do not myself think that an appointment should be for longer than five years."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 264 (No. 60), col. 1169. April 1, 1965.]
I think he is quite right in saying it ought not to be as long as ten years.
I have no intention myself of appointing a Commissioner for longer than five years. But this Amendment would limit the appointment to three years; and this Amendment has been put down knowing quite well that, in another place, where an Amendment was put down limiting it to four years, the Government were unable to accept it. So that guarantees that if your Lordships make it three years, they will not accept it. If they are all to be appointed for three years it would mean that everybody would have to be appointed for exactly the same period. Surely a reasonable amount of fluidity in the position is necessary.
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Is it a good thing that they should all have to leave together, and nobody of experience be left there?
Surely, one will in practice meet with different conditions. One will meet with the barrister with a leading practice—the sort of size of practice of Mr. Martin, which I can remember, because I know the size of his practice—who may say, "I am quite prepared to come for three years, but I am not prepared to leave the Bar for more than three years". Then, again, there may be a leading solicitor who says, "I have already decided to retire fairly young. I am going to retire in five years' time. I have made all my plans, I have got a house, and so on. I am prepared to give up my last five years to the work of the Law Commission, but I could not do three and then come back for two; that would be hopeless." I have no doubt there will be men who are prepared to come provided they can come for at least three years or provided, perhaps, that they can come for at least five years.
I have no intention of appointing anybody for more than five years; but if this limiting condition were put in, that nobody could ever be appointed for over three years, it would, first of all, limit a large number of people who might say, "I am quite prepared to come for five years, but not for three"; and, secondly, as nobody would come for less than three, they would all have to go out of office at the same time unless reappointed. Some of them, particularly at the start—because it will take time for them to get staff, and to get things going—will not be employed very much. Is it not natural that a man might want to see the completion of his work? After all, there will be a great many things in the pipe-line, so to say, at one time. I made it clear on Second Reading that the law of England is not going to be reformed in a day. In a particular case, it might be desirable that a man should stay to see his handiwork finished.
It is said that this may be awkward for a subsequent Lord Chancellor; but Lord Chancellors have to deal, and deal closely, with people in whose appointment they have had no say at all, and that does not create any difficulty. The Lord Chancellor has to work in close association with the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls and the President

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of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. He has had no say in their appointment, but that does not create any difficulties.
As to whole-time appointment, here again I think the position is the same. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, in saying on Second Reading why a Law Commission was quite unnecessary and explaining that the work could quite well have been done by the existing Law Reform Committees, said:
"The only legislation that I can see to have been necessary was to make provision for the payment of salaries to those employed whole-time. I am not against the employment of some whole-time; but I believe that those who serve part-time can indeed play a very valuable part on these Committees."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 264 (No. 60) col. 1170, April 1, 1965.]
This, again, was discussed at length in another place, and it is no doubt a fair matter of opinion. My own opinion is that, speaking in general, they ought to be whole-time appointments; and when I say "whole-time", I mean whole-time or substantially whole-time. But once you put in limiting conditions, you have to be careful about defining them. There may be a High Court Judge who says, "I am quite prepared to be Chairman of the Law Commission, but I do not think it would be a good idea to keep completely out of touch. I am the chairman of quarter sessions, and should like to go on doing that. It means only two or three days in a quarter." One ought not to prevent that. The Lord Chancellor ought not to find it impossible to have such a Judge. It might be a very sensible thing for him to do. There may be a solicitor who says: "I am quite prepared to give up my practice and to become a Commissioner; I am prepared to give up other directorships; but I have a family directorship which is important for my family, and I could not possibly give that up. It would mean only one afternoon a quarter."
I think the Commissioners ought to be whole-time, or practically whole-time. But once it is laid down by Act of Parliament that they should be whole-time that means really whole-time; and I think the noble and learned Viscount takes the view that it would be a mistake in such cases for somebody to keep to his
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quarter sessions. But the learned former Attorney General in another place put this forward as a very good thing to happen. He said:
"I only asked whether it is intended that members of the Bar or solicitors who are chairmen of Quarter Sessions or Recorders must, on being appointed to the Commission give up those judicial offices. Of course, if it is whole time they must. That appears to me to be the effect of subsection (4). I should have thought that was quite wrong and that it was very desirable that we should have the opportunity"—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: May I ask whether this is a statement by a Minister? Is it in accordance with our custom to quote a speech made by a private Member of another place? With great respect, I do not think it is. I have no objection to hearing what the former Attorney General said, but I do not think that one should read extracts from speeches made in another place in the current session.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If that is so, then I must not continue. I can only say that, rightly or wrongly, in another place the view was expressed that it would be a very good thing if the Commissioners who were, in particular, members of the Bar or solicitors who were chairmen of quarter sessions could go on being so.
Again there is no real difference between us except as to whether the Lord Chancellor is to be tied down in these matters. The conditions on which people will want to be Law Commissioners will vary very much. This is a new body. There may be some who will want to come for a short time and some who will want to come for a long time. There will be some more interested in the remuneration than in the pension and some more interested in the pension and not in the remuneration. But to tie the Lord Chancellor down for, say, a maximum period of three years, I believe to be wrong; for there will be a great many people who will say that it is not worth while their giving up everything in order to be a Law Commissioner for as little a time as three years. I believe the right period is five years, but, at any rate, it ought to be kept fluid, and if there are to be all these conditions imposed upon the Lord Chancellor we shall never get any Commissioners at all.
6.4 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I should not dream of encroaching on the hallowed legal acre of the law of the lawyers and the law of the laymen, but this Amendment seems to raise not at all a legal point but a very important question of administration. Perhaps I might be allowed to say one word about administration, having been occupied with it for the best part of thirty or forty years. I believe it would be entirely without precedent to create an office, whether of a Commissioner or of a member of a board, or whatever it may be, without putting in a definite term. I am not wedded to three, four or five years; though I am sure that it ought not to be longer than five years. But in the whole of my experience I know of no case where thit, kind of appointment has been made—whether to a national board, or in appointing Government directors on to some company—and where there has not been a term. Of course it is possible to reappoint a man, if he is a good man. I should have said that in this particular instance it was essential and particularly desirable to keep to the matter of principles.
We all want this scheme to be a success. Some of the lawyers—I would not venture to express an opinion—praised it a little with faint damns. Whether they are becoming, as the Bill goes on, more or less enthusiastic, I am not quite sure. But I believe that even the Lord Chancellor, enthusiast as he is (and one should be, for one's own Bill and one's own children), must be a little uncertain as to whether this Commission is going to succeed. Above all he must be, as must all of us, a little uncertain, as with most cases of selection, that the. people who are selected will do the job well and will work well together.
As the Bill stands, if those people are appointed, there is no provision for a maximum term for which they may be appointed. If this is a success, a man may be appointed, not by the Lord Chancellor but by legislation, for all time. You might have somebody appointed for a term of ten years who turned out to be quite unsuitable, who was not good at the job or who was an impossible fellow to work with—and we have all had experience of colleagues who qualify
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for one or the other of those categories; indeed, sometimes we have had colleagues who could get a Double First in both. What are you going to do if you get a man like that? You must get rid of him. You cannot just send him to the House of Lords. He would say that that was no compensation. You must pay that man an enormous compensation, a "golden handshake"—and it might be cheap at the price to get rid of him. But it would be very undesirable to put yourself in the position of possibly having to do that.
I think, therefore, that it is essential that some term, some limit of time, should be put in for which a man can be appointed. These people are not civil servants; the Bill is not creating a Government Department. I hope that the Commissioners are going to be extremely independent. I do not know quite what their relationship will be to the Minister but that may develop on some other occasion. But certainly they are not established civil servants. It is not as if the Lord Chancellor were creating a new Department of Justice. Therefore I hope that the Lord Chancellor will consider this matter further. Do not let him be bound. Do not let him say: "I am not allowed to do this or that". After all, he is a very senior member of the Government, and this is his Bill. Always, when I was a senior Minister and I had a Bill and took charge of it, I claimed a good deal of right (and I was accorded a good deal of right by my colleagues) to deal with the Bill in Parliament in the way that I thought wisest on second thoughts, or in the way Parliament made me see was the wiser way. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will be a little more accommodating and will also, if I may say so, stand up for himself a little more, which he certainly knows how to do.
The only other point is the question of whether the appointments should be whole-time. Here I find myself in agreement with the Lord Chancellor. Again, this is based on practical experience as I have had a good deal to do with this sort of thing on a number of occasions. Broad and large, the Commissioners should be appointed whole-time. I like the noble and learned Lord's expression that "whole-time" was not good English or good logic and

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that we should say "practically whole-time". I can remember at least two occasions when, either by Statute or by an edict of the Prime Minister—I think it must have been by Statute, because I should have persuaded, or even disregarded, the Prime Minister—I wished to appoint a man who would work whole-time. In both cases I could get for the job an absolutely first-class man who would have given 90 per cent. of his time, but in each case he said he had some business interest, which would not conflict in the least with the appointment, but to retain which he had to remain on the board of a company. I was precluded from appointing those men, whom we all agreed—there were no politics in this—were ideal men, because I was estopped from giving them leave to serve on a board and to give only 90 or 95 per cent. of their time to my appointment. So I should he disinclined to press that matter but I most strongly press the other.
LORD BROWN: I have been listening very carefully to the debates on these Amendments. I would make a general point on all of them, although I must confine it to the Amendment we are discussing. It seems to me that the whole intention of these Amendments is to remove discretion from the man who really has to do the job. The Party opposite has a very creditable record through the years of being in favour of what it has called delegation of responsibility or decentralisation, though there are many other terms used for this. And there have been times, twenty or twenty-five years ago, when the Party to which belong has not been so wise in this respect.
Here we have a series of Amendments which are entirely contrary to the old principle I have heard referred to so often by the Conservative Party. I have the impression that they have their tongues in their cheeks or that they are doing this for political reasons, and not because they think this is the best way in which to do the job. Here we are setting up a Law Commission. The terms of the Bill provide the Lord Chancellor with the discretion to meet every objection which has been raised this afternoon. Yet attempts have been made, in one Amendment after another, to limit that discretion in a way that would be
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regarded as a fatal incursion into proper order and administration in any well-run business.
If these Amendments were accepted, this limitation of discretion would undoubtedly result in a situation where at times the Lord Chancellor could not meet his difficulties. I am left with the feeling that there is inconsistency on the Opposition Benches. I remember that a week or two ago, on the Airports Authority Bill, in the name of decentralisation noble Lords opposite went so far as to suggest that it should be put in the Bill that the Authority should appoint their own auditors. I think that was a very bad instance to choose, because auditors ought not to be appointed by those whose accounts they audit. But they went so far as that in order to delegate responsibility. Suddenly, in this Bill, they want a bureaucratic kind of organisation. They want to withdraw all authority from the Lord Chancellor and to limit his discretion by including in the Bill all sorts of provisions which need never be put in when we have a sound Lord Chancellor. In short, I think that the difference in the views which have been expressed on what I understand to be the general philosophy of the Conservative Party are quite staggering.
6.16 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: I rather deplore the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brown, to which we have just listened, because I have always found it dangerous to talk about all the Amendments, instead of the one before us. I propose to confine myself entirely to the one before us. I speak for the first time on this Bill and I may say of it that I certainly wish the Lord Chancellor well. I desire that this Bill shall be a success.
In general, I concede entirely the need for wide discretion. The speech with which I found myself in closest agreement was that made by my noble friend Lord Swinton. I think that a matter that was wholly ignored by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, was the position of the Lord Chancellor himself, if he happens to make a mistake and appoints somebody who does not turn out very well. It may be a great convenience to him that there should be a limitation in the Statute. Like other noble Lords

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who have spoken, I am not wedded to a particular period. I should have thought that there was not much wrong with three years, but I do not press that. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made it clear that what he had in mind was a fairly definite limit. I agree with my noble friend Lord Swinton that there should be some figure mentioned in the Statute. I think that that would be for the convenience of the Lord Chancellor himself and of his successors, and I do not think that it would unduly limit his discretion.
LORD SILKIN: May I ask the noble Lord, before he sits down, whether if a mistake has been made it is not easier to get rid of somebody if there is no fixed term than if there is? If there is a fixed term, one has to wait, until the expiration of that term, whether three, four or five years. If there is no fixed term one can ask a person to resign at very short notice.
LORD CONESFORD: I do not think that the noble Lord is right. What I have in mind is not somebody who proves grossly incompetent or somebody we are almost bound to wish to get rid of. I am thinking of the case where the Lord Chancellor has made a reasonable appointment on grounds which seemed good to him at the time he made it, but the man he appoints does not fulfil all the promise which led to his appointment. It may be much easier to let a short term expire than to try to take exceptional steps. I really do not think that there is much in the point which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has made.
LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I suggest, with great deference, that he is insisting that there should be a fixed term of appointment, but that is not, I believe, the point that is involved. The point involved is that this should be embodied in the Statute. I was surprised to hear the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, say that he had never come across a case where the term of office was not fixed. I have never come across a case where it was not fixed, but certainly I have come across cases where it was not fixed by Statute.
LORD TANGLEY: I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be willing to agree to put some maximum in this Bill. I think that three years is too short a time for a maximum. I believe that the maximum should be a longer period, perhaps of five years. although I am not certain in my mind about that time. As I see it, the greatest danger with this Commission is that it will become an academic body: it may become, one might say, a kind of legal debating society. The best way to provide against that is to make sure that every member of the Commission knows that before long he will have to go back to the Bench, the Bar, his office or a university, and live with what he has done. I think he should go back fairly frequently. Your Lordships will remember the old Greek gentleman who married a goddess. She was rather much tor him, and he had to come back every year just to touch the earth once. I do not suggest that the Law Commissioners should come back to touch the earth every year, but I think that a period of about three years would be very good for them, and for the Commission. I think the maximum ought to be five years, and the normal period of appointment three years.
So far as part-time appointments are concerned, I hope that there will be no objection on the part of the Opposition to making it permissible to have a part-time appointment, because if you do not have that provision it means that nobody can do anything else. You cannot have a solicitor who will come back and say, "I should be delighted to do it, but there are two or three clients who are worrying me and want me to look after them". There are infinite cases. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, will remember certain temporary civil servants during the war who felt that they were doing a part-time job, and sometimes felt they were doing a double and triple part-time job, but continued to have an occasional, nodding interest in their own office. Yet I suppose we were only qualified to be called "part time". However, I plead that we should have a proper maximum in the Bill of, say, five years, and a reasonable understanding that the normal term of appointment will be three years. That I think would be right.
6.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I should like to say a word or two on the points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Tangley, has referred to the question of whether appointments should be "whole time" or "part time", as did my noble friend Lord Swinton. I think that if these five Commissioners are going to do the tasks they will be required to do under Clause 3 they will need to be employed whole time. I do not think there will be room for part-timers, in the sense in which one normally uses those words. The Lord Chancellor wants to put a very narrow interpretation upon the words "whole time". I do not think that is necessary. I seem to remember that we have had this discussion on other occasions previously about part-time and whole-time employment, and I remember the word "substantially" being introduced before the words "whole time" or "part time". I am sure that no one wants to stop anyone who is a Commissioner from doing anything else in addition to his work with the Commission, but the idea is that the Commissioners should make their main work, for the years that they are Commissioners, the work of the Law Commission. There I hope I carry the noble Lord, Lord 'Tangley, with me.
This Amendment covers two points. I was glad to have the Lord Chancellor's assurance that he did not intend to engage anyone for more than five years. That, I think, was the period that I put forward on Second Reading. If that is not his intention, I am at a loss to see what valid grounds he has for objecting to the idea of expressing that intention in the Bill. I think it is extremely important that there should be a limit. Whether that limit is three, four or, indeed, five years is of little significance, because of the power given by the Bill to re-employ. Indeed, I think the fact that Commissioners can be reappointed is an argument in favour of the shorter period rather than the longer period.
I am not at all satisfied by the Lord Chancellor's reply to this Amendment. We heard him very fully, and I do not invite him to add to what he has said. I would suggest, however, that if my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds felt inclined to move the first part of this Amendment, down to the word "years", we ought to carry that into the
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Bill, and at a later stage, if need be, an Amendment can be moved altering the "three" to "four" or "five", as the case may be. But the hour is getting on, and we have covered a good deal of ground. I would make that suggestion to my noble friend. I feel that no good grounds have been advanced for not making this change in the Bill.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: Perhaps I may say one further word. In the first place, I would assure the noble Lord, Lord Brown, whom I had the pleasure of hearing for the first time, that I neither have my tongue in my cheek nor am moved by any political motives.
LORD BROWN: If I may interrupt, I was addressing my remarks to the Opposition Benches.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I hope the noble Lord will realise, when he has been here a little longer, that in this House constructive sincerity is found on all Benches, quite irrespective of Party.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: Anyway, I have served the law for nearly sixty years, and for twenty years in your Lordships' House, and I hope I have the reputation of not having my tongue in my cheek. As to the Amendment, I should like to ask the Lord Chairman whether I am in order in moving the first part of the Amendment dealing with the term, and seeking leave to withdraw the second part of it which deals with "whole time".
THE CHAIRMAN or COMMITTEES: There are clearly two ways, at least, of dealing with this point. I would suggest, first, that it might be done by a noble Lord moving an Amendment to the Amendment. That Amendment to the Amendment would be to leave out all the words after the word "years", in the second line of the main Amendment. I would then put that first, and it would be either agreed or negatived; and then I would put the Amendment as it was originally moved, with or without the second part.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: I am obliged. I will ask my noble friend Lord Swinton to move an Amendment to the Amendment to that effect.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I beg leave to move, as an Amendment to the Amendment, to leave out all the words after the word "years" in the second line.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): Is it the case that one can move an Amendment to an Amendment on the Marshalled List without submitting a Manuscript Amendment to that effect? It would merely mean handing in a piece of paper, but I think that is the way to conduct the Business of the Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: I should have thought that it was in order to put it in the way I have suggested, but if the noble Earl would like to write it down, I should be happy to read it out.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I will write down the Amendment .
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: The Manuscript Amendment is:
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment, as amended, agreed to accordingly.
6.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved, in subsection (4), to leave out "high". The noble and learned Viscount said: This is an Amendment of an exploratory character, and I hope that it will not take long. From what the noble Lord said earlier, I take it that this Committee stage will be adjourned somewhere about 7 o'clock and it may be convenient to dispose of this Amendment before that time. There
"Amendment moved to Amendment No. 5—in line 2, after the word 'years', leave out all the words to the end of the Amendment."
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I beg to move.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
In line 2 of Amendment, after ("years") leave out all the words to the end of the Amendment.
6.30 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Amendment (No. 5), as amended, be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 38; Not-Contents, 34.

CONTENTS

Devonshire, D.

Kinnoull, E.

Ailwyn, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Mancroft, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Drumalbyn, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Carrington, L.

Dundee, E.

Riverdale, L.

Chesham, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Cohen, L.

Falkland, V.

St. Helens, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Ferrers, E.

Selkirk, E.

Conesford, L.

Ferrier, L.

Sherfield, L.

Cowley, E.

Grenfell, L.

Simonds, V.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Suffield, L.

Daventry, V.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Swinton, E.

Denham. L. [Teller.]

Howard of Glossop, L.

Tangley, L.

Derwent, L.

Killearn, L.

Wolverton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Henderson, L.

Peddie, L.

Beswick, L.

Hobson, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Bowden, L.

Hughes, L.

Rhodes, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Leatherland, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Brockway, L.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Shepherd, L. [Teller.]

Brown, L.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Silkin, L.

Burden, L.

Merthyr, L.

Snow, L.

Champion, L.

Mitchison, L.

Sorensen, L.

Francis Williams, L.

Morris of Borth-y-Gest, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Morris of Kenwood. L.

Swanborough, Bs.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Parker of Waddington, L.

Taylor, L.

Granville-West, L.

On Question, Amendment to Amendment agreed to.

will be a number of points to raise on the Question, "That Clause 1 stand part", and it would be convenient to take that on the next occasion.
This Amendment is to find out the reason for treating the holders of judicial offices differently in the Bill. If your Lordships look at the Bill, you will see that there is express provision in subsection (4) that the holder of high judicial office
"may he appointed as a Commissioner without relinquishing that office, but shall not be

473
required to perform his duties as the holder of that office while he remains a member of the Commission."
The Bill makes provision for the appointment of holders of other judicial offices, and there is no corresponding provision to subsection (4) relating to them. So I ask the question: Why should not all the judges be treated in the same way?
THE Lord Chancellor expressed the view that the holder of high judicial office, after he had served as a Commissioner, would go back to the Bench a better judge. I am not wishing to debate that point with him to-night—it may well be right. But if it is right, why should the holder of high judicial office differ in that respect from, say, the holder of a county court judgship? Might he not go back to the county court bench and be a better judge? As the Bill now stands, if I understand it correctly, if the holder of any other judicial office is to accept an appointment as a Commissioner he will be required to resign his office.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, again on Second Reading, that he would not get a judge—and I think he meant a High Court Judge—if he had to resign from the Bench in order to undertake this work. I have some doubt whether he will get the holder of any other judicial office to serve if he has to resign. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand why it is necessary to single out for special treatment, as subsection (4) does, the holder of high judicial office. I put down this Amendment so that the same provision will apply to the holders of any judicial office who are appointed to the Commission. I have put my point very shortly, but I think it requires an explanation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 18, leave out ("high").— (Viscount Dilhorne.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I gather that this is an exploratory Amendment. We all have in our minds, I suppose, the sort of quality of people we want as Law Commissioners. Frankly, we want the best legal brains we can get. This is a big planning job, and I have not contemplated that anybody of the kind referred to would really be suitable. I suggested that one could conceive a
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case in which a Lord Chancellor who had already realised that a particular county court judge was of High Court Judge status, and who was about to make him a High Court Judge, might think it unnecessary to go through that formality just for a day. But the intention is that the Law Commissioners should be men of a higher standing than those men who would be likely to be found among the ranks of the county court judges or stipendiary magistrates.
It is contemplated that their remuneration, while perhaps not as high as that of a High Court Judge will be higher than that of a county court judge. Therefore I think it very unlikely that we should find among stipendiary magistrates or county court judges the brains really needed if we are to have the sort of Law Commission we ought to have. One could not expect a High Court Judge, if he did become a Commissioner, to go back to some other job at a much lower remuneration. That is why the Bill provides that such a man shall remain a High Court Judge, but that, so far as anybody else is concerned, his remuneration shall be agreed with the Treasury.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: My experience —and of course I had a great deal of experience when I had to consider the appointment of High Court Judges—was that one found men of the highest ability who were willing to take the job of county court judge to save themselves the strain and stress of a busy counsel's life; and I am sure that, by what he has said, the noble and learned Lord is depriving himself of a very valuable possible member of his Commission. It can do no harm, at any rate, for a Lord Chancellor to have a chance to appoint a county court judge as a member of the Commission; and such a person having been given the chance, he should also have the opportunity of returning to his job, if he thinks fit.
I do not like the noble and learned Lord's denigration of county court judges as a body. If he accepts—as I think he ought to—that there are among them very able men who are qualified to sit as Commissioners, he ought to accept this Amendment, which would mean that such a man, having been appointed to be a

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Commissioner, may return to his office if he thinks fit. So I would ask the noble and learned Lord to consider this point further.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I certainly did not intend to denigrate county court judges. All I said was that the status and capabilities of those whose services I hoped to have as Law Commissioners would be higher, I hoped, as would their remuneration. I think it is important to see the sort of status Law Commissioners are intended to have, but this Amendment would be an unsuitable way to do it; because if such a man remains, he gets his remuneration as a county court judge. But why should he have a lower remuneration once be becomes a Commissioner?
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: The noble and learned Lord asks a question, and he asks it, no doubt, in a rhetorical form. I would answer by saying that the county court judge should surely have the choice. It is for him to decide.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I have listened with interest to what the noble and learned Lord has said, and I think his argument falls between two stools. He said that, so far as he is concerned, he does not think it would be right to appoint anyone as a Commissioner who is the holder of anything less than a high judicial office. If so, this Bill is drawn too wide, because it permits the appointment of those who hold inferior judicial offices. What is required is the insertion of the word "high" in line 12. I myself share the view of my noble and learned friend. I think that one might well have a High Court Judge as Chairman, with a barrister, a solicitor and an academic lawyer; and one might well find it useful, for the very reason given by my noble and learned friend, to have someone who is well known and accepted as being a brilliant lawyer who has taken a county court judgeship. Why, then, should it be impossible for him to return to the county court bench when he has served his spell as a Commissioner?
The provision for the holder of a high judicial office is that he serves as a Commissioner and then goes back to the Bench. I may have misread the Bill, but it seems to me that, so far as
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the county court judge is concerned, he cannot become a Commissioner unless he ceases to be a county court judge. Of course it could be said that when he ceases to be a Commissioner he might be reappointed a county court judge. No doubt the Lord Chancellor of the day would promise that, if there was a vacancy occurring; but I do not think there is any logical ground for this separate treatment.
If the Commissioners are going to be paid a higher salary than county court judges, I would suggest to the noble and learned Lord, if he wants to appoint a county court judge, or a judge in the criminal courts who has established a great reputation as a lawyer, that he should make provision for them to be able to draw the salary of a Commissioner but without the necessity of resigning from their judicial appointments. I think there is a real point here which I would ask the noble and learned Lord to consider between now and the later stage, because I think it is indefensible to draw this distinction between the way holders of high judicial office and those who hold other judicial offices are to be treated. If the noble and learned Lord will say that he will consider this matter, I shall be pleased to withdraw the Amendment, but I do not think that, so far, he has said that.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I hope I am always ready to consider anything, but this is getting into great difficulties. What is contemplated, as I understand it, is that a county court judge would remain a county court judge while having —which: his county court judge's remuneration, or a higher remuneration than that of any other county court judge in the country?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I can easily answer that. I think he should get his salary made up to the salary for the work that he is doing, but he should not be required to resign from the county court bench; and when he ceased to be a Commissioner he should be able to go back and continue his judicial work.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am certainly prepared to consider that.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that assurance. Although I have dealt with

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this quite shortly I am ready to discuss it further with the noble and learned Lord, should he so desire. I think there is a real point here where the Bill can be improved, and in those circumstances I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: There area number of points I was wanting to raise on this Question. I do not know whether it will be possible to deal with them all by 7 o'clock.I suggested to the noble and learned Lord that when we had dealt with this last Amendment, which I thought would take longer than it did, it might be a convenient moment to break off.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I wonder whether the noble Lord would not like to get rid of Clause 1 to-day. We have a great many Amendments to deal with.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I doubt very much whether we shall. I have a number of points that I want explained. I will certainly start if the noble Lord likes, but I am quite certain that we shall not finish by 7 o'clock.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the noble Lord prefers not to start to-night we can adjourn the Committee.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I prefer not to start to-night. I think it would take less time if I did not start to-night.
House resumed.

FAMILY ALLOWANCES BILL [H.L.]
6.51 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE CONTRIBUTIONS BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

STATUTE LAW REVISION (CONSEQUENTIAL REPEALS) BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill he now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL
6.54 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the contraceptive pill should be withdrawn from the market pending the investigation of the Dunlop Committee, which has thought fit to warn doctors of possible dangerous side-effects following reports of thrombosis in the brain, lung and heart of women taking the pill. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I must apologise to the House and to my noble friend for bringing up this matter at this late stage, but he will know that it was not until the end of last week that an announcement was made in the medical Press that the Dunlop Committee on the Safety of Drugs were prepared to investigate the oral contraceptive following a number of complaints they had hadregarding certain medical side-effects which had been observed in women who had taken this drug. It seemed to me this was the only opportunity available for raising this matter before the Recess.
I consider this question of such importance that I believe some immediate action is called for. I do not think I need tell the House that I of course believe in the planned family but I believe that the health of the mother is of paramount importance when we are considering any method of contraception. To-day many women, anxious to prevent another pregnancy, resort to the comparatively new, inadequately tested, oral contraceptive. Although they are completely ignorant of the dangerous potentialities of the oral contraceptive, they embark on a perilous course of daily medication for months, sometimes for years.
This is not a question of hindsight with me. Many of your Lordships will know that this is not the first time I have raised it. I discussed it in 1962 during the course of a debate on world population, when a noble Lord in all good faith thought that we had solved the problem of over-population because an oral contraceptive had been discovered; and I spoke very strongly on the dangers to women of permitting the
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distribution of an inadequately tested oral contraceptive. I said to the House that not for one moment would I be so presumptuous as to suggest that my medical knowledge was sufficient to denounce this oral contraceptive. I quoted Professor Sir Charles Dodd, the eminent endocrinologist and President of the Royal College of Physicians. May I again quote just some of the extracts from the speech he made to a conference of endocrinologists, those who have expert knowledge of the ductless glands. on the subject of the oral contraceptive? Sir Charles said this:
"The continuous or cyclical use of these compounds may foreseeably have other undesirable effects which the trials conducted to date have not resolved."
He went on:
"Whilst everything might appear all right on the surface, there may he deep-seated changes going on in the body. It would seem very unlikely to me that the abolition of a cyclical process such as ovulation can be accomplished over a long time without profoundly affecting other processes, and the fact that there appears to he no change for a period is not. I suggest, reassuring."
I would remind your Lordships that he also said that the body was a biological clock, and if the clock goes well then do not try to interfere with it.
On September 16, 1961, the British Medical Journal uttered a warning. It posed several important questions having regard to the fact that the action of these drugs is not precisely understood. It asked:
"one is whether the endocrine system will become permanently impaired and perhaps fertility reduced or destroyed".
Another question was whether these substances could be carcinogenic. It said:
"It still remains to be shown that the suppression of ovulation over long periods is harmless to the endocrine system."
The Lancet joined in—this was four or five years ago— uttering a warning note. The Lancet said:
"The use of oral contraceptives cannot be contemplated without considerable trepidation…Twenty years may go by before we can be sure about the safety of the present oral contraceptive."
On the previous occasion I suggested that the unfortunate Puerto Rican women who had been used for these first trials by the American firm producing the contraceptive pill should be carefully watched over the years to see whether these fears

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expressed by the experts were confirmed, before distributing these drugs in other countries. I reminded your Lordships that in many of the underdeveloped countries there is only one doctor to 100,000 population, and that to distribute these pills indiscriminately was sheer cruelty to these illiterate, ignorant and innocent women. It is a little ironic that the recent controversy within the Catholic Church regarding the advisability of birth control has been an untold blessing to the purveyors of oral contraceptives. Indeed, "The Pill" has merited capital letters in the Press. And while during the last year or two the arguments have been waged as to whether it is morally desirable, it has been assumed by the public that it is physically desirable, otherwise, presumably, the Catholic Church would not have been associated with it in the first place.
Quite understandably, the pharmaceutical industry regards the contraceptive pill as a most profitable line, and now eleven firms are producing these pills under different names, accompanied by most alluring advertising aimed at allaying the fears of the medical profession. I know that my noble friend who will he answering this question is a voracious reader of medical journals, and he has no doubt read many of the letters appearing in the British Medical Journal and in the Lancet in the last few years, drawing attention to the side effects which accompany the use of oral contraceptives.
My noble friend may care to refresh his memory. I must confess that yesterday I looked up 30 or 40 B.M.J.s and an equal number of copies of the Lancet. I am not asking him to delve too deeply; I ask him to look only at the B.M.J.s and the Lancets of this year. I would particularly draw his attention to the recent letter on cerebro =vascular accidents and oral contraceptives from Doctor Geoffrey Baines of the Newcastle General Hospital in the B.M.J. of January 16, and one on oral contraceptives and liver damage from Drs. Stoll, Andrews, Motteram and Uphill of the Peter MacCallum Clinic, Melbourne. The Commonwealth have been most interested in this question, because the subsidiaries of the American firms and the pharmaceutical firms are operating in all those
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countries. The letter from the clinic is in the B.M.J. of March 13.
If my noble friend would like some food for thought—I do not want to go into all these medical details—I would ask him to read the letter on some medical aspects of oral contraceptives by Drs. McLaren and Lucas of the Department of Gynaecology, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. This is in the Lancet of January 9, 1965. These letters are highly technical. There are also many letters from medical practitioners. I would quote from one from a medical practitioner which serves to emphasise the sociological aspect of this matter. It was from Dr. J. H. Naysmith, and it appeared in the B.M.J. of January 23 of this year. He wrote
"Sir, Up until recently I have felt quite justified in prescribing oral contraceptives for my patients. However, on Boxing Day, a patient of mine, a young woman aged 33, the mother of six children, died suddenly from coronary thrombosis. She had been taking oral contraceptives for three years, and had had no ill-effects whatsoever …In fact, according to her, it was only since taking the pill that she had had any life at all. She was happy and contented, looking after her children well, and no longer waiting in fear and trepidation in case her next period did not come".
He concluded by saying
"One cannot draw conclusions from a single case, but is there an increased risk of coronary thrombosis in those taking the pill? And if so, are we justified in subjecting our patients to this risk?".
The other letters to which I referred my noble friend deal with technical medical details. I have read this rather poignant letter because it pinpoints the position of the woman who is desperately anxious not to have more children. In fact, in my post this morning I had two letters from women saying that they would rather develop any of these diseases than have another child. The woman, desperately anxious not to have more children; the doctor, in all good faith believing all the propaganda that has been put about, prescribing the drug: here we have a simple picture which can he seen all over the country—both people entirely innocent of the awful potentialities of these drugs.
It is said—and I am sure my noble friend is going to say this—that the risks are inseparable from the use of new drugs and must he taken if we are to make progress in this field. But the

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women who take these drugs are not suffering from some obscure disease which might merit the trial of a new drug even at the expense of a patient's health deteriorating. These are not old men or old women who have enjoyed their life's span and are prepared to have a little gamble on a new drug guaranteed to defeat old age. They are not weary, pleasure bent, middle-aged individuals, ready and willing to experiment with drugs recommended to increase the libido.
My noble friend and I know that drugs catering for these groups are sold daily for those purposes. If those groups were involved, I do not think I should come here and defend them, because they would know what they were doing, and the drugs would be quite unnecessary. If we were talking about groups of this kind my noble friend could argue that the element of risk could be disregarded —that any old person who is anxious to prolong life and may risk taking a pill or drug, after all, has enjoyed his life, and the community will not suffer. But the people who are exposed to the risk of serious disease or death itself from taking the oral contraceptive are healthy women in the prime of life, mothers charged with the responsibility of bringing up their children and caring for their families. Indeed, they represent one of the most important and valuable groups in any society, whose health should be safeguarded and afforded the maximum protection by the State. Indeed, it has always been our social policy.
I remember in 1918, when the maternity and child welfare clinics were set up, listening to speeches on what should be a duty of the State, and hearing that one of the primary duties in the field of health is to protect the mother and the children. Is there to be no limit placed on the number of young, healthy women who are to be exposed to this serious risk? Have we learned nothing from the thalidomide tragedy? May I remind my noble friend that the children of the United States did not suffer from the thalidomide tragedy because there was a wonderful woman doctor in the Food and Drugs Administration who said, "This drug has not been properly tested, and American women shall not have it". Representatives of the pharmaceutical in
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dustry got up and said, "This woman is a stupid ass. She does not know what she is talking about." She stuck it out. She stuck out against the most appalling ridicule and the most awful attack in the United States from the pharmaceutical industry, which is one of the strongest in the whole world. Nevertheless, having stuck it out, the result was that only two or three children in the whole of the United States were affected as the result of mothers taking thalidomide.
My noble friend may say that a woman may have a thrombosis or a diseased liver or cancer of the breast without taking the pill, and therefore the condition could be coincidental. But the fact is that the volume of correspondence from doctors and the number of cases brought to the attention of the Dunlop Committee on the Safety of Drugs has at long last compelled them to initiate an inquiry. I was surprised when I opened the Daily Maii and the Daily Telegraph to-day to see three or four cases mentioned. The other thing my noble friend will say—because I can see right into his mind, even through the back of his head—is that still the number of cases is not overwhelming. But they said that about thalidomide. They say that about all these drugs which have not been adequately tested, when a complaint is made of a side effect.
If we ignore this, what of the long-term effects? The Lancet has said that twenty years may have to elapse before we can be sure of the safety of the oral contraceptive. Then let us wait and see what happens to the poor little Puerto Rican women who were given it nearly ten years ago. After all, it cannot be argued that there is no alternative to this method of contraception, and that despite the risks we must use these pills for women who want to limit their pregnancies. There are on the market many harmless, well-tried methods of contraception which afford a high degree of protection. Therefore surely the time has come to call a halt to the distribution of these drugs, which are highly suspect, until the Dunlop Committee issues a Report on the result of its investigation.
7.12 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I am going to intervene very briefly on this matter, disagreeing fundamentally with my noble friend Lady Summerskill

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I feel at a great disadvantage as compared with my noble friend, for I am not a doctor and I have a bad memory—although I have heard several eminent doctors speak very much in favour of the pill, I cannot remember their names. I very much hope that the pill will not be withdrawn, always assuming that research will go on the whole time and that the matter will be looked at very carefully in relation to all the side effects. To date, although there has been correspondence on the matter and although there may have been cases of thrombosis brought to light, I do not think it is at all clear that these cases are due to taking the pill. The pill has been taken for at least ten years and has been watched over by the Family Planning Association for at least that period of time. The percentage of women in the United States who take the pill is very great. Although they did not take the thalidomide drug they certainly have taken the oral contraceptive, and I do not know that there has been any kind of inquiry there as to the side effects.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I remind my noble friend that in the United States there is a prohibition after two years. They feel very strongly about it.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: But I know of women who have taken them for much longer than two years, so the cases where it has gone wrong would appear to me to be very few. A week ago I saw on television a doctor discussing the side effects, but he produced absolutely no figures and did not say that there were even three or four cases; he simply hinted that there might be side effects which included thrombosis. I believe that there is no dramatic incidence of thrombosis which can yet be proved. Certainly the letter which my noble friend read out is not at all conclusive. The woman had had six children and she might have contracted coronary thrombosis through any cause whatsoever. After all, there are many cases found in women after childbirth.
Before we go ahead and get rid of this pill, which I think has very good effects in the developing countries where women are very poor, where they have large families and suffer enormous hardship and unhappiness, we ought to consider very carefully the figures involved
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and make a comparison of cases of thrombosis after childbirth with cases of thrombosis after taking the pill for a number of years. In any case, we must put all the risks of taking the pill against all the risks of excessive childbirth from too frequent pregnancies. When one considers the Puerto Rican or Indian women who go on having child after child and end up with enormous families, their children being brought into the world to starve or, if they survive, never to get a job in later life, we must balance those matters against the dangers of the pill. So far I do not think that there is sufficient evidence to show that the pill is really dangerous. I hope that research will go on, and will go on for at least twenty years, and more if necessary. I hope that a contraceptive pill will be evolved, that it will be a pill for men rather than for women, and that it will be proved safe. It seems to me that in certain poor countries this is the only hope we have for happiness among such people.
7.16 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I have been most interested in the speeches which have been made, and I hesitate to intervene for I have no prepared speech; but the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, rather swept me into the matter when she made reference to the pharmaceutical industry. In that respect I have only one point to make. The noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, said that her memory is not too good. Mine is terribly bad, but it happens that I have with me a note about the occasion which she mentioned—a broadcast on the 9th of this month, when a Professor Witts, who is a very well known authority on the subject, made reference to points involving experience in America. He said that two or three inquiries had taken place in the United States. He stated:
"One, in 1963, in relation to food and drugs administration, which corresponds rather with our Committee"—
I think he was referring to the Dunlop Committee—
"said quite directly that they had not been able to find any evidence that the women on the pill were getting thrombosis more commonly than women who were not."

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Later on he said:
"We have no reason to believe that thrombosis is more common on one pill than on another, and have no reason to believe that it was more common in women taking the pill than in women who were not."
As a matter of fact, I am here not really in a dual capacity, because I am no longer concerned with the pharmaceutical industry but am Chairman of the Scottish branch of the International Family Planning Campaign. Knowing the importance of oral contraceptives, I thought that I should sit here and listen to this debate. I would make the point that the noble Lady's Question talks about "withdrawing" the pill from the market. I take it she refers to this country. If she does, it is fair to point out that the pill is obtainable in this country only on prescription. I have no doubt that the noble Lord who is going to reply will make that point.
I am of an open mind, despite what Lady Gaitskell has said, and despite the tremendous advantage of oral contraceptives in connection with problems which face women in Puerto Rico. I have no personal knowledge of this and I am still of an open mind as to whether, as time goes on, it will be found to be the right answer to the problem, having regard to possible side effects. Therefore, I am in a measure of agreement with the noble Lady on this point. But it is fair to make clear the point that in this country the pill is obtainable only on prescription, and that if, indeed, the medical profession has any reason to doubt the wisdom of its use, then the solution is for the medical profession to prescribe it Less.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I just interrupt the noble Lord, as I want to make this point quite clear? Yes, the medical practitioner can prescribe it on an EC.10 for medical reasons, but he can also give a private certificate to any woman who asks for it for social reasons. So there is really no limit, so far as prescription is concerned. He cannot use an EC.10 for social reasons but he can give an ordinary certificate.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, the noble Lady is, of course, quite correct. My point is that the pharmacist is not allowed to supply it except against a prescription
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by a medical practitioner. If, in the event, the Government, the medical authorities or the Dunlop Committee are satisfied that this pill presents any dangers, then the remedy is to make doctors hesitate to prescribe it. I agree very much with what the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, said—this is based on information I have recently had privately from India—that the oral contraceptive seems to offer a more practical way of limiting families, and enabling parents to plan families, in backward countries than any other. I look forward with great interest to the noble Lord's reply.
7.22 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD TAYLOR): My Lords, my noble friend Lady Summerskill has made it absolutely clear that she does not like the pill, and it is not the first time that she has made this clear. There is some risk in every human action that we take; certainly in every drug that is administered by a doctor. There is a risk in giving aspirin. it may in some susceptible people cause gastric haemorrhage. There is not a single medicament which can be administered and which is completely free from risk, and it is part of the doctor's job to evaluate both the benefitsand the risks and to reach a sensible and reasonable decision on theevidence, available. That is what every doctor has to do. That is the responsibility which he takes when he prescribes any medicine at all, and that is the responsibility which every doctor takes who prescribes an oral contraceptive, whether on an EC.10 or on an ordinary piece of notepaper. He must have evaluated—if he is an honestman; and I assume that all doctors are honest men—the risk to his patients and the benefits obtained.
Nevertheless, it is a very difficult thing to evaluate both the risks and the benefits. Of the two it is easier, usually, to see the benefits, because the risks of harmful effects from any drug are very slight indeed. They are of an incidence of one in 1,000 cases, one in10,000 cases, or even less. It is an extremely difficult matter, therefore, to be certain that one is not arguing post hoc ergo propter hoc; because something has happened, therefore it was due to the preceding event.

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That is one of the commonest mistakes that we make in medicine. We assume that because we have given a medicine and the patient gets better, it is because we have given the medicine. For years fallacies have persisted in medicine for exactly this reason.
My noble friend has phrased her Question in a peculiar way. She asked whether the pill should be
"withdrawn from the market pending the investigation of the Dunlop Committee, which has thought fit to warn doctors of possible dangerous side-effects following reports of thrombosis in the brain, lungs and heart of women taking the pill.
I must say that, as I listened to my noble friend, I could not help contrasting her observations with the way that the Press in general—and I have read all the Press cuttings—dealt with this letter from the Dunlop Committee to the medical journals; and I must say I thought they dealt extremely responsibly with it:
"Doctors to make birth pill check."
"A birth pill probe: is it dangerous?"
There were very sensible balanced articles, and I think they were right. I am quite sure that the Dunlop Committee is an extremely wise Committee, and for me to pit myself against it would be silly. When one considers the collective wisdom of the people on that Committee, one must be bound to take its advice very seriously.
I do not think my noble friend Lady Summerskill has really understood the purpose of the Dunlop Committee in sending this letter to the medical journals, and perhaps I can best make that clear if I read the letter as it appeared in the British Medical Journal and the Lancet last week:
"Thrombotic disease occurs occasionally in young women of child-bearing age. It is, therefore, to be expected that it will occur in women who happen to be taking oral contraceptives. Some cases of arterial thrombotic or thrombo-embolic episodes in women taking oral contraceptives have been reported to the Committee on Safety of Drugs."
Incidentally, it has certainly taken into account all the letters to which the noble Lady referred. The letter continues:
"It may well be that these do no more than reflect the normal incidence of such conditions in women of child-bearing age and the Committee wish to stress that there is no evidence of a relationship between the use of oral contraceptives and these events.
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"In accordance with their usual procedure for following up reports of suspected adverse reactions to drugs, the Committee are seeking to establish the relative frequencies of such incidence in women who are taking oral contraceptives and women of the same age who are not. To help the Committee in their study, doctors are requested in cases of arterial or venous thrombosis or pulmonary embolism in women of child-bearing age to take a careful drug history, including whether or not the patient has been taking an oral contraceptive, and to notify the Committee on Safety of Drugs if an adverse reaction to any drug is suspected."
Your Lordships will see that the Committee are at great pains to explain that there is at present no evidence to suggest a cause-and-effect relationship between these terribly sad incidents and the fact that the women concerned were taking the pill. They do not know, and it may have been no more than a coincidence. With proper scientific objectivity they point out that thrombosis does occur in women of child-bearing age, whether or not they are taking oral contraceptives, and that the incidents reported to them may represent no more than the general incidence.
My noble friend mentioned the investigations of the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and praised their work, quite rightly, on Thalidomide. They have, in fact, investigated one of the oral contraceptives over a very large series of cases, and they reached the conclusion that there was no significant increase in the risk of thrornboembolic death from the use of one of these oral contraceptives. There were cases reported in both series—both patients who had been taking the drug, and patients who had not been taking thedrug—and therefore the matter is still an open question.
As part of their procedure in studying adverse reactions to drugs inuse, the Committee have asked all doctors in 'the United Kingdom to report to them any condition which may be associated with the use of any drug, and every doctor is supplied with a set of cards on which he can send a brief report. I have no doubt that my noble friend is familiar with this little card which is issued by the Committee to every doctor. If he has any patient in whom he suspects an adverse reaction due to a drug, he fills in the name of the drug, how long the patient has been on the drug, the daily dosage, the suspected reaction, and the

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name, age and sex of the patient, so that the patient can, if necessary, be visited by the assessor or adviser to the Committee on Safety of Drugs.
As a matter of fact, the Committee have told my right honourable friend the Minister that they are getting a very big response from doctors. They get over 100 a week of these cards coming in reporting adverse reactions to drugs. My Lords, it would be quite ridiculous to suggest that, because adverse reactions to a drug have been reported, it should automatically be withdrawn from the market. It is only as the picture is built up gradually that any final decision can be arrived at. The Committee call this system of reporting "the early warning system". That is a good name, in a way, because it indicates what it is intended to do, which is to alert the Committee to possible hazards in the use of drugs; but it is a bad name if it suggests that this is necessarily an early warning to the medical profession or to the public lin General. The Committee are careful to explain that, essential as it is to draw their attention to something which might need further investigation, it does no more than that.
My Lords, the difficulty is that adverse reactions to drugs are hard to identify and confirm. Normally, they are of the same nature as conditions which occur without any drug in ordinary nature. Therefore, any observed incident or condition may have nothing whatever to do with the drug that has been given just previously. It is only when a report, or a series of reports, is looked at, in conjunction with other reports on the same drug, that it can be regarded as an early warning to the Committee; and for this reason the Committee have encouraged doctors to report any reaction which could possibly be suspected of being associated with the use of a drug. They are quite aware that they are bound to receive reports of suspicions which will prove groundless. They cannot afford to leave any alert unheeded, and all reports of serious or unusual reactions suspected of being associated with drugs trigger off a procedure for follow-up to see if the thing is a "true bill", as it were.
There are various procedures available to the Committee, and each investigation
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is specially designed for the circumstances. But the common objective of these investigations is to determine the incidence of the condition in persons who are not receiving the drug, as compared with people who are receiving the drug; and only when these figures show a significant difference can the Committee assert with confidence that a drug is or is not to blame. This is really an essential scientificprocedure if the hazards associated with the use of drugs are to be properly evaluated, because it might be more serious to condemn unjustifiably a valuable drug and to deny patients its benefits than to allow a drug with a low incidence of serious reactions to remain in use.
In the case of most drugs, this is all done without publicity. The Committee are enabled to carry out their investigations by taking samples of National Health Service prescriptions and asking the doctors who wrote them if they have observed the adverse reactions reported under the early warning system. They can also obtain from National Health Service statistics a reasonably accurate figure of the number of patients taking a drug. I think it is an advantage of the National Health Service that it offers facilities for carrying out investigations of this sort which are not available anywhere else in the world.
Unfortunately, because the majority of prescriptions for oral contraceptives are private prescriptions, as the noble Baroness pointed out, the Committee cannot so easily follow up the reports about them which they receive under the "early warning system." They are working out some special procedures aimed at discovering if there is a greater incidence of thrombosis in women taking the pills than in comparable women who are not taking them. This is, however, a very difficult investigation, and the medical assessor to the Committee has mentioned to the Press that it may take two or three years before a final decision can be reached because the incidence of these conditions is, fortunately, very low, anyway: and, just as the noble Baroness has said, the final determination of the results of continuous treatment of any kind can be determined only over many years.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord at this point? I said that I personally had worries about this. One of the worries I have had—and, when the noble Lady talked of 20 years, it made me think of it—is whether the use of the oral contraceptive, particularly in rather young women, might in later years render the woman sterile, unable to bear children; and whether it might be the case that this Committee could start doing the ground work now, by perhaps setting up some sort of early warning system, for something which may be years ahead.
LORD TAYLOR: I can only say that the evidence, such as it is, such as I have been able to ascertain it, is rather the reverse: that, after stopping oral contraception, fertility is, if anything, slightly increased.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I interrupt? I do not know where my noble friend got that information from. Everything I have read about it suggests that after a woman has been without children for a number of years it is a most difficult thing to persuade her to experiment and find out whether or not she is fertile. And she can find out whether or not she is fertile only by having another baby.
LORD TAYLOR: There is something in what the noble Lady says. Nevertheless, it sometimes happens that people want to plan their families and space them out, and the evidence obtained by the Family Planning Association—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: But the noble Lord spoke of many years ahead.
LORD TAYLOR: I cannot speak about many years ahead: I can speak only as to a period of about two years. After a period of about two years it appears that fertility is, if anything, slightly increased, rather than diminished.
I was explaining that in the great majority of cases these drugs are not covered by National Health Service prescriptions, and for this reason the Dunlop Committee decided that they had to take another step. They have told my right honourable friend that they had some fears that their purpose in writing to the journals might be misunderstood, as indeed it has been misunderstood by
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my noble friend. They thought this would be most unfortunate, because, as they made so abundantly clear in their letter, they had no evidence to merit any indictment of oral contraceptives. Nevertheless, they felt that, in spite of the publicity which is inevitably associated with anything connected with the pill, they should take the action which the reports under the "early warning system" called for. Here again, I would emphasise that one must be impressed by the responsible way in which the Press dealt with this letter to the medical journals. I think no reader could miss the point that the Committee made: that there was nothing known at present which called for the condemnation of the pill.
I was most grateful to my noble friend Lady Gaitskell for her useful contribution, in which I was very interested, and particularly for the emphasis which she placed on the value of this particular form of contraception in developing countries. I think we must be very careful indeed to make sure that, before we make vigorous and alarming statements, we have the evidence; and the evidence, so far as I can judge, is so far just inconclusive.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill. refers in her Question to a warning by the Dunlop Committee. I hope it is clear that the Committee have not thought fit to issue a warning to the medical profession. If, during their investigation, they come across anything which calls for a warning, I know that they will not hesitate to advise my right honourable friend, for this is one of the purposes for which they were appointed. Her Majesty's Government have the fullest confidence in this Committee. It really is a very eminent Committee. One has only to look at the pharmacologists, the professors of medicine, the professors of therapeutics and anesthetics who sit on it, including Professor Witts whom the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, mentioned, who is Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Adverse Reactions which is particularly concerned in this matter.
My Lords, these are responsible people, and they would not risk either their patients' welfare, or any patient's welfare; nor, indeed, would they risk unscientific statements. Her Majesty's Government have full confidence in the

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Committee and they are assured that the Committee do not consider that these drugs should be withdrawn during the investigation.

GULF OIL REFINING BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported, with Amendments.
CRUDE OIL TERMINALS (HUMBER) BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported, with Amendments.
SAINT MARK, CAMBERWELL BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a. and referred to the Examiners.
RIVERS (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
Third Report from the Committee made, and to be printed.

LONDON OFFICE BUILDING LABOUR FORCE
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they can confirm the statement made by the Lord Chancellor, reported in column 873 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of March 29, 1965, that: "last year 10 per cent. of the entire building force of the whole country was engaged in London, building offices."
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I regret that, owing to a misunderstanding, I gave the figure of 10 per cent. as the proportion of the entire building labour force in the whole country. This figure is the proportion of the building labour force in the London Region which was engaged in office building in 1964.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes before eight o'clock for the Easter Recess, until Tuesday, April 27.