Lords Sitting of 2 December 1965

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester
The Lord De Ramsey—Took the Oath.

NATIONAL COAL BOARD AND CONTINENTAL SHELF OIL OPTION
3.5 p.m.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: 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 why, in their Statement on the granting of production licences for oil and gas on the Continental Shelf, they stated that options had been given to the National Coal Board, when in fact they have to be paid for; how much the options cost; and for how long they will last.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hobson, whom the House will regret to learn is in hospital as the result of a sudden illness, correctly stated that these options had been given to the National Coal Board. The Board made no payment and will incur expenditure only if and when the options are exercised. I cannot disclose the detailed terms of the options, but they will remain open long enough to allow Parliament reasonable time to consider the necessary extension of powers to enable the Board, if it thinks fit, to take them up.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords will join in wishing the noble Lord, Lord Hobson, an early return to health. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, since these options were in fact given, what pressure was exerted by Her Majesty's Government on these two unfortunate American companies which have had to
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surrender something of great value without receiving anything in return?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord has entirely misconceived the situation. The options were not even solicited by the National Coal Board. They were offered by the two companies, presumably as a result of the Statement made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Power in another place on July 21, 1965, which I myself repeated in your Lordships' House on the same day. Speaking of the considerations which he would have in mind in awarding licences, my right honourable friend said:
"I shall also take into account any proposals which may be made for facilitating participation by public enterprise in the development and exploitation of the resources of the Continental Shelf."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 716, col. 1580; 21/7/65.]
This is an example of just that.

UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION ON KASHMIR
3.8 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: 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, with regard to the undeclared war in the Commonwealth between India and Pakistan, they will say what progress is being made towards implementation of the U.N. resolution requiring the referendum on the subject of Kashmir.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, the United Nations Security Council, in its resolution of September 20, 1965, decided to consider, as soon as a cease-fire had been effected between India and Pakistan and their troops had been withdrawn to the positions held before August 5, 1965,
"what steps could be taken to assist towards a settlement of the political problem underlying the present conflict".
The Security Council reaffirmed this decision in a further resolution of November 5, 1965.

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In the view of Her Majesty's Government, the first priority is to secure a disengagement and withdrawal of the forces of both sides. Her Majesty's Government therefore welcomed the appointment last week by the United Nations Secretary-General, with the agreement of the Governments of India and Pakistan, of Brigadier General Tulio Marambio, Director of the Chilean War Academy, as his representative, as envisaged in the resolution of November 5, 1965, to meet with India and Pakistan representatives in the sub-continent in order to formulate an agreed plan and schedule for withdrawals within an agreed time limit. The Security Council is committed to consider the political differences between the Indian and Pakistan Governments as soon as withdrawals have taken place.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the fullness of that reply. But since there are apparently over £200 million sterling loans outstanding, and since the Committee which is charged internationally with helping the economy of India has other commitments, could the noble Lord not give some indication—an indication which I did not get out of his reply—as to what instructions have been given to the United Kingdom representative in the United Nations to press for implementation of the United Nations' resolution? It would appear that that would have a material effect in assisting towards correcting the present situation.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, we support the United Nations' resolution, and the matter is before the United Nations Security Council. I think that at the moment we must leave it at that.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Soviet Prime Minister has arranged to meet the leaders of Pakistan and India, with a view to trying to get a settlement of the political differences between the two sides? Is it therefore not better to leave it until that development takes place?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. There is to be this meeting in Tashkent; and, of course, if an agreement were reached there between the two Governments, Her Majesty's Government would warmly welcome this.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, while we all hope that the war between India and Pakistan will end, could my noble friend say whether, in view of the fact that for years there has been a cease-fire line at Muzaffarabad, in Kashmir, on the Pakistan side, and that a United Nations resolution was carried many years ago for a plebiscite in Kashmir, there can be any hope of a plebiscite in face of the answer of the Prime Minister of India that Kashmir is not an issue?
LORI) BESWICK: Yes, my Lords. Of course, we supported the proposals in the earlier resolution of the United Nations back in 1948, but there have been other events since then. As I said, the matter is now before the United Nations Security Council. There is, of course, the development to which my noble friend Lord Henderson referred, and I think we had best leave it at that for the time being.

USE OF MOTOR VEHICLE HEADLIGHTS IN FOG
3.13 p.m.
LORD ALLERTON: 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 consider legislation which will make the use of headlights in conditions of fog and bad visibility compulsory.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, as the noble Lord suggests, drivers cannot be required under the present law to use headlights in daylight fog or bad visibility. Even if powers to do this were available, there would remain the problem of legally defining the conditions in which headlamps should be used. My right honourable friend has, however, asked the Working Party, with representatives of manufacturers, road users, road safety organisations and the police, which he has set up to review the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations, to consider proposals for making requirements about the use of headlamps generally.
LORD ALLERTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his full and satisfactory reply.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, is my noble friend satisfied that a very bright white light from a car in fog is an advantageous thing? Is it not a fact that it often reflects back at the man behind the light; and, in the circumstances, is not the answer a strong amber light, rather than a bright white light?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, that is one of the things which is being inquired into. There are conflicting views. Certainly, so far as the Highway Code is concerned, there is a recommendation to use headlights in daytime in fog or bad visibility, in order that other road users can see you. In hours of darkness, however, it is true that there is a considerable reflection arising from the use of headlights.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, while this matter is being considered, would the noble Lord also look into the question of making the use of dipped headlights compulsory in this country during the hours of daylight in fog? This is already compulsory in France, and it might be satisfactory to have this rule in this country, too. I would agree with the noble Lord opposite, that in fact an amber light would be more suitable than a white light.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I ought perhaps to have made it clear that at present in the Road Transport Lighting Act 1957, and the Road Traffic Act 1962, there is no power whatever to require the use of either sidelights or headlights during the hours of daylight. This whole question is under review by the Working Party of manufacturers, road users, road safety organisations and the police.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, could the noble Lord say when this Working Party will be reporting?
LORD LINDGREN: Not without notice, my Lords. But the work is going ahead, and I understand that it is my right honourable friend's desire that as sectional reports come in to him he will make sectional groups of regulations.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF RHODESIA
3.16 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: 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 intend to fulfil the agreement to give £750,000 over three years to the University College of Rhodesia; and whether the second instalment of £250,000 will be paid this week or in the near future.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, I can best answer this Question by repeating, with permission, part of the Statement on this subject which my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development made in another place on November 30. She then said (col. 1214):
"Since the University College is providing higher education for students of all races and operates under Royal Charter, Her Majesty's Government have decided to continue their assistance to the College as long as Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that conditions continue to exist under which the College is able to discharge this function."
The arrangements for payment are under discussion with the College.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, which is satisfactory in principle only, I should like to ask whether it is true, as reported in The Times last week, that the University Council are to meet on December 10 in order to decide whether it will be financially possible to keep the University College open? If this is the case, do the Government not consider that that is sufficient justification for paying over this £250,000 immediately, in order to prevent the closure of this admirable multiracial institution?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I sincerely hope that this admirable multiracial institution will not have to be closed. As I have said, Her Majesty's Government have already decided, and announced, that, so long as this University fulfils its functions of multiracial education, it will continue to receive the sums

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of money which have already been allocated to it and which we have undertaken to pay over the next two years.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, does that mean that this money is going to be paid now; or will it be held up pending further consideration? It seems to me that this decision must be taken, in order to give a degree of security and certainty for the future of the University.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, the actual methods of paying this money are still under consideration, and are the subject of negotiation with the University authorities. But I can assure the noble Lord that, provided we are satisfied on the cardinal points which I have already mentioned, the University need have no doubts at all about its continuing to receive the amount of money which is due to it.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, may I ask a final question? How do the Government intend to satisfy themselves on this particular point? Are they relying on advice from the Principal of the University in order to come to this decision?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, the Government will, of course, rely to a very large extent on advice from the Principal of the University, and from all other sources which are open to them. In other words, they will use common sense in arriving at a common sense decision.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, whilst welcoming the decision of the Government in this matter, I should like to ask whether, because of the great importance of this University in regard to multiracial relations, the Minister would also consider whether some safeguards can be provided for the members of the staff of that University, 47 of whom have indicated that they do not accept the Smith régime and have been subjected to inquiries by the Police State in Rhodesia.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, in the present circumstances it is difficult to assure the complete protection of any individuals in. Southern Rhodesia. But in so far as the University itself is concerned, I will only repeat what I have already said: that, should it give any
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substantial indication of failing to fulfil its multiracial purposes, then, naturally, the whole question of grants will have to be reconsidered.

VETERINARY SURGEONS BILL [H.L.]
3.20 p.m.
TILE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make fresh provision for the management of the veterinary profession, for the registration of veterinary surgeons and veterinary practitioners, for regulating their professional education and professional conduct and for cancelling or suspending registration in cases of misconduct; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Champion.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

DEVELOPMENT OF INVENTIONS BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Development of Inventions Act 1948, the Development of Inventions Act 1954, and the Development of Inventions Act 1965. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

MINES (WORKING FACILITIES AND SUPPORT) BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate Part I of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1923 and certain enactments amending the said Part I. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

PENSIONS (INCREASE) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, on behalf of the Lord Chairman, I beg to move the first Motion standing in his name.
Moved, That a Committee be appointed to consider any proposals for alterations in the procedure of this House which may arise from time to time, and whether the Standing Orders do or do not require to be altered to effect such alterations; and that the Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

M. Salisbury,

E. Longford,

E. St. Aldwyn,

E. Swinton,

V. Bridgeman,

V. Dilhorne,

V. Goschen,

L. Ailwyn,

L. Amulree,

L. Carrington,

L. Champion,

L. Henderson,

L. Henley,

L. Merthyr,

L. Morton of Henryton,

L. Rea,

L. Saltoun,

L. Shepherd,

L. Silkin,

L. Strang,

L. Wade,

L. Wilberforce,

B. Wootton of Abinger.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in the Lord Chairman's name.
Moved, That a Committee be appointed to select and propose to the House the names of the Five Lords to form a Select Committee for the consideration of each opposed Private Bill; and that the Lords
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following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

M. Salisbury,

M. Willingdon,

E. St. Aldwyn,

E. Swinton,

L. Amulree,

L. Chorley,

L. Ogmore,

L. Shepherd,

L. Silkin,

L. Strang.

—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LAW REFORM (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.23 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is concerned with the reform of several aspects of civil law and one aspect of criminal law in Scotland. The provisions deal very largely with what is sometimes called lawyers' law, but, none the less, for the most part they have a not unimportant impact on the interests of the citizen, and as a group they justify the Bill's Title by making the law more consistent, modern, convenient and accessible. They are, as I am confident your Lordships will agree, substantially uncontroversial, at any rate in their import, and I commend them to the House as an earnest of the Government's intention to maintain steady progress in the field of law reform. The provisions of the Bill deal to a considerable extent with specialities of the law of Scotland, and some of them are rather technical in character. It may therefore be for your Lordships' convenience if I outline their general effect.
The first clause exempts wages and salaries from the process of arrestment on the dependence of an action. For those of your Lordships who are not familiar with our law in Scotland, I should perhaps explain that arrestment on the dependence of an action is a freezing of funds in the hands of a third party to

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meet a debt for which the arrestor has raised, or is about to raise, an action. Its use is merely to preserve the property to be available to the creditor if he obtains judgment. The Government share the view which was expressed by the McKechnie Committee on Diligence in 1958, that it is not right that a person should have his wages arrested and perhaps run into difficulties for a debt that has still to be proved. Clause 1 of the Bill would obviate this for the future.
The second clause also implements a recommendation of the McKechnie Committee by removing in Scotland the privilege whereby the salaries and wages of Crown servants are free from arrestment for debt. This privilege is of very long standing—at least as far back as the seventeenth century—but, whatever may have been the justification for protecting the remuneration of Crown servants in this way, there seems no reasonable warrant for it in the very different circumstances of to-day. I should perhaps remind your Lordships that the present protection is of very wide application, extending not only to civil servants, in the narrow sense of that term, but to all industrial employees of the Government. The Government's view is that it should be entirely removed. It is proposed, however, again in agreement with the McKechnie Committee's recommendation, to except the pay of serving members of Her Majesty's Forces. Here, the circumstances are rather special; there are obvious complications arising, for example, from foreign service and mobility generally, and there is already statutory provision for deductions from pay for maintenance under a court order.
Clause 3 and Clause 4 would make good certain minor shortcomings in the law concerning adopted persons. Clause 3 of the Bill would fill in what the Court of Session recently pointed to as a gap in the Adoption Act 1958. That Act, in its application to Scotland, requires the consent of the person to be adopted when he or she is a minor—that is, a girl between 12 and 21, or a boy between 14 and 21. In a case of mental disability, where the consent cannot be given, the adoption cannot take place, however much it might be for the benefit of the child. Clause 3 would enable the court to dispense with consent where they are satisfied that the minor is incapable of giving it.
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Clause 4 deals with what appears to be an unforeseen consequence of a provision in last year's Succession (Scotland) Act. With the commencement of that Act, adopted persons obtained rights of succession to their adopters, and lost the corresponding rights as regards natural parents. This has the effect that, if the adopter died before the Act, the adopted person would have had no succession rights to his estate; yet under the Act he loses the right of succession to his natural parents who die after the Act. Accordingly, Clause 4 of the Bill would enable such a person, whose adopter had died before the Succession Act, to succeed to the estate of natural parents who die after the Bill becomes law.
Clause 5 deals with the periods for which, under a settlement, income of property may be accumulated. In 1800 Parliament, in order to check the mischief which it was considered would arise from accumulation of income for very prolonged periods, enacted the Accumulations Act, better known, I believe, as the Thellusson Act, which extended to Scotland as well as to England and Wales. Its provisions so far as Scotland is concerned were essentially re-enacted in the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1961. The general effect is to limit accumulations to any one of four periods: the life of the person making the settlement, twenty-one years from his death, and two alternative minorities—that of persons in existence at the time of his death and of persons who, under the settlement, would be entitled to the income if they were of full age.
Last year, in accordance with a recommendation of the English Law Reform Committee, Section 13 of the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act added for England and Wales the two additional periods now proposed for Scotland in this Bill. The first of these is a period of 21 years from the date of the settlement. As matters stand at present, a grantor has no immediate fixed period of years open to him. He can direct that when he dies income shall be accumulated throughout the ensuing 21 years. It seems anomalous that he may not direct the accumulation of income for a 21-year period running during his lifetime, and the first of the additional periods proposed in the clause would enable him to do so. Secondly, under the existing rule he can direct

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accumulation for the minority of anyone in being at his death; but he may direct accumulation for the minority of anyone in being at the time of the settlement only where that person will be entitled to the income on attaining majority.
The second of the additional periods now proposed would enable accumulation during the minority of a person in being at the time of settlement in the same way as during the minority of a person in being at the date of the settler's death, without any condition about the destination of the income at the end of the accumulation. The second subsection of this clause is merely declaratory of the law on two aspects on which I understand doubt has occasionally been expressed. It makes clear that the statutory restrictions on accumulation apply in the case where accumulation is permitted by the settlement, as well as where it is directed; and that the restrictions apply in the case of accumulations by simple interest as well as by compound interest. These declaratory provisions are also included in the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 1964 to which I have referred.
Clause 6 is concerned with the admissibility of records as evidence. It applies to civil proceedings in Scotland provisions very similar to those introduced for criminal proceedings by the Criminal Evidence Act 1965. In the case where there are records kept from information supplied by persons who have, or may be presumed to have, first-hand knowledge, the court may admit the record as evidence if the person supplying the particular information for the record is inaccessible or could not reasonably be expected to remember the matter. The provisions in general follow those of the Criminal Evidence Act 1965 to which I have referred. But "record" is defined somewhat more broadly, not being confined to trade or business records; clearly, in the interests of freedom of the subject, the limits in criminal procedure had to be rather tightly drawn. The law of England and Wales, I understand, has already comparable provision under the Evidence Act 1938. The general subject is, as your Lordships will be aware, very highly technical. But I believe that what is proposed in the clause will remove strict requirements that can in practice be troublesome, and yet provide all due safeguards for justice.
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Clause 7 has the general effect of enabling parties affected by orders by the Court of Session for maintenance, and custody of and access to children, to apply for variations to the sheriff court. These orders are made in most cases in connection with divorce. As matters stand at present, where the Court of Session on granting divorce makes an order regarding maintenance and custody, with provision for variation, a party seeking variation of the order, even in very minor respects, must return to the Court of Session. This is inconvenient and expensive for the parties, and means that the time of the Court of Session is taken up with matters that could be very competently dealt with by the sheriff court, who are well accustomed to deal with the subject in relation to judicial separation. Clause 7 would enable a party desiring to have such an order varied or recalled to have recourse alternatively to the sheriff court having jurisdiction over the other party. The present proposal merely permits certain questions of maintenance, and as regards children custody and access to be determined by the sheriff court; and it has no bearing at all on the Court of Session's exclusive jurisdiction on divorce.
I should inform your Lordships, however, that certain criticisms of this clause have been communicated to the Government. These are in the sense that there is advantage in retaining the Court of Session's exclusive jurisdiction in these matters, especially on questions of custody. They might be grouped under two heads—that it is improper for the decision of a higher court to be reviewed by a lower: and that the sheriff would not have available to him the background that was available to the Court of Session judge who heard the case in the first instance so that, presumably, the sheriff would have to go over all that ground himself again, to the delay, trouble and expense of the parties. One must weigh these criticisms very carefully, but I doubt whether the objections are as strong as they sound. What the higher court has done, in these cases, is to give leave to the parties to apply for a variation when new circumstances arise. What the clause does is to allow this application to be made, if the party so desires, in the sheriff court. This is not overruling the higher court's decision: it is providing a

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convenient way to give effect to it: and it is permissive. And in considering the second objection, that the sheriff would not have the background available to the Court of Session judge, it should be kept in mind that although it may be arranged, where practicable, that the application for variation is considered by the judge who made the original order, his personal recollection will be of value only in the relatively few cases where there has been a defended proof, with both parties giving evidence.
The Government's intention is simply, as I have indicated, to ensure that the procedure is as convenient and inexpensive as is consistent with efficiency, and they think it proper to take the fullest account of any misgivings expressed about whether the clause in its present form would have this result. They remain of opinion that provision should be made to enable these incidental questions to be dealt with by the sheriff courts in the appropriate case so that parties need not sustain the additional expenditure and inconvenience which litigation in the Court of Session in Edinburgh inevitably entails. On the other hand, having regard to the views to which I have referred, the Government would be prepared so to amend the clause that the sheriff court's jurisdiction would apply only where both parties agreed to it. This would mean that the very evident advantages of the sheriff court would be available where both parties desired, but that either party would be entitled to have the application brought before the Court of Session if he or she so preferred.
The limitation, I suggest, would be appropriate to matters of custody, access and education, where it can perhaps be argued that the connection with the circumstances of the divorce action is more immediate, rather than to aliment; but if it is your Lordships' considered view that the proviso for consent by both parties should extend also to aliment, the Government would not be disposed to press the point. I would ask your Lordships to keep this consideration in mind in examining this clause. Let me sum up the position in another way. Some, perhaps very many, of the applications that we are considering are of minor importance. It seems difficult to insist that, however trivial, they must take up the time of the Court of Session if the parties
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are prepared to have the matter decided by the sheriff, particularly where, as often happens, they live in the same area. I hope that with these explanations the clause will commend itself to your Lordships.
Clause 8 proposes a minor, but not unimportant, change in the law relating to summary criminal appeals, the need for which has been represented to the Government by the Scottish Law Commission. The Government are glad to have had the opportunity to propose legislation so speedily on the first suggestion made to them by the Commission. We hope it is a happy augury for the future. The law relating to appeal by stated case lays down a timetable for the various stages of the appeal; and contains provisions which have the result that the appellant's right of appeal is lost if he does not adhere to the timetable. The clause would enable the High Court, on application, to deal at its discretion with cases of failure to meet the timetable at two points where difficulty has been occurring. It would allow the court to extend, where it thinks proper, the five-day period within which appeal must be lodged, and also the five-day period within which, after receipt of the final stated case from the lower court, it must be lodged with the High Court of Justiciary.
The final substantive provision, Clause 9, is a minor one concerning Acts of Adjournal and Acts of Sederunt. For those of your Lordships who are not familiar with our law in Scotland, may I say that Acts of Adjournal are rules passed by the High Court of Justiciary for regulating procedure there and in the inferior criminal courts, and that Acts of Sederunt are rules made by the Court of Session, dealing with civil court procedure and related matters. The purport of the clause is that Acts of Sederunt and of Adjournal to be made under Acts of Parliament enacted after the commencement of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946 should, unless the particular enabling Act otherwise provides, be statutory instruments as are those already made under enabling Statutes before that Act. As matters stand, it is now necessary to have a somewhat cumbrous special provision in each enabling Act. The broad intention is to establish in general, for the convenience of those consulting the law, that Acts of

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Adjournal and of Sederunt will be available in the published volumes of statutory instruments, subject to the same exemptions from publication as apply to statutory instruments generally.
Before concluding, I should like, if I have your Lordships' permission, to mention a point which presented itself to the Government after the Bill was introduced, and which it is proposed, subject to your Lordships giving the Bill its Second Reading, to deal with by an amendment in Committee. Under the Wages Arrestment (Limitation) (Scotland) Act 1870, as amended by subsequent Acts, there is provision for protecting part of a worker's wages from arrestment for debt; this part is fixed by the Wages Arrestment Limitation (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 1960 as £4 plus half of the remainder of the worker's weekly wages. The figure of £4 fixed in 1960 obviously is now due for review, and the Government accordingly have accepted a recommendation of the McKechnie Committee to which I earlier referred that power should be taken to vary from time to time by statutory instrument the amount protected from arrestment.
In inviting your Lordships' support for this Bill, there is one possible criticism which I may perhaps be permitted to forestall. It may be suggested that in some respects the Bill does not go far enough. I have some sympathy with this point of view. I believe, to give only one instance, there is very considerable scope for further improvement in the law of diligence. But the Government had the choice of introducing changes which in their view were immediately necessary, comparatively uncontroversial, and capable of being dealt with in isolation: or on the other hand of holding matters up until it was possible to reach conclusions over a much wider field. The Government feel that the right principle here is to lose no time in promoting individual changes that are already seen to be manifestly desirable, even if the review of other aspects of the same field of law is not completed. In other words, if we wait until we can legislate over the whole field, we shall have to wait a very much longer time indeed.
I am confident your Lordships will agree that this is the best way to achieve
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progress. The Scottish Law Commission are already addressing themselves, like their English counterpart, to the review of extensive branches of the law, and the Government have no doubt that the general pace of reform as a whole will be greatly accelerated through their work.
My Lords, I hope that the House will find it possible to give a Second Reading to this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hughes.)
3.45 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for explaining so very clearly to the House the aims and purposes behind this Bill. It is, as he pointed out, something of a legislative rag-bag, but it is none the less useful in that it does set out to close some gaps in the law of Scotland and iron out some few anomalies. I should like to say at once that with most of these proposals we are in complete agreement and believe that the Bill will serve greatly to strengthen our Scottish law.
I do not intend to take up any of your Lordships' time this afternoon by commenting on the various clauses in the Bill. Most of them, as the noble Lord said, are substantially uncontroversial. I am also aware that one or two of my noble and learned friends whose particular province this is, have points they wish to raise and this is no moment for a layman to stand in their way. I was going to ask the noble Lord a question about the arrestment of wages, but at the end of his speech he answered it for me, and I am very grateful for that. I understand that an Amendment will be introduced on this matter in Committee.
Perhaps the only other point that is worrying quite a few of your Lordships is the question of Clause 7. The noble Lord went to very great pains to explain why this clause is necessary, and I am most grateful to him for the trouble he took. I must say that I am not yet completely convinced by what he said. In the first place, although this is not of prime importance, this clause does not seem to be based on any recommendation that I know of or on any desire to tie in with the English legal system; and it still seems to me (although I accept at once that

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many of the cases referred to by the noble Lord are minor cases) a somewhat bad precedent that some of these cases, which indeed are difficult and often very complex and which may have been contested very bitterly in the Court of Session, should be able to be heard by a lower court by a person seeking to vary an order.
I believe we are all thinking of complex and difficult cases which for instance involve the custody of children. Certainly it is most unlikely that any sheriff court could possibly be aware of all the difficult issues involved in such cases. I have the very highest opinion of the sheriff courts, but I feel that this clause seems to ask them to shoulder a burden of responsibility which they should not be asked to shoulder. I realise of course, as the noble Lord pointed out, that this clause is permissive and designed with the most laudable object of saving time and expense. But I am certain that none of your Lordships would wish this to be, or even possibly to be, at the expense of justice; so I ask the noble Lord, even now, to have another look at this clause in general.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for the amendment that he suggested he might make to it, and I think that this would make the clause better. But I should be grateful if he would have another look at the clause and at the principle behind it, because I am not certain that it is as we should like it. I know that the noble Lord wishes this Bill to be as good as we can make it, but I do not believe that all the implications of Clause 7 have been sufficiently thought through. As I said at the beginning, I do not wish to take the time of the House. We agree with nearly all the provisions in this Bill. We think that Clause 7 is a blemish on it; but the Bill in general is a useful one, on which we congratulate the Government, and I am certain that it deserves the support of your Lordships' House.
3.50 p.m.
LORD GUEST: My Lords, I am glad to be able to join with the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, in welcoming the majority of the proposals in this Law Reform Bill. I have only two points of criticism in relation to it. My first point of criticism is in regard to Clause 5(2), which imposes further restrictions on
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accumulation of income and which, I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, who has introduced the Bill, follows the recent reform of the English law. I see no reason to object to subsection (1). In order to appreciate the effect of subsection (2), it is necessary to be a little technical about it. As the noble Lord has already explained, the Thellusson Act 1800 forbade certain accumulations which are directed by settlement from going beyond certain periods. These periods are reproduced in Section 5 of the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1961. As has been said, subsection (1) further restricts these periods. However, subsection (2) says this:
"It is hereby declared that the restrictions imposed by the said section 5 apply in relation to a power to accumulate income whether or not there is a duty to exercise that power…"
I stop there, because that is the provision which I think should be criticised.
As I understand the law, this involves a change in the law. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said he understood that it was to clarify the law. There may be doubts as to how far the law has gone, but as I understand the law at present, it is this: if the inevitable effect of the directions in a settlement is that accumulation must take place, then in those circumstances there must be an implied direction to accumulate. But this clause goes much further than that, because it says that, if there is a power to accumulate, that is equivalent to a direction to accumulate. The effect of this clause upon charitable trusts will be most unfortunate. I am informed that, if this clause is passed in its present form, it will compel charitable trustees to distribute the whole of the income, where the deed merely gives them power to accumulate, if in any year they find it unnecessary to expend all the income; and if they had not expended all the income, then the income would go to the trustees as personal representatives. I think that that would have an undesirable effect on the administration of charitable trusts.
I understood the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, to say that this provision is supposed to be for the clarity of the law. There may be a difference of opinion about that. But I would like to know from whom this proposal emanated. I am told that none of the professions in Scotland has been consulted about this

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alleged declaration of the law. I am told that no law reform committee has examined it. I have information that the judges in the Court of Session do not approve of this alteration in the law, as they see it. If the law has been stated in cases over the years to a certain effect, it appears to me to be undesirable that there should be a gloss put upon that statement of the law by incorporating this subsection, which I humbly submit appears to be a change in the law. I hope very much that before the Committee stage the Government will look again at this matter and see whether it would not be more desirable to drop the clause until some body, such as the Law Commission, has had an opportunity of considering it.
The other clause of which I think valid criticism is to be made is Clause 7, which, as the noble Lord has already told your Lordships, gives the sheriff substitute a right to vary or recall a decision of the Court of Session on aliment, custody and access. As he said, quite rightly, the Court of Session at present has exclusive jurisdiction in regard to divorces. Whether that is right or not may be a question for the future, but that is the position at the present time. And in making a criticism of this clause, I do not wish in the least to belittle the powers or responsibilities of the sheriff court by pointing out the inconvenience which will inevitably result if this clause is carried in its present form.
Many divorces are fought purely upon considerations of custody and access, and the question of the matrimonial offence is a minor incident in the case, and as your Lordships know, on matters of custody and access it is very difficult to arrive at a decision. In these cases all the facts are gone into before the judge at the Court of Session and he is apprised of the situation, and upon these facts he comes to a decision one way or the other. If this clause goes forward in its present form, it will be open to the disappointed party in the litigation to go before the sheriff court and, upon a plea of change of circumstance, to attempt to get a decision of the judge in the Court of Session altered.
In the first place, I think that it is undesirable that that should take place. It would be extremely inconvenient,
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because all the facts would have to be gone into again before the sheriff substitute, causing additional expense, whereas the judge in the Court of Session would have the notes of evidence before him and no doubt would be able to remind himself very quickly of the facts on which his decision was based. I would have thought, with respect, that the proper person to consider whether there should be a variation of his order would be the judge who pronounced it.
Worse than that, unless some Amendment or alteration is made in this clause, one might have the situation in which the same issues are being litigated in two courts simultaneously. The Court of Session would be considering one application and the sheriff court would be considering another, and there is nothing to stop either of these courts from arriving at contradictory decisions. It humbly appears to me that this clause is inconvenient, impracticable and unnecessary, and I hope that the Government will see their way to drop it. I am not really sufficiently acquainted with the proposal which the noble Lord has made for the amendment of it, but, as at present advised, I do not see that it gets rid of the difficulties to which I have referred. I thought it proper to make these few observations on Second Reading because, unless the points which I have made are dealt with, I would propose to put down Amendments at Committee stage.
4.0 p.m.
LORD REID: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, was rather apologetic about introducing this Bill. I do not think that he need have been. It certainly appears to me that, provided Parliamentary time can be made available, there is no objection at all to having small instalments frequently brought before us. I entirely agree with him that if he has something which is urgent and on which, let us say, the Law Commission has pronounced, we should have it and not wait for a larger group of amendments next year.
Some of the amendments in this Bill are very small indeed. I do not think any of them, apart from two which I will mention in a moment, and those mentioned by my noble and learned friend, can be objected to. But do not let us represent, for example, that Clause 6, as an amendment of the law

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of evidence, is anything more than a tiny bite at the whole subject. I hope that this does not mean that another bite will not be forthcoming very soon, because, to my mind, the law of evidence is riddled with anomalies, and I do not think it can be cleared up at one go. I know that a full inquiry is going on in Scotland, but I hope they will not wait until they get the whole matter cleared up.
That brings me to the function of the Law Commission. I quite understand that, as the Law Commission is a novelty, it may have been thought proper not to submit this Bill to them before it was submitted to the House. I think that was a wrong decision. So far as the recommendations in this Bill are not already covered by recommendations of other Committees, I think they ought to have been put before the Law Commission before being put in the Bill. I am sure that if Clause 7 had been put before the Law Commission before being put in a Bill, we should not have had it in its present form, and we should have saved a good deal of the time of the House. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to assure us, now that the Law Commission is in full working order, that in future Bills of this kind will not be submitted to Parliament until a report from the Law Commission has been obtained about all the proposals. Of course, there may be very urgent matters where that might be impracticable. I cannot think of one offhand and in the course of a fairly long experience of legal reform I cannot remember a Bill which has been quite so urgent as that. But, subject to that qualification, I hope the practice will now be established that Bills of this character are not brought before Parliament until the Law Commission has reported on their proposals.
So far as Clause 7 is concerned, I could not possibly accept it in its present form. But I think there is something to be said for allowing these matters to be dealt with in the sheriff court if both parties agree. It is unlikely that both parties will agree if the matter has been the subject of acute controversy in the Court of Session; but I entirely agree that there are a number of people with small means (that does not matter so much now that there is legal aid; but, still, it does matter to some extent) who would be quite pleased—both parties—to
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have a comparatively minor matter settled in the sheriff court. I hope the noble Lord will assure us that the Government propose to put down an Amendment, and that other Members of the House will not have to undertake that task, at least until they have seen the Government Amendment. If the noble Lord can assure us that the Government Amendment will be put down in ample time, so that other noble Lords who do not fully agree with it can put down an alternative Amendment, I think that would be useful.
To my mind, the right solution would be that before going to the sheriff court the party who proposes to go there should take with him a statement by the other party expressly agreeing that the matter in controversy shall be dealt with by the sheriff. That ought not to exclude the right of appeal, if this becomes necessary later. Sometimes agreements are held to exclude the right of appeal, but this would have to be so drafted that it did not. I do not think there are any other points on which I wish to comment at this stage. My main general comment is that I hope in future the Law Commission will be asked to do that which it is their proper function to do.
4.5 p.m.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I rise to intervene only briefly, but I should like to seek some information under one head from the noble Lord. I welcome what he said about Clauses 5 and 6, when he indicated that the Scottish Law Commission were thinking on the same lines as their English counterpart. From that I deduce that the changes he is recommending to us are tending to bring the Law of Scotland and the Law of England more closely together. I would ask the noble Lord to give the House a clear assurance that in the preparation of this Bill the Scottish Law Commission have had that consideration in mind throughout, and that all the changes which he is proposing to us now, where they are material, tend to narrow, rather than widen, the differences between the two systems. These differences may seem small to people who live in London, where the Border is a long way off, but they can be very tedious to public authorities, the police and the people who live in the counties on both sides of the Border.

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In particular, I would ask the noble Lord to consider before the Committee stage whether it is not possible for him to introduce some Amendment which will enable offences to be taken into consideration. I am advised that at the present time it is impossible to have offences taken into consideration in Scotland if they have occurred in England, and vice versa, despite the fact that the offences may be common to both countries. When noble Lords imagine the work of benches of magistrates in this modern motoring age, with a series of offences being committed, for example, on the A.6, some on the English side of the Border and some on the Scottish side, you will see not only the extra trouble to which those responsible for the administration of justice are put, but also how extra burdensome this can be to accused persons. I should not have thought it would be difficult for the noble Lord to try, at a later stage, to recommend some provision which meets this point. Then I think the battle-cry that he gave us when he opened his speech, that the Law of Scotland was indeed to be made modern, convenient and accessible, would be more justified.
4.8 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, there are just two points which I would mention arising out of Clause 7. In dealing with Clause 7, the noble Lord did so largely from the point of view of inconvenience and expense to the parties. Can he say whether the proposed procedure would reduce delay in any way? Would it be more likely that the case would be disposed of more quickly if it went to the lower court rather than the higher court? I would also ask the noble Lord this question, arising out of the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Guest. The noble Lord said that while the Court of Session judge—who presumably, for obvious reasons, would not be the Judge who heard the original case—
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, may I intervene on that point? As I understand it, it is the practice of the Court of Session to ensure, so far as possible, that the same judge hears the case afterwards. But, of course, that cannot be guaranteed. It is more frequently heard by the same judge than the other way round.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I said "for obvious reasons", because the judge might have gone to a still higher tribunal by that time. I take it that whichever judge hears the case in the Court of Session would have the notes of evidence or transcript of proceedings. Is there any reason why a sheriff substitute should not have the notes of evidence or the transcript of proceedings in the Court of Session?
4.10 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I should like first of all to deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. He caused me to look very hurriedly at my notes, because I was rather appalled to find that I had created in his mind the impression that the primary purpose of the Scottish Law Commission was to bring the Scottish law into conformity with the English law. That is not what I said. What I said was that the Scottish Law Commission, like their English counterpart, were addressing themselves to the review of extensive branches of the law. That does not necessarily mean that they are going to equate it with English law. What is the case, however, is that where it is reasonable, in the interests of amendment of the Scottish law, to make it conform to a better pattern South of the Border, that will be done; and I should hope that a reverse traffic may take place from the point of view of the English Law Commission. In some of these cases the amendments which are being proposed are identical to improvements already effective South of the Border.
On the other point which the noble Lord raised about taking offences into consideration, I was about to say that it is a point of which I had no previous notice. But I have just been handed a note about it, so I had better try to read it. The doctrine of taking offences into consideration does not apply in Scots law. But it is competent in Scotland to prove or admit previous offences committed in England. I hope, therefore, that that goes part of the way to help the noble Lord.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but would he consult with the chief constables of the counties North of the Border and assure himself that the point

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I was making is a valid one? He could achieve great improvement if he could think of something which goes a little wider.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am not sure I can give that undertaking, but what I will undertake to do is to ask my right honourable friend the Lord Advocate what he thinks about it, because, after all, he has heard it just as well as I have.
May I say that I am grateful for the welcome which has been expressed to the Bill by all noble Lords who have spoken, beginning with the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and then the noble and learned Lords, Lord Guest and Lord Reid. As my remarks indicated, I anticipated to a certain extent the criticism of Clause 7. I also had some indication from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Guest, of his intention to query the position relating to Clause 5. I am not quite certain that any further amendment to Clause 5 is necessary, but I must say without hesitation that the Government will take careful consideration of what the noble and learned Lord has said, and I may take the opportunity of having a word with the noble Lord before the next stage of proceedings on the Bill.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, asked what consultations had taken place with the Law Commission. I think it is correct to say that he had rather assumed that there had not been any consultations with the Law Commission. It would not have been surprising if there had not, because one of the difficulties in connection with these little legal Bills—and I am particularly grateful for Lord Reid's kind comments about there being no need to apologise for a little Bill in this way—is that if you do not seize the opportunity in the Parliamentary timetable which presents itself, it goes for the rest of the Session. This presented a problem to the Government in this connection. If we moved quickly, we could get a Bill; if we waited, we had to fight for a place in the programme with matters which perhaps had a wider appeal than a Bill of this nature. But I am glad to be able to say that the Government did keep the Commission informed of the provisions of the Bill. The Commission did not offer observations, but they themselves were good enough to suggest a possible improvement to clarify
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Clause 5. The noble and learned Lords will both be glad to hear that the Government have this matter under consideration at the present time. They also suggested the addition of the provisions which are now incorporated in Clause 8.
On Clause 5, the Commission had no observations to make in connection with what we had in the Bill, but they raised another point of a somewhat technical nature, on which I do not propose to offer any comment at this stage. In relation to the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, on the question of the law of evidence, I can assure him that we also consider that this is only the first bite, and we have begun in this modest way only because we have accepted the principle that it is better to legislate on the little that you can, rather than to wait a long time to get the whole field dealt with. As opportunity offers we will bring other aspects before the House.
I do not think that either of the noble and learned Lords gave perhaps as full consideration as I had hoped—I cannot blame them for that, because the noble Lord, Lord Reid, heard it for the first time to-day, and the whole Lord, Lord Guest, had only a very brief reference from me on the telephone—to the possibility that something along these lines might be done. But I think the possibility that we have suggested, that this course should be taken only where both parties are agreed, would cover all, or almost all, of the points that have been raised. I want to say quite clearly that it is not the Government's intention that the unsuccessful party should have an opportunity of having another go in a second court.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, raised two points in connection with Clause 7. First, did we consider that there would be more speed in taking the question to the sheriff court? Yes, we think that by and large that would be the position. One cannot say that it would always be the position, but generally we think that would be so. The second point was on the notes of evidence. So far as I understand it, there are no notes of evidence in these cases.
LORD GUEST: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I am afraid he is misinformed. In every case which comes

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before the Court of Session all the evidence is taken down in shorthand and is available.
LORD HUGHES: I phrased my words badly, because I was going on to say—except in the cases which are defended.
LORD GUEST: I am sorry to interrupt again. I said that in every case which comes before the Court of Session the evidence is taken down in shorthand and is available.
LORD HUGHES: In that case I stand corrected, but, as I understand it, it would be possible for that evidence to be made available to the sheriff court. However, it seems to me to be a matter of relative unimportance if we adopt the suggested amendment of going to the sheriff court only in cases where both parties are agreed; because in the sort of case which was mentioned, of bitterly contested actions of custody, it is almost certain to be found that one or other of the parties would object to the possible hazard in going to another court because they might lose what they had already gained in the Court of Session.
The last point to which I wish to make reference is the suggestion by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, that the Amendment, or Amendments, to Clause 7 should be Government Amendments, and that they should be tabled in ample time to enable Members of your Lordships' House who did not think the Amendments went all the way that they wanted, to table an alternative Amendment. That I gladly undertake to do, and if the noble and learned Lords were prepared to go with me I would go further; I should be prepared to have consultation with them before tabling the Government Amendment, in the hope that it could be tabled in an agreed form. I am sure my right honourable friend the Lord Advocate would be quite happy to join with me in that undertaking.
LORD REID: My Lords, certainly; I am sure that would be very satisfactory.
LORD GUEST: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, sits down, might I point out to him, in regard to this question of notes of evidence, that it will be necessary in any Amendment which is proposed that they should be
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provided for, because if application were made to the sheriff substitute that would be a new application, and the process would be in the Court of Session and would not be transmitted to the sheriff court unless some special provision were made for it. So perhaps in drafting his Amendment the noble Lord would have this in mind.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this makes it all the more satisfactory that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, has so readily agreed to be consulted in the preparation of that Amendment; and if he is speaking on behalf of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Guest, also, then when the Government come back to the House, if we have an Amendment which is not acceptable to the noble and learned Lords we shall have only ourselves to blame.
I think your Lordships have agreed that the Government have, generally speaking, produced an uncontroversial Bill but a useful one and one which will be an advantage to a minority, but a necessary advantage to that minority, of Her Majesty's subjects. I hope that after further discussion before the next stage, we may be able to limit the field of controversy still further by removing it from Clauses 5 and 7.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ALCOHOLISM
4.23 p.m.
LORD SOPER LORD SOPER rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will:—

(1) give figures showing the incidence of alcoholism in Great Britain and Northern Ireland;

(2) give a comparison of these figures with those of other European countries and of the United States;

(3) state what facilities are available for the treatment of alcoholics in this country;

(4) state whether they have any plans for the extension of these facilities.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, there is widespread feeling, amounting in many quarters to conviction, that the problem and evil of alcoholism is grave and is increasing. I believe that to be true, and

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I have some first-hand evidence to support that belief. But it may be in your Lordships' minds that a Nonconformist minister with a tradition somewhat addicted to teetotalism may not be the most appropriate person to raise this question without, incidentally, raising questions as to whether I am afflicted with typical ecclesiastical exaggeration and also a kind of sentimental fanaticism about the problem.
I agree that it may well be considered that ministers of religion tend to see more sinners in their congregations than are actually present. John Wesley himself on one occasion said that he saw 25,000 people in Gwennap Pit, in Cornwall. Those of your Lordships who are aware of the location and size of this open-air forum will know that they could have been accommodated there only in layers, and I am quite sure that Wesley was very largely exaggerating the number. Your Lordships may equally think that there is exaggeration in the numbers which will be given of the actual incidence of alcoholism in this country. It is with that prudent thought in mind that I have so framed the questions as to evoke what specific statistics are available in the reply which my noble friend will no doubt given later, and I shall therefore restrain myself from giving any more statistics than I feel are absolutely proper to the arguments I hope to develop.
In the second place, I am quite sure this is not a matter to be treated as an aspect of teetotalism or as an opportunity for evangelical fervour on behalf of total abstinence. If I may remind your Lordships of the nature of alcoholism, it will quickly dispose of any temptation so to do. Alcoholism is a specific disease, a stress disease. It is accompanied by physical changes in the victim and, of course, is characterised by compulsive drinking on the part of the victim. It is not a process whereby a man continues to drink because he wants to, or because he has a strong desire so to do: it is a condition of compulsive drinking in which he drinks because he has to.
I would delay your Lordships a little to look into the causes of this alcoholism, if I may, and what I have just said indicates one regulative feature of that inquiry. There are those for whom alcoholism is the terminal stage of "a
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rake's progress". There are those who have deliberately used their opportunities of freedom until those opportunities of moral freedom have long since passed out of their own control.
But there are more circumstantial reasons why alcoholism is now prevalent, and they have only ancillary relationships to moral questions. It is contended by some, such as those in the Carter Foundation, that one of the prime causes of alcoholism is the kind of society in which so many alcoholics are to be found. I will quote two short sentences from their most admirable document:
"The major contributory factor to the increasing percentage of alcoholics in our population is the ever more complex industrial and social framework in which we live. It is an inability to come to terms with this complexity which causes most alcoholics to take their first drink."
Whether that last part of the sentence is completely accurate I am not sure. But I would submit to your Lordships that it is true that in a society which is increasingly complex, and, I would add, is largely secular, there are to be expected greater degrees of frustration, and of psychological frustration in particular; and it is no passing comment to remind oneself that the absence of religious faith, or even, indeed, of religious taboos, has not a little to do with the inability of many people to-day to sustain the strains of a modern so-called civilised society. For it is true, I suggest, that the taboo which is the product of religious superstition may, in this field, be as effective as a moral principle generated by religious faith. Those props and buttresses have largely disappeared, and it is in that regard that the society in which we live contributes to the incidence of alcoholism.
There is no doubt at all—and the evidence that comes to us from across the water and France is here most declaratory and impressive—that alongside the so-called affluent society has come a very much larger option in the matter of diet and drink, and a larger assumption on the part of many people that drinking is a social pleasure and a social activity to be repeated frequently during the day. This is why, during the last legal processes in France which led to new constitutional enactments, bistros and estaminets have now been prohibited alongside railway stations and bus

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stations, precisely because there is overwhelming evidence in France of the incidence of alcoholism among adolescents of sixteen and over who have been habituated from their earliest age to repeated intakes of alcohol and a variety of those intakes every day. And it has been not only drinks between meals, but drinks between drinks, which have largely aggravated a problem which in itself was sufficiently large to be admonitory and serious.
Furthermore, we are confronted with, and I think afflicted by, an advertising campaign which is as assiduous as it is basically unscrupulous. I make no bones about it: I regard the general use of advertisement by the drink trade as unscrupulous; and when it is accompanied by all the blandishments that can be brought into it through television to-day, and when we are invited to think the only proper activity for young people, particularly if they want to be virile, is to be constantly taking in alcohol, I am not surprised that many of those young people in this country become addicted to it, and that this is one of the subsidiary, although not necessarily important, causes of alcoholism as we now have to face it.
What are the effects of alcoholism? I would not have your Lordships believe that I speak without some little authority on this matter. Not that I presume to know technically, and from any standpoint of medical competence, but because, having run a couple of hostels for some years for male and female alcoholics, I know these facts to be substantially true. First, alcoholism is a personal tragedy for those who suffer it; and, secondly, it is almost incurable. In fact, the optimum is a protracted convalescence; there is no such thing as an absolute cure for alcoholism. Furthermore, of those who are alcoholics, so the best evidence I can obtain suggests, only about 20 per cent.—and that is probably an optimistic figure—are cured, despite the efforts made to succour them.
Secondly, no one can underrate, and no one would want to underrate, the misery and wretchedness caused in the households of those who are alcoholics, and particularly those who are female alcoholics. This is a secret vice or affliction, and those of us who have made
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some attempt to provide domestication hostels for women alcoholics know now something of the profound difficulty, first in getting at the evidence, and secondly of providing such accommodation and friendliness and medical treatment as may be of use. There can be little doubt that the statistics which have been previously advanced (I think it was in 1956), that one in ten alcoholics are female, are inaccurate. The suggestion is now that the proportion is much more like one in three; and that may not be due to the fact that there has been an increase in the number of women alcoholics—although there may have been—but probably because many have been hitherto undetected, and controlled experiments are still few and far between.
Those who would look at this problem from the economic and social standpoint may like to remember that it was the father of the noble Lord, Lord Stamp, who, in giving evidence before a Royal Commission on drink not many years ago, calculated that about 13 per cent. of the total productivity of a community was impaired, if not destroyed, by intemperance. Of course, some of that was drunkenness, and that is not the same as alcoholism; but a great deal could be regarded as statistically accurate of the kind of society in which we live to-day. Those who would attempt to assess the moral and spiritual loss to the community by reason of alcoholism and what it does to people, fine and splendid and useful people, would also want to calculate something of the material loss to that community caused by the varied impacts of alcoholism on efficiency and health, and would also want to reckon, in conjunction with this calculation, the tremendous cost it now presents to a civilised society, as we claim ours to be.
My Lords, it is because I would see something done, and I am sure your Lordships want to see something done, about this growing serious disease that I would turn your attention now to what seem to me the areas in which the attempt to answer this problem has to be sought. There is wide need for publicity and there is wide need for teaching, both to adults and in schools. I pay my tribute to the National Council for Alcoholism, and I should like to see it supported and its effectiveness increased. I am quite sure that there is a flippant, stupid and very

1405
often senile, attitude to alcoholism, which is something between a giggle and a guffaw. I have no doubt there are many people who would regard alcoholism as a comic joke, until they see, as I saw a fortnight ago, a boy of fifteen who was a confirmed alcoholic.
I believe that there is profound need for what is best called an information centre (one of which has already been set up in Liverpool and one, for which I shall be responsible, that is to open next Monday in Kennington) where those who are afflicted with this disease, or those who are friends or neighbours or the relatives of such, may find an opportunity of gaining what information is now available and profiting by the kinds of treatment which have only recently come to the fore and become established and clinically operative.
Thirdly, there is one outstanding problem in any treatment which is offered to an alcoholic, and it is precisely this. Unless you can provide some suitable arrangements whereby he will find it possible to use what little moral power he possesses to take advantage of these treatments; unless you domesticate him in circumstances in which it will be congenial to take these treatments—and some of them are unpleasant, like apomorphine and (what Hansard joyously called last time "anti-boost") antabuse; unless you can provide some hostel, some friendship, some friendly place where he will be at home, then it is highly unlikely that he will take more than the first dose. It is because there is this peremptory need for the setting up of hostels in which those who can be treated will, in fact, have the encouragement so to be treated, and will in some measure co-operate with this treatment, that I hope my noble friend will say something about the tremendous need for hostel accommodation for those who are afflicted with this disease.
Finally, I am advised that it is within the general view of Her Majesty's Government that in the general framework of the Welfare State, and in the particular framework of the Health Service, there should be greater efforts to deal with and make provision for dealing with this evil of alcoholism. That I most heartily welcome. I am well aware of the fact that the British Medical Association and the Magistrates' Association have hitherto
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regarded what is provided as grossly inadequate. I am sure they would agree, that the Government itself would agree, that if this particular evil is anything like as grievous as I have been presumptous enough to suggest it is, what has as yet been provided is grossly inadequate. I hope, therefore, that when the reply is given to my questions there may be some strong indication that within the framework of the Health Service, within the framework of the Hospital Service, within the framework of the general practitioner's area of influence and opportunity, there may be a deeper awareness of what this problem is and a greater utilisation of the methods, some of which have already been tried and not found wanting, but found useful and, in some cases, curative.
I should not have ventured to raise this problem in your Lordships' House had I not, in the process of my own pastoral duties recognised it, and been forced to recognise it, as of profound seriousness and it is in no mood of undue solemnity that I have come to the conclusion that in many respects what my doyen, John Wesley, said on another matter is also true of this: in the matter of alcoholism, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."
4.39 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, in view of the passage of time it may be necessary for me to leave the debate in order to fulfil an unavoidable evening engagement, before the noble Lord has replied. If so, I hope he will accept my apologies, for I intend no discourtesy. All of us who are interested in the problem of alcoholism will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for tabling the Question that stands in his name, and I hope that, in consequence, the noble Lord who answers will be able to give us a clear lead in the policy of the Government for dealing with this problem, and also information of realistic plans for extending the means for fighting this major social evil.
In the debate in this House on the Welfare Services in April of last year, I endeavoured to set before the House the facts concerning the disease of alcoholism. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, has spoken from his own experience of these matters. I will not weary your Lordships by going over the same ground,

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but I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to two aspects of the matter which I suggest merit our close attention.
As with so many matters of public concern, alcoholism is being tackled by a partnership of statutory aid and voluntary service. A great step forward was taken when the Ministry of Health published their Memorandum H.M. (62)43 on the hospital treatment of alcoholism. That Memorandum was published three years ago. I understand that in the 15 Regional Hospital Boards there are now 11 clinics, 3 of which are in London, dealing with alcoholics. I hope that the noble Lord in his reply will be able to tell us the extent of the response by hospital authorities to the commendation which is made in the Memorandum. Has there been a growing readiness to provide facilities for the treatment of alcoholics? Is the Minister satisfied with the developments which are taking place? And what plans has the Ministry to extend the opportunities for advice and treatment?
On the voluntary side much is being done, mainly at the instigation of the Churches, to help alcoholics. One can think of the work of the Church Army and the Salvation Army, the Reginald Carter Foundation, the Anglican Community at Spelthorne St. Mary for women addicts, and the work of the noble Lord, Lord Soper, at the West London Mission. Alcoholics Anonymous is doing splendid work in bringing the techniques of group therapy to the problem, which is so important. The National Council on Alcoholism, through its work in London and at various centres in the Provinces, is providing information centres at which the alcoholic may be directed to the people and the places where he can find the assistance he needs. These voluntary services are vital, but they are having a very hard time to survive financially.
The treatment of the alcoholic, as Lord Soper has said, s not a matter which evokes much popular appeal. Those who are approached are apt to shrug off the request for aid by asking why they should help those who, by their self-indulgence, have got themselves into the state. The remedy, they suggest, is in their own hands—let such people take a grip on themselves, lay off the bottle, and all will he well. But such a reply is all too readily made, and it betrays an ignorance
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of the nature of alcoholism and of the manner of its incidence. Alcoholism is a disease, compulsive in nature, incurable in so far as no alcoholic can ever again take alcohol with impunity, but responsive to treatment.
A person becomes an alcoholic, as Lord Soper has said, for a number of complex reasons, many of which cannot be labelled as unadulterated human weakness. Emotional shock, undue stress, fear, disappointment, anxiety—all of these emotions and many others may set a person off on the road which will lead to the slavery of alcoholism. It is not merely a question of lack of self-control, a condition which may be recovered by an effort of the will; it is an insidious disease requiring the most skilled understanding, research and treatment. I hope that, as a consequence of this debate, there may be a greater understanding of this terrible scourge of alcoholism, and that word may go out from us to charitable foundations, to industry and to all others who can give, calling upon their readiness to help.
What we are asking, at its lowest, is self-help, for industry must lose many millions of pounds through lost man-hours and decreased efficiency. It would do itself a good turn if it were to invest in the efforts being made by voluntary agencies to understand and to stem the incidence of alcoholism. But, as well, I hope that the Government will show themselves ready to give more help financially than they do at present. In Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America, a great deal of Government assistance is given to the various national councils of alcoholism. No such help is given in this country.
And yet it may be pleaded that those who are trying to deal with the problem in this country have a special claim upon State aid, since not only does the State receive vast revenue from duty on alcoholic beverages, but it is itself in the drink business. It owns some 200 licensed premises in Carlisle which, so I understand, produce a profit of some £200,000 per annum. In Scandinavian countries, where there is a State monopoly of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, a proportion of the profits are ploughed back into research into alcoholism and education of the public. I suggest that Her Majesty's

1409
Government should follow this example. The National Council in this country is doing important and essential work on most tenuous financial resources. Unless help comes, it may well have to cease its work. So that I hope the Government will supply the means whereby it may carry on.
My second point is more specific and concerns the work which can be done among alcoholics in prison. It has been encouraging to read recently that Her Majesty's Government are deeply concerned with this aspect of the problem. Speaking on June 8, Miss Alice Bacon, Minister of State at the Home Office, spoke of the special treatment for alcoholics at Wandsworth, Pentonville, Grendon, Wormwood Scrubs, Holloway and Wakefield Prisons, and of plans to extend the units for treatment. I hope, therefore, that there will be further experiments, especially in open prisons where alcoholics may live a more natural life than they do in a closed prison while receiving treatment for their condition.
In this treatment it will be very desirable to call upon the help of outside bodies. I understand that Alcoholics Anonymous have branches in a number of prisons. I would also draw attention to the work being done in Gloucester Prison by the field officer of the National Council of Alcoholism. I understand that the value of his work has been generally recognised. The N.C.A. hope that this experiment may be regarded as a pilot scheme which might be repeated where it has other information centres—in Cardiff, Liverpool, Glasgow and elsewhere. But this can be done only if financial help is forthcoming. Indeed, the Gloucester scheme is in danger of closing because the necessary support is not available. Here is another instance of valuable work which is in jeopardy for lack of money.
Those who are battling to get alcoholism recognised as a disease which needs extensive research and treatment are fighting an uphill battle in the face of a great deal of discouragement. It is noteworthy that many who are in the forefront of the movement are themselves ex-alcoholics, who know from their own experience the misery and degradation of the condition in which at one time they
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found themselves and the relief of discovering places and people who offer sympathy and treatment. They deserve far more help from society than they are getting at present. Measured in terms of lowered efficiency, lost man-hours, broken homes, harmed children, hospital treatment, imprisonment, society is paying a heavy price, both financially and morally, for this vicious cancer of alcoholism. Those who are striving to awake the public conscience and to aid the sufferer look to the Government to help them in their quest. I trust that their requests will not be in vain.
4.50 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I once had a French general-practitioner friend who was much mystified by the English disease of the nervous breakdown. He said, "We do not have this in France. En France c'est l'alcoholisme." This is, indeed, a very true observation. My noble friend Lord Soper, and the right reverend Prelate, both say that alcoholism is a disease. Well, it is of course a disease, but it is really only a symptom of a disease and the size of the symptom—the amount of alcohol consumed—is very largely determined by social factors.
My noble friend Lord Soper said that alcoholism was a product of a complex industrial society. I just do not agree with him. Alcoholism was a terrible curse in the 18th century, and it was very largely got rid of by raising the price of gin. It was pretty bad before the first world war and it got steadily less, so far as we can ascertain—and it is very hard to ascertain—in the years succeeding the first world war. It has only started to rise again in the past few years, in so far as we can ascertain, but, as I said, it is very hard indeed to ascertain what the true figures are. We get figures for acute drunkenness, and it is probable that figures for acute alcoholism follow the same sort of line but way below, because acute drunkenness is a fairly common phenomenon and alcoholism is not so common at all.
My noble friend Lord Soper said that alcoholism is a personal tragedy and almost incurable. The right reverend Prelate said the same thing, though he was a little more optimistic. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Soper. One tries to be optimistic, and sometimes

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one can be, but it is a personal tragedy and the problem appears to be so enormous because, when one faces a case, one is so often facing that case for life. It goes on and on and the social problem is there. The family is broken up, the family is reunited again, and for years and years social workers spend hours and hours struggling. The hospitals struggle to help these people and it really is a personal tragedy of major dimensions, but in terms of numbers of people afflicted it is, so far as I can see, comparatively small.
Of course, we must distinguish between drunkenness and alcoholism. I happen to think that drinking is a very good thing. I am all for alcohol properly used. I think it is one of the Lord's blessings, if the two reverend gentlemen will allow me to say so. I think He made the stuff; in fact I know He did, because I read my Bible.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? It is true that Paul advocated taking a little wine for thy stomach's sake, but the best exegesis suggests that he meant rub it in.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I recollect the miracle at Cana and I have always taken comfort in that.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, on that occasion 153 gallons were apparently contrived by a so-called miracle. I think it would be preferable, exegetically again, to regard that as an active parable.
LORD TAYLOR: I am perfectly prepared to take that one literally. I am very interested as to what my noble friend Lord Champion is going to say when he comes to answer Lord Soper's extremely difficult statistical question. First of all, the disease is not notifiable; and, secondly, even if it were, as the right reverend Prelate said, it is often concealed for very long times indeed, for years and years. Quite often it is only when someone who has been living alone dies and one discovers all the bottles hidden in the room that the whole awful problem is unearthed.
Thirdly, there is the great problem of definition and degree. I think we can leave out acute drunkennesss. This is not really alcoholism. This is almost its
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own punishment, in my limited experience, and if occasional it is not a very serious thing unless one happens to be in charge of a car. But if there is a rise in acute drunkenness, it is fairly safe to assume that there is also going to be a parallel rise in alcoholism, and I think that this is occurring now. I am not quite sure that compulsion is such an important element in the definition as the effects of that compulsion. One knows a number of people who feel a compulsion to have a glass of sherry before dinner, or even a compulsion to have a glass of bitter with their lunch, and yet they go on throughout their lives none the worse for this.
What is wrong, I would suggest, is consumption in such quantities as to lead to loss of efficiency in working or earning, or to disturbance of family or social life, or damage to the drinker's physical and mental health. Those are the criteria which are given in what is probably the best textbook of psychiatry in Britain, and I think that they are probably right, but that condition takes a considerable time to develop. Signs that alcohol has got a real hold on one are morning drinking, apart from the immediate pre-lunch drink, and repeated black-outs with loss of memory. Those two signs are pretty bad.
I have been trying to think what would he the best source of information to get the true incidence of alcoholism, and I reached the conclusion that probably good general practitioners who really know their patients and their families are about the best people to give this information. I asked seven of them how many alcoholics they had in their practices. They were all medium-sized town practices, and the total number of patients covered by these seven was 18,880. The total number of known chronic alcoholics among these nearly 19,000 people was five. In other words, this gives a national figure of 15,000 to 20,000 chronic alcoholics. I suspect that this is pretty near the truth, although I am not absolutely certain. But I want to emphasise that this is an appallingly serious problem, even if the figure is only that, because these people are mostly addicts for life.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, the noble Lord will know that there is a formula known as the Jellinek

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formula, which has been applied to this country and which suggests that there are 400,000 alcoholics at some stage. Also, would the noble Lord not agree that the general practitioner probably hears of only the very serious cases and that even they are reluctant to go to him?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I do know about the Jellinek formula and I just do not believe it for a moment. I just do not believe that there are 400,000 alcoholics. This would mean that in every doctor's practice—and there are 18,000 or 19,000 general practitioners—instead of there being about one known alcoholic, there would be about 40 alcoholics. A general practitioner who visits a patient's home gets a pretty shrewd idea whether there is an alcoholic there. It is a fairly obvious situation once the disease has declared itself, and I just do not believe these enormous figures.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord will allow me to ask him a question? Does he include among his alcoholics those who drink methylated spirits?
LORD TAYLOR: Yes, my Lords, I most certainly would include methylated spirits drinkers. But here again I do not know the figures, because they are a very peculiar, small—I must not say small, but they are a very special group of people, usually living in a small series of "Skid Rows", as it were, or their equivalent. But this is the best figure I can give. I dare say that it is too small, but I am giving it as a corrective, or am trying to give it as a corrective, to the very large figures which have been stated and which I just do not think are true.
I admit at once, of course, that it is incredibly difficult to obtain good figures. As I would emphasise again, each of theses people represents a continuous problem over so many years, so that, if the number is not 100,000, it may seem like 100,000. It certainly follows that the need for facilities for treatment in every hospital region is very real, and I would echo the right reverend Prelate's plea for the support by the Government of the voluntary agencies, which have done, and are doing, a tremendous work. Here again, I would support the noble Lord, Lord Soper, even though I do not know
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how many people he has to deal with. I am absolutely certain that the work of both these voluntary agencies, and of Alcoholics Anonymous, is quite invaluable.
I want to make only one more point, my Lords, and this is far more important than any statistics I may have given: it is one practical word about cause and prevention. The most important single factor, so far as we know, is not mental make-up but the price of alcohol in relation to the average income. If the average income rises without a corresponding increase in the price of alcohol, alcoholism will increase, and vice versa. It is as easy as that. Alcoholism is a disease of an affluent society, and, if we wish to prevent it, we shall just have to make sure that taxation of drink increases step by step with the increase in available spending income. Otherwise, I am afraid, we are certainly going to get more alcoholism—and the lesson of that is obvious.
5.3 p.m.
LORD ARWYN: My Lords, my interest in this matter was aroused by an industrial doctor and some tragic experiences within my own circle. I speak as another Member of your Lordships' House who can see danger signs which can disrupt our economic life. The loss to industry due to the consequences of alcohol has been estimated (we are bandying figures about, I agree, but this is the situation, so far as I can find out) at at least £30 million a year. Industry is therefore now becoming fully awakened to the dangers from the consequences of alcoholism. It affects every stratum. The primary reasons, as we know, are varied. Once the borderline is crossed tragedy seems inevitable. There are indications when the danger point is reached, but each of us is reluctant to call attention to a weakness in another, especially if we have ourselves been guilty in condoning by participating in heavy drinking bouts on convivial occasions.
Figures can often mislead, but the lowest published estimate of the number of alcoholics in this country is 300,000, and the highest 500,000. Add to these the families and others concerned, and we get a million people involved already. Alcoholism becomes more common as affluence grows; and, if we accept the

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figures for different States of the U.S.A., which show that the richer the State the higher the rate, then I think we are getting somewhere. The State of California now announces that one in sixteen adults is an alcoholic. A State official has said that their schools should seriously consider whether teaching schoolchildren about the danger of excessive drinking might have to take priority over the teaching of English literature. And if we take our lowest estimate, 300,000, this is twice the total of our university population.
My Lords, that which can start as a slight psychological disturbance can end as a chemical disease. There are stages, from the social drinker to the vagrant alcoholic. The vast majority of us are able to exercise sufficient control, and we hope we shall always stay in the category of the occasional social drinker—the first stage, and the least harmful. The second stage is the habitual social drinker, who spends regular, if not most, evenings in pubs, clubs or some other place of a convivial character. He has a need to relax and forget his worries, and finds that this is the easiest way. Such as he could rather easily progress (or I should say degenerate) to the third stage.
Then we enter the real danger zone. The third stage is the man who, in varying degrees—and perhaps to an unexpected degree—is becoming dependent on alcohol. He can still run a big business (I have met such men: we have had them occasionally in our own organisation) and maintain his self-respect, because society to-day is widely alcohol dependent, and to a degree which we are not willing to admit. This is the dangerous stage. This man is no longer drinking to ease his tensions but because the chemical process in his body demands more and more alcohol, This stage requires serious medical attention because the fourth stage is just over the borderline to complete alcohol dependence and complete addictive drinking. The irreversible chemical process is reached at this stage, and it is now not only advisable but absolutely essential that he should seek medical treatment.
My Lords, this fourth stage is bad enough, but it is not the last. There is still the last, where a man's whole
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life falls to bits, his personality seems to change, he suffers an acute guilt complex, he becomes a liar, he seeks escape in fantasy, and he can only hope and pray for a miraculous cure. Such a man is suffering from a terrible disease, and is in need of all the professional skills which can help to rehabilitate body, mind and soul. It is not a subject for jokes: the alcoholic is far from being that often portrayed in our minds as the poor drunk in the gutter.
Alcoholics are increasing in industry, from the boardroom to the shop floor. We also have the "Skid Row" alcoholics in the big cities. The case histories of many who exist in various hideouts and bombed sites are, I think, impossible to describe here in your Lordships' House. One thing is certain: we should be guilty of inhuman cruelty if we did nothing about their plight, or "passed by on the other side", leaving the problem to the desperate efforts of too few voluntary workers, dedicated medical men and the Churches.
My noble friend Lord Soper is asking the Government what they are going to do about it. There is no immediate panacea. We must consider a long-term programme, including education. We could even start in the primary schools, where the foundations of character are so often laid. If the pattern of a child's attitude towards religion can be influenced by religious teaching at an early age, surely it is possible to extend this to an attitude towards the dangers of excessive drinking, the physical as well as the moral dangers. The curricula of health education should include explanations to children, in a level-headed way, that there is little or no harm in occasional social drinking in which they will probably indulge when they grow up. But we have to destroy completely the idea that excessive drinking, like excessive cigarette smoking, is a manly feat; and we must teach them, too, that hospitality which encourages intoxication is not always sinecere and could be humiliating. Our present attitudes and ideas require revising.
My Lords, experience in industry and in medical research proves that most employers have little warning of the danger to their own businesses of the existence of this disease among the staff—and I have personal experience of that

1417
—until it is too late. The damage to a firm is the consequence of throwing a trained man on the scrap heap, perhaps having to pension him off, while hiding the facts of his illness. We have no information of the annual loss to industry of highly-skilled operatives and executives. In Scandinavian countries and in America, firms have introduced well-thought-out company policies. A man who is showing symptons of alcoholism can go to the manager and ask for help, knowing that he will be offered treatment rather than dismissal. It is cheaper to restore a man to health than to lose his skill. We need an investigation into the relationship between alcoholism and absenteeism and between alcoholism and industrial accidents. Instead of allowing men in industry to hide the disease until the disintegration is obvious, we must remove all fear of asking for help. A programme of education in industry on the consequences of this disease is as important as is education for prevention of industrial accidents; and it needs to be as persistent, if not more so.
One cannot sidetrack the problem of the Skid Row vagrant alcoholics, lying out like animals on bombed sites or other hiding places. Society's response to this problem is apparently to give a man short stays in a prison cell. It is not impossible to find cases of men who have been in prison 100 times on charges varying from begging or vagrancy to drunkenness. What is the purpose of the 101st imprisonment? It is no good saying that these men are merely vagrants; they are suffering from the same disease as are some members of respected professions and executive industrialists. They are also chemically dependent on alcohol.
Which Government Department is going to accept responsibility?—or is there to be a constant passing of the buck between the Ministry of Health and the Home Office? Can either Ministry produce evidence of action on this particular problem? Alcoholism is, in part, a mental disease. It is not a departure from our principles to see that there may be a case for compulsory treatment. But—and this is the point I want to underline—it is going about things utterly the wrong way to tackle the problem from the point of view of stiffer laws. First we need facilities for those who want help;
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and then we can see the size of the residuum. My information is that the majority of these vagrant alcoholics, if offered proper help, will accept it; and they are sophisticated enough not to regard a reception centre or a short stay in the general ward of a large mental hospital as "proper" help.
The National Council on Alcoholism, a voluntary organisation, have been doing stalwart work for two or three years. But are they receiving any Exchequer support? Other countries have their national councils, and the trend is for Governments to realise the enormous good being done and the need for financial aid if these voluntary bodies are to give their utmost towards preventing the disease from getting into an unmanageable state. A recent editorial in The Lancet notes the efforts which are being made by a particular London suburb to treat alcoholism as a community health problem. Cannot such commendable ventures be encouraged in other parts of the country?
My Lords, we have had this opportunity in your Lordships' House to draw attention to this problem, and I feel sure we cannot be content to let it rest. Whether we are talking about the incidence, the cause or the treatment of the disease, one important fact constantly recurs—the need for research. We need to know more, not only that alcoholism may, if possible, be prevented, but that when it does occur it can be effectively treated. We want further research into causation. How much research is there going on in this country? What backing are the Government giving to research? Is there any centre in this country at present where a permanent research team, directing skilled energies to these questions, is being supported? We ask that this serious disease must be taken seriously. Doctors and research workers must be provided with adequate facilities. The National Council on Alcoholism is striving hard and needs financial support. The Ministry of Health has encouraged the setting up of specialised alcoholism treatment units by each Regional Board. In 1963, 851 alcoholics were treated; in 1964, 1,110. Those in the Ministry who have guided this endeavour are to be congratulated on making the initial breakthrough; but we must regard it as a beginning.

1419
For instance, if a general practitioner in London wants a patient admitted to one of the units, is seems likely that his patient will wait for one or two months before even being seen for assessment. Out-patient and follow-up services are grossly insufficient—and this is not the fault of the staff; it is just the lack of financial support. Do these units admit "Skid Row" alcoholics, for instance? There is an appalling shortage of rehabilitation hostels; and treatment, once started, must be continued. Are there plans for supporting more hostels in the country, or are we to depend on the valiant, self-sacrificing efforts of Alcoholics Anonymous?
My Lords, we cannot look back upon the past efforts as having been anything like sufficient, or as likely to become so unless we are determined to tackle the problem with the seriousness it demands. It has to be tackled on the national level and on the local level. The Camberwell Council on Alcoholism has given an excellent lead in showing what can be done at local level. But too little is being done. Our approach must not be overemotional; but every effort of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Churches, the voluntary bodies and the dedicated medical men is needed. The Government should give the problem the priority which it demands by authorising an immediate general review of the whole situation, with particular emphasis on the question of proper coordination between Ministries. Or we may, sooner than we think, find ourselves, like the State of California, having to face the problem of one in sixteen of our adults being classified as an alcoholic.
5.19 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I feel that I have very little right to intervene at this stage of the debate because, unfortunately and very much to my regret, I was compelled to miss the two opening speeches. For this I should like to apologise to my noble friend Lord Soper and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. But I should like to make a few very brief remarks at this stage in connection with No. 4 of the list of queries which my noble friend Lord Soper has put to the Minister who will be replying on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.
May I ask my noble friend Lord Champion when he replies to the debate
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to state whether the Government have any plans for extension of the existing facilities? Perhaps he will refer particularly to the extension of these facilities on behalf of the extreme cases of alcoholism, many of them utterly beyond the reach of medical aid. One of the tragedies of the extreme alcohol addict is that, unlike the drug addict, who is always within reach of medical help, often he does not call on medical aid until he is in the last stage of alcohol addiction.
My noble friend Lord Taylor gave statistics of the number of alcoholics on the lists of various doctors in the National Health Service. There are in addition the extreme alcohol addicts who refuse to see a doctor and who are in such a stage of utter hopelessness that they are almost beyond the reach of medical help. Cases have been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Health where doctors have visited such people and referred these cases at once as beyond assistance. It is in such extreme cases that so litttle can be done.
My noble friend Lord Arwyn spoke of the toll of cases of alcoholics who have received repeated sentences of imprisonment. In some ways they are among the more fortunate of the extreme cases of alcohol addiction, because as soon as they enter prison they are admitted to the prison hospital and compelled to undergo, if not some form of medical treatment, at least some form of careful supervision. One of the terrible tragedies of this group of cases is that these people suffer first from an initial phase of euphoria that is followed by a feeling of utter dejection and misery and self-abasement which is almost incredible to realise until one has come up against it. That is why during this debate I felt somewhat allergic to the statistics which have been quoted. In essence this is not a problem of statistics at all. It is a problem of individual human tragedies, and none of us who has seen these cases can feel other than that some special provision ought to be made for these people, who are quite beyond the reach of institutional treatment, who are quite beyond any means of rehabilitation, who are almost literally out of contact with human kind.
I should like to ask the Minister whether the extension of these facilities may not include assistance for the extreme

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cases of alcoholism; people who live in solitary misery, cut off from medical aid and who desperately need some sort of human contact. For them treatment and rehabilitation is out of the question. Equally, admission to any residential centre is out of the question. These are people whose first need is for some human contact in the form of a social visitor or worker. I can think of no better instance than some of the workers in homes about which my noble friend Lord Soper has spoken. Such workers might visit the homes of these people, these extreme cases of alcoholism. Even though so little may be done, the mere fact of a human contact would be the first stage towards lifting them out of the utter degradation in which they find themselves. I again ask my noble friend when he replies to the debate to state whether any plans have been made for the extension of these facilities to those unfortunate beings in the last stages of alcoholic addiction, and beyond the reach of rehabilitation and medical help, but who are still desperately in need of human contact.
5.25 p.m.
LORD LEIGH: My Lords, I rise this afternoon with considerable diffidence. It is only the second time that I have had the temerity to address your Lordships, and, kind as you were to me on the first occasion, I know that your patience cannot last forever, and so I will be as brief as I can.
Anyone who urges the Government to provide further facilities for the treatment of alcoholics, particularly at this time when our hospitals are so full, and when rebuilding programmes are being carried on (and when there are too many sick persons, or their relatives, chasing too few beds), must contend with three obstacles. The first is that there are still many people, even in the medical profession, who are not prepared to admit that alcoholism is a disease. Secondly, the image of the alcoholic in the public mind is not a pleasant one. Thirdly, owing to past tragedies and the ignorance of most of us—and this includes the sufferer and his relatives—we feel that the matter ought to be hushed up. This is perhaps the greatest difficulty of all to overcome.
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Regarding the question of whether alcoholism is a disease, I think that noble Lords who have spoken have convinced your Lordships that it is. After all, the ordinary heavy drinker can stop if it is worth his while to do so, if he has enough at stake. The compulsive drinker would give anything to be able to stop, but without help he cannot do so. He suffers the mental agony of realising that he is gradually losing his self-respect, the trust and affection of his family, and probably also his job; yet he is literally powerless to stop. A man would not go on doing that if he could stop. We have heard that nearly all the North American States, and the European countries and the Dominions, provide substantial help in various ways towards the solution of this problem. They are amply repaid financially, as well as on the score of human happiness.
This leads me to the second difficulty, the image of the alcoholic in the public eye. He is thought of as a pathetic "down-and-out", appearing monthly, if not weekly, in the magistrates' court; or as a discharged prisoner who, as soon as he is let out of gaol, goes off and steals in order to get alcohol again; or possibly as the motorist who is had up for manslaughter. They are the alcoholics who come into the public eye. But for every one of them, there are thousands who, if they are lucky, do not figure in the Press at all. The loss through sickness and absenteeism caused to the country and the lack of mental efficiency is incalculable. A retired doctor, who is, I suppose, the greatest living authority on the subject has written—and the order is his, not mine:
"Members of the Judiciary, politicians, brewers, bankers, lawyers, members of the Armed Forces and ministers of religion have all sought my help."
My Lords, a very large proportion of alcoholics are normally intelligent and often very charming people, and in every other way are worthy to resume their ordinary life. Their recovery, after all, affects not only themselves but their families. I venture to think that an extra bed for an alcoholic may mean a vacancy in a ward for nervous breakdowns and may certainly mean one or more in the casualty clearing ward for road accidents.
The third difficulty is the conspiracy of secrecy which bedevils the whole problem.

1423
In nine cases out of ten, the arch-conspirator is the sick man himself. I believe that, fifty years ago, to suggest at a medical school that alcoholism was a disease would have been laughed to scorn; and this tradition has died very hard in this country. The general public, not unnaturally, take theft attitude from the medical profession, and he would be a bold man who would confess to being an alcoholic. He will do anything but become a normal drinker. The thought of life without alcohol is so appalling to him that he simply dare not confess that he is an alcoholic, because he knows what the cure is—total abstinence. And this has a great deal to do with this secrecy. We have heard that the World Health Organisation has said that out of 33 million of our population who drink, they reckon that there are about 412,000 alcoholics. Other people say that there are more. Anyway, there is a very considerable number: and eleven special units, with 257 beds, seems poor provision for dealing with them.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, stressed the need for education in this matter, and mentioned the work of the National Council on Alcoholism. This is a body of dedicated men and women who aim, first, at educating public opinion that this is a disease and not a vice—that a man should no more be ashamed of being an alcoholic than of being a diabetic; and, secondly, at creating centres at which advice is given to the alcoholic and his relatives and he is told where to go and what to do. They have about five such centres, and they need many more. Birmingham, for instance, has none. There are difficulties about telling an alcoholic where to go, because it is months before he can get a bed; and, although this disease is curable, there is a point of no return, which a man may easily go over during his months of waiting. And this is, of course, an extremely serious matter.
I would ask Her Majesty's Government to hear these facts in mind, when weighing the claim of alcoholism on the many other calls on the National Health Service. I would further ask them to give an adequate grant to the National Council on Alcoholism, under whose aegis all the other bodies working in this field will be gathered together, so that some-
1424
thing really constructive can be done to make this country in some way on a par with most other countries. I thank your Lordships for your kind indulgence.
5.35 p.m.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I rise to make a brief intervention in this discussion. As a fellow Methodist, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Soper for introducing this subject, which I regard as a very important one, and to assure him of my full support. Early in this century we heard a lot about the Nonconformist conscience. I am glad that my noble friend has shown to-day that the Nonconformist conscience is very much alive. It cannot be denied that excessive drinking is responsible for a great deal of trouble among the citizens of this country. Open any daily newspaper and see the number of cases in which people before the courts, for driving offences or for crime, attribute to drink the fact that they are in the dock. I recall a pathetic case, which came before a court of which I was a member, of a man who had given his life to public service and was just about to retire and was before us on a serious charge of embezzlement. With tears in his eyes, he said, "This would never have happened but for the drink". I am sure that every noble Lord in the House to-day can recall similar cases.
It has already been said that drinking is on the increase at the present time, and I was glad to hear most of the speakers say that more is now being done about it. My noble friend reminded us of the hostel, for which he is going to be responsible, which is being opened within the next few days. I am sure that we are all glad that more is being done to treat the unfortunate victims of alcoholism, and that we all hope these efforts will be successful. I believe in the old saying, Prevention is better than cure. One thing that alarms me is the tremendous amount of money being spent on advertising beer and strong drink. I was going past a hoarding the other day on which there were six giant posters and three of them were advertising some sort of drink—and each one was better than the other!
I am all in favour of giving more and better treatment to those who suffer from this disease. Many people are concerned because we spend so little on trying to find out the cause of cancer. Yet here

1425
is a disease of which we know the cause and we do little about it. I should like to see more money spent on the prevention of this disease. If this Government would allocate more money to educating people, especially our young people, on the dangers of strong drink, I believe that it would be money well spent. I hope that my noble friend who will be replying to this debate will give serious consideration to this problem, and, in particular, to trying to prevent people from becoming alcoholics.
5.40 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Soper, raised this question in the House to-day. In fact, it is almost worthy of a bigger debate on a Wednesday afternoon instead of at the tail end of Business on a Thursday. But when the rapprochement between the Methodists and the Church of England comes to pass, I shall beg leave to opt out of Lord Soper's version of the miracle of Cana. I am no teetotaller. Alcohol is very pleasant, but it is most insidious when human nature is weak, and it is all too easy to slip down the slippery slope. In the last century, at the time of Hogarth, we were an appallingly drunken country. That was remedied by putting up the price of spirits, but up to the First World War we were a pretty drunken country. That is when the pubs were open all day, and it was DORA and the war taxes which turned us into a great deal more sober country.
To-day the affluent society is introducing new temptations. The ratio of the price of drink to wages, so far as I can see, has in some respects never been more favourable to the drinker. For instance, there is a particularly insidious, and perhaps succulent, form of alcohol known as a British-type wine, and the ordinary working man can buy more than a bottle of this for one hour's labour. I do not know when in our history it was possible to buy so much oblivion at so small a time of labour.
The I.T.A. and the B.B.C. should, I think, be approached by the Government to try to give a little less alcoholic a view of life than they tend to do. I have noticed that, whenever a play comes on which purports to picture a home of any affluence, the play is one long booze. It is, of course, a distorted view of life which is held by people who perhaps do
1426
not live in those particular circles. But it should be corrected. It is roughly on a par with a story that one of my aunts used to tell me. She was travelling in a train in the East Riding of Yorkshire with an old farmer, and he got to discussing the Peerage. He said, "They are a drunken lot, those Lords." She, being a daughter of one who happened to be a parson as well, pulled him up and asked why. He said, "They've all got a cellar, and who would stop at a glass when he could get a bottle?" Those are the views of a certain section of the populace as to what goes on in the more affluent circles. All the plays shown on B.B.C. and I.T.A. of this kind have fallen into that trap, and they should be pulled up by the Government.
I am sorry to say that in trade and commerce to-day the habit seems to be spreading that it is impossible to do any business except over a considerable meal and quite a lot of drink. This certainly did not apply between the wars.
This question of drink is a national danger, as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, has pointed out, for all who are not strong minded. We can take the example of France. France was always held out to us as a place that had no laws restricting the sale of liquor and very small taxes and the people there were never drunk. Only in recent years has it been discovered that, instead of being drunk, they all have cirrhosis of the liver; and they are trying to do something about that. The danger signals are there for modern society to see, and we must he on our guard.
5.45 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, this has been an extremely interesting debate on a worthwhile and highly important question. Following the opening remark of my noble friend Lord Soper, who told us that ministers of religion tend to see a large number of sinners in the congregation before them, I was going to say that I was not sure I could draw any conclusions from the fact that all the speakers so far, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, have come from behind me; but the balance has now been restored by the worthwhile intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Hawke.

1427
My noble friend Lord Soper has asked some specific questions, and so have other noble Lords. But before turning to those questions, may I say that I am personally grateful to my noble friend for giving us this opportunity of debating a subject which, rightly, nowadays attracts a good deal of public interest and concern. The questions raised and the observations made by my noble friend and other noble Lords seem to me all to reflect the modern view, that alcoholism is a disease and requires medical treatment. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, was going to dissent from this point of view when he started, but he clearly came round to an acceptance of it before he finished.
A lot has been said about the origins of this disease. The fact is that we do not know very much about the origins. The causes are generally thought to lie partly in social conditions, and partly in personality. But the fact that it is so widely acknowledged is in itself an important advance in the treatment, and to some extent, perhaps, in the prevention. I am sorry to have to say, as other noble Lords have said, that the need for treatment is not always recognised by the alcoholic himself, by his family or by the general public. We all know that alcoholism, if allowed to run its course without treatment, can lead to permanent physical or mental damage, to the break-up of families, to serious social problems and to many a private tragedy.
I turn now to the first question asked by my noble friend Lord Soper. He asked for figures showing the incidence of alcoholism. My noble friend Lord Taylor has pointed to the difficulties here, but has himself given us some interesting figures resulting from his private researches. I am afraid the fact is that there are not reliable figures for the country as a whole, and certainly no figures that our medical advisers would accept as reliable. The difficulty is one of definition and identification. Noble Lords may be interested to have what is undoubtedly the most widely accepted definition of an alcoholic, and that is the definition used by the World Health Organisation. It is as follows:
"Alcoholics are those excessive drinkers whose dependence on alcohol has attained such a degree that it shows a noticeable mental
1428
disturbance of and interference with their bodily or mental health. Their inter-personal relations and their smooth social and economic functioning also show prodromal signs of such development. Therefore they need treatment."
Unfortunately, this definition does not get over the administrative difficulty of distinguishing the alcoholic from other heavy drinkers who may not be victims of the disease. There are, of course, the heavy drinkers who have not yet reached the stage—and who may never, in fact, reach it—when they would come within the definition of the World Health Organisation. And there are also, of course, many alcoholics who themselves are quite unaware of their condition—the fact that they have arrived at this stage. They may have no desire at all for treatment, and may fail to present themselves to the health and welfare services that are available.
Field surveys on a national scale, aimed at getting full information about the incidence of alcoholism, have not taken place, for the reason I have given. An inquiry of this sort would be a most difficult, expensive, and probably unrewarding undertaking. There have, however, been studies of the incidence of alcoholism in small areas. These are more practicable, and two are known to be in progress at the present time, one in South London and the other in Cambridge. There may be others, such as that mentioned by my noble friend Lord Taylor, and it is possible they may produce pointers to the incidence nationally. I hope, too, that we shall get some useful information about alcoholism among the "down-and-outs" from the current survey of single homeless persons which is being carried out by the National Assistance Board, with the help of the Ministry of Health and other Departments.
We sometimes hear—and I have heard mention of it to-day—of the World Health Organisation's estimate of the incidence of alcoholism. A World Health Organisation Report of 1951 contained estimates based on the formula of Dr. Jellinek. His formula was apparently derived from records of death from alcoholism and cirrhosis of the liver. The Report said that estimates based on statistical studies were available only in Switzerland and the United States, and that the figures for England and Wales were hardly better than a guess. No

1429
estimates were given for Scotland and Northern Ireland. For what they are worth, the alcoholism rates for 100,000 adults estimated at that time were, in England and Wales, 1,100; Switzerland, 2,385, and the United States, 3,952. Estimates were given for eleven countries, and England and Wales were shown to be the second lowest. Having given those figures to the House, I am bound to say that Dr. Jellinek himself, and others later, decided that his formula was not satisfactory outside the United States, and should be replaced by field surveys. I have already explained why a nation-wide survey would present serious practical difficulties.
The only other information of this sort that I am able to give the House relates to inquiries conducted among general practitioners about the incidence of alcoholism, so far as it came within their knowledge. Parr carried out an inquiry in this country in 1957. His figures for England and Wales were only about one-ninth of those estimated by Dr. Jellinek. A similar survey was carried out in Scotland in 1963–64 by the College of General Practitioners. This was at the request of the Scottish Standing Medical Advisory Committee, and the results will be published shortly. They may give us some clue, certainly so far as Scotland is concerned, and some idea, perhaps, so far as England is concerned—because I cannot imagine that in this matter there is any great difference between Scotland and England and Wales.
We are on much firmer ground—perhaps I should say a little firmer ground—when we come to hospital treatment. The number of admissions to hospital for alcoholism and alcoholic psychosis has increased considerably over recent years. In England and Wales, it has gone up from 775 in 1953 to 5,536 in 1964; in Scotland, from 732 in 1956 to 2,188 in 1964, and in Northern Ireland from 315 in 1959 to 791 in 1963.
The proportion of the population who receive in-patient hospital treatment for alcoholism or alcoholic psychosis is higher in Northern Ireland than in Scotland, and higher in Scotland than in England and Wales. Admissions in 1962 for each of the three countries respectively were approximately 5, 3 and 1 per 10,000 of the population. It does not follow at all that the incidence of alco-
1430
holism is in the same proportion. It is true that the effective demand for treatment often rises as facilities develop. We cannot say how far these increases in hospital admissions are attributable to such a factor: they do not prove that alcoholism is on the increase. Nevertheless, I am quite sure that every noble Lord here would agree that they give us cause for concern, and I can assure noble Lords that the Government are keeping the situation under review. Later on I shall come to some other steps that the Government are taking.
Finally, I ought to give such figures as are available of the convictions for drunkenness offences. The figures, which are for England and Wales only, increased steadily from 53,000 in 1954, to almost 84,000 in 1962. But they dropped to 83,000 in 1963, and to 76,000 in 1964. Frankly, I do not know what the explanation of this trend may be. It does not follow that fewer people are getting drunk. It may well be that there are other duties being placed upon the police which causes them to look with a kinder eye on the drunk, or they may not have time to deal with him. But in this instance it is true that the figures do not necessarily provide a guide to the incidence of alcoholism; for although alcoholism in this country normally involves drunkenness, not all drunks are alcoholics. Nor, I fear, does the total consumption of alcohol necessarily provide a guide. The consumption in this country has increased substantially. For example, the consumption of spirits went up by 60 per cent. between 1954 and 1963. But this figure, like the others I have quoted, falls short of answering the question which my noble friend Lord Soper has put.
My noble friend Lord Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, rather suggested that in this matter there was a definite and understandable relationship between the affluent society and drunkenness. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, suggested that we ought to raise the prices, and that this would prevent alcoholism. My Lords, prices have gone up pretty steeply in the period between 1954 and 1963, but it may well be that the relationship between wages and the price of drink has, in fact, enabled more people to participate in drink. It is a point. But I am fairly sure of this; that no

1431
Government will tackle the job of curing alcoholism by putting up the price of liquor deliberately in order to achieve what I would regard as a wholly desirable end, although I like a drink occasionally.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, surely my noble friend must admit that it was done in the late eighteenth century by a Government with great courage, presumably, when they started taxing gin.
LORD CHAMPION: Yes, my Lords; but surely the simple fact there was that the people who were drinking gin were pretty well the lowest, the very poorest types, and a small increase in the price of gin made it quite impossible for them to buy it.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, must we not be careful that we do not confuse drunkenness with alcoholism? The two things are really quite different, but this does seem to me to be one of the things that has caused a certain amount of confusion during this debate.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I was under the impression that I had made that point, but if I had not already said it I was about to do so.
In short, the sort of answer the noble Lord, Lord Soper, would like is not available. Of course that means that I am unable to go on to answer his second question, which calls for international comparisons based on statistics showing the incidence of the disease. With regard to the figures that I gave previously, of the United States of America and Switzerland, we do not accept that worthwhile conclusions can be drawn.
I must therefore now go on to the noble Lord's third question, which is about the facilities available for treatment. I think there are three points which need to be made at the outset when we talk about facilities for the treatment of alcoholism. First, there is no monopoly—and we do not want to set up one—of the way it should be treated or by whom it should be treated. Hospital treatment, either as an in-patient or as an out-patient, is of course very important; but a valuable contribution can be made by family doctors, local health authorities, and the voluntary bodies. Secondly, the treatment of alcoholism calls for the co-operation of the patient and must be on a voluntary
1432
basis if it is to succeed. The will to be treated and to persist in treatment is the basic requirement. I am afraid this is not always realised by those who are inclined to advocate compulsion in this field.
Thirdly—and here we have to acknowledge that there is a barrier that the advance of medical science has so far been unable to surmount or circumvent—most experts consider that a recovered alcoholic is always at risk, and local studies have shown that a high proportion of patients do indeed relapse. This was a point, I think, very well stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Soper. In England and Wales most alcoholics in the past have been treated in psychiatric hospitals or departments with specialised facilities; this is still the position to-day. But in 1962 the Minister of Health commended to the hospital authorities the advice of his Standing Medical and Mental Health Advisory Committees, which had been endorsed by the Central Health Services Council, that so far as possible treatment should be given in special units; and progress is being made in this direction.
At present there are twelve units (not eleven, as I think was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, and the right reverend Prelate) which are divided in this way: ten of the hospital authorities have units, two of them having two each, bringing the total to twelve. There are still five which do not have these special units. As the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, said, the twelve units have some 270 beds in all.
Hospital authorities were asked at the same time to tell family doctors, local authorities and other interested persons about the hospital facilites available, so that they could refer cases to hospital, where appropriate.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland all treatment is given in psychiatric hospitals and departments, and each country has also established one specialised treatment unit run on an experimental basis. Then there are the local authorities, who also have a very important part to play. The staff of local health authorities may become aware of alcoholics who have not sought treatment, and they advise them to consult their general practitioner. Local health authorities may themselves provide services for the care and after-care

1433
of psychiatric patients, including alcoholics, and co-operate with the voluntary organisations in making information available about statutory and voluntary services in the locality. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, spoke of the need for the expansion of local authority accommodation. As local authorities expand and improve their facilities for the care and after-care of the mentally ill, additional hostels will be provided and will be available to alcoholics, as well as to other mentally ill persons.
Turning to the voluntary bodies, of these perhaps the best known is Alcoholics Anonymous, which has described itself as a fellowship of men and women whose primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. We have heard something of their excellent work this afternoon. The National Council of Alcoholism also makes an important contribution. The Council are concerned only with alcoholism as a disease, not with propaganda against drinking in general. They are concentrating their efforts on collecting and publicising information about alcoholism, helping and encouraging alcoholics to obtain, and to persist in, treatment and after-care, and emphasising to the bodies responsible for providing medical and social services the importance of making adequate provision for alcoholics. The Council have four information centres in England, and last October they opened one in Glasgow. We welcome the information given by the right reverend Prelate about this body; about the steps which he and the organisation have taken to combat this evil.
The noble Lord's last question was about plans for extending facilities. In England and Wales these plans take the form mainly of projects for more special units in hospitals. Some of the plans are only in the earliest stages, but seven additional units are envisaged, with about 100 beds in all. As I said just now, when talking about Scotland, this will be considered in relation to that part of the country after the report of the special sub-committee has been considered.
My Lords, in all this—and this is always the difficulty of Government, the difficulty of the Minister of Health, the
1434
difficulty of the regional hospital authorities and local authorities—the problem is that of weighing the needs of alcoholics against the other urgent claims on the services and the money available to these authorities. When I last spoke on a health subject from this Box the subject was cervical cancer. I felt at the end of that debate that the hospital authorities should drop everything and concentrate their money and efforts on taking smears and trying to prevent that horrible disease. To-day, at the end of this debate, I feel that we should drop a certain amount of what we are doing in that field in order to concentrate more on alcoholism. The job of Government, the job of the other authorities involved, is to provide a balance, and this is always difficult.
Noble Lords have raised a number of other points. The right reverend Prelate and almost every speaker suggested that the Government should do very much more. The right reverend Prelate asked whether we are doing enough to support the work of the National Council on Alcoholism in prisons. The Government appreciate the valuable work which the National Council are doing among prisoners, particularly in Gloucester Prison, and the Home Office are in touch with the National Council about the possibility of a grant to help this work. I hope that this will give some satisfaction to the right reverend Prelate. I also hope (and I dare say there are some who are Members of this House) that the brewers, distillers and others concerned will note what the right reverend Prelate said about some contributions to the work of these incomparable people, people who are trying to do a first-class job of work in this field.
There are also branches of Alcoholism Anonymous in a number of prisons, and special treatment units have been set up in Wandsworth, Pentonville, Wakefield, Wormwood Scrubs and Holloway. I hope noble Lords will notice that a new experiment is being tried in which prisoners sentenced for drunkenness in the London area are sent to an open prison, Spring Hill, in Buckinghamshire. It is near the psychiatric prison at Grendon, and Grendon's medical and other facilities will, of course, be available. It is hoped to identify those who need treatment and to arrange for continuation of treatment

1435
after release from prison. Liaison is maintained with welfare workers outside the prison, in order to make suitable aftercare work available.
Again, there is the question of a national project. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, made reference to this in the debate on community care last July. Perhaps it would be of general interest to the House if I explained briefly how we on the Government side view this. I understand that in many of the cities of the U.S.A., and also in Holland and several other countries, the services connected with alcoholism are administered centrally. We have no intention of setting up a new central body or national board to deal with this narrow responsibility. We think that in this country the services concerned, the hospital, local health authority and the general practitioner services, which form an integral part of the National Health Service, are the right people to tackle this job and that it ought not to be carved out or hived off to some new organisation.
LORD ARWYN: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? Does that mean that the Government are not in favour of a research unit?
LORD CHAMPION: Although I am going on very much too long (I am sorry about this, but there is a deep interest in this matter), I have a considerable amount to say, but I am going to touch on the very important point which the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn made about research.
There is, of course, the problem that has attracted a good deal of interest and sympathy, the problem of the crude spirit drinker. He is, of course, a chronic alcoholic, but so far down the slope that treatment is exceptionally difficult. He is usually unwilling to accept treatment or to co-operate with the statutory authorities, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to bring to bear the range of local health and welfare services available. His condition may warrant compulsory admission into hospital under the Mental Health Act, but continued detention will not usually be justified once the patient has sobered up and dried out. This is the problem highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Segal. Once he has dried out, sobered up, and becomes what appears
1436
to be mentally stable again, out he goes and again he is on the slippery slope because very few of these people are willing to continue as informal patients.
The noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, in a striking speech, which was listened to by the House with rapt attention, appealed for more research and employer participation in the prevention of excessive drinking. He pointed to the fact that this can have a serious effect on the national economy as a result of the loss of the services of men in their jobs, as well as to the fact that so often this starts in the social round, in which perhaps the higher executives and directors particularly participate—this business of not being able to sell unless you sell over liquor, and that is an important point. I would say that his appeal that employers should participate in this job of trying to prevent alcoholism is one that ought to be considered by every employer in this country. Some research into the causes and treatment of alcoholism is being done at hospitals and in universities. I understand that the Medical Research Council are not at present conducting research into alcoholism. It is, of course, open to researchers to seek grants for their work from the usual statutory or voluntary bodies which support medical research generally or, more particularly, research in the mental health field.
The noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke talked about advertising and education. I have some little doubt whether much good would be likely to be done by advertising, or by using television in this job of education, because I remember what has happened following the advertisements about cigarettes and cancer—remarkably little, so far as I can tell. So I have some doubts about whether we can do very much here.
I come to my final point, and I am sure your Lordships will be glad of this. There are, as the House has seen in the course of this interesting debate, many questions to which no answer can be given, at any rate, in the present state of our knowledge. But I think we have to persist in our search for the answers. I would certainly wish to assure the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and the House, that the Government are far from being complacent about the measures that have

1437
been taken to tackle the serious problem of alcoholism, and our policy will certainly be to try to improve the existing services. But I hope we can all take encouragement from the fact that this subject has been debated to-day in a spirit of sympathy and understanding. This is the approach which one may hope to see becoming more widespread, both among the families and friends of those who suffer from alcoholism and among the general public. Perhaps to some extent our debate will have been such as to give a lead and perhaps some encouragement in wider circles to all those who feel that this evil ought to be ended as soon as is humanly possible.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, I may be out of order in saying this, but I should like to say, "Thank you" to my noble friend for what he has said. I am indeed grateful to him.

SOMALIA AND KENYA
6.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON THE EARL OF LYTTON rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are contemplating steps to improve relations with the Somali nation, having regard to the reaction of dismay in the N.F.D. (Kenya) and in the Somali Republic when Her Majesty's former Government included a Somali province, contrary to the expressed wishes of its inhabitants, within the boundaries of the first African Administration of self-governing, later (1963) independent, Kenya. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. The first part of the Question seeks to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are contemplating steps to improve relations with the Somali nation. This is the first time I have spoken to your Lordships on the Somali question since the present Government came into power. It is also the first time since Her Majesty ceased to possess any portion of the Somali territory. But it is the seventh time in all, and although I have in fact spoken on other subjects, this one has been raised by me more often. I think I have returned disappointed six times. It may be, if we follow what the right reverend Prelate said might happen, that I shall take more and more to alcohol. Indeed, of late I have noticed that I am less and
1438
less steady on my legs, but I hope that, at least until I burst into flames, I may be allowed to call it arthritis and not methylated spirits.
As a background to the Question, I want briefly to remind your Lordships that when Europe entered Africa they unified a number of small nations—fifty in Kenya—some of them as different as French and Germans, and in a very short historical space of time they welded these many nations into a multi-national State, which stands a very good chance, together with others, of continuing its unity. That is something which its members did not dream of seventy years ago. That is contradicted by some of the nationalists, notably by Dr. Nkrumah in his autobiography, but it is nevertheless true. In the case of the Somali nation, it was dismembered and divided into five different pieces. The dismembering was carried out mainly on British initiative and with British arms, including five substantial campaigns.
In addition our entry into Africa halted a number of movements. For some three centuries after their defeat by the Moslems, the Abyssinians were pinned down by a Northward swing of a people called Galla, who even penetrated into the ancestral kingdoms, leaving vacant territories in the desert regions which were filled by a Southward-moving drift of Somalis. This movement of Somalis was stopped by the arrival of the British. A colonial Governor as experienced as Sir Gerald Reece thinks it probable that we may have saved the whole of Kenya from a Somali occupation.
We held them up in a part called the N.F.D. where, it seems from the Somali historian, Dr. Lewis, they had been, with fluctuations of fortune, since the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, whether they were there or whether they were not, our task everywhere in Africa was to halt these movements, which were almost universal.
Mr. Kenyatta's book on the Kikuyu is a continuous record of the expansion of the Kikuyu tribe, first at the expense of some people he calls pygmies, then at the expense of the Wandorobo. These movements we halted and it was our policy to consolidate. Those who are where they are today and have been there for a generation we consider, if they are beneficial occupiers, should

1439
manage their affairs. That is the principle by and large which we have applied everywhere.
In the case of the reassembling of the Somali nation, there were quite unusual and unexpected difficulties. The Somalis have been reborn through the United Nations, who gave them their birth, first out of the portion that was taken by the Italians, to which we added the Northern of the two portions taken by us. They based their existence on the principle of self-determination which is so built into their Constitution that I must, at the risk of boring your Lordships, mention what they feel about it, so that your Lordships will know it. In the preamble of their Constitution is written:
"Conscious of the sacred right of self-determination solemnly consecrated in the Charter of the United Nations…"
The task of bringing about their own reunification of their dismembered parts is placed on them in Article 6 of their own Constitution, given them by the United Nations with our help—and they had every right to suppose that we believed in it:
"The Somali Republic shall promote by legal and peaceful means the union of Somali territories."
The national flag and emblem is a five-pointed star, each of the points representing one of the dismembered portions, of which they now have control of two. They cannot give this up without denying themselves the very essence of their birth, their very birth certificate.
The Clause of the United Nations on which they rely is the Second Purpose:
"To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples."
In dealing with Britons they like to point out what we have done specifically in the way of proclaiming this principle. They point to the Atlantic Charter, signed between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the darkest of our dangers, on August 14, 1941. It said that the two parties
"desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned."
We go then to the first moment when the Afro-Asians realised their power and command of votes in the United Nations
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Assembly. Resolution 1514 of the General Assembly, dated December 14, 1960, said:
"All peoples have the right to self-determination."
We then go to the Charter of Addis Ababa, which is the first act and deed of the Africans when they had a united organisation representing the whole of Africa. The very first words are:
"Convinced that it is the inalienable right of all peoples to control their own destiny…"
That was at the end of May 25, 1963. We then saw the resolutions of the Conference of Non-Aligned Nations—47 of them with 10 observers in Cairo—adopted on October 11, 1964. The Conference included many of the people who have not been independent before and who had not expressed their views, including many of our own Commonwealth countries. This is what they said:
"The right to complete independence, which is an inalienable right, must be recognised immediately and unconditionally as pertaining to all peoples in conformity with the Charter and the Resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly. It is incumbent upon all States to respect this right and facilitate its exercise."
There are two more nations whose specific views we should have; one is Ethiopia, which controls a large province which is, in fact. Ethiopian Somaliland and is called the Ogaden, and the other is Kenya. The London Times of February 5, 1962, quoted the Emperor's opening address to an organisation which preceded the Organisation of African Unity, and which was called PAMFECA. He said:
"It is incumbent upon Britain to apply the same wisdom that it has applied to its former colonies in Africa and Asia, and speed up the political and constitutional advance of the African inhabitants of Bechuanaland, Swaziland, Basutoland and assure their early independence."
Those were his views in regard to tiny landlocked enclaves with populations of between one-third of a million and one million.
Mr. Tom Mboya is a good example of what Kenya felt about these matters, because when Minister of Justice he published a book on the subject of freedom, called Tom Mboya—Freedom and After. This is what he says:
"In our freedom charter"—

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he meant the Party which he represented, and which is in power and rules Kenya to-day:
"we declared that the right of self-determination is God-given and no man or nation is chosen by God to determine the destiny of others."
That is the kind of charter which the Somalis feel they can put forward to everybody, including ourselves, and it is what they say to ourselves that is of consequence to your Lordships.
The first apparent deviation from this, as it seemed to me and to the Prime Minister of the Somali Republic who wrote to me about it, was Mr. Macmillan's statement recorded in Hansard on April 11, 1960, when he appears to have renounced the legal right of Her Majesty's Government to bestow upon the Somali Republic the province of the Somalis in colonial Kenya, and also to have underwritten the continued dismemberment of the other two provinces. The second deviation, if that is the right word for it, was in November, 1961. The Emperor of Ethiopia met Mr. Kenyatta at a time when he was only just out of detention. He had been in detention for a good many years, had just been to London with a deputation, and returned via Addis Ababa, and there was arranged a mutual defence pact between the Emperor and the Emperor's designated future ruler of Kenya, the perhaps unsuspecting Mr. Kenyatta. Thus it was that when, a little later, in August, 1962, Mr. Kenyatta was entertained as a guest by the Somali Republic, he was unable to agree to any sort of self-determination for any part of Kenya.
The act which produced the breach of relations between Her Majesty's Government and the Somali Republic was this. The Somali representatives of the Somali Province in Kenya, generally called the N.F.D., but in fact a part of it, rather than the whole—but for convenience I refer to it as the Somali N.F.D.—arranged with Her Majesty's Government, notwithstanding protests from the leaders of Kenya, that a Commission should go there and ascertain the wishes of the people with regard to their future. This was done with full publicity, and, if it was not done with a view to granting self-determination, Heaven knows why it was done! It was a cruel thing to do, if self-determination was not intended.
The people came out openly on both sides, some saying that they detested the notion of a secession to the Somali Republic, but the vast majority being in favour of so doing. This result having been proclaimed by one Commission and endorsed by another—the Regional Boundaries Commission—Her Majesty's Government decided that they would not allow the principle of self-determination to apply to this region, but would hand it over to Kenya where these views had already been proclaimed "treason" by Mr. Kenyatta and other Kenya leaders. This is what produced the breach, and this is why I am asking tonight for the few of your Lordships who are here to recognise the injury that the' Somali people everywhere must have felt when this happened, and to do what is now possible to repair the damage.
Mr. Kenyatta, of course, has repeatedly said "Not an inch". What can he say except that? He is pledged to the Emperor who, when Mr. Kenyatta's destinies were still uncertain, pointed to him, publicly handed him a cheque for flood relief, a cheque which would normally have gone through the Ambassador through some other diplomatic channels, to help Kenya in her difficulties in a time of flood. I am not suggesting that this was a bribe. Of course it was not. It was merely the choice of Mr. Kenyatta as the Emperor's messenger, with his gift to Kenya. That was the indication to all that Mr. Kenyatta was the Emperor's choice. How could he now grant facilities for self-determination, even if he wished to do so, without betraying his word to the Emperor? That is the difficulty.
I want to say a few words on this business of the Shifta. What happened after we handed the N.F.D. to Kenya? One of the first things was that the Emperor of Ethiopia began taking taxes from the Ethiopian Somali colony of Ogaden. This resulted in a rebellion, which I followed in the few ways I could from the top of Porlock Hill: from an informed article in the New York Tinley of March 19, 1964, from numerous monitored radio broadcasts from Addis Ababa, and so on. The rebellion was followed by an assault by Ethiopian regular troops across the frontier. That, at least, was the view of the New York Times who cited many other

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newsmen as concurring in this view. It is believed that some thousands were killed on both sides. The Somalis are redoubtable fighters; they always have been.
The Government of Kenya have recently announced that the N.F.D., one-third of Kenya—that is their estimate of the area—is in a state of siege. They announced that since independence they have killed 400 Shifta and imprisoned 500 others. I suppose that in the previous thirty years we may have killed six—I do not know—perhaps it is none; but this is the way in which the matter has deteriorated. They have not mentioned the confiscation of stock, which has been going on by way of punishment. Every time stock is confiscated from Somalis in the N.F.D. the male population have the choice of going to Aden to make a little money or of becoming Shifta—that is to say, bandits. That is what they are being reduced to.
Meanwhile, we are still pouring money into Kenya, and giving her, according to Kenya authorities, more than they can possibly hope to get from anywhere else. We are supplying the logistics of a campaign which includes the repression of the Somalis of the N.F.D. I understand from various sources that the first pledge was for £60 million, and that recently a sum of £18 million has been added thereto. There was a time, when, according to the Kenya Digest, the cost of the airlift of supplies to the security forces of Kenya in the N.F.D., which was met by the British taxpayer, exceeded in its daily rate the total costs of the administration of the whole Province in 1961.
I have, therefore, certain suggestions to make. First of all, I hope your Lordships agree that the Somalis have been deeply injured, and that it is therefore incumbent upon the greater partner in this matter of injury to take the initiative to put matters on a proper footing. I would suggest that, through normal diplomatic channels, Her Majesty's Government should convey their desire to the Somali Government to resume diplomatic relations, and should invite the Somali Government to make such representations as they may wish on the obstacles they see to a resumption of these normal relations. Secondly, for the benefit of the Somali nation, rather than of the Somali
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Republic, I wonder whether it would be possible for Her Majesty's Government to repeat, or, rather, to underline, their approval of Article 6 of the Somali Constitution, thereby indicating that whatever Mr. Macmillan said in 1960 is now obsolete. Those are the two things to which I should very much hope to have the answer, "Yes".
Then there is a further matter, which is perhaps slightly beyond my competence. I have in mind that the whole of the Somali boundary will become a seething source of trouble the moment the present Emperor of Ethiopia dies. I have noticed, from the broadcasts from Ethiopia of their appeals for cash to pay for "the war against the invading Somalis", as it was called, and also from a speech made when the Emperor opened a school for orphans of Ethiopian soldiers killed in the war with the Somalis, that, astonishing though it may be, they are afraid of the Somalis. All Ethiopian Emperors have always been afraid of a Moslem assault.
Therefore, my third suggestion is that there should be a kind of resurrection of the signatories of the Tripartite Agreement of 1906—Italy, France and Britain—with a view to some approach being made to the Emperor to see whether, with our good offices, and particularly those of France (who, in a sense, hold the gateway to Ethiopia), some satisfactory solution cannot be discussed now, before we open the gateway to the revolution in the Horn of Africa. For myself, I do not foresee the capacity of the Somalis to overthrow Ethiopia. It seems to me that these fears are utter nonsense. But, with this continued ulcer growing, once the Emperor has gone from Addis Ababa, and once the British have left Aden, the revolution will move across and make a lot of trouble; and I am hoping that these troubles can be forestalled. That, then, is my third suggestion, to which I could not expect an answer to-night; but, with regard to the other two, I should hope for an answer, either to-day or to-morrow.
6.46 p.m.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, should like to express my great gratitude to the noble Earl who has just spoken for his courtesy in warning me previously about the matters he proposed to raise, and I must apologise to him because I am afraid my gratitude does not extend to

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my supporting him in this matter. Indeed, I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government will not involve themselves in the dispute between Kenya and Somaliland.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord and ask him whether he will confess that he was a member of the Macmillan Government at the time when Mr. Macmillan made this statement? Perhaps I should say "acknowledge"; I do not mean "confess"—it is not a sin.
LORD ST. HELENS: I am most grateful to the noble Earl. I do feel that "confess" is a rather misplaced word here. I am extremely proud to proclaim that I was a member of the Macmillan Government at the time.
My Lords, the only reason I intervene in this debate at all—and I shall do so briefly—is that a long time ago, when I was a very young man, before the Second World War, I spent some five years in the Province which we are discussing, the Northern Frontier Province of Kenya, and it was a very pleasant five years. In those days, to get there one had to walk a distance of some 400 miles. Then one spent one's time patrolling, first of all, the Abyssinian frontier, and then the Somali frontier. To me, the greatest asset in the whole of this assignment was that if any of my superiors wished to rebuke me (which they frequently did), they then had to walk the 300 miles in order to come and see me.
Now this area is one that is of little value to-day. It is an extremely arid area. It has very low rainfall, sparse grazing, very few water holes and a very, very small population when measured as so many head of population per acre in the country. In the past, people thought that it might be valuable. Indeed, when I was there there were numerous geological and other expeditions which came to see if there was within the soil any mineral or other valuable deposit, such as oil, which could be taken out; and all of them went back empty-handed. The unfortunate people who live in this area are nomads, certainly enjoying the lowest standards of life I have ever seen; and they are subject to disease, to constant famine and to constant drought.
Earlier on, when Kenya was still a Colony, this area had great value to us, because, in fact, it formed a buffer State
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between ourselves and Abyssinia, which was then occupied by the Italians. Indeed, it served its purpose admirably during the last World War, because there was a time, as the noble Earl remembers, when there was nothing but one brigade of colonial troops between the vast Italian Army in Abyssinia and South Africa. But there was this vast arid desert that the Italians never succeeded in crossing, though there was little opposition to them. Under modern conditions, however, a buffer State of this nature is no longer required. Under modern conditions, this territory really has no value whatsoever, and I do not believe that either side is going to get very excited about it in the long run.
Without following the noble Earl back into history, taking the position as it stands now, the Government of this country have an undoubted liability, a colonial liability, to Kenya and also have their treaties with Ethiopia. The dispute over the Northern Frontier Province is between the Somalis and the Kenyans; I personally think it would be wholly wrong for the Government, under existing considerations, to enter into the dispute. I believe that eventually the territory we are talking about will he handed over to the Somalis for the simple reason that it has no value to Kenya, and also for the reason that fundamentally the Kenyans, who are by temperament and physique accustomed to living in lush forest country, are quite unsuited to living in the Northern Frontier Province. The noble Earl knows that from his own experience. It is of no value. They do not want the country; and I am certain that eventually it will be handed over.
I remember that several years ago there was a deputation of Kenyan Members of Parliament to this country, and I talked to them about this very problem. They told me: "You do not have to worry. Sooner or later there will be some form of federation between ourselves and our neighbouring States and the problem will be amicably settled." So I would conclude, my Lords, by saying that I believe that the long-term solution must lie between the Kenyan Government and the Somali Government, and I hope very much that Her Majesty's Government will take no part in the discussions which are bound to come.
6.52 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I am rather surprised, I must say, to hear my noble friend Lord St. Helens say that the land of the Northern Frontier District is of no value. Perhaps that may be true as regards ourselves; I cannot say that I feel any great desire to invest in real estate in the Northern Frontier District. But it is of very great value indeed to the people who live in it; and they are the Somali people. They are nomadic by nature. It is their home country and it is the kind of country they are used to.
I must say that, in studying the history of our relations with the Somali people, I have not been impressed. I feel that this history threw no great credit on our country. So far as I can see, it is one long story of breach of faith, of the giving of treaties of protection and then, at the crucial moment, of failing to give that protection. For instance, in 1884–85 the Treaty of Protection of Somalis in the British Sector was made. In 1886 this was followed by individual treaties with individual clans. But only eleven years later, in 1897, Lord Hamilton made a statement in Parliament that the
"Interests in the Somaliland Protectorate were insufficient to justify our contributing to its defence or occupation."
That was in spite of the fact that in the same year, 1897, an agreement had been reached between Abyssinia and Great Britain giving Abyssinia's recognition of the British Protectorate. During the years there were constant disputes between Ethiopia and the other three powers then interested in Somaliland—Great Britain, Italy and France—as to where the various boundary lines should be. But boundaries are not drawn by political agreement; they are formed by a very natural process of surrounding a people who are homogenous to the country and who are of similar original traditions and culture. That is the only really logical definition of a boundary.
Of course, in 1945, immediately after the war, all the arguments restarted. Then, as your Lordships know, in 1960 independence was granted to the Somaliland Republic. But there were still, even then, these three large parts of Somali country separated from it: French Somaliland, Ogaden, belonging to Ethiopia, and the Northern Frontier Districts about which my noble friend has spoken to-night.
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I should like to quote here one or two things that have been said through the years that throw a little light on the subject. The then President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, in a speech to Congress in 1928, gave as the second of four principles:
"That peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power."
In the Atlantic Charter of 1941, which was made between Sir Winston Churchill and the President of the United States, it was said:
"They"—
that is, Great Britain and the United States of America—
"respect the rights of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them."
My noble friend quoted Section 2 of Article 1 of Chapter 1 of the United Nations Charter. Let us only hope that they mean it!
There was also a United Nations resolution of 1960 which said:
"The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation."
It says later:
"Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations."
What is the present situation but that of forcible disruption? Yet in the same year as that resolution was made, 1960, Mr. Macmillan stated:
"Her Majesty's Government do not, and will not, encourage or support any claim affecting the territorial integrity of French Somaliland, Kenya or Ethiopia."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 621. col. 104; 11/4/60.]
In other words, so much for our treaty of protection!
The only question that comes to me now is: Is it too late? Kenya, of course, is now independent and we have no means of forcing her to part with any part of her territory unless she wishes to do so. The only hope I have is that we can put a certain amount of financial pressure upon her. We are paying large

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sums to the country. Let us hope that pressure will be used.
I should like to end by quoting some words by the greatest Englishmen of this century in his last book, The Gathering Storm. They apply to a totally different situation, but it seems to me that they are equally appropriate. He says:
"If ever there was an opportunity of striking a decisive blow for a generous cause with the minimum risk it was here now. The fact that the nerve of the British Government was not equal to the occasion…actually played a part in leading to an infinitely more terrible war."
My Lords, I am not implying that this will lead to a terrible war, or anything of that sort. None the less, the words are worth thinking about.
7.0 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I think that the few of your Lordships who are still here, and the many, both in this House and outside, who will read the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, will be grateful to him for raising this subject, and particularly for the great amount of erudition as well as feeling that he has put into it. We know it is something which he has studied closely and of which he has first-hand knowledge, and where both his heart and his head are closely involved. I think the problem falls under at least two headings: one is the past and the other the present. The noble Earl told us a lot of the past history and I do not wish to dispute that with him in any way.
It is true that when Her Majesty's Government gave independence to Kenya they did so with the Northern Frontier District included, and it is perfectly open to anybody to argue that that was a wrong decision to take. Although not a member of that Government—it was the Party opposite which was in power—I believe in fact that it was a right decision to take. But whether the decision was right or wrong, it was taken, and we cannot now go back on it; we cannot undo the past. But I would remind the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Somers, too, that before that decision was taken a Commission went out into that area, as the noble Earl pointed out, and made an inquiry into the feelings of the people there.
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We all know that it is very difficult, particularly in an area of that sort, to judge what the people want and present the facts to them. In other instances we have heard people say that referenda and plebiscites are of no use in such circumstances. I think there is a lot to be said on that side. This Commission did not resort to such means. It was composed of distinguished and experienced people and its Report was that of the six administrative districts in the Northern Frontier District, two wished not to go into Kenya but to remain independent under our protection, with perhaps eventual absorption into Somalia; two wished to remain in Kenya, and two were indeterminate. Therefore, in those circumstances, with the support of the findings of that Commission, I think Her Majesty's Government at that time were absolutely right to hand over the territory intact to our former Colony of Kenya rather than to detach a certain amount from it.
But that is all in the past, as I said, and the important thing is for us to decide what should be done in the future, or at the present time; what steps we can take. And not only what we should do but what we can do. Fortunately, this is not one of those occasions, in my view, where what we should do differs very widely—in fact it does not differ at all—from what we can do. We must accept our situation, our position, in this matter, as the noble Lord, Lord Somers, made perfectly clear. This is not a dispute between countries or States in which we are one of the champions. It is primarily a dispute between an independent country, a member of the Commonwealth—Kenya—and an independent Somalia and also independent Ethiopia. One of those countries, Kenya, is a country with which we are not only friendly but have the tie of being both members of the British Commonwealth, which gives us a somewhat special relationship, with a special obligation to regard with sympathy the legitimate views and claims of the Government of Kenya to an area of land which we handed over to them on their independence.
The second country, Ethiopia, is one with which we have friendly relations and have had friendly relations for a very long time. The third is Somalia, a country with which, unfortunately, we are not at the present time in diplomatic

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relations. I will come to that point in due course in answer to the three questions which the noble Earl put to me. So there we have the situation. The dispute exists between these three countries, and I think it is only reasonable that our initial sympathies—in default of any overriding evidence to the contrary—should be, in the first place, with our Commonwealth partner, and in the second place with Ethiopia, which is a friendly Power with whom we have very close and friendly relations.
That would not blind our eyes to justice at all, if there was overwhelming, or even clear, justice on the side of Somalia. But I would point out to your Lordships the evidence I have mentioned: first, the handing over of the Northern Frontier District in its entirety when Kenya was given independence, and secondly, the fact that we did what we could to satisfy ourselves that this was not in contravention of the clear wishes of the majority of the people living there.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships too long with this matter, and so I will now come directly to the three questions which the noble Earl raised. First, he asked that we should resume diplomatic relations with Somalia. My Lords, we are quite prepared to do so. We did not break off relations with Somalia; they broke them off with us. We have let it be known to them quite specifically, in an Answer to a Parliamentary Question in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State, Foreign Office (Mr. Padley) on May 10, that we were quite ready to resume diplomatic relations with Somalia if they so wished, and there is no reason at all for the Somalia Government to be under any misapprehension as to our feeling on the matter. So the next move rests with them. If they wish to resume diplomatic relations with us, we shall be very happy to discuss this matter with them in the normal way.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord for a moment on that matter, may I say that what I suggested was that we should take the initiative on our side and say that we should be glad to resume diplomatic relations; and invite them to send us,
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through diplomatic channels, any note of any obstacles there might be to such resumption.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I think we have gone quite as far as we reasonably can in this matter, bearing in mind the fact that it was the Somalia Government that broke off relations with us. We have now publicly told them that we are ready to resume relations with them if they so wish. For any willing person I think that would be regarded as an invitation to come forward. The fact that they have not done so makes it seem to me that, unfortunately, they do not wish at this stage to enter into diplomatic relations with us. I would remind the noble Earl that in spite of this unfortunate rupture in our diplomatic relations we still offer British Council studentships in this country—I think it is something like 11, of which some are taken up, but not the full number. So there is no lack of evidence of goodwill on our part. I suggest to the noble Earl that it is up to the Somalia Government now to respond to such statements as we have made in public.
The noble Earl's second question concerned the self-determination of peoples. Of course we adhere to that; we always have under every Government, and we still do. But there are many different forms of self-determination, and in many cases we cannot interfere, even if we were so minded, because it is no direct concern of ours. I would suggest to the noble Earl that when we talk of the self-determination of a people, this is misleading and might lead us into serious errors, if the people of one small area of a large country want to go off and be independent or live under some other Power. It is conceivable, for example, that in some area in Scotland the Scottish nationalists might be a majority and, according to the principle of self-determination, they might draw a boundary round the area and claim that they should be allowed self-determination and become independent of the United Kingdom.
7.12 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: But, my Lords, that is exactly what I do think should be done, and it is a great injury when it is not done. One fault in regard to the arrangement in Ireland is that it

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put two counties on the wrong side. Why should not people be where they want to be, instead of being somewhere where people, who have nothing to do with them, think it appropriate?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, these people are where they want to be. They are territorially on the soil that is theirs and where they wish to remain. Some of them do not like the remote Government in Nairobi that is eventually responsible for them. Others, if they were under Somalia, would not like the remote Government in Mogadishu, which would be responsible in such a case. The present situation is that the N.F.D. is part of the independent country of Kenya. Whether we wanted to or not, we could not intervene directly in a dispute which is taking place between three independent countries. But I would add that if we were invited by any of these countries to make available our good offices to help in this dispute, we should be only too happy to help; but, as things are to-day, we have no locus standi whatever for interfering with these matters.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord's simile of the Scottish Nationalists is quite a parallel one, because Scotsmen are Scotsmen, whether Nationalist or not, but the Somali people are of a totally different origin and culture from the Kenyans.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I will not pursue with the noble Lord an argument of a somewhat sociological nature. I adhere to my point that when one talks of self-determination of a people, one must talk of an accepted country as a whole, and not of a part cut off by an arbitrary boundary, or an arbitrary enclave in an isolated instance.
The final point of the noble Earl concerned our treaty obligations.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, I did not mean it that way at all. I do not think that I suggested that we should intervene with Mr. Kenyatta. I think that I said that I was very sorry for
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him. What I did suggest was that there was a Tripartite Treaty in 1906, under which I imagine we have no obligations whatever. I think that this is as dead as the dodo and not an obligation for Ethiopia. It was a robbers' deal to preserve these boundaries of Ethiopia against any other robber, and it preserved the independence of Ethiopia for thirty years, until the Italians went in. But I imagin that it is as dead as the dodo.
I hope that those who preserved these boundaries may get together and consider what might be the final solution, especially with France, which holds the gateway—the railway. I do not think that I mentioned any treaty obligation. I do not know of any. Is not this Tripartite Treaty dead? But there are still the signatories, and because they have done so much, they might meet and do more—and better.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, the noble Earl has largely answered what I thought was his question. In our opinion, since the independence of the British Somali Protectorate, the Treaty of 1906 is no longer operative. There are now these three independent countries, who are in dispute with each other.
In conclusion, I can only repeat that we cannot interfere with Ethiopia, Kenya or Somalia—particularly with Somalia, with whom we have no diplomatic relations. But we are always prepared, if we are asked by the disputing countries, to do what we can to help them settle this problem—a serious one, I grant, which can always fester and become worse. I am inclined to agree with the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord St. Helens, who said that, given time, this problem will settle itself, and, I believe, in a way which will be satisfactory to all concerned.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
First Report from the Committee made, and to be printed.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes past seven o'clock.