Lords Sitting of 14 December 1965

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

PERSONAL STATEMENT BY LORD MITCHISON
2.36 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, may I be allowed to make a personal explanation to correct a quite natural slip that was made in Hansard. In column 482 of the Report of yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Glendevon, had mentioned a figure of 8,400 million bricks, and I had not heard the word "million". I thought that this was much too light a figure, and in an attempt, not to give any information but to correct what I thought was his slip, I said that I thought it must have been 8,400,000 and not 8,400, which is what I thought the noble Lord said. Hansard very naturally put in the word "million" there, but it was not what I said. I have checked this on the tape record to make sure I am right about it. I quite understand the noble Lord's feeling that it had better be corrected, as it might sound as if I was impugning his figure, whereas I was in fact only responsible for not having heard fully what he said.
LORD GLENDEVON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his statement, and for making clear that he was not impugning the accuracy of my figure.

GREATER LONDON TRANSPORT
2.38 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to explain a little more fully a point I made last night, on which I may have given a
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wrong impression. I was dealing with fears expressed by the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, that people who lived in London might find themselves unable to own cars as a result of the various measures announced by my right honourable friend in another place last week.
What I said may have given the impression that various forms of ban or restriction had already been decided upon by the Government. This is not so. The only measure the Government have decided upon in principle at this stage is the new policy on parking in Central London. Even that must, as my right honourable friend explained, be worked out in practical detail with the Greater London Council and the other local authorities concerned. Other measures of restriction—for example, some form of licensing—are still under consideration and no decisions have been made. What I wanted to make very clear was that the Government had no intention of restricting the ownership of cars in Central London, or their use in ways or at times that do not contribute to congestion.
What we are aiming to do is to restrict those who cause congestion—and this means particularly the daily commuters. There is no question of singling out residents in London for restriction unless they contribute to congestion like other commuters. In any measures that the Government propose every effort will be made to take account of the special circumstances of residents. And I am sure that the Greater London Council and the London Boroughs will also have their needs in mind.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, am I to understand—
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether it is not the custom, when explanations of this sort are given, that there is no comment and no debate.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, there are many uncertainties about the customs of the House, but there is no uncertainty about this one.

INFLAMMABLE CLOTHING AND MATERIALS
2.40 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make an interim report on the inquiries made by the Home Office Working Party dealing with the problem of flammability.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONIIAM): My Lords, the Working Party on Flammable Clothing has been mainly concerned, so far, with problems arising from the operation of the Children's Nightdresses Regulations 1964. My right honourable and learned friend expects to receive a report from the Working Party on these matters very shortly. At its next meeting, early in the New Year, the Working Party will consider the two problems of nightwear for the elderly and material sold in the piece.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that I am very glad that the problem of nightwear for the elderly is to be discussed at the next meeting? May I ask, in view of the fact that this Working Party is discussing various aspects of flammability, whether it will be the intention of the Home Office to introduce amending regulations on each aspect at some future date, or to amend as they go along?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the First Report of the Working Party has not yet been received, and has therefore not been considered by my right honourable friend, but we are hoping to proceed with other and rather more important matters quite quickly. It would seem more desirable to amend the Regulations in several matters rather than to introduce an amendment of one.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I thank my noble friend.

ELECTRICITY BOARDS' INVESTMENT PROGRAMME
2.42 p.m.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what negotiations, if any, have taken place between the Government and the Electricity Council relating to the marginal expansion plans of the Electricity Council.]
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the usual annual review of the investment programmes of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Area Electricity Boards has been carried out in consultation with the Electricity Council. No reductions have been made in the capital expenditure proposed for power stations and associated equipment due to be commissioned up to 1970. A final decision on the amount of new generating plant to be ordered next year, for commissioning in 1971, will be taken during the next year's review in the light of current forecasts of the growth of demand. The Government have approved the expenditure the Area Boards proposed for 1966–67, and their expenditure in later years will he subject to successive annual reviews in the normal way. The total expenditure approved for the Electricity Boards (including the Generating Board) in England and Wales for 1966–67 is £700 million, the highest figure ever.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether the Government would not agree that, in view of the hardship caused by recent power cuts, it is regrettable that there should have been rumours about a cut-back of investment in the electricity industry? Will the Government give an assurance that no such cut-back is anticipated in the near future?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I thought I had made it clear in my Answer that the figure approved has been, or will be, the highest figure ever. In fact, I may mention to the noble Lord that I was unable to understand what he meant in his Question by the "marginal" expansion plans of the Electricity Council;

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and I am not really aware of the substance behind the supplementary questions he is now putting to me.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, I refer to an article in the Sunday Times on November 7, which referred to a possible cut-back in the electricity industry.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, would not Her Majesty's Government agree that the vast expenditures on new power-producing plant will be to some extent wasted unless they improve the load factor; and that they can do that only by allowing the electricity industry to advertise its off-peak heaters, in spite of the fact that the gas industry should not be allowed to do so.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, in reply to a similar question last week, that is a very sound suggestion, of which the Government and the Electricity Council will, I am sure, take full account. With regard to the second supplementary put by the noble Lord, Lord St. Helens, I had surmised that his Question arose from the report to which he referred, but that did not enlighten me because I took the description to be due to injudicious sub-editing. The position is that there has been no cut in the year I mentioned. After a discussion with my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in August, the Electricity Boards were able to reduce their estimated expenditure in the current year 1965/66 by some £l7 million. But that did not affect by one penny or one kilowatt the recent power cuts. It was done by the reduction of stocks, and such things.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I ask how long it will take for the Government to take account of my noble friend's excellent suggestion? Will it be before the end of the winter?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, may I tell the noble Leader of the Opposition that this is no new suggestion. His noble friend is quite right to keep on putting it forward, but this is a matter of which the Electricity Council have had cognisance for a long time, and it is a policy which has been proceeding.
LORD CARRINGTON: Then I do not understand the answer of the noble Lord.
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Are they or are they not going to take into account my noble friend's suggestion? If they have already done so, what is the answer?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the answer is that the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, like his question the previous week, concerned advertising, which, as the noble Lord will be aware, there has been an agreement to reduce for three months. The long-term policy of encouraging storage heating is, in fact, continuing. It was only a question of advertising.
LORD CARRINGTON: Is the answer, "Yes", or "No"?
LORD STONHAM: That is something like, "Have you ceased to beat your wife?" The answer is, Yes, we are continuing with the policy of expanding the use of storage heaters.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, would the noble Lord say whether advertising of storage heating is now allowed, and why it was ever stopped?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the point is that not all advertising has ceased. There has been a sensible arrangement that some parts of the advertising, both of Electricity and of Gas boards, shall not be proceeded with during the current three months.

ROAD TRANSPORT OF ABNORMAL LOADS
2.48 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: 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 there is any limit to the length, breadth and weight of loads permitted to be transported by road in the United Kingdom.]
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, there are no absolute limits, but road transport of the larger and heavier loads is controlled. For example, movement by road of loads more than 90 feet long, 14 feet wide or 150 tons gross weight can be made only if expressly authorised by my right honourable friend.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. But I refer in my Question to the description and photograph in The Times a week or two ago of a 170 ft. long distillation column (whatever that may mean), weighing 62 tons, which was being taken by road from Barry Docks to Sully. Am I correct in believing that that is only a short distance, but that it is the biggest load, according to this report—or thought to be the biggest load—ever carried by road in the United Kingdom? I am wondering whether the noble Lord can comment on that.
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, my Lords, it is an excellent example of what the Ministry do, in conjunction with both the manufacturers and transport organisations. This was a load manufactured in West Scotland, brought round the coast by ship to Barry Docks, and carted by road from Barry Docks to a site some two and a half to three miles away, where it was to be installed as a piece of machinery. Therefore the actual road haulage of this load was a matter of two and a half to three miles and it took about three-quarters of an hour. It was, of course, supervised by the Glamorgan police.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us at what time of day this journey took place?
LORD LINDGREN: The road journey started at 2.25 p.m., and the load arrived on the site at 3.20 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is not the case that some previous Government extended the permissible breadth of road vehicles, and whether the result has not been gravely to impair and also endanger road transport on the narrow roads of the Highlands? And if that is so, will the Government consider whether they are going to do anything about it, because it is a material disadvantage to the Highlands?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, as the noble Lord said, some years ago the permitted maximum width of vehicles was extended by law. I think it is correct to say that not only on some narrow roads in Scotland but also in English country lanes this causes a handicap to
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following or approaching traffic, and I will submit the noble Lord's comments for appropriate action.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask whether if in this particular case it had been a longer haul the Government would have had the power to prohibit it, and would they in fact have prohibited it?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, one has to take the national economy into account. It is obvious that it was necessary to transport this load by road. In the light of the national economy one has to undertake certain duties which may in fact handicap other people. There is a special division within the Ministry which has engineers, and, with the full co-operation of manufacturers and hauliers wherever possible, a load is broken down to proportions of a reasonable size. I cannot say definitely, but most probably if this load had had to go a further distance than two or three miles it would have been broken down to smaller proportions.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they regard it as a legitimate use of the transport facilities in this country to bring by road, from an area near the Port of Glasgow, agricultural machinery like the combine harvesters for export from East Anglian ports? Would the Government look into this problem, since this is one of the main reasons for the obstruction of transport streams, particularly during the summer months?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, most certainly we will look into it.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that, if loads of 150 tons are permitted on the roads, there is no reason why agricultural machinery should not be moved by road?
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, bearing in mind the inconvenience to hundreds of other road users that happens every time one of these so-called awkward and indivisible loads is allowed on the main roads, can the noble Lord give an assurance that it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government that all such loads should go by sea as far as possible? Further, will he consult with chief constables, who are extremely dissatisfied

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with the present situation, to see whether it cannot be improved?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I had intended to convey in answer to a previous supplementary that we have a special division within the Ministry dealing with these "out of gauge" loads. Wherever possible a load is taken by sea, but if the point of manufacture is well inland less inconvenience may be caused by its going direct by road than to a port by road and then by sea. Equally there is the problem of coastwise shipping. Sometimes we are handicapped by the fact that ships to take "out of gauge" loads are not available.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, might I ask if there is any regulation to say that the overall width shall not be so great as to forbid any traffic in the opposite direction at all?
LORD LINDGREN: There is no such regulation so far as I know, but of course it is within the discretion of the Minister to prohibit any load which in fact would be of the type to which the noble Lord refers.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, would Her Majesty's Government not consider that it really is essential to restrict the weight of lorries in certain cases, particularly on our narrow Highland roads? Apart from the danger, there is the question of damage. On the A.9, which is our only main road North of Inverness, some ten years ago the Telford Bridge was destroyed—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Question!
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: Would Her Majesty's Government consider the possibility of restricting the weight of lorries where they are going to do great damage, as they have done in certain cases in the Highlands?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, for every "out of gauge" load the haulier has to sign to indemnify bridge authorities and highway authorities against damage to road or bridge.

ATLANTIC SALMON FISHING
2.57 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: 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 can now make a statement on the progress of negotiations with the Danish Government aimed at limitation of the catch of Atlantic salmon off the Greenland coast; and whether they can confirm reports that, owing to scarcity of fish, a heavy drop in the numbers caught off Greenland during 1965 has occurred.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): Her Majesty's Government have pursued with the Danish Government the request that, pending the results of scientific investigation, steps be taken to prevent an increase in the Greenland salmon catch, hut the Danish Government have felt unable, on the evidence so far available, to accede. It appears, however, that the Greenland salmon catch this year is likely to he considerably lower than last year; indeed, although full information is not yet available I understand the estimated catch up to the end of November was about half the corresponding figure for last year. This is probably the result of several factors, but I have no information to suggest that scarcity of fish is one of them.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, arising out of the Minister's reply, may I ask him whether the Government have in mind making further representations to the Danish Government in view of the fact that the smaller catch of fish this year is probably due, to use the Minister's words last July, to "the quite fantastic catch in 1964" of 1,400 metric tons as compared with two metric tons in 1957? Surely it is not quite good enough for the Government to say that they accede to the Danish Government's view that nothing could be done; but Her Majesty's Government could continue representations with even greater strength in the future than they have in the past.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord has misunderstood the reply I gave.

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I did not say that Her Majesty's Government acceded to the views of the Danish Government. I said that, on the evidence available, the Danish Government felt unable to accede to the request made by Her Majesty's Government. Possibly one of the reasons was that certain scientific investigations are going on, and I can assure the noble Lord that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of letting the matter rest on this basis and that we will use all the information as it emerges to impress upon the Danish Government the point of view already put forward.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, in the debate in your Lordships' House on July 5 last, did the Minister not say that Her Majesty's Government would make a request to the Danish members of the International Commission for the North-West Atlantic Fisheries for means of curbing future expansion while the investigations were proceeding? May I ask the Minister this? While he says that investigations are proceeding, what is happening meanwhile, having regard to that promise?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am sorry, I must be reading this Answer very badly. I will read it again:
"Her Majesty's Government have pursued with the Danish Government the request that, pending the results of scientific investigation, steps be taken to prevent an increase in the Greenland salmon catch. but the Danish Government have felt unable, on the evidence so far available, to accede."
I must remind the noble Lord that the Danish Government is a sovereign Government, and while we can make requests to it we have no power to enforce our wishes upon it. We are endeavouring to persuade it that it is in the interest of all concerned that this practice off the Greenland coast should be diminished. I have said further that a scientific investigation is going on, and in this we have had very full co-operation from the Danish authorities. It is hoped that, when the evidence is all forthcoming, the Danish Government may be persuaded to take a different decision from the one which they presently take.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what steps are being taken in this country to assist in this scientific investigation, such as an extension of tagging schemes and so on?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, up to the present, an average of 15,000 salmon a year have been tagged in Scottish rivers: that is the average over the last five years. It is planned in 1966 to tag 40,000 and to extend our operations to a larger number of rivers.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether Her Majesty's Government will bear in mind that this problem of over-fishing, which is no longer confined to the North Sea but is gradually extending over the whole world, could become very menacing in ten years time? Will they keep a sharp eye on the problem and bear in mind the possibility, should the necessity arise, of summoning an International Conference, not only with ourselves and Denmark but with all the Powers that are interested and concerned?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that this is a matter which is very present in the minds not only of Her Majesty's Government but also of a number of other Governments which are as interested as we are in the conservation of fish supply. The matter is not intermittently but constantly before the attention of the various international fishing bodies.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord has promised, will Her Majesty's Government pay particular attention to home waters? Are they aware, that whereas twenty years ago if you wanted to catch a breakfast in the Minch you had only to drop a hook over the side, to-day you can keep the hook in all day and not even get a small breakfast?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it is not for me to speculate on the reasons that people do not get results, but I gather that fishermen constantly have convincing reasons why they have no catch.

RHODESIA: PAYMENT OF GOVERNMENT PENSIONS
3.3 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given Private Notice:
What rate of interest applies to Her Majesty's Government money due to residents in Rhodesia for pensions and now being held back?
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Shepherd will be answering this Question at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m., after which my noble friend Lord Longford will be making a Statement on the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement and I shall be making a Statement on the Youth Employment Service.

HERIOT-WATT COLLEGE ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2aand reported from the Committee.

CLYDE NAVIGATION (SUPERANNUATION) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 13), Bill read 3a, and passed.

CLYDE PORT AUTHORITY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 13), Bill read 3a, and passed.

GLASGOW CORPORATION (No. 2) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 13), Bill read 3a, and passed.

COUNTY COURTS JURISDICTION ORDER 1965
3.7 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper be agreed to. The object of this Order is to increase the jurisdiction of the county courts in actions of tort and contract from £400 to £500. Before the war, or, to be precise, in 1938, the jurisdiction of the county courts was £200, and in spite of the fall in the value of money during the war that figure was not increased until 1955, by which time the 1938 pound was worth 7s. 10½d. Accordingly, if in 1955 the jurisdiction of the county court had been put back to what it was, in terms of money, in 1938, it would have justified an increase from £200 to something between £500 and £600. But it was thought very doubtful whether the existing county court judges could cope with the increase in work, and accordingly in 1955 the then Government —very sensibly, if I may say so—said, "Well, we will double it. We will increase the jurisdiction to £400 and see how far the judges can deal with that, and we will in the Act give power by Order, if affirmed by both Houses of Parliament, to increase it by a further £100, to £500."
Time has passed again, and if one were to increase the existing limit of £400 in accordance with the fall in the value of money since 1938 one would raise the limit to about £666. But, of course, there is no jurisdiction to do that without legislation. What, however, can be done is to make use of the power in the Act to increase it to £500. That is what this Order would do. Paragraph 1 does that, but also makes some eight consequential Amendments. Six of those eight Amendments consist merely of replacing, in other parts of both the County Courts Act 1959 and the Solicitors Act 1957, the figure of £400 by £500. I have mentioned the County Courts Act 1959. The previous increase, as I have said, was under the County Courts Act 1955. The 1959 Act was a consolidating Act which took its place.
There are two other increases to which I ought to refer. Under Section 44 of the Act of 1959, which enables a defendant to require a county court action for more than £40 to be transferred to the

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High Court, on giving security for the amount claimed and costs, the figure in that Act was £450, reflecting the maximum amount that could be claimed and costs, and it is proposed by this Order to substitute the figure of £550 for the figure of £450. Then, under Section 47 of the Act of 1959, which provides that if a plaintiff in the High Court recovers less than £300 he shall not be entitled, unless the High Court otherwise provides, to more than county court costs, the sum of £400 is substituted for the sum of £300.
It is intended that the draft Order should come into force on January 1, 1966. The Schedule contains transitional provisions authorised by Section 192(3) of the Act of 1959 and modelled on those contained in Part III of the First Schedule to the County Courts Act 1955. In general, the amendments made by the Order will apply to proceedings begun before, as well as on or after, January 1, 1966. The amendment made to Section 47 of the Act of 1959 will not, however, apply to proceedings begun before that date. So that a plaintiff in an action brought in the High Court before that date, who recovers damages even after that date for a sum exceeding £300, but not exceeding £400, will not be restricted to county court costs.
Paragraph 5 of the Schedule deals with the position in the City of London courts, and I do not think I need particularly draw your Lordships' attention to it in detail. The Order does not deal with the question of the costs recoverable in cases under this extended jurisdiction, because this is a matter for the County Court Rules Committee. At their meeting on November 19, 1965, they passed an amendment to a rule which will enable the registrar when taxing the costs in such a case to allow such larger sum as he thinks reasonable in respect of the principal items in Scale IV of the scale of costs.
The Special Orders Committee of your Lordships' House which considered this Draft Order has reported
"That in their opinion the provisions of the Order do not raise any important questions of policy or principle:
"That the Order is not founded on precedent:"—
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of course, that is simply because the power under this Act to increase the figure of £400 to £500 has not been exercised before—and
"That in the opinion of the Committee the Order can be passed by the House without special attention."
My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft County Courts Jurisdiction Order 1965, laid before the House on November 22, be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.13 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends on this side of the House, I should just like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his explanation, with which my noble friends on these Benches are in full agreement.
LORD REA: My Lords, I should like to say the same from these Benches. I speak as a layman, and I ask this question only by way of inquiry. Does not the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor consider that this Order allows two bites at the cherry, and does he therefore intend to present legislation later on to raise the limit from £500 to £660, or something higher than that?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, my impression is that we could well further extend the jurisdiction beyond the £500; but, as in the case of the previous Government, as that cannot be done without legislation, I think we had perhaps better wait a short time to see how far the extended jurisdiction is assimilated by the judges.
3.15 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should like from this side of the House, as has been done from the other two sides of the House, to welcome this Order. I believe that the county courts are not being used to the fullest possible capacity at the present time As one who, years ago, practised a good deal in the county courts, I have found that the standard of justice administered in those courts is as high as in any other courts in the country; and I have always been unable to understand why we have not given the county courts fuller jurisdiction. I am glad that this step is being taken, and I should be prepared to welcome a further

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extension, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rea, beyond the £500. But if the Government are basing the figure on the cost of living, then I understand the situation, and it may be—I hope it will not be—that before long they will have to come again and once more raise the standard.
I see from the Memorandum that there is a suggestion that more county court judges might be necessary, and I understand there is provision for that possibility. I would ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether there will not be a saving in the time of High Court Judges. I do not know whether he is able to say now the extent to which the time of High Court Judges is taken up in dealing with cases between £400 and £500, and how much of their time will be saved by this amendment of the provisions, but I should have thought there would be a corresponding saving in the time of High Court Judges to compensate for the additional time to be taken up by the county court judges; and to that extent—though I am sure this is not the purpose of the Order—there should be a saving of costs.
There is one other point. Here I am strictly out of order, but since no one is able to call me to order, except the House, I should like to mention this point. The other day we had a debate on the Law Commission. In the course of that debate a noble and learned Law Lord said that the time of the High Court was fully occupied and he would like to see a transfer of some of their functions to the county courts. Well, this has been done. I interrupted him and asked him whether that transfer should not apply also to divorce cases, and I understood him to say that only over his dead body would he permit divorce cases to be transferred to the county courts.
I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack whether any consideration is being given at the present time to the transfer of divorce cases, even if only undefended cases (although I should be prepared to go further) to the county courts. I do not want to make a big issue of it, but one has to realise that in every single undefended divorce case the petitioner has to come to London to have the case dealt with. It is a great burden on many people to come here and have their cases dealt with in this way, and there is really
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no need for it. I think the standard of our county court judges is high enough to justify that course. But at least, as a start, why not deal with undefended cases in the county courts? I apologise to the House for going rather beyond the terms of this Order. I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor could say a word on that matter.
3.17 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in the first place, I do not think that to give effect to this Order it will be necessary to increase the number of county court judges, because I do not think the number of actions involving sums of between £400 and £500 is substantial. It is estimated, I believe, to be only 200 a year. But, of course, per contra, not much of the time of the High Court Judges would be saved.
I should like to acknowledge what was said, and say how much I agree with it, by my noble friend Lord Silkin in the opinion he has just expressed as to the standards of the County Court Bench. I am of the opinion that we ought to make more use of those courts than we do, and I should be in favour of doing so. But I am unable to promise any legislation in that field for this Session. So far as divorce cases are concerned, the Government are favourably considering the transfer of undefended divorce cases to the county courts. I hope I did not give any impression that 1 was irrevocably against this change. On the contrary, I can remember giving evidence before the Committee presided over by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, I think in 1949, and being then in favour of that course.
Your Lordships know that more than nine out of ten divorce cases—indeed, about 30,000 out of 33,000—are undefended. Nearly all of these cases are already heard by the county court judges; so that they would be decided in the same way, and in fact by the same men; only, instead of, as now, either coming up to the Law Courts, in the Strand, or going to the local assize court and having the status of a High Court Judge for the day, and being called "My Lord" instead of "Your Honour", county court judges would act in exactly the same way, but in their own courts. And this would, of course, be of much more convenient

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access to the parties and to the witnesses. But I must not make now the speech which I should make in the event of this legislation being moved.
LORD SILKIN: Would the change require legislation?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes; it would require legislation.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I take it from the Lord Chancellor's reply that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, was not quite accurate when he said that every petitioner had to come to London.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: They have to come either to the High Court in London or to their local assize court. Of course, a substantial number of these cases are, in fact, already dealt with in the Provinces.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION AND BENEFIT (AMENDMENT) BILL
3.20 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. When three or four weeks ago I was asked to take charge of this Bill in your Lordships' House, I studied the speeches and debates upon it in another place. I also took a great deal of trouble to try to understand what changes had taken place since the Industrial Injuries Act, 1948, came into force, which changed completely the old position under the Workmen's Compensation Acts up to then. I found that the amount of jargon and the amount of technical knowledge that anybody would need to understand this subject in order to put the whole matter across to your Lordships, would entail a very long speech indeed, much longer than any of your Lordships would put up with. Therefore, I have boiled down to a rather shorter statement what this Bill is about and what it proposes to do.
Before I come to that, may I congratulate my right honourable friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, Miss Herbison, on the very dogged way in which she has persisted in
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benefiting those suffering from injuries or diseases of an industrial character under the Workmen's Compensation Acts and the Industrial Injuries Act? I would also pay a compliment to the members of the Ministry of Pensions staff. I have been there on a number of occasions, and I have always noticed a very great spirit of devotion and desire to do everything that possibly can be done to help anybody who comes before them. Incidentally, when one comes to think about it, at one stage or other almost everybody in the country is in some contact with the Ministry of Pensions or National Insurance.
The Bill which I now have the honour to commend to your Lordships is a measure which is designed to benefit persons disabled by an injury or an industrial disease which is due to employment before July 5, 1948, when the present industrial injuries scheme came into operation. These conditions fall in the first place to he considered under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts. The compensation under those Acts is a liability of the employers and is related to the earnings lost as a result of the injury or disease, being two-thirds of that loss, subject to a maximum of £2; or, where the workman has a wife to whom he was married at the date of his accident, £2 10s. a week. The provisions of these old Acts were interpreted by the courts and a considerable volume of complex law was built up. When the Industrial Injuries Act came into force it repealed the Workmen's Compensation Acts for the future, but continued them in force for those whose condition arose from pre-1948 employment, who have become known as the old cases.
At the time of the change serious consideration was given to the possibility of absorbing the old cases into the new scheme, but the basis of the whole structure of the two schemes was so different that such a step was out of the question. The possibility of it has been examined from time to time by successive Governments, but the passing of the years has seen no development which would simplify the problems. Indeed, in some respects they have become more complex, and by common consent it is accepted that no move of this description is feasible. The repeal of the old Acts did, however, leave serious problems. These

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arose partly from the fact that the maximum rates of compensation remained unchanged, though they would almost certainly have risen in view of the rise in the general level of earnings and prices since 1948. Secondly, the provisions of the old Acts themselves were in some respects unsatisfactory and the vast technological and structural changes which have taken place in industry since the last war have exacerbated the effect of these features of the old Acts.
The problem of the old cases has thus ever since 1948 been the concern of successive Governments. This is illustrated by the list of enactments designed to alleviate some of the difficulties. The underlying principle of these has been to provide help by means of allowances, the cost of which has been met out of the Industrial Injuries Fund, and which have been designed to meet hardship when it emerged. The Industrial Injuries Act itself made constant attendance allowance and unemployability supplement available to men entitled to workmen's compensation under the same conditions as applied to men injured after the new provisions came into operation.
The scheme made under the Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Act, 1951, provided supplementary allowances payable to men injured before January 1, 1924, to bring their compensation up to broadly the same level as that available for men who were injured later and were dealt with under the more favourable provisions of later Workmen's Compensation Acts. Shortly afterwards benefits were introduced for time-barred "men—that is, men suffering from certain slowly developing diseases, mainly pneumoconiosis, due to pre-1948 employment, which manifested themselves too long after the sufferer had left the industry where he was employed for a claim for compensation to be made within the time limits under the old Acts. Under the Workmen's Compensation and Benefit (Supplementation) Act, 1956, further allowances were provided for persons totally disabled or incapable of work for prolonged periods to supplement both workmen's compensation and the benefit provided out of the Industrial Injuries Fund for time-barred cases. The most recent of these special provisions was made in 1961 when the 1951 Supplementation Act was extended to enable allow
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ances to be paid to those post-1923 cases whose compensation was payable at the maximum rate and who did not benefit under the 1956 Act.
The provisions which I have briefly described have been accepted as satisfactory so far as they go, but their scope does not extend beyond men whose workmen's compensation is at the maximum rate. This limitation has left some dissatisfaction and uneasiness. For this reason a general review of old cases, including the working of the provisions affecting them, and including also a fact-finding survey of their circumstances, was undertaken. In conducting this investigation my right honourable friend the Minister was able to secure, and gratefully acknowledges, the assistance of the T.U.C. and of several major employers who were closely concerned in the field of workmen's compensation. From these sources a good deal of light was thrown on the circumstances of old cases and also upon their numbers. It was decided that an extension of the existing scope of supplementation from the Industrial Injuries Fund was both practicable and necessary, and that the opportunity of this could reasonably be taken to make certain improvements in the existing provisions. Further consideration led to the present Bill which takes another long stride forward in providing for old cases.
The main provisions of the Bill may be summarised quite briefly. Clause 1 deals with workmen's compensation cases. In the first place, it provides an allowance, entitled the "basic allowance", for men injured before 1924, and this, like the original allowance under the 1951 Act which I have already mentioned, puts the pre-1924 men on all fours with men injured later. The other allowances payable under Clause 1 are payable in addition to the basic allowance, and for their purposes the basic allowance is regarded as workmen's compensation. The second allowance under Clause 1 is the major incapacity allowance. This is for totally disabled or incapacitated men entitled to workmen's compensation. It replaces the existing allowance under the 1956 Supplementation Act for such men.
A substantial change is made in that the future rate of the allowance is to be that of the 100 per cent. disablement pension under the Industrial Injuries Act,

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less the amount of any compensation being paid. This has two results. First, any change in the industrial injuries disablement pension rate will automatically affect the rate of the major incapacity allowance; secondly, since compensation is to be raised to a maximum level, all totally disabled compensation cases will receive the same amount regardless of whether they are getting the extra 10s. for a "pre-accident wife," which the Workmen's Compensation Acts provide. This means that the allowance for totally incapacitated workmen's compensation cases will in this respect be precisely similar to the industrial injuries disablement pension which also takes no regard of dependency. This change means that over a thousand men on compensation will receive 10s. more than at present.
Clause 1 also provides a "lesser incapacity allowance" for partially disabled men. The maximum rate of this allowance is to be £2 7s. 6d. It will be available subject to the provisions of the implementing scheme to men entitled to weekly payments of compensation. This provision will apply to 6,000 men already receiving supplementation, and to perhaps 10,000 more. Details of the allowance will be included in the scheme which will in due course be presented to your Lordships for your approval. It is envisaged that the scheme will provide a series of allowances each related to a certain range of loss of earnings. The loss of earnings will be computed on an entirely new basis. It will be based on the experience gained in the administration of the special hardship allowance under the Industrial Injuries Act, and will be sufficiently flexible to cover the extremely varied patterns of earnings to be dealt with, unlike the rigid and narrow approach adopted in workmen's compensation. It will, in effect, amount to a complete break from the workmen's compensation rules, and it is confidently expected that this departure will go a long way to remedying some of the much-criticised effects of those rules.
The new provisions do not extend to "latent" cases (there is a great deal of jargon in workmen's compensation law and practice and I am sure that the two noble Lords who are down to speak, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and my noble friend Lord Blyton, will understand
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these phrases without their being explained); that is, to persons who are not entitled to compensation because by workmen's compensation standards their injury is not affecting their earning capacity. The number of these is not precisely known, but it is estimated to be about 200,000 in a very wide variety of circumstances.
Many men whose title to compensation is, in fact, latent are actually, by arrangement, paid small sums weekly by way of notional compensation, to maintain their potential title against the possibility of a fall in their earning power. In order to distinguish clearly between such men and partially disabled men on compensation. the Bill proposes that entitlement to weekly compensation shall be a condition of entitlement to a lesser incapacity allowance, and specifically provides that notional compensation payments are to be disregarded. In Clause 1(4)(a) the Bill enables the scheme to define circumstances in which payment shall be regarded as notional.
Clause 2 of the Bill deals with pneumoconiosis and other "time-barred" men, whom 1 have previously mentioned. At present, totally disabled men receive weekly a supplementary allowance of £4 5s. 0d. under the 1956 Supplementation Act, in addition to £2 benefit under the Pneumoconiosis and Byssinosis Benefits Act. The Bill increases the £2 to the rate of the 100 per cent. industrial injuries disablement pension, now £6 15s. 0d., thus associating the two rates in the same way as was done with totally incapacitated workmen's compensation cases, and also securing an improvement of 10s. a week for the 1,400 men affected. Clause 2 extends this benefit to "time-barred" men who are totally disabled as a joint result of their disease and some compensatable condition, and who at present are within the 1956 Supplementation Act. The Bill thus provides allowances for the totally incapacitated or the totally disabled which meet all the circumstances covered by the 1956 Act, which is therefore to be repealed.
Clause 3 makes various supplementary provisions. It enables allowances to be adjusted where there is entitlement to more than one; it enables existing awards to be continued where there is sufficient information to award a new allowance,

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and it enables the new allowances to be paid at the same rate as the present ones if the changeover would otherwise result in a lower aggregate of benefit. Clauses 4, 5 and 6 deal with the necessary technical matters involved in bringing the proposals of the preceding clauses into operation. Clause 4 deals with definitions and explanations. Clause 5 is the usual money clause authorising administrative expenditure. Clause 6 deals with the citation—"This Act may be cited as", and so on. The Schedules cover consequential and minor amendments and the repeal of the superseded provisions.
The Bill is an enabling measure, which contains in outline the provisions which have to be filled out and included in an implementing scheme. Only when this scheme has been approved by an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament will the new provisions become effective. In commending this Bill to your Lordships, I should draw attention, again, to the fact that it makes a radical departure in the provision from the Industrial Injuries Fund for men who were injured before the Industrial Injuries Scheme came into operation.
To sum up, it does this, first, by relating the amount of the benefit for the totally disabled and incapacitated to the level provided for the Industrial Injuries Scheme counterparts; and, secondly, by introducing for partially disabled workmen's compensation cases a system of allowances which differ both in their nature and in the basis on which they are calculated from allowances under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts. Although these proposals may involve an element of rough justice, they will certainly benefit everybody within their scope. I suggest to your Lordships that this measure takes a worthy place in the succession of enactments which have been made since 1948 to help men suffering from industrial disablement originating before that year. It secures a significant advance, albeit in a comparatively small field, and I am sure that it will give general satisfaction. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Bowles.)

RHODESIA: PAYMENT OF GOVERNMENT PENSIONS
3.38 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, perhaps this might be a convenient moment for me to reply to the Private Notice Question which the Leader of the Opposition asked earlier.
In response to the humanitarian considerations involved, and in accordance with the advice received from the Governor of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, permission will again be given for payments from the United Kingdom of pensions due to residents in Rhodesia. The question of interest payments does not therefore arise. I should emphasise that this decision implies no change in the policy, in the tight and effective control that is being exercised over other financial transactions.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is hardly necessary for me to say how welcome this statement is to those of us who sit on these Benches. It seems absolutely right and absolutely fair. Those of us who spent some ten hours debating this matter last Tuesday will feel that at any rate our labours were not wasted. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will agree that it was that debate and the speeches made in that debate which have caused this change of mind on the Government's part. There is, of course, on these Benches great joy when one sinner repenteth; but when a whole Government repent, then we have even greater joy. I do not want to say any more, and make it difficult for the Government to follow the same course in the future on other mistakes, which I am afraid they are sure to make.
LORD REA: My Lords, I think it is appropriate to say that those noble Lords on these Benches, and, I am sure, all other Benches in the House, would like to be associated with what the noble Lord has said. This really is a great advance. I wonder if the Minister could say whether there are any other indications to those who are loyal to the British Government in this matter to encourage them to maintain their loyalty and not sign on that dotted line on which we do not wish them to sign.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think the point which the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has made is fairly wide of the reply that I have given to a Private Notice Question; and, therefore, I am quite sure he will not be surprised if I do not follow him in the width of his supplementary.
I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for what he has said. I think I should repeat that it was always our intention to consider the humanitarian considerations, as was quite clear to anyone who read the Treasury Statement. The Government have come to this decision after very careful consideration, which shows, as the noble Lord has said, that Governments which are wise listen to Parliamentary comment. Having heard that from him perhaps we on this side may express equal regret that when he was in office there was not a similar response.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may as the one who initiated last week's debate, say how very much gratified I am—not that that matters—and how very much gratified noble Lords who supported my Motion in the Lobby and noble Lords who abstained are about the fact that the Government have had second thoughts? May I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that there is a growing body of opinion in this country which hopes, quite desperately, that the Government will have second thoughts about other aspects of their policy before this tragic situation gets altogether out of hand?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has put quite a different construction on the Division that took place last Tuesday. I imagine that in most quarters of the House it would be thought that those Members who went into the Lobby with the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, went for reasons other than those in regard to pensions. However, I am glad that, in that respect, we have given the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, satisfaction. In regard to the last part of his supplementary question. I will repeat, if I may, what I have said in reply: that the Government are determined to continue with the financial and economic measures until Southern Rhodesia returns to constitutional Government within the Commonwealth.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that what he has said is that the Government demand unconditional surrender and that the Government are determined to create a desert in Southern Africa?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as Chief Whip I have always been rather loath to follow any widening of a discussion, and I would therefore not follow the noble Lord, but I feel I should say that it is not the Government's intention to create an economic desert in Rhodesia. What we wish—and I am quite sure this wish is shared in most quarters of this House—is a return of Southern Rhodesia to constitutional Government within the Commonwealth.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, as one of those noble Lords who voted against the Motion of my noble friend Lord Coleraine last week, may I say how much I appreciate the change of view which the Government have undergone, and particularly the association of the name of His Excellency the Governor with the decision? Am I right in assuming that that is not merely a form of words but that in fact the advice of His Excellency the Governor is taken in matters of this sort? Secondly, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government have considered any further the problem of those Rhodesia pensioners in this country who will not have available to them funds from Rhodesia in order to pay the pensions which are due to them from the Rhodesian Government? In those circumstances, will the Government hear in mind the claims of those pensioners on any funds that may be available to Her Majesty's Government in this country?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, and I am quite sure that the House recognises the distinction which he has gained during the debates on this very difficult subject. In regard to the latter part of his supplementary, this, again, is slightly wide of the Answer I have given. I gave an undertaking to the noble Lord, as he may well remember, that, if he wished to raise a particular case to test the principle, we would see what could be done; but I would not like to answer that question this afternoon. In regard to the question about advice from the

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Governor, I may say that we all respect the Governor in Southern Rhodesia, but the decisions must be taken by Her Majesty's Government, although the advice of the Governor will always be taken into account.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
3.46 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to make a Statement similar to that which my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour has just made in another place about the future development of the Youth Employment Service. If I may, I will use his own words, which are as follows:
"Under the Chairmanship of Lady Albemarle, a Working Party set up by the National Youth Employment Council in January, 1964, has been considering the future development of the Youth Employment Service in the light of recent developments in education and the changing needs of industry. The Working Party's Report is published to-day. On behalf of the Government, I wish to thank Lady Albemarle and her colleagues for their very thorough examination of these problems, which are of such importance to young people and our national prosperity, and for producing so thoughtful and constructive a Report.
"The Government accept the Report as providing valuable guide lines for the development of the Service over the next few years. The two major priorities are clearly staffing and staff training. As regards the former, the Government agree that more staff will be needed to enable the Service to meet the increasing demands which are being made on its officers, and that the progressive build-up of staff which has been a feature of recent years should be continued. I am proposing shortly to issue guidance on this matter to the local authorities concerned and to review the staffing needs of the Service
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in those areas where it is operated by my Department. As regards the training of staff, the Government accept the need for urgent action to extend the existing facilities for intensive in-service training, and I am proposing to set up a full-time training unit for this purpose under the direction of the Central Youth Employment Executive.
"Before reaching a decision on recommendations whose implementation would require legislation, I propose to consult the interested local authority associations."
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's Statement.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for repeating that Statement. In all parts of your Lordships' House there is the highest regard for the Youth Employment Service, and I am sure we all welcome anything that can be done to improve and develop it, particularly at a time when more young people than ever before are emerging from our schools and it is vitally important, not only that they are found employment but that they are found the right employment. I should also like to associate myself with the thanks expressed by the noble Lord to Lady Albemarle for her Report.
I have not as yet had much time to read that Report—and I do not expect other noble Lords have—but certainly three of its recommendations seem to me to be of the highest value: the need to develop the work in schools in greater depth than before; the need to accord a high priority to maintaining close relations with employers; and the need to make earlier and more effective contact with parents. It seems these three items would be of immense importance, and certainly I should agree that there is a need for an increase in the staff of the Service and in the training facilities. But I think that further comment should really wait until we have had a chance to give greater consideration to the Report itself.

ANGLO-IRISH FREE TRADE AREA
3.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has just made in another place, on the Anglo-Irish Treaty. His words were:
"As the House will know, we have been having discussions with the Government of the Irish Republic over the past few months about the possibility of establishing a Free Trade Area between our two countries. I am glad to say that these negotiations have now been concluded successfully, and I am signing the Agreement establishing a Free Trade Area with Mr. Lemass this evening. I am arranging for a copy of the Agreement, and related documents, to be placed in the Library, and for its publication in a White Paper in the next day or so. I am sure that honourable Members will share my pleasure at this significant and satisfactory development in our relations with the Republic of Ireland."
My Lords, that concludes the Prime Minister's Statement.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I should like to congratulate Her Majesty's Government on bringing this matter to a successful conclusion after it had been initiated by the previous Administration, and to thank the noble Earl for reading out the Statement. Perhaps he could explain whether it is a Treaty or an Agreement, because in his preamble he referred to the "Anglo-Irish Treaty" and in the text he referred to an Agreement. I should be glad if he would also inform noble Lords when the Agreement, or Treaty, will come into operation; and also, what specific benefits will accrue to Ulster from this Agreement? Finally, can he inform us whether our EFTA partners have been consulted, and whether they are in agreement with this development; and, if so, whether Eire may expect to become a member of EFTA?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for welcoming this Agreement. With
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his permission, I will not answer the questions in detail, because I think he will wish to study the Agreement when it is available. There will be a Press conference this afternoon held by two Ministers; there will be the signing of the Agreement this evening, and the document will be available in the Library. I would rather not become involved in detail now. But I assure the noble Lord that we have been keeping in touch with the EFTA countries and certainly there is no objection from that quarter. There is certainly no reason whatever to think that Ulster will suffer. Perhaps that information will relieve the noble Lord of two of his anxieties.
As to whether it is called a Treaty or an Agreement, I am afraid that I should need to take consultation on that. I am myself rather interested in the verbiage, having just written 100,000 words on the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. But it is an Agreement, and I think we can leave it there for the moment. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that of course I feel particularly enthusiastic. In saying that I want to pay tribute not only to the present Government but to the noble Lord and others who have laboured in the past.
LORD REA: My Lords, might I ask the noble Earl a question? He referred to the Free Trade Area between our two countries. I take it that this country is Great Britain and Northern Ireland. On the other hand, he said that Ulster would not suffer by this Treaty. Will not Ulster be in exactly the same position as England, Scotland and Wales?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should certainly hope that the Six Counties area will benefit. I was not trying to make extravagant claims: I was just trying to relieve the anxieties of the noble Lord opposite.
LORD REA: Then they are equally involved with this country?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I think that that, technically speaking, is the correct answer. But we are concerned more directly with this Island and the 25 Counties in the "Other Island".
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, does not the noble Earl know when the Agreement will come into operation?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Yes, my Lords. The answer is that the various Free Trade agreements—it is a pretty complicated affair; I am told that it will take many minutes just to sign the whole complex of documents—enter into force on July 1, 1966, except for the agreement on cotton textiles, which comes into force on January 1, 1966.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION AND BENEFIT (AMENDMENT) BILL
3.55 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, we can now return to the Workmen's Compensation and Benefit (Amendment) Bill. May I, on behalf of my noble friends on this side of the House, give a warm welcome to this Bill? I hope that nothing I say in the course of my speech will be taken to derogate in any way from that welcome. Secondly, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord upon his very clear exposition of an exceedingly complicated matter. As he said, a considerable volume of complex law has developed on this subject. He went on to say that the problems have become more complex; but, as he also said, this Bill represents a long stride forward in dealing with the old cases and is a significant advance. He said he would do his best to avoid jargon. I do not think that that is possible in this matter. We have heard of "old cases", "pre-accident cases", "latent cases" and "time-barred cases"; but fortunately we now have in this Chamber quite a number of noble Lords with trade union experience to whom all these expressions are well known and who have had an intimate knowledge of them and intimate experience of dealing with them.
I regard this Bill as yet another reminder of how long "transitional periods" last. It illustrates how difficult it is for Parliament, when it passes important pieces of legislation, setting up new schemes on new principles, fully to foresee the effect on those who, in one way or another, are excluded from its benefits. That is eminently true of the two National Insurance Acts passed
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in 1946. The National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act established a new basis for, and a new source of, compensation. Under the old Workmen's Compensation Act the employer was made responsible by Statute for compensation; and compensation was calculated on loss of earning capacity. Under the Industrial Injuries Act both employer and employee contributed to a fund out of which compensation was payable; and the basis of compensation was no longer loss of earnings but loss of faculties.
The Minister of National Insurance at the time that Act was passed, Mr. Griffiths, said in 1963 in another place that he could have brought the pre-1948 cases (the so-called "old cases") into the scheme; but he did not do so because it would have meant re-assessing the partially disabled on the basis of loss of faculty instead of loss of earnings, with the result that some of the partially disabled would have got less. There were, of course, two other reasons that he did not mention. I think the first was the immense, perhaps impossible, task of re-assessing all the partially disabled on an entirely different basis when for many, at least, the records of their injury at the time were no longer in existence. The second reason was that the basic payments to old cases came from different sources, and basically, of course, they still do.
It is not surprising that no one fore-saw the fall in the real value that was to take place in these payments. It is perhaps more surprising that nobody foresaw the rise in real earnings that was to take place and the growing disparity between current rates of remuneration and those on which compensation in old cases had been calculated. Of course, they had to wait for a Conservative Government for that. But it might have been foreseen that a Conservative Government would follow a Labour Government as day follows night.
LORD CHAMPION: And vice versa.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Of course, night must fall.
There has been a series of Acts of Parliament designed to supplement compensation in old cases, both for total and for partial disablement. Until 1963, it was not the practice to legislate for those supplements in what are technically called

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rates Bills—Bills which simply raise the rates of National Insurance and Industrial Injuries benefits. This was due to the anxiety of successive Governments to keep the old cases arising under the Workmen's Compensation Acts distinct from the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Scheme.
During the passage of the 1963 Act, a very strong plea was made on an Amendment introduced from the opposite side of the House, and supported by both sides in another place, that compensation payable to the totally disabled in old cases should be made up to the same amount as a totally disabled person received under the Industrial Injuries Act. I thought it right, as Minister at the time, to amend the Bill accordingly by doubling the supplement total. Substantial increases were also made in that Act for the partially disabled on maximum rates under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, and also for those partially disabled by industrial diseases, such as pneumoconiosis. Further increases were made under the 1954 Act by the present Government. Indeed, it is true to say that all Governments have contributed to supplementation made available to these old cases.
On the assumption that all future rates Bills would specifically increase supplements for the old cases in the same way, so as to keep them in line with Industrial Injuries benefits for total disablement, this initially disposed of the problem of the total disabled; except for the anomaly that a man who was married before his accident received 10s. a week more than a man who was married after his accident. The noble Lord said, I think, that there as still a thousand cases of men who married after their accident, and I am glad that the Bill removes this anomaly.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that the pre-accident wife has still to be alive.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am afraid that I have forgotten that particular point, but no doubt the noble Lord will be able to provide the answer.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, all dependence has now gone.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, what I think the noble Lord is saying is
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that the thousand cases include some cases of pre-accident wives where the wife is now dead.
I should like to ask the noble Lord whether I am right in thinking that the effect of introducing the so-called major incapacity allowance will be that in future no special provisions for these old cases of total disablement will be needed in rates Bills. In other words, whenever Industrial Injuries rates are raised, the rates for the totally disabled, the workmen's compensation old cases, will automatically go up as well. If that is so, it is a useful technical improvement in our procedure.
My Lords, the Bill also puts the pre-1924 men on the same footing as the post-1923 men. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he can say how many men who were totally disabled before 1924, and how many men partially disabled before 1924, are at present receiving supplementation. One of the troubles of the pre-1948 totally disabled having been allayed, attention was immediately focused, even more strongly than before, as I think the noble Lord indicated, on the grievances of the partially disabled. The main complaint was that there were many partially disabled men who did not receive supplementation and had little hope of receiving it, because their compensation fell below the maximum: the loss of earnings, calculated under the workmen's compensation rules, being less than the minimum of £2 for a single man, or £2 10s. 0d. for a married man This was often due to the fact that a man was working on short time when his accident occurred. I was pressed to abolish the two-thirds rule, and to raise compensation by the whole difference between post-accident and pre-accident earnings. This, however, would have involved a major alteration in the terms of compensation fixed years before. Instead, the Government have chosen—I think wisely—to have the actual loss of earnings reassessed by the Workmen's Compensation Board, if I correctly understand what the noble Lord has said.
The noble Lord has not said much about the principles upon which reassessment will take place. He made one reference to this. If I understood rightly, he said that the reassessment will be based on experience gained on working the special hardship allowance. I hope

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that the noble Lord will be able to say a little more about the principles on which the reassessment will be made. As I understand it, from reading the debate in another place, no one is to be the loser from the reassessment, and some 10,000 people not at present receiving supplementation are expected to get it, in addition to the 6,000 who are at present getting it. I do not know whether the noble Lord can confirm this. The Minister said in another place that the total extra cost to the scheme arising out of the Bill would be some £1,140,000. I wonder whether the noble Lord can tell us how much of the extra cost this particular provision, which is, after all, the major provision in the Bill, is estimated to account for.
It is intended that the scheme which is to be made to implement this Part of the Bill will set out a series of flat-rate allowances, ranging, if I understood the noble Lord correctly, from about 7s. 6d. to 47s. 6d., according to the loss of earnings determined by the Board. I should like to ask the noble Lord about the time when this scheme will come into effect. Clause 6 of the Bill has one short sentence regarding the coming into operation which I have been unable to interpret in this connection. So may I ask the noble Lord how long he estimates it will take the Board to reassess the loss of earnings for the 6,000 presently receiving supplement, and to sift out all the other 10,000 or more cases? How long will the process continue? When will men be able to get the new lesser capacity allowances? Will it be as soon as the Scheme is passed by both Houses, or will a later date be made in the Scheme? Will all the new allowances come into payment at the same time, or will they start to be paid as loss of earnings is reassessed? If so, will those at present receiving supplement who are awarded a higher sum be entitled to back payment to the start of the Scheme?
My Lords, there are three further points I wish to mention. The first is the problem of the "latents", those who have to live with some disability arising from an accident at work before 1948 and who received no compensation because, technically, there was no loss of earnings. Many of these men have suffered some permanent loss of faculty, and had the same accident occurred to
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them after 1948, they would have received disablement benefit. As it is, many receive notional payments to keep the cases open, as the noble Lord said. Until the Ministry conducted its inquiry, it was thought that the "latents" numbered about 50,000. Now it seems that there may be 200,000 or more, and that represents a formidable problem. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the provisions of this Bill mean that unless these "latents" are receiving compensation at present, unless there is an entitlement to compensation, as the noble Lord put it, as distinct from a notional payment, they are excluded from lesser incapacity allowance for ever? If not, what is the procedure? Must they still apply to the courts to have their case reopened and get an award on proof of loss of earnings before they can get an allowance under the Bill?
My Lords, it is never possible to achieve perfect justice. This Bill is designed to meet some of the reasonable and most clamant grievances, but it cannot meet all. It does not by any means put all those who had accidents before 1948 on the same basis as those who have had accidents after 1948. The noble Lord said at the end of his speech that it did rough justice. This means, of course, rough justice between existing beneficiaries and those who will become entitled under the Bill. But one is bound to say—I do not complain about this because of the great difficulty of the matter—that for some it will mean no justice.
There is another group consisting of those who elected to take compensation in a lump sum in place of regular payments. No doubt it will be said that they made their choice, and that is that. But the choice, my Lords, was between a particular sum and a particular regular payment. If subsequently you alter one side of the equation, is it fair to say that the other side must stand for ever and never be altered? I recognise the difficulty of getting evidence of what transpired in the past, but I think it reasonable to ask that this question should not be lost sight of. If I understood the noble Lord correctly, it means that these people are not eligible for unemployability supplement and constant attendance allowance. Is this really the position, and, if it is, can it be looked into?

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It is right to point out that all the supplements to workmen's compensation come from the Industrial Injuries Fund. Those who were totally disabled before 1946 never contributed a penny to the Fund, and the partially disabled who are contributing now did not contribute before they had their accidents. I am not complaining of this use of the Industrial Injuries Fund—far from it. It has been said, time and time again, with great force, that the present contributors do not grudge in any way these supplements. But let us draw the moral. If it is right for those who never contributed to the Industrial Injuries Fund to draw benefit out of it, it cannot be wrong to suggest that those who never contributed to the National Insurance Fund, or to the pension scheme that preceded it, should receive benefit from that Fund.
Lastly, may I ask about consolidation? Here we have an incredibly difficult sphere of the law, and although, obviously, these provisions will wear themselves out in time, I hope that it will be possible to consolidate all these provisions, now that the present steps are being taken in this Bill. I make no apology for asking all these questions. We all welcome the efforts made in this Bill to devise means of removing some of the existing anomalies, and, on behalf of those on this side of the House, I thank the Government unreservedly for the improvements to be made. At the same time, in its main provisions, this is an enabling Bill. We should like a much clearer explanation of the principles on which compensation is to be reassessed. I hope, too, that the noble Lord will be able and willing to answer the various questions I have put to him, if not today, then probably on the Committee stage. I shall well understand if he is not able to do it to-day. With that, I would give the Bill my blessing and congratulate the Government on having grasped a particularly awkward bunch of this rather rank bed of nettles.
4.12 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I rise to support the Bill. It extends the provisions from the Industrial Injuries Fund for men who suffered injury or disease and came under the pre-1924 Workmen's Compensation Acts and also for those who come under the post-1924 Work
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men's Compensation Act. I should like to congratulate the Government, and also the Minister, upon bringing forward this Bill to help all those people who come under what we call the old Act, or the old cases. The consequences of their disablement are still dealt with, in the first place, under the old compensation Acts. Under these Acts, compensation is a liability of the employers and a man's entitlement depends on whether or not he has lost earning capacity as a result of his injury. These old Acts were based entirely on loss of earning capacity and not on loss of faculty, like the National Injuries Act.
I may say to your Lordships that the old Acts were very unfair to the injured man. After his period of total incapacity, the man either went before a medical referee or a county court judge. I spent many years of my life attending medical referees and county courts, who in the main determined loss of the earning capacity of individuals. In numerous cases, like pelvis fractures and miner's mystagmus, we would get a report from the medical referee as follows:
"I have examined the said Mr. So-and-so and find he is still suffering from the disease or injury but he is able to do light work which involves no heavy lifting or stooping."
It was on reports like this, in many cases, that we had to ask a county court judge to determine loss of earning capacity. We could not find jobs in the pits of a character which involved no heavy lifting and no stooping. That kind of job exists only for Members of another place or of your Lordships' House. But it was on reports like this that men could get from 5s. to 15s. per week of light rate compensation. I have seen men who had lost an eye go back to their own employment; and under the old Act, once a man did this, there was no loss of earning capacity and he got nothing, though he was minus an eye.
If we were successful in getting a man a sedentary job, his light rate compensation came into the picture again. The law laid down that this type of man would get half the difference between his pre-accident earnings and his new earnings at the light job he was in. So, if a man was earning £2 10s. per week of pre-accident earnings and the judge fixed his light rate at 10s.

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a week and his new earnings were £2. he then got only 5s. per week, which was half the difference between these two earning capacities. As wages rose, this formula of half the difference eliminated the man's light rate compensation and he was merely paid a nominal sum per week to keep his claim alive; and the payment made in no way represented his true loss of earnings. Then, again, many men commuted their compensation for a lump sum, although they still suffered from their injuries., Many of them commuted for lump sums, contrary to the advice of their own trade unions.
In this very complex situation, arising from the old compensation laws, I believe that the Minister has produced a first-class Bill. The problem of the old cases has been dealt with by successive Governments since the repeal of the old Acts, as can be seen by the list of laws dealing with it since we passed the Industrial Injuries Act in 1946. Under that Act, we gave to men who were entitled to workmen's compensation, unemployability supplement and constant attendance allowance on the same basis as those injured after 1948 and who therefore came under the Industrial Injuries Act.
In 1951, the Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Act provided supplements of up to 2s. per week, subject to loss of earnings, for men receiving workmen's compensation in respect of injuries which occurred before 1924. This put these men in the more favourable financial position achieved by later Workmen's Compensation legislation for men—that is for post-1924 cases. The Industrial Diseases Acts of 1951 and 1954 provided allowances for time-barred men suffering from pneumoconiosis, silicosis or byssinosis, which became apparent only long after the men had left the employment that had caused the disease when it was too late for them to claim compensation within the time limits of the old Act. I remember in 1951 on this matter meeting Mr. Osbert Peake—I do not know his title in the House of Lords
LORD BOVVLES: Viscount Ingleby.
LORD BLYTON: I remember meeting him, as a member of the miners' group, to ask him to put back the appointed day to March, 1951, and he generously
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did more than we asked. He put the date back to December 31, 1950, and brought many more of my people with pneumoconiosis and silicosis within the scope of that Act. I should like, many years after, to thank him for what he did in that period.
The present rates of allowance are £2 10s. for the partially disabled, and £2 for the totally disabled, who, in addition, get the £4 5s. a week allowance under the Workmen's Compensation Act 1956. The Supplementation Act 1956 provides a supplementary allowance, now £4 5s. weekly, for totally disabled men at the maximum rate, and this also includes long-term incapacitated cases. In 1961, the Supplementation Act 1951 was extended to schemes under that Act to I cover partially disabled men entitled to compensation at the maximum rate in respect of post-1923 injuries. Payment of £2 2s. 6d., subject to loss of earnings, is available now under the Act to such men.
So, my Lords, over the years, with the great change which the National Injuries Act brought into the field of compensation to injured men while following their employment, the State has had to help the injured, the liability for whom rested on the private employer before the passing of the National Injuries Act. This Bill, therefore, is another step along the road of bringing those men injured before July 5, 1948, into the same category of benefit as those injured after 1948. It repeals the 1956 Act and part of the 1961 Act, and it amends the Supplementation Act 1951 and, also, the Industrial Diseases (Benefits) Acts of 1951 and 1954. It will enable schemes to be made to replace the repealed provisions, and provide, in addition, supplementary allowances to light rate compensation men drawing compensation at less than the full rate. There will be a basic allowance for pre-1924 cases which will provide equality between the pre-1924 and post-1923 compensation cases as a basis for other proposed allowances. The person who is fully incapacitated will now get a full incapacity allowance.
The 1956 Act will be replaced by this Bill, which will give 100 per cent. disablement pension to these people—less, of course, any workmen's compensation, or any basic allowance in payment, which they may receive. However, at the end

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of the day, these people will be on a par with those who are covered by the National Injuries Act. The light rate compensation man who is receiving light rate compensation for loss of earnings, or who has a basic allowance, is also provided for. The maximum rate for these people will be £2 7s. 6d. per week, and this will be graded to a specified range of loss of earnings. The Minister has said that the loss of earnings will be calculated by a different method from that used for workmen's compensation which I have described to your Lordships today, a departure that I believe will be more equitable than the older and now outdated methods.
I now come to the exclusions. The purpose of this Bill is to provide for the old Act cases who are in receipt of compensation, and who are receiving compensation for loss of earnings, and it does not cover those who do not come within this base. Those with a nominal payment, like those who have no nominal payment, both of whom rely on a declaration of liability in the county courts by the employer, or any other documentary evidence, are excluded from the Bill. I believe that there are some 200,000 men in this category, in a wide variety of circumstances, who had accidents before 1948 but who have no loss of earning capacity for loss of earnings by the old workmen's compensation standards. The Minister amended this side of the Bill in the House by saying that she will fix a nominal figure of 6d.; and I think that with 6d. as a nominal figure she went a long way to meet the Trades Union Congress and the unions who did this investigation before the Bill was promoted in the House.
For time-barred men the Bill enables a scheme under the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Acts of 1951 and 1954 to provide for men totally disabled by pneumoconiosis, silicosis or byssinosis an allowance equal to the amount of the 100 per cent. disablement pension under the National Injuries Act. This will increase by about 10s. per week the weekly amount now payable under the schemes as at present, and will place the totally disabled time barred man on an equal basis with the men under the Industrial Injuries Act. There is no change in the flat rate allowance of
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£2 10s. per week payable to those partially disabled with an industrial disease.
The Bill, as I see it, is one of great comfort to those unfortunate men who were injured and compensated under the old Workmen's Compensation Act, and in the main settles the problems that have bothered us for many years. The Minister has done exceptionally well to meet the difficulties arising from the anomalies of the old Act. The cost to be borne by the Injuries Fund will be of a diminishing character over the years ahead. Many of the men to-day, both those fully incapacitated and those on light rate, are getting on in years. The man who was injured in 1926 at 25 years of age is 65 years of age to-day; and there must be thousands over the age of 60. Those of us who are in the trade unions, and especially the Miners' Union—because at least 60 per cent. of these men will be miners—thank the Minister for what she has done. The recipients, I am sure, will feel that at last they are going to receive what their counterparts are getting under the National Injuries Act. I beg to support the Bill.
4.30 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I am most grateful to the two noble Lords who have spoken and welcomed this Bill, and I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for his appreciation of the difficulties in which I find myself. But perhaps I can answer some of the questions that he raised. He asked when the Bill was coming into force. It is planned that the Bill should come into effect by March 1 next year, but this is absolutely dependent on the Parliamentary timetable. The schemes to be made require Affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament and cannot be laid before the Royal Assent has been obtained to this Bill. In order to reduce delays to a minimum, as much administrative work as can be tackled is to be pushed ahead concurrently with the Parliamentary programme. Much of this work consists of inquiries of employers about the earnings situation of claimants, and their progress naturally depends on the continuance of the ready co-operation which has always been so forthcoming in the past to assist in the assimilation of the scheme. In

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addition, there may be as many as 10,000 —the noble Lord agrees—new beneficiaries involved and a correspondingly large number of claims to be examined in full for the first time. The timetable is so finely worked that it is absolutely dependent on no unexpected snags developing.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask him whether that means that if any of these cases are not actually settled by the time the Bill comes into operation, the beneficiaries will get the increased benefit—if it is a case of increased benefit or benefit that is being given for the first time—from the date of the coming into operation of the Bill, or will they get it from the date of the settlement'?
LORD BOWLES: I think that is the position. If they have not had their claims approved by March 1 then the award would be retrospective. I think that is the position, but if I am wrong I will write to the noble Lord.
On the question of consolidation, this has been done on the new scheme and a new consolidated Statute will be prepared immediately the Bill becomes law. The noble Lord asked me questions about the number of men now drawing compensation supplementary pension. There are about 1,350 pre-1924 beneficiaries and 4,700 post-1923 "partials". But the Department believe there might be 3,300 "totals"—both pre-and post-1924 groups.
On the question of the constant attendance allowance, the noble Lord asked: Will these men be able to draw supplementation? All men on workmen's compensation—that is to say, entitled to weekly payments—can draw constant attendance allowance and unemployability supplement on the same terms as their industrial injuries counterparts.
The re-assessment of existing "partials" is being got on with forthwith, and the assessment of new entries will take place after March 1, but we are making inquiries to get the best information in advance. As soon as the "latent" actually gets a compensation loss of earnings he comes in from being latent into the scheme itself.
As regards the cost, I may say that the extra costs are, as I think the noble
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Lord mentioned, £1,140,000. I think that is right. The totally disabled people will cost £65,000; existing partial beneficiaries, £100,000, and new "partials" £975,000. I think that adds up to £1,140,000, but it is rather difficult to do these sums while trying to listen to what the noble Lord is saying. There may be other points to which I have not been able to reply, and if necessary perhaps the noble Lord will let me know, or if my advisers find there is something I have not covered in this reply, they will let me know and I will write to the noble Lord. But it is rather difficult, in such a complicated subject to remember not only the last point the noble Lord made, but also the one he is making when I am trying to take it down. I am sure he will be sympathetic, because he has been Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. I am grateful to my noble friend, Lord Blyton, for his support, and I am glad that he and his friends seem satisfied as to the position of the "latents". If there are 200,000, and if they all begin to make applications, it will delay the commencement of this scheme for those 16,000 people who would begin to benefit under it if the machinery were not clogged up by considering claims that cannot possibly succeed. I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said, and I hope the Bill may now be read a Second time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

COAL INDUSTRY BILL
4.36 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the Coal Industry Bill be read a second time. Coal is an emotive word, woven deep into our economic history, past, present and future. It speaks of the foundation, and life blood, of our industrial greatness; of an industry which, even to-day, has an annual turnover of £900 million; provides two-thirds of our primary energy; and thus forms the basis of our economy. Coal also speaks of generations of struggle and tragedy; of the miners who labour in darkness and danger; of their pride, fierce independence, unquenchable loyalty, and the

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social solidarity of the mining communities. All this is contained in the cold, unemotional terms of this short, but vital, Bill, which will help to ensure the future of this great industry and protect the interests of the fine men who work in it. In a matter of such great importance to everyone of us there is, in my view, no room for Party politics, and there will be none from me.
The Bill's bare bones can be quickly exposed. Clause 1 replaces the National Coal Board's existing borrowing powers, which expire at the end of this month, with new powers, to borrow up to a limit of £700 million, which may be increased to £750 million by Ministerial order. Clause 2 provides for a capital reconstruction of the Board's £960 million debt to the Exchequer by permitting the writing off of £415 million worth of debt in respect of vested assets and advances. The remaining balance of £545 million debts will be replaced by a loan of the same amount which is included in the £700 million to which I have already referred. The clause also lays down the framework in which the writing down of these £415 million assets shall be treated in the Board's accounts. Clause 3 gives the Minister power to make grants, not exceeding a total of £30 million, against expenditure incurred in the redeployment of miners who lose their present jobs because of the acceleration of the closure of uneconomic pits. Last year the Board spent £3,800,000 for this purpose. And the Government's future contribution will be equal to half the additional cost above that figure, in any one year. Clause 4 will enable us to bring pension arrangements for Coal Board members into line with those already in force in the gas and electricity industries.
Now I should like to clothe these bare bones with the facts behind our proposals. First, the £415 million. In 1947 1,000 pits were still working: to-day there are only about 500, and 216 pits have been closed since 1960 alone. Pit closures are part of the natural history of coal, because pits become uneconomic or exhausted. But the increased incidence of present closures arises largely from the policies of the recent past. In the early 1950's the Government of the day, acting on the best advice, encouraged the Board to lay plans to satisfy a market for coal
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which might be as large as 240 million tons a year. This involved large-scale investment, some of it known to be risky, which was nevertheless undertaken to provide the coal believed to be necessary in the national interest. In the peak year, 230 million tons were sold. Since then, demand has contracted sharply, and in the last six years has been more often below than above 200 million tons. A further drop in demand is probable over the next five years.
The net result is that, in serving the national interest, the Board has become saddled with a volume of unremunerative investment. Last year over 150 pits, with a capital investment of some £140 million, incurred losses before charging anything for unavoidable overheads, capital interest, or depreciation. A further 100 pits, representing a capital investment of £110 million, paid overheads and depreciation, but not interest on capital. The fortunes of pits vary from year to year. Some in the doubtful category will survive, but unquestionably uneconomic pits are a crippling burden for the industry. Within the next five years some 200 pits will be closed, many of them because they are exhausted. The Government consider it right that the Board should be relieved of the burden of capital which is likely to be unremunerative in the years ahead. Then there are coking, ovens, which the Board was persuaded by the Government to build, or reconstruct, at a time of shortage of coking capacity. The expected increased demand on the Board did not materialize, and the Board has been forced to close excess capacity, and incur a capital loss on continuing plant of £16 million.
Next I come to coal prices. For a number of years where was a sellers' market for coal and the Board could have made substantial profits and accmulated considerable reserves if it had been free to exploit the situation. But, again and again, upwards of a dozen times, from considerations of national policy the Government of the day intervened I make no complaint of this—and the Board deferred or cancelled proposed price increases, and thus accepted a substantial loss of income it would otherwise have enjoyed. To-day we see the result in an accumulated deficit of £91 million. The process continues, because £15 million of the total which it is proposed

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to write off has been added in recognition of the Board's relinquishing of its recent intended price increase. It has been said, quite truly, that the taxpayer has to foot this £415 million bill. But, on the other hand, it must be pointed out that we taxpayers, as consumers, have, over the years, already received and enjoyed this money in lower prices and other benefits. We are merely now repaying our debt.
What benefits will it bring to the industry? There will be an immediate saving of £20 million a year in interest, and £10 million rising to £20 million in depreciation, which will no longer need to be provided—a total improvement of £40 million a year. In addition, the Board hopes to save a further £12 million to £15 million a year by a streamlining process which will reduce its administrative staff by upwards of 13,000 people over the next five years. Overhaul was obviously necessary to meet the needs of the more compact industry of the future. The changes will be made without creating substantial redundancy. In the process, the present five distinct levels of management will give place to three—just the Board, the areas and the collieries. This tighter structure will not only save a lot of money but will lend itself to more direct and intimate central control and greater scope for local initiative.
In short, my Lords, Clauses 1 and 2 of this Bill will provide a realistic capital structure, realistic interest charges, a clean slate, and a fair start towards a viable, economic, coal industry. And the Government are determined to ensure the right climate for success. We shall continue the duty of 2d. a gallon on fuel oil and the ban on the import of coal. The gas and electricity industries are using more coal this year, and electricity will have a massive dependence on coal for the foreseeable future, with its demands increasing by about a quarter over the next five years. This adds up to very substantial support, but it is based on common sense, not sentiment. Coal is our main indigenous fuel. It is a large import saver and places no direct burden on the balance of payments. Large quantities of coal will be needed for a very long time to come, in particular to enable our power stations to supply the country's needs.
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We have a large number of very efficient modern pits and they must be fully developed with adequate manpower, so as to make the best use of our substantial capital investment in them. The continuing collieries—more than 300—have a lot of expensive equipment. Nearly 80 per cent. of our coal is being won by mechanised methods compared with 2 per cent. in 1947 and only 37 per cent. as recently as 1960. We are entering a new era, not only of mechanisation but of electronics and automation, such as ROLF (Remote control for operating long wall faces). The fact that we shall be operating one of the most advanced mining industries in the world is an exciting, not a depressing, prospect. My right honourable friend, the Minister of Power, has refused to set limits to the future level of production in the industry. He rightly points out that the trends in fuel consumption indicate, according to the best informed estimates, that the demand for coal in 1970 is not likely to exceed 170 million to 180 million tons. But there are many imponderables, and we all know that for decades the "best informed estimates" have been consistently wrong.
What is needed is what is being done: creating an efficient, viable structure and favourable market conditions. The Board obviously shares that view, because between now and March, 1971, it will be investing in collieries £380 million in plant replacement and machinery, further mechanisation, et cetera, and it aims at finding this large sum from its own resources without borrowing. In these conditions, what is needed is not rigid targets but a determination to secure for coal whatever share of the energy market can be won by efficient effort.
And that brings me to the sad, but absolutely essential, step of closing 200 uneconomic pits. This, understandably, is bitterly attacked because it means that 120,000 men must lose their present jobs, and it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to view the question objectively. But of what use is it for men to toil in these pits every day, knowing that every ton of coal they produce not only loses money but makes things more difficult for the good pits? The salvation of coal lies in the development of the best and most remunerative seams. It is in the worst possible interests of the miners to

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permit the industry to be dragged down and held down because the good pits are made to carry the bad ones. The sooner we change this situation the better for everyone.
Obviously, however, everything humanly possible must be done to help the miners who will be displaced. Fortunately, jobs are waiting for more than half of them at pits within daily travelling distance of their homes, where their services are badly needed. Thousands more pit jobs will be waiting for those who are willing to move house. In all, over the next 5 years, £80 million (including the £30 million to be provided by Government) is expected to be spent in defraying the social costs arising from these changes. It is not an easy thing to move one's home and start work in strange surroundings. But the Government and the Board are determined to do everything they can to help, including the provision of houses for transferred miners, and education authorities will be kept in touch about schooling needs.
In addition, the Board is offering what my noble friend Lord Robens of Woldingham, the dynamic Chairman of the Coal Board, has described as the "best transfer scheme in British industry". I understand that the Board proposes that daily-paid workers will he guaranteed the same pay as before. Pieceworkers who move to new pits will receive at least three-quarters of their previous shift earnings, plus a five-day-week bonus and any overtime. This guarantee will last for from twelve weeks to two years, according to length of service. Those miners who travel daily to new jobs will have the cost of transport subsidized. if their increased fares exceed 5s. in a week. Temporary lodging allowance of £4 a week will be paid to those who move to other coalfields, and fares will be paid for visits home. When they move house, removal expenses and a £100 settling-in grant will be paid. Any extra rent for new houses will be paid by the Board in the first year, and rent aid will last four years.
I think it is fair to claim that these measures are well calculated to ensure that every displaced miner for whom a job at another pit is available is being given every encouragement to take it.
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We certainly need their help and skill. Unfortunately there will be perhaps 20,000 for whom, either because of disability, domestic reasons, or even geography, a job at the pits is no longer a practical possibility. We realise that, for human and economic reasons, it is of paramount importance that they should be quickly employed in other productive work.
The Government are acutely conscious of the problems of the areas that may be affected by such redeployment, and intend to take these into account in preparing plans for the regions concerned. My right honourable friend the President of of the Board of Trade announced on October 22 additions to the development districts, and these now cover all the closure areas where the employment position is difficult. Under programmes announced since this Government took office, 32 new advance factories are being built in mining areas. The Ministry of Labour is providing new industrial rehabilitation units for the retraining of disabled miners, and the areas concerned are generally well covered by Government training centres. Where the National Coal Board cannot offer suitable jobs within the coal industry, the men will be entitled to new and improved benefits under the Redundancy Payments Act which came into force on the 6th of this month. The National Coal Board will be giving particular consideration to the position of men affected by closures who may have special difficulty in finding other jobs.
The Government are determined to keep the position under close scrutiny in consultation with the economic planning councils. We shall keep in constant touch with the National Coal Board's detailed plans for colliery closures and with all changes in those plans. The object will be to ensure, as far as is humanly practicable, that alternative employment opportunities are available where and when they are needed. I would emphasise that any expenditure on these measures by the Ministry of Labour, Board of Trade and other Government Departments will be on their Votes and therefore additional to the £80 million. Every penny will be well and gladly spent. We think the action we are taking will prove adequate, but if other steps should prove necessary we shall not hesitate to take them.

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It has been alleged that morale is low in the coalfields. This is understandable, but unrealistic. It may well be that a few years hence we shall regard the industry as fortunate compared with others, in that in the change from a labour intensive to a machine intensive industry there is proper planning and full financial support to ease the pangs of transition. I would emphasise that the industry's future will be in no way confined. The Board will be encouraged to use its wide powers to develop its ancillary activities. It will seek to develop commercial schemes for new products in addition to existing byproducts, such as crude benzole. I think it is right for me to point out here that this Bill does not authorise the Board to engage in any activities which are not already permitted to them. The Board will have another stake in the future when, in due course, we ask Parliament to provide the necessary powers to take up the options which, as I announced recently, have been offered to them by two companies, to participate in petroleum operations on the Continental Shelf.
In this Bill, and with the other actions I have outlined, a British Government has, for the first time, recognised and ensured the position of coal in a comprehensive fuel policy. In this we are serving not only coal but the interests of the whole nation. With a greater proportion of output coming from a smaller number of efficient, modern units, the industry will make a major contribution to the strength of the economy and provide satisfactory and remunerative employment for hundreds of thousands of workers. We shall still have the largest coal industry in Europe, and one of the most efficient. With this Bill we are taking major steps towards the fulfilment of these major objectives. I believe it will enable coal to play a vital part in the future economy of the nation, and it is in that belief that I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill he now read 2a.—(Lord Stonham.)
5.0 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has been kind enough to give your Lordships a fairly clear exposition of this Bill, and indeed it is a very important Bill, because, after all, it is re-altering entirely the construc-
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tion of the Coal Board's finances. One cannot help thinking that it is a curious state of affairs that when a Bill of such importance comes before either this House or another place—for, after all, it is authorising the expenditure of £750 million and, at the same time, writing off about £400 million—relatively little interest is generated in it. If you shut up a battery chicken in a cage, you get demonstrations in Trafalgar Square. if you dispense with £450 million, relatively little interest is generated. But that does not mean, of course, that this is not of the highest importance; indeed it is.
The coal industry is subject to a great number of curious vicissitudes that are, I suppose, unique to it. They are the kind of situations that any primary industry has to deal with. There are the hazards which are connected with the coal industry; the method of working down underneath the ground is not one that readily attracts itself to many people. It is in that respect, and in the respect of having a unique part in the economy of the country, that it finds a special place in the affairs of the country, and on occasion has to have special treatment such as it is having under this Bill. It has, obviously, had a tremendous past.
The noble Lord. Lord Stonham, says that two-thirds of the energy of the country nowadays comes from coal. It is quite a salutary thought that only fifteen years ago 90 per cent. of our energy came from coal, and indeed the whole of the gas and electricity industries depended upon it for all their needs. Indeed, it has a tremendous future as well; but a future in which it requires to be reshaped, a future in which it may turn out that it will have different commitments and different responsibilities, and certainly a different method of going about them than it has had in the past.
This Bill helps to reshape the industry, and in that respect we welcome it. The noble Lord has given us a fairly detailed explanation of what it is about. There are one or two points about which I feel that we should possibly have more information. It is true that many collieries operate at a loss. In fact, I believe that in 1964 half of the industry's 540 collieries amassed total losses of about £60 million. Her Majesty's Government have recognised this difficulty, and have produced this Bill in order to try to help.

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I think it is bound to be only a question of help. I do not believe that this Bill in itself is a solution, despite the enormity of the sums involved, because about half of the Coal Board's losses is due to interest, and even if we eliminate the interest, it is still highly probable that there may be an operating loss. But if we write off £415 million (which, by any standard, is a gargantuan sum of money), I think that the Government must give the assurance that the rationalisation of the coal industry, which is so necessary, will really come about quickly, and in the quite near future.
The removal of this sum of money, and the interest on it which amounts to £20 million, must not of itself induce a higher production than the demand requires. Many flags have been nailed to various masts over the last two or three years about the coal industry. People have said—indeed, many people of the Party of the noble Lord opposite have said—that the coal industry should be entitled to set, or should set, as a target 200 million tons. This is what it was hoped they would be able to produce. Of course, the danger of nailing these flags to the mast is that it is rather difficult to prevent oneself from getting into an entrenched position. Indeed, the Minister of Power himself said in February that the present capacity of the coal industry
"is around 200 million tons, and there is no question of the Government arbitrarily requiring a reduction in this."
Since then we have had the publication of The National Plan, which has said that it is likely in 1970 that the demand will not be 200 million tons, but 170 to 180 million; so I suppose that in that respect the noble Lord's right honourable friend has had to make a meal of his own words. Not that I bear him any grudge for that; I merely think that it is a danger if we set too strong a target on the amount of coal that is to be produced.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if the noble Earl will allow me to interrupt him, I did say, I thought quite clearly—but if I was not clear I must say it again —that my right honourable friend has not set any rigid target, nor indeed any target at all. He has merely said that he thinks on the best advice available that the demand for coal may well be no more
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than 170 or 180 million tons five years hence.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I think that this is, up to a point, a question of splitting hairs, because The National Plan says that the expected demand is likely to be 170 to 180 million tons. But surely it would be unreasonable to expect anyone, be he a Minister of Power or a Chairman of the Coal Board, then to say, "Our target should be higher," because there is no point in setting a target higher than the expected demand. This, I think, is a point which needs some clarification, because the Government of the noble Lord has produced The National Plan which states this figure, and yet the Chairman of the Coal Board has consistently said that it is its intention to go for higher figures. Indeed, he has said
"We believe that it does not necessarily follow that the industry will inevitably contract to the 170 to 180 million tons."
That is understandable. But then, only the month before last, the Chairman of the Coal Board, when speaking to colliery managers, said:
"You and I are going to make a monkey out of that figure because we are going to make it 200 million tons."
Indeed, he is also reported as saying:
"The thing is to make the planners' plans go wrong if it suits your business to do so."
These are fine sentiments which I thoroughly admire in a leader of an industry, and I do not wish to decry that in the slightest. I think this is the kind of leadership that the Coal Board requires. But it seems to me that there is here a possible danger, because there is another side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that under this Bill we are removing a debt. It is not being eliminated: it is being removed from the Coal Board, and placed on to the shoulders of the taxpayer. I do not necessarily say that that is wrong, and I do not quarrel with it. But if Parliament is going to saddle the taxpayer with this debt, then they have the right to expect an assurance that this great relief (and it is a great relief, because it amounts to £20 million a year) will result in the rationalisation of the industry, and not conceivably in a possibly unwarranted extension of its efforts.

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I do not say that in any attempt to make Party politics or Party capital out of it, because, as the noble Lord says, this is a question which in many respects is non-Party. But I think that there is a real danger that we might, by relieving the Coal Board of its liability, possibly encourage it to go for the production of coal which may not in the future be required. If, of course, we are going to write off the sum to the Coal Board—not remove the debt altogether. but write it off from the point of view of the Coal Board—and pass it on to the taxpayer, I think it is right for your Lordships' House and another place to examine most thoroughly exactly what we are doing and to scrutinise it most carefully.
I am bound to say at the outset, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that I am dumbfounded by the mathematics which have been used in the calculation of £415 million. The looseness of calculation of this sum is quite extraordinary, and I would point it out to your Lordships. We are, in fact, under the Bill, writing off £415 million, of which £15 million is due to the fact that the Coal Board was prevented from putting up its prices until April 1. That brings the total down to £400 million. Lord Stonham was careful enough to give us a breakdown of the figure. I do not know whether your Lordships had a pencil and paper handy, but the aggregate of the figures he gave did not add up to £400 million.
As I see it, £91 million is the figure for accumulated deficit at March 27, 1965; £16 million is the writing down of the assets of coke ovens; £140 million refers to the writing down of investment of 150 pits which incurred losses before charging anything for overheads, interest or depreciation; and £110 million relates to the writing down of assets of 100 pits which incurred losses before charging interest. That total amounts to £357 million. There is an odd £43 million outstanding.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble Earl is not alleging that I did that sum, because if he studies Hansard tomorrow he will find that I did not. I mentioned the £91 million and the £16 million, but in my addition I did not include the other figures which the noble Earl has mentioned.
EARL FERRERS: The noble Lord was astute. I am not surprised, but the fact remains that had he done so he would have been bound to admit that there was a curious sum of £43 million which did not appear. Indeed, the noble Lord has gone so far as virtually to admit that he omitted to do the sum on purpose.
I should like to ask him what has happened to the other £43 million. Why has it been added on to the sum we are being asked to write off? The Government cannot just write off £43 million without some very good reason. The noble Lord has given us excellent reasons for writing off £357 million, but we are entitled to know precisely to what the other £43 million refers. I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Stonham—he has a second chance this afternoon, and no doubt he will be able to overcome his coyness—to tell us what this refers to. I hope he will give us a more direct answer than was given by the Parliamentary Secretary in another place, who said that they felt it right to take a cautious view and to allow this figure as part of this rounding-up exercise. I believe that we are entitled to a slightly better explanation than that.
The trouble, in dealing with figures of this magnitude, is that one tends to see them relative to one another and "43" may not seem very much as compared with "400", but one tends to lose sight of their individual enormity, which is vast. To expect anyone to write off £43 million without a very clear account of precisely what it is for, is stretching the bounds of patience a little far. So I hope the noble Lord will explain precisely what the £43 million does refer to, why it has been added, and how such loose calculations can have got beyond the Treasury. This is extraordinary, for the Treasury is not renowned for its largesse in this respect. Indeed, the noble Lord might explain to your Lordships why the taxpayers as a whole should now be subjected to £2 million interest per year on this sum.
The noble Lord explained that the remainder of this Bill deals with the pits which will have to be closed, and he mentioned the hardship which is bound to follow from that. It is true, and it is understandable, that pits will have to close. It is understandable, too, that hardship is bound to follow. It is only

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right to say, in all sincerity, that our hearts go out to people whose lives are going to be affected by this change—and this is going to be a vast change. In so many instances, the lives of people, their whole communities, they way of life, their friends—everything centres on the pits and the place where they work. Their friends work there; their grandparents have worked there, and possibly they may expect their sons to work there. The disruption which will occur is bound to be substantial, and much inconvenience will be caused.
Clause 3 of the Bill is designed to lessen the hardship by providing £30 million towards redeploying men in the industry whose colliery is closed by helping with redundancy payments, premature retirements, housing allowances for transferred miners, and so on. This is good, in so far as it helps people who are going to be put into inconvenient situations, but let us not lose sight of the enormity of the figure of £30 million. The whole object of the Bill is to reorganise the Coal Board, both physically and financially, and to rationalise it. This must be right. But nowhere are we told how long this rationalisation period is to take. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is not prepared to commit himself to a hard-and-fast figure. But I should be grateful if he would say whether he considers that it will be likely to take three years, five years or ten years. Can he give us some indication as to the period it will take to rationalise the coal industry, so that we can see it put on to a proper footing, against the background of the reliefs which are given to it by the Bill? The objective should be so to organise the Coal Board that it produces sufficient fuel for the nation's needs—and produces it not at a loss—and provides proper and suitable conditions for those engaged in it. Everybody would like to see that. Although it sounds simple, heaven knows! it is difficult to put into action. If it were a simple matter, a solution might well have been found years ago, but in trying to reorganise the industry Her Majesty's Government have our good Will. I think that they may find that they have a tiger by the tail. I hope they will succeed in controlling it, even if they have a little difficulty before it finally comes to heel. But, on the whole, we
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wish them luck with this Bill, and we hope that it will prove as successful as they desire.
5.14 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I am sorry that I have to inflict another speech on the House to-day, but it so happens that to-day two subjects have arisen which are near to my heart. On February 10 this year I put a question to the Minister:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government to make a statement as to when we shall get a coordinated fuel and power policy."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, Vol. 263, col. 125.]
My noble friend Lord Stonham requested that I should wait, after T had asked about the 200 million tons of coal which we had pledged as part of our fuel policy. In a supplementary question, I asked:
"… is the Minister aware that there is terrific pressure to try to put this industry back to a 160 million or 175 million tons? And is he further aware that this would mean the closure of 100 collieries, and that 100,000 men would be displaced, after the manpower has been reduced by 250,000 in the last five years?"—[Col. 127.]
I then asked him if the Government subscribed to that policy or whether they would carry out the pledge which was given. Lord Stonham replied that he had seen the reports to which I had referred, but he thought that they had been dealt with by his right honourable friend the Minister in a Written Answer the previous day. The Minister's Answer was that coal would be kept at 193 to 200 million tons per year. Then my noble friend Lord Stonham, quoting his right honourable friend, said:
"I hope this statement of the Government's intentions towards the coal industry will dispose of recent alarmist reports in the Press about the prospects of employment in the industry."
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, would my noble friend tell me from where he was quoting the last sentence?
LORD BLYTON: I was quoting from HANSARD of February 10. Lord Stonham then said:
" My right honourable friend was referring to exactly the type of statement to which my noble friend has just referred, and the Government … repudiate them."—[Col. 127.]
That is in Hansard. The pressure to cut this industry back was known by us for

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a long time before I put this Question, and I was really pleased when the Minister repudiated this, but I am sorry to say that my happiness was short-lived. By the end of March it was apparent that coal output was to be cut back. Surely the Ministry knew in February what was likely to happen at the time the Government were repudiating reports which they said were alarmist.
In July, on the Gas Bill, I again raised the question of the proposed cutback. I had no satisfaction. I pleaded with the Government for our pledge to the industry to be carried out, but my efforts were in vain. In the Recess, The National Plan came out. The position was far worse than I had expected when putting my Question in February. If my Question was alarmist in February, then The National Plan was really frightening. Instead of 100 pits being affected, it was 200 pits. Instead of 100,000 men having to go, it was 120,000. It was really astounding. In February the Government repudiate, and in September they do worse than we expected. The Minister's speech about the future of this industry, on the Second Reading of this Bill in another place, is also alarming. It is quite apparent, as I heard a prominent man say last week, that we have now moved from nationalisation to State capitalism.
I remember the night of the Third Reading of the Bill to nationalise the mines, in your Lordships' House. I can still see the scene that night in the Not-Content Lobby (which was then the "Aye" Lobby of the House of Commons). We sang the Red Flag and Cwm Rhondda as we registered our votes, and my noble friend Lord Stonham was there. The long fight against the old coal owners was over. To-day, however, I am afraid that the beautiful brass bands in Durham, where so many pits are to go, will now play the Dead March in Saul. The Nationalisation Act of 1946 had the cardinal principle that the Coal Board's attitude was to be that stronger districts would help the weaker and take us away from the awful district ascertainments which we knew in the old days, when every district had to stand on its own feet. Now, however, the new principle that I note is that every colliery by itself must stand on its own feet and, as the Minister put it, the Coal Board
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aims to close collieries which fail to cover their running costs and are not likely to do so in the near future.
Another statement by the Minister is that the whole plan is to prevent pricing economic coal out of the market. This is the same philosophy that I listened to for years from the coal owners in the 1930's, when we worked the pits. Let us face it. This is a departure from the principle on which the Nationalisation Act was passed. We recognised then that the price of coal would be so fixed that, broadly, the industry should make neither a substantial profit nor a substantial loss, and average prices were designed to cover average costs. This was also said by the Select Committee on Coal in 1958, when we sat for over two years investigating this industry. The Select Committee said that the Board's undertakings must be looked at as a whole.
I am not for one minute arguing for pits where the reserves are worked out. You cannot keep a pit open if there is no coal there. But to declare a policy that all pits which do not meet their running costs must go, regardless of the reserves of coal in the pits, is to waste our national reserves which one day we shall need very much. Does the new policy mean that pits with special coals, like anthracite and coking coal, are to go if they are uneconomic?—because we cannot meet the demand for anthracite to-day. And on this basis, every miner knows that the economic pit of to-day can be the uneconomic pit of to-morrow. So even "A" pits under this plan are not safe in the future.
I know I shall be told that what we did in 1947 does not fit the pattern in 1965. I regarded the basis of the 1946 Act—and I sat on the Committee which formulated the Act—as enshrining a Socialist principle, that stronger districts would help the weaker. I believed it was a good principle, and I still believe in it. But what will happen is to be seen in The National Plan. Closures are to be quickened, pits with thousands of pounds' worth of capital investment in them, with good reserves of coal, are given notice that the guillotine will fall upon them if they are uneconomic or "B" pits. The men in "A" pits now have a terrible fear that their turn may come to he "B" pits. Can you wonder, my Lords, that the men are angry, anxious; that their morale

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as to what the future of this industry holds for them is shaken to the very core? The men at the pits now are watching with deep suspicion, and this suspicion is grounded in fear—fear that once more they are to be the expendable counters in the giant game of economic chance.
This new policy for coal is linked up with The National Plan based on a 25 per cent. increase in national productivity by 1970, giving us XYZ millions of pounds extra in the national kitty. This increased revenue will be spent on social advancement and on meeting the increased imports of oil and natural gas. I believe it is estimated that oil is going to cost about £80 million a year extra, which will be a charge on our balance of payments. It is, therefore, on this basis that coal is cut back to 170 million or 180 million tons. I know it was said, "If you can produce 200 million tons and sell it, good luck to you!" But what this plan is doing is not only to prevent our getting the 200 million, but to cut us back, by capacity and by loss of manpower, so that perhaps we shall not get even the aims stated in The National Plan. The Plan is not directed to get 200 million, and what will happen is that, before we see 1968, there will not be the manpower to achieve the aims stated in the Plan.
However, production in this country has been rising by 2 per cent. per annum these last few years, and this year it will not be much more; so during the next five years we must increase productivity by 5 per cent. per annum to get to our 25 per cent. by 1970. I pose the question: what if we get only 15 per cent.—an average of 3 per cent.? What happens to all the calculations upon which we have based our ability to meet our balance-of-payments problems and to pay for the bringing in of oil in place of coal? You will not be able to re-open the pits you have closed; manpower will have gone; and again, no doubt, as in the past, there will be loud cries for coal and miners to get it. It will be a sad commentary if, some day, we have to import coal while leaving our own coal lying in the ground.
The National Plan and the White Paper, Fuel Policy, say the same things about coal, and this Bill is a reflection of the White Paper. Although it is admitted that the present growth in oil consumption carries with it risks to the
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security of supply, and increasing costs to our balance of payments; that in the long run, as exploration and recovery get more difficult and expensive, oil prices will rise, and that in the event of world trouble we leave ourselves very vulnerable, there is not much detail on these points in the White Paper as I read it. I support the Bill for the reason that its purpose is to provide £400 million to pay for the mistakes of the past.
The Plan for Coal in 1950 geared the industry to 240 million, excluding exports; the 1955 plan, Investing in Coal, geared the industry to 240 million, including the exports; and this £400 million is to pay for wrong guesses about the coal industry in the past. It is also to meet the cost of selling the output of coal at less than the cost of production, as was done in the past. It is to pay for the ten times when increases were refused to the Coal Board at a time when, in a sellers' market, they could have got a very high price. Much of the capital investment based upon the 1950–55 plan became unremunerative as coal sales started their downward trend.
Again, in the 1950's the Board had to give priority to the home market, which restrained the Board from building up or even maintaining their export trade and also involved the Board in costly imports. Coal imports caused the industry a £70 million loss as they had to sell the imported coal from America at the inland price, involving a loss of £2 10s. per ton. At the same time, their export market was given up: America got these markets in Europe, on long-term contracts, and we have not yet recovered them. The fact is that the Board can export only after the home market has been satisfied.
In paragraph 9 of the Select Committee's Report, when we investigated coal, there appears this comment:
"The Board found themselves in a kind of half world in which they were neither wholly a public service nor wholly a commercial undertaking."
It follows, therefore, that to criticise the Board for not always behaving like a commercial firm would be unjust, and might not be relevant to their proper function under the existing legislation. The Committee also said that it would be right to treat the Coal Board as hybrid,

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part-time business and part-time public servants. This is therefore the background to the £400 million embodied in the Bill. It is to relieve the industry of burdens they ought never to have carried.
The Coal Board also had to carry the burden of stocking coal in 1958 and 1959. The Board kept the pits open by stocking coal, and saved this nation hundreds of thousands of pounds in unemployment benefit, because if the collieries had closed the State would have had to pay the miners' unemployment benefit. The Board carried that burden, which ought to have been the nation's. We pay as a nation for storing our strategic oil reserves, but we paid nothing to coal. Another burden the Board had to carry —and still do—is that of mining subsidence. The old coal-owners never had the cost the Board have to bear of £1¾ million a year for mining subsidence damage. I am glad, therefore, that the Bill will give some recompense to an industry that has carried burdens which in the past should have been a national responsibility. I say to my own Front Bench that this Bill has at least revealed how utterly unreliable past Government planning for coal has been, and it should at least be a pointer to the Government to indicate that they, also, will probably be wrong in the future.
In my last speech in this House on the Address to the Throne, I gave a great many examples of how help had been given to other indigenous industries in this country—industries which are getting more relief than coal and which have never been asked to carry the burdens that coal has carried over the years. The £15 million that the noble Earl referred to in the Board's current financial provisions is, in my opinion, completely justified. For a few years now there has been price stability, and the increased productivity which has helped to bring this about is a credit to all in the pits, for this price stability could not have happened had we not increased productivity. But costs have risen and proceeds are falling, due to the small coal which now represents, and will continue to represent, a large part of the coal market. In these circumstances, the Board wanted an increase in price, but, due to Government decision, this has been held up. The Select Committee on Nationalised Industries (and
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this was a Conservative Committee: there were only a few of us on it) always took the view that where a Government made decisions against the commercial interests of any nationalised industry they ought to bear the loss. We said that in the cases of coal, gas and electricity. There is no reason whatever why a nationalised industry should suffer because of political expediency. This means that a total of £415 million will be written-off.
I come now to redeployment and the £30 million to be given up to 1970–71 to help in this massive job. The men affected are to be uprooted and sent elsewhere, many hundreds of miles from their homes where they have spent their lives; they have to lose their life associations; their children have to go to a new, strange school; and they have to find a house, probably at a higher rent than they were paying. They will be leaving employment in their villages, where they have face-worked and will go to a job that will give them £10 a week—a loss, maybe, of £5 to £6 a week. I know this will be cushioned for a certain time; but, ultimately, they will come down to about that figure. There will be men who are buying their own houses, who had thought their future secure but who will now find their whole lives upset and the worry of the mortgage still on their hands. Men of 55 years of age or over have not much chance of migrating, and the sick men, the injured men, the pneumoconiosis cases, have no hope at all of getting light jobs at the receiving collieries; for these jobs are already filled by the same types of men at the receiving collieries—and the mining industry employs more men of this type than any other industry in this country. Men will have to travel in their own counties some ten to twenty miles a day to an "A" or a "B" pit. And this puts two to three hours on their working day. There are the problems that the men in the affected areas will face.
My Lords, let me be quite frank. There is anger and gloom, not only in the areas affected but also in the receiving areas. We are to see in the future men breaking years of traditional attachment by advising their sons not to go into the pits. Miners' wives, in particular, are now taking this line—and no amount of exhortation will move these people from

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the attitude they are taking now. And if a man decides to migrate, what protection will he have? He might go from his village to an "A" pit only to find in two years' time that it is an uneconomic pit; and then he is again on the wander. It must be remembered that the basic principle in a pit is "Last come, first go". His chances of face work are also not too bright because the young men of the receiving pits will have first claim to move up to the face. Already the Yorkshire Miners' Council has decided to call a temporary standstill to the transfer of men from other areas because of the closure of 13 pits and because of the ten threatened pits in Category "B". But whatever men can be got to transfer, the cardinal principle must be that they are protected, given a fair chance, and given some hope in the future in the new areas to which they go.
What of the men who have to travel long distances in their own county? It is easy to talk about this when you are not affected; but to these men it means a longer working day. Even in the circumstances, men will get less wages than for the face work they have left. So they will get a longer working day and less pay into the bargain. Last week I talked to men who have come to pits in my area, which is a receiving area, and who had travelled 15 miles a day each way. They all told me that if another job came along they would leave the pit, because, as they say, the travelling each way is "killing them". I warn the Government now that this job is not going to be easy. We are dealing with human beings whose lives are being terribly upset.
Now, my Lords, for a moment I turn to the light-rate compensation men and to the sick men. Some of these men will go out of the industry altogether because their age and disability will not allow them to be retrained. But there are many thousands of men of this type and they cannot be left on the scrapheap—as they were and as I have seen in the days that are gone. And we must remember that these diseases and injuries affect the young men as well. Something must be done; and I would suggest to the Minister that no closure should take place until new industries are brought to these devastated areas and until these poor men
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are trained and given work. I would suggest that these closures be phased over a longer period to allow more chances of work being brought to the area. The Durham Miners' Union, like those in Wales, Scotland and Cumberland, are very anxious about what is going to happen to their people. While I disagree with the energy plan, we must see, if it is to be carried out, that the least possible hardships will affect the kind of people from whence I come.
The Durham Miners' Union have put forward a five point plan: one, that men who travel long distances to new pits must not be worse off financially as a result of having to travel; two, that account must be taken of the fact that the working day must obviously be longer; three, that in the case of families who have to move house, adequate arrangements must be made to provide new homes; four, that there must be special consideration and help for men over 60 years of age; and, five, that for men declared redundant there must be large training schemes and every effort must be made to bring new factories to the areas to prevent unemployment of these men.
In the time ahead, the people who will face the men who are finished work will be the trade union officials in the districts affected. Their job will be to protect their men as far as they can. I can assure you that this will not be an easy job. I should like to see in the unions in the affected areas—places like Durham, Wales, Scotland and Cumberland—represented on the Regional Planning Boards. It is essential, in this large redeployment of men, that the unions should have representation on these Boards and that they should have a voice in the new work that has to come—and especially in how it will affect the position of men of 55 years or over. I feel that in the coal areas affected by redundancy this representation ought to be given; and I hope that the Minister will bring my point of view to the proper quarters.
I welcome the provision of the £30 million cushion. The question I pose to the Minister is this: is it enough? The Board can build houses, make settlement allowances, pay for travelling, probably pay for loss of earnings for a while, and pay for men finishing work before they are 65 years of age. This amount has to be spread over all the coalfields. I am

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the first to appreciate that what the Government have done in this connection is something new, but I still think that the amount is too low. After all, it is a Government decision to cut out the redundant and uneconomic pits. I ask that they should pay a higher amount than is provided for in their formula, as in this great changeover, which will cost over £80 million, the Coal Board has to find £50 million. The coal consumers will have to pay that £50 million, and it should be a charge on the nation. The users of oil will escape.
My Lords, many of the problems which I have tried to express will have to be settled between the unions and the Coal Board, and all I can say is that I do not envy them their task. The tragedy of this National Plan is that for coal the decline is planned. In a future rising energy market, not only will coal get nothing, but production is to be cut back. Is there any wonder, then, that people in the mining villages are dismayed, and that young men are getting out as quickly as they can?
I notice that in another place the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry said that if we look at electricity, the industry which is the main customer of the coal industry, we see a vast increase in demand for coal which will run at about 24 per cent. between 1964 and 1970. If this does not happen, the future will really be desperate, for the target then would be 130 million tons or 140 million tons. Nevertheless, it remains the fact that, on the Government's own statement, the energy demand will rise 6 per cent. each year, and coal industry production is being cut back to 170 million or to 180 million tons. We are dropping back, not advancing. The object of this Bill is to reduce capacity and the output of coal. Lord Robens of Woldingham fought against this, as he was entitled to do, and I believe that he was defeated by the economists. He has fought hard for the industry, and I think it ought to be said that whatever other disagreements may exist, the plan banks on a continued import of oil and natural gas from the North Sea, together with nuclear power.
My Lords, I listened to the Minister talking about ROLF. Let me say, as a man who has spent years in the mining industry, that the remote control machi-
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nery for operating long wall faces will not operate in Great Britain as a whole, but only under suitable conditions. Therefore it is wrong to bank on this machine as being the Alpha and Omega of output in the 1970's. Behind all the facade of high-sounding words and impressive predictions, the energy policy in the Plan is really a question of speculating with our future.
For security reasons, we must have an indigenous source of fuel. At the moment, coal is an insurance, but in order to balance our mining books we are to increase our vulnerability, and lose a skilled labour force which may be needed some day, perhaps sooner than we think. In my opinion, this country must protect itself against to-morrow, even though this may appear to involve an uneconomic investment to-day. It is not the help which the Government have given to the mining industry of which I am complaining; it is that those who have advised the Government to cut back on the industry have not shown imagination in their approach to our own fuel industry, or given hope to those employed about their future. Unless this hope is given, I am afraid that redundant men will seek other forms of livelihood, and redeployment will be made much more difficult. I ask the Government to look at this matter again, beause I think that we are treading a very dangerous road.
5.56 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, for more than twenty years your Lordships have had the privilege of hearing in this Chamber the authentic voice of the coalfields. Lord Hall and Lord Lawson are no longer with us, but I am sure that we are all very pleased that my noble friend Lord Blyton is here to carry on the tradition. As he mentioned, I have listened to the music of his voice for many years. The music was just the same to-day. On this occasion, however, I found the words to be a little out of tune in some cases with my own thinking, and sometimes, indeed, with the facts. Nevertheless, his words were welcome. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, for saying that he welcomed the Bill, and to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for his welcome, and for the fact that he desires the Bill to go on its way with his good wishes.

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In between, there seemed to be some doubts expressed by both noble Lords. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, managed on one occasion in one sentence—this is the first time I have ever heard it—to nail flags to masts and get into entrenched positions. That may have accounted for the apparent confusion in some of the points which he put to me. I would say earnestly to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and to my noble friend Lord Blyton that I should be extremely grateful if to-morrow they would read the speech which I made about an hour ago. With respect, it seemed to me that both speeches to which I have listened were made without any reference to what I had already said; and if the noble Lords would be kind enough to do me the honour of reading what I did say, they would find that a great many of the questions they asked had already been answered. I shall certainly go carefully through the report of their speeches to see whether there are any other points with which I am unable to deal now. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I am brief, because there is a great deal more business to come.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, asked for an assurance from the Government that the rationalisation of the industry will be undertaken soon. That is a paraphrase of his words. I do not know exactly what the noble Earl means by "rationalisation", but it is certain that the Board, as it has announced, intends to close approximately 200 pits over the next five years. Of these, it is hoped to close more than half within the next two years.
But, of course, the process of rationalisation goes on beyond the mere closure of pits, because there is mechanisation, and further improvement in techniques. My noble friend Lord Blyton mentioned ROLF. I agree that this does not provide the whole answer, but these things have their part to play. Rationalisation is not only in the pits, it is in the whole organisation; and the intentions of the Board with regard to administration have been announced. They too will proceed over the next five years. All these things are part of the rationalisation, and if it is achieved, as it will be, within five years, I think that it will have been extremely speedy. If I wished to be contentious, I
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could say that it is a pity that it did not start five years ago I want to make the point that rationalisation is a continuing process; one cannot say in five years' time that the industry is rationalised: leave it alone". It is evolving all the time.
Both noble Lords made a great deal of the target figure of 200 million tons. I dealt with this in my speech and was very careful in what I said. My noble friend took me to task about what I said on February 10 in your Lordships' House. I interrupted him at one stage to ask where he was reading from, because I could not identify what he was reading with anything that I said. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I repeat what I did say.
My noble friend asked me:
"Is the Minister aware that we pledged, in our own energy policy, that a minimum of 200 million tons of coal would be used in the country? Can we be assured that that policy will still continue?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 263, (No. 37) col. 125; 10/2/63.]
I said:
"… my noble friend the Minister of Power made the position perfectly clear when he said yesterday in another place that the Government accept for the present the case for trying to maintain the position of coal at around its recent level of 190 million to 200 million tons, and are studying methods of assisting the industry's efforts accordingly."
I was then asked by the noble and learned Viscount. Lord Dilhorne (col. 127):
"… does the noble Lord agree that a pledge was given, as was suggested by the noble Lord who asked this Question, by the Party opposite to keep the output at 200 milion tons a year?"
I replied:
"I cannot recall any pledge having been given in the precise terms as I heard them stated just now. The pledge which was given was one which was again repeated by the Minister of Power in another place yesterday, and his answer indicates that the pledge, like all the pledges given by this Government, is being carried out."
I did not recognise what my noble friend said to-day as a quotation from Hansard.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, would my noble friend repudiate the fact that 100 pits will close, and that 100.000 men will be out of employment?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I do not want to read the whole of Hansard, but I do not repudiate anything, and I have nothing to retract now. What my

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right honourable friend announced on the Second Reading of this Bill is entirely in line with the statement I made in February.
Let us come down again to the question of what the sales of coal are likely to be. I repeat, we have not fixed any target. I hope that my noble friend will not go around the country saying the kind of things he has been saying, because it is not helpful. I can well understand that the miners are concerned, as my noble friend says, about the future; but it does not help if one of his experience and eminence in the industry takes on the role of Cassandra and keeps on saying things which have not been said and are not intended. The figure for coal depends on a great number of assumptions, including relative fuel prices, and if the Board—I say this advisedly—succeed in reducing costs sufficiently, the demand could well be higher; and with the necessary additional men, additional quantities could be produced to meet such a demand. The Government are not seeking to prevent the Board from exploiting such a situation, should it arise.
Having taken the most expert advice possible, it is thought that five years hence the demand for coal may be only 170 to 180 million tons. But that is not fixing a rigid limit. I must again say to my noble friend quite categorically: it is not true to say, as he said several times, that we have cut back the coal industry, or that it is being cut back. That is certainly not true.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, what is the reason for the exercise of closing 200 pits, if it is not cutting back?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should have thought that my noble friend, with all his experience, would know the object of the exercise, which I tried to explain. If there are pits that are exhausted or pits which are losing substantially on every ton of coal mined. then they are dragging down the good pits; and if we continue to extract coal in such circumstances this could well ruin the industry altogether.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, is the noble Lord really saying that the Government are not cutting back the coal industry? Because my interpretation of it is that they are proposing to do this on
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purpose. That is the reason why I support them in this. If he is saying that they are not cutting back, then we shall have to think again.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl will think again, because I am saying this advisedly. If the noble Earl wishes me to do so, I will repeat the statement. It is just not true to say that the coal industry is being cut back. I will spell it out again. The demand for coal in five years' time will he between 170 and 180 million tons. If the noble Earl reads my first speech, he will see that I then said, "But we know that the experts have always been wrong." I said that also deliberately. But if that is the best advice we have, it behoves those in charge of the industry—including my noble friend Lord Robens of Woldingham as Chairman of the National Coal Board—to have regard to this figure. Obviously, the Board cannot run up tremendous deficits by producing more coal than they can sell, a principle which would apply in any other business. And if the Board do not produce coal that they cannot sell, that is not deliberately cutting back. I mentioned the favourable climate for coal which we have created in the market and we shall continue this. It is right that these facts should be known.
The noble Earl asked me about the figure of £415 million and said that the mathematics used in this calculation was extraordinary. The problem which confronts the Government on this matter is not to decide how much of the Board's investment was unremunerative at some past date, but what part of its capacity is likely to be unremunerative in the years ahead. In looking at the problem, the Government have in mind the heavy losses that have been incurred in the Board's coalfields, implying low earning capacity for their assets in future, and also the large number of pits that have failed to earn anything towards their interest charges; and in looking ahead they had to decide whether the amount of unremunerative capital in 1964 was likely to increase or decrease.
That is not a question which could be decided by calculation, because many of the elements which would have to enter into the sum are not predictable with sufficient precision. What I am thinking

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of, for example, is the rate of improvement of productivity, the extent to which the Board can hold its labour force together in the profitable coalfields, and the level of demand for coal at varying prices. Having regard to the difficulties which confront the Coal Board, the extent of their currently unprofitable activities and the expected further contraction in the market for coal, the Government thought it right to take a cautious view of the future earning powers of the Board.
With the other items that I mentioned in opening and the accumulated deficit of £91 million, we decided on the sum of £400 million as the right amount for cancellation. I emphasise that this was not arithmetic, but judgment. And with the interim statement of revenue results for 1965–66, which we now have, I do not think anyone can reasonably contend that the Government's judgment was wrong.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, may I just ask the noble Lord this question, because I think it is important? He has given us a series of figures, which are arithmetic, of what is being written off, which adds up to £357 million. There is £43 million extra. From his reply, which I must say, with respect, is totally unsatisfactory, it looks as if the £43 million has been added in order to make a convenient round figure of £400 million. Is this really the answer the noble Lord has given? If so, why was the figure of £400 million chosen as opposed to £350 million? The noble Lord says that he is being cautious; but he has added on £43 million, which I should have thought was being quite the reverse of cautious.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Earl's fundamental error in his arithmetic is this. There are £91 million accumulated deficits, £16 million coking ovens, totalling £107 million. He deducts that from £400 million and gets £293 million. He then says, "All right, £140 million is in respect of 150 pits, and £110 million is in respect of 100 pits; that is 250 pits." It is not like that, because it is not certain that the 150 pits or the 100 pits will necessarily be the ones to be closed. As I indicated in my speech, these things change. To put it another way, some pits in the "B" list may be all right, while others, even in the "A" list, might not be. So you cannot do the arithmetic
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in this way. I repeat that it is not a matter of arithmetic, but a matter for judgment.
I do not want to detain the House any longer than is necessary, but I should like to answer one or two points made by my noble friend Lord Blyton. He asked passionately: "What are you going to do about special coals, such as anthracite?" The answer is that, in arriving at their conclusions on closures, the Board have taken into account the need to maintain essential supplies of quality coals. It does not mean that pits producing such fuels will close or that they will necessarily stay open. This is a matter for the judgment of the Board.
My noble friend said that he believes in Socialist principles, and that the strong should help the weak. He said that an eminent friend of his had said that what we were doing was not nationalisation, but State capitalism. What are we doing?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD STONHAM: I do not think this is a joke. I think this is a very serious matter, and of the greatest moment to some of the best men in this country. I do not think it is a matter for laughter. It is expected that some £80 million will be spent in the transfer of 120,000 miners who are expected to be displaced to other jobs. At the utmost extent of our hopes, I do not suppose that anyone will imagine that we shall be able to persuade out of that 120,000 more than 80,000 to go to jobs in other pits. If we succeed in doing that, and spend £80 million to transfer 80,000 men, that is £1,000 a miner. I do not say it is not worth every penny. My noble friend may be right to ask: Is it enough? But nobody can suggest that it is niggardly. Nobody can suggest that we are not trying to encourage these men, whose skill and services we need, to move to other jobs. My noble friend said that some of them will have to travel to other parts of the county. I pointed out that extra travelling expenses will be refunded to them. He spoke about singing the Red Flag in the Lobby in 1946. I can think of some great friends of his, and mine, not in 1946, but in 1930, who had to walk all the way from Durham to Somerset before they could get a job.
I, for one, am very happy to think that it falls to this Government to make

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the arrangements that we are now making to endeavour to transfer these valuable men from pits which are exhausted to others where their services are badly needed and where there is a deficiency of workers whose labours can help to make this industry, not only viable, but very successful, and can increase its contribution. I think that this is a worthy task to do, and that it can be accomplished by means of this Bill.
I would only add, finally, that if it should prove that there are any things that still need doing, other than what is now promised, we shall certainly consider them: because it is the firm intention of the Government, in so far as it lies in their power, to give coal once again a firm and efficient basis, and to see that it has the chance to go on in the foreseeable future to supply the energy, or a great part of the energy, that we in this country need.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed; Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE BILL
6.18 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. An Act of 1944 enabled grants to be made in aid of local authority schemes for water supply and sewerage in rural localities. They were limited at that time to a low figure, and they have been increased by successive Governments up to the present total of £75 million, of which £71 million has either been paid or committed. The remaining £4 million would only carry us on to next summer, and it is therefore proposed that that limit should now be raised to £105 million. This is, accordingly, a Money Bill.
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I think your Lordships might like to know, on broad lines, what the present position is. The piped water supply is now available to about 96 per cent. of the rural properties affected by this Bill. It is hoped by about 1971 to increase that to 98 per cent. We may therefore say that what is required is not complete, but is at any rate approaching completion.
As regards sewerage, there are no such detailed figures, because the piped water supply figures come from Census figures which are not available for sewerage. However, returns of a fairly comprehensive character made in 1964 showed that about 30 per cent. of the parishes likely to be affected were effectively served, and that about 22 per cent. were partially served, in some cases with works already programmed. About 24 per cent. were not served, but work was programmed; and in about 24 per cent. there was nothing. So that, on those figures, the sewerage position is not so satisfactory as that for piped water supply. But one has to remember two things. First, sewerage is more difficult to deal with, because piped water is under pressure and can therefore be brought to places more easily; and, secondly, because there are in the country still a number of houses—and, I would say, villages, too—where sewerage is not really needed in the same way as a piped water supply is needed; it is possible to make other satisfactory arrangements. So, while it is clear that a good deal yet remains to be done in this field, the position is not so unsatisfactory as it might appear.
I think your Lordships will find that there is no conceivable Party point in this matter. These Acts have been operated at about the same rate under successive Governments. The initiative rests with the local authorities. Of course, the amount in any given year may vary, within limits, but, broadly speaking, over the years there has been steady and not wholly unsatisfactory progress. I beg to move
Moved, That the Bill now be read 2a.—(Lord Mitchison.)
6.23 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I should like to support this Bill. I do not think I need do much more than underline

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what the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has said about the progress made in recent years in extending the services of both piped water and piped sewerage. I think I am right in saying that about fourteen or fifteen years ago something like 21 per cent. of the rural houses in this country lacked piped water. The noble Lord has told us this afternoon that that figure has now dropped to 4 per cent. and that in six years' time—which would appear to be slightly longer than the duration of the £30 million provided by this Bill—it will have dropped still further to about 2 per cent.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, may I just explain that the date I took was the date of the Census, when the figures became available.
LORD NEWTON: I am obliged to the noble Lord. Obviously, one does not want to be complacent about this matter, and undoubtedly in many parts of the country there are at this moment of time more than 4 per cent. of rural houses without piped water. But 4 per cent. is the average over the whole of England and Wales, and, on the whole, I should think that that is something of which the country can be reasonably proud. I should doubt whether anything like so good a situation exists anywhere else in the world.
As the noble Lord told us, the story of piped sewerage is not quite so good, and there is more leeway to be made up. But that is, after all, what one would have expected. It is, as he said, very difficult; and although sometimes it can be very necessary, in some places piped sewerage is not so essential as piped water. Septic tanks can be perfectly satisfactory. I live on the outskirts of a large village and when, eighteen months or two years ago, it was provided with piped sewerage and a proper disposal system, which was very necessary in the middle of the village, I did not feel it very necessary to seek connection to it because my septic tank was very good —and still is, touch wood! Nevertheless, I think that anyone who has driven about the countryside in the last few years, and who has kept his eyes open, cannot have failed to notice work in progress to install piped sewerage. This Bill will undoubtedly help to carry on the good work,
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and I have no doubt that the House will wish to give it a speedy passage.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I rise briefly to support this Bill. Having spent nearly all my life in a rural area, I know just how welcome this is, especially to the villages where at the moment they have neither piped water nor sewerage. It is good to know that over the country as a whole 96 per cent. of the rural areas now have piped water. But the position in regard to sewerage schemes is not nearly so good. It is true that many local authorities have a splendid record, in providing both piped water and sewerage schemes for the people living in their areas. Swaffham Rural District Council, in Norfolk, where I live, have a splendid record. They have completed their piped water supply, and are getting well on with the sewerage schemes. But some of the other local authorities, I am sorry to say, are not nearly so progressive.
I support this scheme wholeheartedly, but I hope that it will be possible for the Government Department, when they notify the local authorities that this extra £30 million will be available for the coming years, to give a prod to some of the backward villages who so far have not done as much as they ought to have done, and see whether they cannot "gee" them up and provide both water and sewerage schemes. There are a number of the smaller villages, especially in the more remote parts of the country—and these are the most difficult places—where they have neither piped water nor sewerage schemes, and at certain times of the year this is a real problem. I hope my noble friend will take note of what I have said about trying to stir up the slower authorities. Apart from that, I give the scheme my wholehearted support.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, while supporting the Bill, may I remind the noble Lord that over 22 years £75 million has been required, which is an average of about £4 million a year. Yet apparently the extra £30 million is to last for only five years. Is there any particular reason for that increase in the annual grant?
6.28 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, the reason is that expenditure has been increasing in recent years, partly no doubt

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because things cost more, but partly, too, because there has been more done—and I am very glad to hear it. I have nothing to which to reply, except to say to my noble friend Lord Hilton of Upton that I quite see what he has in mind, and I am sure that both the Minister and, even more important, the local authorities who have the initiative in this matter, will read what he has said. He pointed out, quite rightly, that as the work progresses the difficult cases—the expensive ones—remain to be dealt with, and therefore the last 2 per cent. or 4 per cent, or the last 20 per cent., is the hardest for the local authorities.
If I may respectfully say so to your Lordships, I am sure that many noble Lords sitting here have considerable influence where they live, and it would be an excellent thing to stir up the local council to take advantage of these pretty generous grants. They are 35 per cent., with some deductions and limits. They are quite a good bargain, and piped water is worth having. It would be unkind to remind authorities that in some of these cases there are default powers—they do not like being reminded of that. But a little urging word from the Ministry, or from anyone else concerned with the health of the countryside, would, I am sure, be welcomed.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

VIETNAM
6.31 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the initiatives they have taken to bring about a negotiated cease-fire in Vietnam as a preliminary to a renewed Geneva Conference, or other international conference, to conclude a peace settlement. The noble Lord said, my Lords, I think it is appropriate that we should discuss this matter to-night. During this week the Prime Minister will be meeting the President of the United States of America. I am quite sure that he will pay attention to expressions of opinion in another place, both yesterday and to-day; and I am hoping that he may also pay some attention to expressions of opinion in this House.
But there is a much more important reason why this issue is urgent. I
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believe that we are now at the moment of decision in Vietnam: the moment of decision whether, in these coming days, steps will be taken towards securing a peace by negotiation, or whether the war will be intensified and extended. The American Government has announced that the large force of 200,000 already there may be increased to 300,000. Sometimes, with memories of the Spanish Civil War, I have the great apprehension that it may be a rehearsal of a world war. It is conducting a war which, short of atomic and hydrogen bombs, is making use of every type of destructive weapon, however cruel those weapons may be. Whilst America is increasing its military strength in those ways, there is now evidence that North Vietnam also is extending its use of troops. The war may last for years. At the end of it, Vietnam will he burned to death.
But there is not only the tragedy of what is happening in Vietnam itself: it is now clearer than it has been before that there is a great danger of this war extending in South-East Asia. There is the danger, because North Vietnamese troops are passing through Laos and Cambodia, that military action may be extended to those territories. There has been the allegation that at one of the ports of Cambodia ammunition is being imported to assist the North Vietnam troops and the troops of the National Liberation Front, dubbed by the Americans "Viet Cong", in South Vietnam. My first suggestion to the Government, therefore, is that they should support the proposition made by the Cambodian Government, that the International Control Commission, consisting of Canada, India and Poland, should be asked to supervise the introduction of arms into Cambodia so that it may not become involved in the war.
My Lords, no one could have read the responsible reports which have been appearing in the Press this week without apprehension that the war in Vietnam may spread in South-East Asia, not only to Laos and Cambodia but even to Thailand. There are reports now of guerrilla action in that territory. There is a report this week that the Americans have decided on a complex military base of vast proportions, covering not only the Air Force but the Army, supplies and a deep harbour for naval vessels.
One is most disturbed by the references which are now being more frequently made in America about the possibility of the war's extending to China. The Secretary of State, Mr. Dean Rusk, has remarked that:
"The confrontation problem is one which Peking has to face; we are going to meet our commitments."
and Mr. Alistair Cooke, in the Guardian, in a dispatch dated December 11, says that the President is on the verge of a grave decision, either to move towards peace by negotiation or—and I quote:
"to face the fact of a long war, possibly with China".
The Press references to the new and elaborate base in Thailand clearly indicate that it is directed not only to the present war in Vietnam, and the danger of war in South-East Asia, but also to China.
I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the danger of the expansion of the war and of the need for some negotiated settlement, if that danger is to be met. The official view at present, both in this country and in America, is that the United States of America is prepared to begin peace negotiations and that North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front are refusing. This view demands objective consideration. I think we can put it like this: that North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front have asked for the acceptance of the terms of the Geneva Agreement as the basis of any negotiations; the United States of America have offered unconditional negotiations, but have indicated that they will accept a settlement only on the conditions which they lay down. I submit to your Lordships that, in effect, there is little difference between those two approaches. If the United States of America does not accept the terms of the Geneva Agreement, there is no prospect of successful talks. On the other hand, if North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front do not accept America's minimum conditions, there is also no prospect of successful negotiations. The question I wish to ask to-night is how this problem can be resolved.
The Geneva Agreement, on which North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front are insisting, laid down four principles: first, the recognition of the
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independence, the integrity and the unity of Vietnam; second, the opportunity for North and South Vietnam to unite within two years by free elections; third, the withdrawal from Vietnam. North and South—later on from the united country —of all foreign troops and bases; fourth, the neutrality of both South and North, while they remain divided, and, of the whole of Vietnam when it becomes united —their neutrality from all foreign military alliances. These would include, of course, any Communist alliances with China and with Russia.
I want to emphasise to-night that the British Government are committed to those four principles. I have already paid tribute in this House to Sir Anthony Eden, who was one of the Co-Chairmen with Mr. Gromyko, of Russia, at the Geneva Conference, for the contribution he made to these decisions. Not only did the British Government—and a Conservative Government—endorse the principles of the Geneva Conference, but France, Russia, China also were among the Governments which accepted. Of the Powers outside Indo-China, the subject of those discussions, only the United States declined to accept those decisions. I emphasise as strongly as I can that this country is committed to the principles of the Geneva Agreement as a settlement of the war in Vietnam.
It is true that the North Vietnamese Government has not only said that those principles of the Geneva Agreement must be the basis of a settlement, but has stated conditions in a rather different way. They have stated them in four points. I heard them when I met the representatives of North Vietnam on my first visit to Soviet Russia in August of this year. But in order to be completely fair, I will repeat them in the terms used by Senator Mike Mansfield, the leader of the Democratic Party in the American Senate. He put these four conditions under which North Vietnam is prepared to enter a peace conference in this way: one, recognition of the rights of the Vietnamese people arising from the Geneva Agreement; two, that the division of Vietnam shall continue pending peaceful reunification, but that all foreign forces and bases shall be withdrawn; three, that the internal affairs of South Vietnam shall be decided by the South Vietnamese people alone, in accordance with the National Liberation

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Front programme and without foreign interference; and, four, the peaceful reunification of Vietnam to be eventually settled by the Vietnamese people in North and South without foreign interference.
Those four points are not inconsistent with the Geneva Agreement. I find it very significant that Senator Mansfield, the spokesman for President Johnson's Party in the American Senate, accepted three of the points—points one, two and four. He interpreted point three as meaning that the United States must agree that the future pattern of South Vietnam must reflect the programme of the National Liberation Front. In fact, the wording of point three can be interpreted in one of two ways. It could mean that in accordance with the National Liberation Front programme the South Vietnamese people should have the right in principle to decide their future, or it could mean that that future should be in accordance with the National Liberation Front's programme. I should like to see this point clarified.
However, if in fact one looks at the programme of the National Liberation Front one sees that it is not inconsistent with any progressive democratic country. I have that programme here in my hand. Its terminology sometimes would be offensive to America, and perhaps not acceptable to many in this country. But I quote from its first two clauses. The first clause is to form a national democratic Coalition Administration. The second clause is to bring into being a broad and progressive democracy; promulgate freedom of expression, the Press, belief, assembly, association, movement and other democratic freedoms; and to grant general amnesty to all political detainees. I will not detain the House to read the whole of that programme. I hope it may he in our Library, and I would ask Members of this House to read it. I repeat that, while its terminology may not he acceptable, if one analyses the actual proposals made one sees they are not inconsistent with a democratic and free society.
One prevalent misunderstanding is that North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front are insisting on the application of these proposals before any conversations take place. When I met the representatives of North Vietnam and of the National Liberation Front in Moscow in August, the North Vietnamese cate-
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gorically said that they had never asked for the withdrawal of all American troops before discussions take place. They ask for it in the final peace settlement; they do not insist upon it before talks take place. While the National Liberation Front were not so categoric as North Vietnam, they also intimated that they were not demanding, before conversations for a cease-fire and a peace settlement took place, the withdrawal of all American troops.
While difficulties remain for any negotions, I want to emphasise as strongly as I can that the overwhelming impression which I had from my talks with representatives of North Vietnam, the National Liberation Front and the Russian Foreign Office, was that if the American Government would specifically say they would accept, one by one, the principles of the Geneva Agreement which I have quoted this evening, negotiations for a cease-fire and negotiations for a peace settlement could take place.
I want to turn now from the attitude of North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front to that of America. The claim is made that they have offered unconditional negotiations for a cease-fire and for a settlement. I quote from the Washington correspondent of The Times in its issue of November 18:
"… it has now emerged that President Johnson's offer of unconditional discussions to bring the war to an end is not so unconditional as he said in his Baltimore speech. There are at least two conditions.
"The first is that political recognition of the National Liberation Front as part of a final settlement is unacceptable. The second is that it cannot be permitted to retain a territorial base similar to that given to Pathet Lao in Laos.
"These conditions, it was learned to-day, are not open to negotiation; the Administration is not prepared to negotiate without their prior acceptance. The reason given is that political recognition is the first objective of the National Liberation Front, and indeed is what the war is all about. A possible future situation in which the N.L.F. could take part in a coalition with non-Communist parties is not permissible.
"Moreover, overall American strategy demands that the line between the Communist and non-Communist worlds in Asia must he held as in Europe and Berlin. There can be no compromise.
"All this makes nonsense of the public position of the United States."
That report is from the Washington correspondent of The Times. Only

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yesterday Mr. Rusk, the Secretary of State of the United States, said in Paris:
"The United States still wants peace talks on Vietnam but only if South Vietnam independence and territorial integrity are guaranteed."
This is the real dividing issue. America wishes to contain Communism by a permanent military wall on the Seventeenth Parallel. I think it is a political mistake. Ideas will leap military walls; the issue between opposing ideologies will be decided finally by the judgment of the world's peoples on which pattern of society provides the greatest freedom and the greatest justice. But to-night I emphasise specially to a British Government, which is committed to the Geneva Agreement, the fact that American policy is a repudiation of the Agreement which was blessed by Sir Anthony Eden (as he then was) on behalf of the Government of which he was Foreign Secretary, and also—I would ask the Minister who is to reply to note this fact—that it is a repudiation of the terms for a peace settlement which has been announced by our Foreign Secretary, Mr. Michael Stewart. The American Government, if it says it will not go into negotiations unless the Seventeenth Parallel is made a continuous political division between North and South Vietnam, is challenging both the Geneva Agreement, to which we are committed, and the policy which our own Government have urged.
Often it is said that North Vietnam will occupy South Vietnam and impose upon it Communism, and its reunification with North Vietnam as a Communist State. I discussed this matter with the representatives of North Vietnam. They surprised me a little by saying that they were prepared to accept two separate Governments, in South Vietnam and North Vietnam, for a longer period than is laid down in the Geneva Agreement. That period is two years. They are prepared for a longer period of separate Governments. Incidentally—and this interested me greatly—they said that one of their reasons for that is that, while North Vietnam is a Communist State, the programme of the National Liberation Front is not Communist. In North Vietnam they have collectivised agriculture. The programme of the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam stands by the policy of peasant proprietorships. The North Vietnam representative said, "We
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are prepared to accept a longer period of different government in South Vietnam, and are prepared that there should be reunion only by the free choice of the peoples of South Vietnam."
The Prime Minister is going to the White House this week. I urge him to ask the President of America to announce in clear terms the acceptance specifically of the point of the Geneva Agreement to which this country, to which the past Government and to which this Government, are committed.
I repeat those terms: the independence, the territorial integrity, and the unity of Vietnam; the right of South and North Vietnam to unite by their free choice in the Geneva Agreement after two years; and as part of the settlement—but again I emphasise they are not insisting on this before negotiations—the withdrawal of all foreign troops and bases from Vietnamese territory; and, lastly, agreement by Vietnam that it shall be militarily neutral from all foreign military alliances, which would mean that it could not unite in either an alliance with China or an alliance with Russia. If our Prime Minister succeeded in getting President Johnson specifically to accept all those four points, I have no doubt whatsoever that talks for a cease-fire and a peace settlement could begin. The tragedy of the 25 years' state of war in Vietnam could he ended. The danger of an extended Asian war, and even of world war, could be avoided.
We are approaching the season of peace and good will to all men. The National Liberation Front of South Vietnam has proposed a Christmas truce. The Americans in their response have, unhappily, been lukewarm. One of the most remarkable events of the World War was the Christmas truce, which the soldiers themselves observed irrespective of their high commands. This time let it be the decision of the higher human commands to accept the highest Divine Command which has been given to the human race. Let it be accepted as a truce, not only over Christmas, but over a period in which both sides could get together to begin negotiations, so that they may end the tragedy which is Vietnam, and so that they may give not only hope of peace, but hope of freedom and justice for its people.
7.3 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, it is late, and I do not propose to detain your Lordships for more than a few minutes, but I should like to make a few comments which might be regarded as supplemental to the Question by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. I find myself in substantial agreement with the noble Lord's observations in some respects, notably his proposal, if I understood it aright, that there should be some kind of supervision or control of arms imports into Cambodia, and also, in general, as to the desirability, if possible, of getting back to the principles of the Geneva Agreement. I agree with him on both those points, but I should like to make some further reflections on this terrible problem.
Nobody can dismiss this dismal subject without a deepening sense of horror and frustration. We learn from our newspapers that the war is being conducted with the utmost brutality. Prisoners are often tortured and killed; booby traps abound; and everybody suspects everybody else. The front is everywhere. From time to time harmless civilians are blown up or massacred. The idea that there is now any valid indigenous Government in South Vietnam has been largely abandoned. The South Vietnam Army, if what we hear is right, now hardly functions, and the Americans, rightly or wrongly, seem to be out to impose their will, even if that means putting in half a million men and spending 10 to 20 billion dollars. They have the means to do this if they will.
But for the time being, at any rate, as we all know, the Viet Cong seem to be maintaining themselves in the swamps. The Americans crash around in the jungle with their steam hammers, but the mosquitoes are not obliterated. No doubt if our Allies pursue this policy and go on long enough they will succeed, but the danger is that the operation may be successful and the patient die. People who, like myself, have not been to Vietnam and know nothing about the war except from newspaper accounts have nevertheless little right, I suppose, to criticise their tactics. The Americans say that it is the Viet Cong who began this mode of warfare and that they have only responded. Nor is anything we say in
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this place very likely to have much effect, I regret to say, on the actual course of events. Even the Government, for quite obvious reasons, may find it difficult to advance any criticism, even if they would like to do so. It certainly looks as if British advice on the actual conduct of the war would become increasingly unwelcome.
But it must also be said, and it has often been quite rightly said, that our Allies have a bear by the tail and that they simply cannot let go. It is also said that they would never allow South Vietnam to join a Communist North Vietnam, even if the South Vietnamese, as a result of free elections, decided that this was what they wanted to do. This was one of the points made by Lord Brockway. This seems to me a much more dubious proposition. In the long run the Vietnamese, like the Germans, will no doubt come together somehow, and the inhabitants of South East Asia will probably not in the long run come under the domination of any outside Power, whether it be America, China, or even perhaps in the dim and distant future India. Neutralisation of the whole area is indeed something which we should always aim at and I hope we always shall. On the other hand, it remains true that if the Americans were forced to abandon South Vietnam there would be likely to be highly unfavourable results in neighbouring countries and all concerned would make haste to come to terms with the great new emergent Power which is China. In their efforts to avoid such a situation we must certainly back our Allies up.
How, then, is it conceivable that things will work out? Naturally we must do all we can to encourage any reasonable attempt to get the two parties round the Conference table. It may be that the suggestions made by Lord Brockway are the right ones—I do not know. There may be others. But we certainly must do all we can to get negotiations going. Unfortunately, things have come to such a pass that in this respect, whatever we may desire, our hopes may be dupes. It seems to me that there are now two broad possibilities: either the Americans take the decision to crush the resistance of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong by all possible means, including, if necessary, the obliteration of Haiphong and Hanoi and, if necessary, the bombing

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of the Chinese supply bases in Yunnan, involving an obvious risk of Chinese participation in the war; or they concentrate on building up their position in South Vietnam by pouring in men and materials, cutting out the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and organising South Vietnam for the time being on the lines of an old fashion colonial dependency.
This choice seems to be not very dissimilar to one which confronted that wise man President Truman in 1950. If he had followed General MacArthur's advice and, indeed, the advice, I think, of quite a number of important people in the Senate and elsewhere in America at that time—and had gone all out to unite Korea under Western influence, he would have run an acute risk of an all-out war with China, and even possibly with Russia. If he did not accept that advice —and he did not—then he knew that he would be accused of defeatism, of a "no-win" policy, of the so-called appeasement of Communism. Nevertheless, his choice was right. A truce was eventually negotiated. Korea remained divided, but Asia, and indeed the world, remained at peace.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, does the noble Lord remember that it was by the intervention of a Labour Peer?
LORD GLADWYN: I am coming to that, my Lords. If there had been a war with China, no doubt the Chinese would have been defeated. But how exactly could the Americans have coped with the ensuing mess? That was the problem. Would the Americans really have attempted to restore Chiang Kai-shek; and if they had done so, what would have been the effect in Asia generally?
The same sort of situation, I suggest, presents itself at the present time. The analogue to the bombing of Manchuria is, as it seems to me, the bombing of the Haiphong dykes and the factories in Hanoi, and if even that does not work, then the bombing of the Yunnan bases. When it was a question of the bombing of the Manchurian factories and the Yalu bridge, Mr. Attlee (here I think I am saying what the noble Lord was about to say) went out to America and gave his advice to President Truman. I remember that very well, because Mr. Attlee stayed with me in my house in New York
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on his way out at the end of November of that year.
It so happens that at this critical moment in our destiny Mr. Wilson is going out to see President Johnson. Will he give the same advice; and will the President take it, if he does? Quite possibly not. But in that event we should at least have done our best. So far as this House is concerned, I hope that there will be few, if any, dissentient voices as regards the broad advice, however unpopular, which I have endeavoured to sketch out, and which should now be given.
7.13 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, I am somewhat at a loss to know how to reply to this debate. I certainly do not want to stand here, nor have I any right to stand here, as the defender of United States' policy in Vietnam. I have no greater desire to appear here as being in any way callous about the suffering which is taking place in Vietnam, nor oblivious of the very great dangers to many other people, as well as to world peace, in what is going on there. There are many things that my noble friend Lord Brockway has said with which I am in complete agreement, and yet, for some reason, our basic conclusions are very different. There is much of what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, has said with which I am also in agreement. There, too, I would not say that I am in disagreement with his final conclusions at all. But he has not, if I may say so, tackled what I think is the really essential problem with which we are faced.
This struggle has now been going on for many years. It has become increasingly violent, and there has been an increasing degree of suffering, not only on the part of the people who are actually engaged in the fighting, but also on the part of innocent people, whether they are the people who are bombed by mistake by American bombers, who are mutilated by Viet Cong explosives in the middle of Saigon, or who are simply in the way of one or other mass of military movement and suffer accordingly. That is increasing as the years go by, and with it, of course, goes all the civilian suffering—the suffering which comes from a shortage

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of food; inability to cultivate the soil; inability to bring up one's children in a normal decent life, to send them to school, to teach them how to become useful, good, constructive citizens. All that is escalating It is not what is normally meant by escalation, but in my view it is perhaps even more important and more frightening than the more readily accepted forms of escalation.
How can this be stopped? We believe — and here we are in complete agreement with the Americans, and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said this on many occasions—that this fighting can be brought to an end eventually only by talking, and the sooner people get down to talking, the sooner there will be an end to this suffering. I am quite sure that my noble friend agrees with those sentiments. So the problem is a painfully simple one: how can we get people together to talk? I could go through a long list of attempts that have been made by ourselves, by other countries, uncommitted countries, the Commonwealth and the United States, in order to bring this about.
My noble friend knows well the White Paper published in August, Recent Exchanges Concerning Attempts to Promote a Negotiated Settlement of the Conflict in Viet-Nam. He may not yet have had a chance of seeing a further White Paper published only to-day, a copy of which I believe is in the Library, entitled Documents relating to British Involvement in the Indo-China Conflict, 1945–1965. From these two documents there is a mass of evidence indicating the efforts that have been made by Her Majesty's Government, by other countries and by other leaders, in an attempt to bring this war to an end.
Specifically, I would mention the talks which my right honourable friend had in March, when Mr. Gromyko was over in this country, to try to get him, as one of the two Co-Chairmen of the Geneva Conference, to help in an initiative. That was followed up in Vienna in May, when the Foreign Secretary met Mr. Gromyko; and it was followed up on the third occasion this month, when my right honourable friend was in Moscow and was talking to him. Those are but three instances of the attempts made by Her Majesty's Government to get talks going so as to bring this fighting to an end.
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Unfortunately, in so far as our Soviet Co-Chairman is concerned, we have had no success, and there has been no effective follow-up of any of those three initiatives—any more than there has been any follow-up of the proposed Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Mission or—rather earlier than that—the attempt by Mr. Gordon Walker, when he was undertaking his tour for the Government, to get to Hanoi, or of the visit of my honourable friend Mr. Harold Davies to Hanoi during the summer.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I am appreciative or what the Government have attempted to do, but would the Minister not agree that it is very difficult for a Government which is supporting one side in this conflict to be an effective mediator for peace between two sides? Is it not rather like a football match in which the referee has got all his bets on one side to win?
LORD WALSTON: It may be difficult —in fact, it is difficult—but I do not think it is impossible, given good will. But I would remind my noble friend that we are not the only people who have made these efforts. There was the notable effort by the President of India, who has not taken sides. The leaders of seventeen unaligned countries, including President Nasser, President Tito, Dr. Nyerere and other prominent and completely unaligned leaders also made this effort. So, while I freely admit that we have failed and that our task may have been made more difficult because we are known to be allies of the Americans—we make no bones about that, and we do not hide it in any way (although being an ally does not necessarily mean blind support for everything that is done) I would point out that, even when people not tarred with that brush make an attempt, their attempts meet with equal failure.
But, my Lords, I do not really think that we can get very far by producing evidence, on one side or the other, of who said what, or by producing quotations. I have here many quotations of what President Johnson actually said in his Baltimore speech setting out his peace aims. I also have here what he said very recently indeed, in a statement to the Convention of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations in San Francisco. I will

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just briefly quote from that statement, because it is the most recent of them. President Johnson said:
"At the same time, we are equally determined that every prospect for peace be exhausted before other hard steps are taken. Only this week we reviewed our efforts for peace in detail. Our efforts to communicate our desire to talk about peace were met with silence from some, shrill propaganda from others. On the crucial question of readiness to meet without conditions, the response in Hanoi—and still more Peking—remains completely negative.
"Let us hope, however, that even at this hour reason might prevail in the minds of other men who hold the key to peace.
"All over the world, in every capital where we are represented, our Ambassadors are waiting for some word that those men, too, want peace and are willing to talk about it. I have given the Secretary of State special instructions to make sure that no one is uncertain about our purpose."
My noble friend laid stress, and properly so, on whether these talks, of which we have heard so much, which were offered by the President of the United States were in fact with or without preconditions. He quoted the Washington correspondent in The Times of November 15, who throws doubt upon it. I do not know whether they are in fact without pre-conditions or not, but I am prepared to accept that if the President of the United States says he is willing to have talks without pre-conditions, that is what he means. But, even if one were to have doubts about it, surely the right thing to do if one wanted talks would be to call his bluff, to take up the challenge, and to say, "All right. You say you will have talks without pre-conditions. We shall come along". If the President then starts to make conditions and says, "Oh, but no; we will not talk with you", or, "We will not talk about this", or, "We will talk only after that", then the world will see that there are in fact conditions attached. But that challenge has not been taken up by Hanoi. My Lords, I only wish it had been. Instead, they have refused to have any talks whatsoever with him, with no pre-conditions. They have laid down certain conditions which, to my mind, cannot be met because they prejudge the case.
What we in this country want, what I believe the Americans want, and what I am quite sure my noble friend wants, is that, in the first place, peace should be
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restored to both South Vietnam and North Vietnam, and that those two countries, separated for the moment, should be allowed, after a suitable period for the restoration of peaceful conditions (which takes a long time after a war of this kind), perhaps under some international supervision, preferably the United Nations, to have free elections—elections which will not be influenced either by the National Liberation Front or by Generals who exercise completely undemocratic power in South Vietnam. We want supervision to prevent both those forms of influence and, very possibly, intimidation.
When there is sufficient stability and peace-time conditions have been sufficiently restored, there should be these free elections so that the people of each country can choose the form of Government they wish to have. If, having chosen their own freely-elected Government, they then decide they will unite together with each other, so well and good—nothing would please us more. But we do not want one side to be swamped, absorbed or intimidated by the other; and that is what we are guarding against. That is what the fight is about, and that is what the Americans, I believe, are fighting for —in order to preserve or re-create (to create for the first time would perhaps be a more accurate way to put it) in South Vietnam the conditions where people can freely and without fear choose their own Government.
Now the actual words of President Johnson in his Baltimore speech on this point—and I think it is worth quoting them—were:
"Such peace demands an independent South Vietnam—security guaranteed and able to shape its own relationships to all others—free from outside interference—tied to no alliance —a military base for no other country".
My own interpretation of the words,
"able to shape its own relationships to all others"
is that they undoubtedly give it the right, if it so wishes, to have a closer relationship—in other words, to join—with a neighbouring country, which could well be North Vietnam. President Johnson went on:
"These are the essentials of any final settlement. We will never be second in the search for such a peaceful settlement in South Vietnam…

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"We have stated this position over and over again fifty times—and more—to friend and foe alike. And we remain ready—with this purpose—for unconditional discussions."
My Lords, as I say, that seems to me a statement with which, if you believe what it says, we can all of us agree; and it is a challenge which I believe any of the protagonists or people concerned in this fight should be prepared to take up. I am sorry they have not taken it up. As I say, I could quote your Lordships extracts from some of the Chinese newspapers, or from speeches by some of the North Vietnamese leaders, which might suggest reasons why they have not taken it up—that in fact they are not interested in this form of peace. They are interested solely in humiliating the United States and in ensuring that the people of South Vietnam do not have free elections and do not choose their own Government, but are swamped by North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front.
My noble friend shakes his head to that. As I say, I could quote your Lordships examples which suggest that. I am not stating categorically that that is what they wish, but there is some evidence that some of them are motivated in that way. But they can only prove their good intentions; they can only prove the good things they said to my noble friend during his visit—and I am delighted that he went there and spoke to them; I think he may have some slight influence on them—by accepting this challenge of the Americans to talk, and to see, in fact, if there are conditions or not.
The actual wording of this question was:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the initiatives they have taken to bring about a negotiated cease-fire in Vietnam as a preliminary to a renewed Geneva Conference, or other international conference, to conclude a peace settlement."
My Lords, the answer to that is that we have made this statement. I have made it to some extent to-night, but it has already been made, in far more detail, in the two White Papers to which I have referred. I believe that they produce evidence, which it is very hard to disregard, that throughout all these negotiations Her Majesty's Government have at all times been ready to take the initiative; on many occasions, have, in fact, taken the
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initiative; have invariably encouraged the initiatives of others who have taken them; but that none of these initiatives have met with any positive response either from the Government of North Vietnam or, I am sorry to say, by our Co-Chairman, the Soviet Foreign Minister. But, in spite of that, we shall continue to exert, sometimes in public, sometimes in private, all the pressure it is in our power to exert. Undoubtedly, in the talks that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will be having with the President at the end of this week the matter will be discussed, and the President will have no doubt at all (not that I think he has any doubts at the present time) as to the views of Her Majesty's Government on this matter.
My Lords, we want peace there as sincerely as anybody does. That peace can come only through discussions. If at any time, either as Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference or in any other way, we can be of assistance in bringing about those talks, we are ready to do all we can. If at any time it appears that a further initiative will be profitable, we shall undoubtedly take it. But all I can say, in conclusion, is that at the moment the evidence before us suggests that the unwillingness to talk lies more on the North Vietnamese side than on the American side, and it is therefore there that the greatest pressure, I believe, should be brought.