Lords Sitting of 15 July 1965

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester

WATERWAYS AND SALE OF LAND
3.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ask the British Waterways Board to stop all sales of land which may prejudice future decisions to re-open waterways until the major policies now being prepared are announced.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, the Board are, of course, aware of the need to avoid taking any action which may prejudice future decisions on waterways policy. The merits of individual cases, however, must be a matter for the Board's judgment.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, and quickly assuring him that I am not going on bombarding him with questions about water for forty days after St. Swithin's Day, may I ask whether he is aware that this policy of selling bits of waterways has not always been a success in the past, and in fact it has made a perpetual state of loss an absolute necessity on those waterways where it has been followed?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I am afraid—or, rather, I am not afraid; it is the fact—that the Board, within its managerial responsibility, has to dispose of property, and it is part of its managerial responsibility to judge if and when it should do it.

THE HOSPITAL BUILDING PROGRAMME
3.7 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: 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 when they propose to make a statement regarding the hospital building programme.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD TAYLOR): My Lords, the Hospital Building Programme in England and Wales is under review. In order that the various authorities responsible for the services should have enough time to consider and work out their plans it is not intended to announce the results of the review this year. It is hoped that they will be published during the first half of 1966.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, but is he aware that it is very unsatisfactory? Is he aware that Regional Boards in many parts of the country are extremely concerned about this delay? Is he further aware of the great deal of cutting back which is going on at present in the building programme, and would he not agree that this is hardly the policy of a so-called dynamic Government?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I would not agree with any of the statements of the noble Lord. In the first place I know of no evidence that Regional Boards are regretting having enough time to consider their plans. One of the points of this new procedure is that they should consult local health authorities and local executive councils and concert their plans. In order to do this properly, they cannot get their work done before November. I know of no evidence that Regional Hospital Boards as such are finding the time any too long.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, can the noble Lord confirm the statement that the last plan was published in September, 1964, and would he not agree, putting it at its lowest rate, that fifteen months is a very long time before any kind of

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subsequent plan is published, so that the general public can know what is going on regarding the hospital programme?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, this plan is made necessary because it was found that the resources available were nothing like equal to what was proposed in the original Plan. Secondly, it was desirable that geriatric and psychiatric patients should be properly dealt with and their needs weighted in the plan, and as I have already said, the other services should be co-ordinated with the plan. These are the three reasons why it has taken longer to prepare.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, will my noble friend assure the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, that the Government are not only a so-called dynamic Government—they are in fact a dynamic Government?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, can the noble Lord give a rather better explanation for this further delay? My recollection is that we were told, I believe by the Minister himself, at the beginning of this year that the next edition of the plan would be published by the end of this year. What is the explanation for this still further delay?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, in fact I said it would be published in the first half of next year. I have been looking to see what my right honourable friend said in his very lengthy statement in February. I believe he indicated that it would be published at the end of this year or the beginning of next.
LORD NEWTON: That is what I said: at the end of this year.
LORD TAYLOR: In this connection their is little difference between the end of this year and the beginning of next year.
LORD NEWTON: Surely there is a great deal of difference between the end of this year and half way through next year; it is six months' difference.
LORD TAYLOR: On the contrary. I said in the course of the first half of next year.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that for thirteen years the Regional Boards were always complaining about lack of funds from the
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Conservative Government? Is he further aware that plans of Mr. Enoch Powell, who was then Minister of Health, for future advancement in hospitalisation could never have been fulfilled in the economic circumstances with which we were left by the Tory Party?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, they could not be fulfilled in any circumstances.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, what on earth is "hospitalisation"?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, to sum up, could my noble friend say that the present Government are now proving conclusively what we said at the time the Plan was announced by Mr. Powell, that this was nothing but "pie in the sky"?
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I ask what is the difference between the end of this year and the beginning of next year?
LORD TAYLOR: Presumably, my Lords, one day.

CLEANING OF DERELICT WATERWAYS
3.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will request the British Waterways Board to permit properly organised groups and societies to clean up dead waterways provided that no cost, liability or future commitment falls on the Board.]
LORD LINDGREN: No, my Lords. This is a matter for the Board. They assure me, however, that they value co-operation with voluntary bodies, and that they are always ready to consider specific suggestions for schemes of this kind on their merits.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, would my noble friend urge the Board to move as fast as they can in this matter, because there is a danger that certain local groups, if they do not receive this permission, may even take matters into

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their own hands? Would the noble Lord consider what the position would be if this did happen? Would the British Waterways Board seriously consider clearing them off this property?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend and many other noble Lords will have seen the annual report of the Waterways Board for 1964, in which the Board welcome and appreciate the help of voluntary societies. Schemes, in conjunction with voluntary societies, are already in operation on the Kennet and Avon Canal, the Stourbridge Canal, the Chesterfield Canal and the Stratford-on-Avon Canal. This fact is, I think, fairly good evidence that in a considerable number of cases the Board are only too happy to co-operation fully and to take advantage of voluntary labour, where it is available.

THE BRADFORD POST OFFICE BUILDING
3.15 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the substantial reconditioning and extension of Bradford Cathedral and of the massive reconstruction of the central area of the city, they can now give a definite date for the intended removal of the Post Office building which now gives such offence to the amenity and prospect of the area.]
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, discussions with the local authority are still taking place, and it is too early to report their outcome.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, in view of the fact that this matter has been under consideration for thirty years, or longer, can the Minister confirm that the local authority have offered alternative suitable sites? And in view of the tremendous demolition that is taking place over the whole city, is this not a moment when an announcement on this disfigurement could be made?
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, I know this site well, and let me assure the noble Lord that there is no delay whatever on the part of the Post Office in this matter. But he will appreciate that it needs two sides to come to an agreement; and the question of price is involved.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, how can the noble Lord say that there is no delay? This matter was under discussion some forty years ago, when I was in another place, and it has been discussed ever since. Surely that seems to be delay?
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, I have been into this matter very thoroughly, because I was intrigued to find that this Question concerned Bradford. I have made lengthy inquiries, and the noble Lord will find out himself, if he makes inquiry from the Corporation of Bradford, that the delay in this matter is not attributable to the Post Office. The matter has been further complicated by the death of the previous Borough Engineer.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his full reply. This matter is important to the City of Bradford. Am I right in understanding that it is the Corporation who are causing the delay, and not the Post Office?
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, it is a question of agreement on terms, and agreement on terms has not yet been reached.
Loup BARNBY: My Lords, will it take another thirty years?
LORD HOBSON: I hope not.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a statement on the visit of Mr. Harold Davies to Hanoi.
BRITISH WATERWAYS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
3.18 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Third Report from the Select Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move that the Third Report from the Select Committee be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
The Committee's Report was as follows:
HYBRID SPECIAL ORDERS
The Committee have considered a request by the Minister of Housing and Local Government for the exemption from the provisions of Standing Order No. 216 relating to hybridity of Orders for the reorganisation of local government made under Sections 23, 24, and 41 of the Local Government Act 1958 and have heard evidence thereon.
The Committee recommend that the Standing Order be amended so as to exclude such Special Orders from the provisions relating to hybridity.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Report be agreed to. In moving this Motion this afternoon, on behalf of the Procedure Committee of your Lordships' House, I consider that my duty lies in explaining the Motion to the House, so far as I possibly can, although perhaps I should not assume that all your Lordships do not fully understand the whole of this Report and all that it implies. It is not my duty to decide the merits of this matter, but simply to try to assist your Lordships to sum up the question and decide upon it for yourselves. Therefore, I regard it as my duty to clarify and explain it, so far as possible, and to leave other Members of the House to act as advocates on either side. The decision, of course, must be wholly that of the House itself.
The Report refers to No. 216 of the Standing Orders relating to Private Bills which deals with Special Orders. These Special Orders require an Affirmative Resolution from the House when they are presented to the House, as they frequently are, as your Lordships will know. To-day we shall be considering only Special Orders laid under Part II of the Local Government Act, 1958, and so far as I know, no others. These Special Orders are hybrid; that is, they are
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analogous to hybrid Bills. I should like to explain—if it is necessary to do so—that hybrid Special Orders are Orders made by a public authority (in this particular case the Ministry of Housing and Local Government) which affect private interests, including the interests of named local authorities. Those are the Orders—and there are no others that I know of—that we are considering to-day. To complete my attempted explanation of the meaning of the word "hybrid", may I say this? Yesterday your Lordships, at my request, passed a Private Bill, the Huddersfield Corporation Bill. May I explain the hybridity provisions in this way? That Bill was a Private Bill, and not a hybrid Bill. But if that Bill had been promoted by a public authority, such as Her Majesty's Government, it would have been a hybrid Bill, although it would still have affected the same private interests in Huddersfield.
Now I want to say a little about the machinery of Standing Order 216, which is a lengthy one. For these hybrid Orders there is, and must be, under the Order itself a petitioning period of fourteen days. During those fourteen days, of course, Petitions may be presented by private interests affected by the Order. If no Petition is presented the matter is fairly simple, and the Order then goes, with a Report of the Special Orders Committee of this House, to the House itself; and there it is necessary for an Affirmative Resolution to be passed before the Order becomes operative. If a Petition is deposited during the period, the matter goes before the Special Orders Committee, and they, in examining a Petition against a Special Order, must examine four things: first, whether a substantial ground of complaint is disclosed by the Petition; secondly, whether further inquiry is necessary; thirdly, whether the submissions in the Petition could have been brought before a local inquiry, and were not; and, fourthly, whether there ought to be a further inquiry by a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. Those four matters must, on the receipt of a Petition, be considered by the Special Orders Committee.
I now want to draw the special attention of the House to this following matter. The Standing Order says that on the examination of the Order by the Special Orders Committee the petitioner, and,

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incidentally, the Minister, shall be entitled to be heard by themselves, their counsel and/or agents. Your Lordships will see that here no discretion is left with the Special Orders Committee. They cannot say: "We will not hear the petitioners or their counsel"; they have no option in the matter. After that, the Order may be—not must be—sent by the Special Orders Committee to a Select Committee of this House. That is a further step in the machinery. I need hardly tell the House that this all takes time and, therefore, costs money; but that is a point which I apprehend may be dealt with later.
At this stage one must face the question: Is all this necessary? The answer to that question will be rather relevant and pertinent this afternoon. I do not want to act as an advocate either for or against the Minister or anyone else, but I should mention that, in answer to that question, I think the Minister will say that a second exception should now be made to this Standing Order excluding Orders laid under Part II of the Local Government Act 1958 from the provisions relating to hybridity in this Standing Order. I say "a second exception" because there is a first exception already made. I would only mention that the first exception was made some few years ago to deal with Orders of the same nature made under the Manœuvres Act, 1958—the same year in which this Local Government Act was passed. To the best of my knowledge, that first exception was made because those Orders were, first, urgent, because they were manœuvres Orders; secondly and more importantly, there was already in the Manœuvres Act ample provision for objections to be taken and made to the Order.
I return to the question: Why should this second exception be made? I would remind the House again that we are talking now only about Part II of the Local Government Act 1958, and I have to say that in the opinion of the Procedure Committee of this House that Act, in its second Part, already provides ample and sufficient machinery for objecting to Orders affecting the boundaries of local authorities. The Committee, therefore, say to your Lordships that this further provision in this Standing Order is un-
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necessary, and that this second exception should be made.
I wish to say a word about the history of this matter, which began just a year ago this month, in July, 1964. Four Orders under the Local Government Act 1958 were then laid by the Minister, and it was then noticed for the first time that the hybridity provisions of this Standing Order applied to those Orders. I am going to make a confession here. Until that date this happening had been overlooked by me, and overlooked, I think I may fairly say, by the Minister: at any rate, it was first noticed in July of last year that this Standing Order applied to those hybrid Orders. There was no Petition deposited this time last year to those Orders, so the matter did not further arise, except in this respect. In the month of August last year I received a letter from the then Minister of Housing and Local Government, the right honourable gentleman Sir Keith Joseph, asking me to ask your Lordships to make this second exception. In due course I referred that matter to the Procedure Committee of the House. Some correspondence ensued throughout the winter months, and in the spring of this year the Committee considered the matter, and, in amplification of the Minister's letter, heard the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry, Dame Evelyn Sharp. After hearing her evidence (and it is printed in this Report for your Lordships to see) the Committee decided to report to your Lordships that they agreed with the Minister, and that this second exception should be made to Standing Order 216. They now recommend accordingly.
There are only a couple of other matters which I want to mention before this question is further debated to-day, as I apprehend it may be, from both sides of the House. In another place there is no such provision; there is nothing at all that corresponds, so far as this matter is concerned, to Standing Order No. 216. Therefore, in the House of Commons there is no opportunity for any petitioner to lodge a Petition against one of these Orders. That is the first matter and, of course, it discloses a difference between the practice and procedure of the two Houses. That, I admit, is not necessarily an undesirable thing, but it is a matter which it is my duty to bring before your Lordships. If I may respectfully do so,

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I would remind the House that, of course, the final decision in this matter, as indeed in others, is with the House itself. Whatever mistakes may have been made, it is for your Lordships finally to say, as a House of Parliament, whether or not this should be agreed.
Of course, this matter must be decided by the House. I would just remind the House that if this Amendment were made—if this second exception were agreed to—and thereby your Lordships deprived the petitioners of the opportunity to oppose, there would still remain the duty, and the right, of the House itself to throw out the Order if it were so minded, just as the House of Commons can to-day. I have tried not to act as an advocate either for or against the proposition which is now before your Lordships. I have merely tried to explain what may be thought by some to be not an entirely easy matter. I am afraid that I have not done it very adequately, but if there are any further points that are not dealt with by other speakers, I will try to deal with them when I come to reply. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to—(Lord Merthyr.)
3.33 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sure the whole House is grateful to the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees, for the exposition that he has given in relation to this Report of the Procedure Committee. There are one or two other matters to which I shall seek to draw attention which I think cast perhaps a rather different light upon this proposal; and the noble Lord, with his great experience in these matters, will no doubt correct me if I am wrong in anything I say.
The first point I want to stress is that what we are concerned with here on the Report of the Procedure Committee is whether or not this House should take away from the subject a right which the subject has at the present time of petitioning Parliament. The right to petition Parliament is one of our longest and most ancient rights under our Constitution. If I may pick up a point made by the Lord Chairman, it really is no answer to say that if this right of the subject is taken away it will still be open to Parliament, if it so chooses, to
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reject an Order on an Affirmative Resolution. That has not bearing upon this particular issue. I do not know how long this right of objection to a hybrid Bill by those whose interests are particularly affected has existed. It is well known in relation to what we call Hybrid Bills—where there is a Public Bill part of which perhaps ought to have been introduced as a Private Bill because it affects particular interests. In such a case, if it is decided that the Bill is a hybrid one—and that is not always an easy decision—in both Houses there is the right in those affected to petition Parliament and to have their case heard before a Select Commitee, with witnesses being called and cross-examined, and so on.
As your Lordships will remember, powers were taken some time ago—and they have been taken to a considerable extent in recent years—to do by Order things which in former days would have required a Bill. I need not pursue that point, but I think it is historically accurate. When that procedure was initiated, it was recognised, I think, that, just as you might have a Hybrid Bill, so if you took power to do by Order what before had to be done by a Bill you might have a hybrid Order—an Order affecting particular interest of private individuals. It was in these circumstances that Standing Order No. 216 was inserted in our Standing Orders.
The noble Lord the Lord Chairman, quite rightly, said that there is no such provision in the Standing Orders of another place. I am not quite sure what inference he wished your Lordships to draw from that, but I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong when I say that I think it was by agreement with the other House that it was left to this House to deal with the question of hybridity of Orders, and it was not thought necessary that both Houses should have this machinery for dealing with this matter. So, if we are now going to take away from the subject this right, which, by agreement, was left to this House to deal with, there is the question whether we should do so without consultation with another place. Of course, we could do it without consulting them, but if there was such an agreement I should have thought it would be only polite to engage in such consultation.

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A great argument is made about the time factor, and the Lord Chairman has drawn attention to the provisions of the Standing Order. I would emphasise that, when you are dealing with a time factor, if a Petition is to be lodged against a hybrid Special Order, it must be lodged within fourteen days of the Order being laid before Parliament. That is not a very long interval. These reorganisations of local government boundaries often take years, so an extra fourteen days obviously will not matter very much.
What is the next stage? If someone does petition, on the ground that the Order is a hybrid Order, and that his interests are particularly affected, the matter is not automatically referred to a Select Committee for investigation for hearing evidence, counsel, and so on. It has to be considered by the Special Orders Committee, and they will refer it to a Select Committee only when they have considered matters which they are required to consider by paragraph (6) of Standing Order No. 216—that is to say:

"(a) whether the Petition discloses substantial grounds of complaint;

(b) whether the matter has been so dealt with upon a departmental inquiry that further inquiry is unnecessary;

(c) whether the submissions in the Petition could have been brought before a local inquiry and were not;

(d) whether, having regard to the answers to the preceding questions and to the findings, if any, of these inquiries and to the other circumstances of the case, there ought to be a further inquiry by a Select Committee."

It is only where these matters have not been inquired into before, or have not properly been inquired into before, that the Committee have power to report to this House that they recommend—I see that the noble Lord shakes his head. The Committee are required to consider the matters which I have read out after which paragraph 6 (and I will read the whole paragraph if necessary) says that they
"… shall report to the House accordingly."
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords would the noble Viscount read on, because this is very valid?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I am coming to the part about hearing counsel, but that is a different point from the one I am on. My point is that, in the event, having considered those matters (I do not want to be diverted from my point
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here, as it is very important) it is only where the Committee are satisfied that the Petition discloses substantial grounds of complaint that they have to go into the further questions set out in paragraphs (b) to (d): "whether the matter has been so dealt with upon a departmental inquiry that further inquiry is unnecessary; whether the submissions in the Petition could have been brought before a local inquiry and were not; whether, having regard to the answers to the preceding questions and to the findings, if any, of these inquiries and to the other circumstances of the case, there ought to be a further inquiry by a Select Committee". It is only when they have considered those matters, and have come to a conclusion upon them, which is what I said before—
LORD SHEPHERD: No.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: Yes; it is indeed what I said. It is only when they have considered those matters and come to a conclusion upon them that they report to this House, and this House can then decide whether or not to send the matter to a Select Committee. We have the fourteen days' notice for the lodging of the Petition, and then it comes to the Special Orders Committee to consider these matters.
The noble Lord the Lord Chairman drew attention to the fact that before the Special Orders Committee counsel could be heard and witnesses called for the petitioner and for the promoters. I must say that I think we ought to inquire into the question whether that provision is really necessary. I do not think it is. If the Special Orders Committee can make up their mind on the written documents, I cannot see the need for the time and the cost of having two inquiries. They can say straight away that the matter has been fully inquired into; that it is obvious, and then not report in favour of sending the matter to a Select Committee. On the other hand, if they are satisfied that something has gone wrong they can report in favour of sending it to a Select Committee, and surely it is there that counsel and evidence should be heard.
My Lords, this is really a subsidiary question, because what we are concerned with here is whether the subject should be deprived of the right that he now has,

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and has had for some time. Before I say more on that matter, I will just add this: it is obvious from this machinery and from this filter operated by the Special Orders Committee that if, in fact, there has been full inquiry, and the matter has been fully gone into by the Minister, then the Special Orders Committee will not report in favour of its going before a Select Committee. I am sure we can rely on the Special Orders Committee to do that.
I think it is the case that in all the procedure under the Local Government Act there is full inquiry. If so, there is nothing to fear from keeping this Order unchanged. But supposing there is the case where something has gone wrong; that the person with a special interest affected by this hybrid Order is really affected, and that it can be shown that the matter has not been properly gone into. What we are now being asked to say is that, in such a case, the subject shall be deprived of the right he now has of bringing the matter himself before Parliament. I do not think that is right. We are asked to surrender Parliamentary control. It is perfectly true that a long machinery was devised under the Local Government Act. The Minister has to go into all these matters. The Local Government Commission produces draft proposals which are considered by the local authorities; the Local Government Commission then produces final proposals, to which there may be objections, and then there is a public inquiry. After that the Minister gets the report of his inspector and then he makes an Order and lays it before Parliament. That Order may embody or may modify the proposals of the inspector. But those are all decisions by the Minister.
The matter then comes before Parliament on an Affirmative Resolution. It may be the case—as, indeed, the noble Lord the Lord Chairman indicated—that it was not realised in 1958, or until last year, that these particular Orders came within the scope of this Standing Order. But, however that may be, the question now for your Lordships is on this right which the subject still has in relation to hybrid Bills, and, as the Order stands, in relation to all hybrid Orders, apart from the exceptions made under the Manœuvres Act 1958, which was of temporary duration, and it was a case in
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which a special exemption was made. These Orders with regard to local government boundaries will not be of temporary duration. It is the case that sometimes these Orders give rise to considerable Parliamentary debate and discussion. We had an instance this year in relation to the Order enlarging the borough of Northampton. In fact, this machinery of petitioning against a hybrid Order has never been used and I see no reason to assume that it will be used if matters go right. But the question is: should the subject be deprived of his right to be able to petition?
As the evidence shows, the case for this change was made out very ably by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. However, no evidence was heard from those who at the moment have the right to petition, or from their representatives, and they were not given the opportunity of giving evidence. Since this Committee has reported I understand that the matter has come to the notice of the County Councils Association and the Urban District Councils Association, who object most strongly to their members being deprived of the right, which they now have, to petition against these Orders, without their having an opportunity of making any representations at all upon the matter.
My Lords, I have taken the view throughout, as the noble Lord the Lord Chairman knows, that this change which is now proposed by the Ministry is not warranted, but I also take the view, very strongly—and I urge it upon the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman—even if I am in the minority about this, that this charge certainly should not be made without giving to the representatives of those who will be deprived of their rights of petitioning against these Orders, the right of being heard. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman, whether he would not think it right at this stage to withdraw his Motion in order to give the County Councils Association, the Urban District Councils Association, and any others who may be deprived of their rights if this matter goes through, an opportunity, like that enjoyed by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, to come before the Committee on Procedure and say why they

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should not be deprived of these rights if they wish to continue to exercise them.
I hope the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman, will take this course. I think it would be most unfortunate if this House were to appear to be depriving subjects of their rights without giving those subjects any right to make representations upon the matter. I think my request is a reasonable one, but if, despite what I have said, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, should wish to press this matter to a conclusion, then I must say, my Lords, that for the reasons I have given I hope that your Lordships will not accept this Report.

TRIBUTES TO MR. ADLAI STEVENSON

  STATEMENT ON MR. HAROLD DAVIES'S VISIT TO VIETNAM
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, with the permission of the House I should like to repeat a Statement which the Prime Minister has just made in another place.
  Before doing so, I hope the House will feel it appropriate if I pay a brief tribute to the memory of Mr. Adlai Stevenson. His sudden death has removed from world affairs a great American whose service in the cause of world peace and whose noble eloquence on behalf of human freedom everywhere will long be remembered. I am sure the House will wish me to extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family and to the people of the United States in their immense loss.
  I now come to the words that are being used by the Prime Minister:
  "My honourable friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, returned from Hanoi yesterday and has given the Foreign Secretary and myself a full report on his discussions there. As the House is already aware, Mr. Davies was unable to see any North Vietnamese Ministers or to obtain any undertaking that the Commonwealth Mission would be received in Hanoi. Nevertheless, during his five-day stay, he was able to impress on the officials
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  of the Fatherland Front and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with whom he had protracted conversations, the views of Her Majesty's Government and of the Commonwealth Mission. My honourable friend tells me that copious notes were taken throughout these meetings, and I have no doubt that the arguments which my honourable friend urged with all his accustomed fluency and persistence will be passed on to the leaders of North Vietnam.
  "In presenting his arguments in favour of receiving the Commonwealth Mission, my honourable friend had to struggle against the evident conviction on the part of his North Vietnamese hearers that their prospects of victory were too imminent for it to be worth their while to forsake the battlefield for the conference table. In such an atmosphere it is scarcely surprising that he was unable to bring back any word of encouragement, but I am extremely glad that the arguments, which are not only our arguments but those of the Commonwealth and of much of the world—in favour of peace and negotiations—should at last, and for the first time, have been fully and faithfully expounded to the North Vietnamese in the artificial isolation of their own capital. The arguments may not have exerted an immediate and visible effect, but I believe the passage of time will reinforce them and that there will be a general recognition of what I believe to be self-evident: that the Vietnam problem will not be solved by military means alone. As soon as this occurs, as soon as the North Vietnamese are ready to receive the Commonwealth Mission, or as soon as they are prepare to facilitate the reconvening of the Geneva Conference, then I believe we shall be on the way to the political solution which alone can bring the fighting to an end. I believe that my honourable friend has contributed in no small measure to advancing the day when all the parties concerned can get round a table to reach agreement on such a solution."
  That concludes the Statement of the Prime Minister.
  LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I first of all associate all those who

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  sit on these Benches with the tribute which the noble Earl the Leader of the House paid to Mr. Adlai Stevenson. He was a great world statesman. He was a great servant of the American people and he will be sadly missed by everyone in the Free World, not least all those who work so closely in the United Nations.
  With regard to the Statement, made by the Prime Minister in another place, which the noble Earl has repeated, he will know that some of us had misgivings about this Mission which were not entirely allayed by the answers he gave the other day in this House. But, whatever our feelings, we are, of course, all very disappointed that the Mission has failed, not so much because the failure was unexpected but because it shows the intransigence of the North Vietnamese authorities; their attitude will be noted by all those who are really interested in a peaceful settlement in Vietnam, and it will be noted with concern and with sorrow. May I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House if he can say whether the Report that I read in several of the newspapers, that it was proposed that Mr. Davies should return once again to Hanoi, is likely to be true or not.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, so far as I know, there is no truth in that suggestion. If that or any other course seemed useful I have no doubt it would be adopted, but I have no reason whatever to think that is a likely possibility. I appreciate the care with which the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has spoken, but I am afraid I do not in any way accept the view that this Mission was a failure. In any case, it would be too early to know what the results were. I believe it has been of assistance in bringing home to those secluded rulers in Hanoi what is the attitude of the Free World.
  LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, speaking from these Benches on behalf of my noble friends, I should first of all like to say one word, in addition to those tributes so eloquently made by the noble Earl the Leader of the House, and the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, about Mr. Adlai Stevenson, who was a great personal friend of mine. I would simply recall that I first met Mr. Stevenson in Church House, over the way, when he
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  was the American representative to the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations and I was Secretary. He brought into those meetings a breath of fresh air in the rather stale atmosphere of the immediate post-war period, and we quickly discovered that we had with us a brilliant and sparkling political figure of great significance. So for that reason, if no other, I should like to associate myself with the tributes made to this great figure and representative of all that is best in our Western civilisation.
  With regard to the Statement just made, I would just say this. Nobody, I am sure, would be opposed to any efforts to get negotiations going in Vietnam and thus put an end to this appalling war; certainly nobody in the Liberal Party would take that view. But surely there is something to be said for caution in these matters. It may always be better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all, but such efforts should be made in relation to the actual political situation before us. Was it a good thing to send Mr. Davies at all? The Government say that certain advantages have been gained. But, again, there are certain disadvantages. Anything which can be presented as not furthering the object—the object being to get the reconvening of the Geneva Conference—anything, I say, which tends in that direction and does not seem to achieve it tends to put the clock back. Surely that also applies to the Commonwealth Mission. Unless there is real reason to suppose that the Commonwealth Mission would come back with some success, it would be far better not to send it out in the general hope that the arguments adduced might have some effect on the Government of Hanoi or indeed the Government of Peking.
  Finally, I would suggest that if there is no particular reason to suppose you can go forward by these means, it would be far better not to send somebody out representing the Government, at whatever level, but to try to send somebody without any publicity at all. Alternatively, if it is simply a question of putting forward arguments that might appeal to the Government in Hanoi, why not put them forward through our perfectly able Consul-General who is quite capable of employing them without any publicity? So I would merely put in a word of caution not to plunge ahead, whatever

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  the publicity value may be, on some exercise that may not bring immediately good results.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should like to say how much I know the words of both the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, concerning Mr. Adlai Stevenson will be appreciated here and in the United States.
  I cannot feel that the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, was arguing with his usual lucidity in the comments he has just offered. I found him rather difficult to follow. My own opinion is that the great majority of the people in this country, whatever their Party, consider this effort and similar efforts are, and will continue to be, worth while making.
  LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether the object of the exercise was the impression it would make upon the people of this country, or whether it was an effort to try to ensure the earliest possible improvement in the situation in Vietnam?
  THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for what I hope is the reasonable implication in favour of the second supposition. There is no doubt that the object was to try to secure a visit of the Commonwealth Mission to Vietnam. What the noble Lord may not be aware of is that it would appear to have been the intention of the Government of Hanoi to do all the talking and let Mr. Davies do the listening. In fact, however, Mr. Davies is not a tremendously silent person. He is a great talker, and he talked to them for about nine hours.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
4.1 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, replies, might I add one word to what the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, said? I think he made this afternoon a great and almost impassioned appeal for true democracy in this country. I think he was right in everything he said. We should not go ahead with this proposal
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At the present time. I think he was dead right.
As he knows well, I have no great approval of Select Committees as such. I agree with the late Lord Cecil of Chelwood, that they are the modern equivalent of the Court of Star Chamber; that the members of the Select Committee are in fact the judges as well as the advocates, and that in most cases—and Lord Cecil of Chelwood was particularly concerned in the Jameson case, in which he acted as counsel, and in the Marconi case, in which he sat as a Member of the Select Committee—they were the worst possible tribunals for assessing direct personal responsibility for any action. I think he was dead right. So I am not mad keen on Select Committees as such, and I do not think that the noble and learned Viscount himself was, either. He thought that we should decide the matter ourselves before it went to a Select Committee. But I think he made a great appeal for true democracy in this country, especially so far as local authorities are concerned, and therefore I greatly hope that the House will not approve of the Motion that has been moved by the noble Lord, the Chairman of Committees.
4.3 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, I propose to reply to what the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, said. I found it a trifle difficult to follow the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, who appeared to produce all the arguments on one side and the conclusion on the other.
I trust that your Lordships are going to accept the Report of your Procedure Committee. One must go a little into the history of this matter. The Local Government Act itself, in relation to these parts of it, was the result of long consultation with the local authorities and their associations, and, broadly speaking, though they do not by any means always agree over everything, they accepted this Act. What did they accept it for? They accepted it as a means of reorganising local government, not merely as between one local authority and another, but, as I think it must be reorganised, over considerable tracts of the country as a whole.

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The tracts with which we are particularly concerned to-day are what are called the special review areas. The special review areas are the large conurbations, and it is on how to review them, and what should be done about them, that the Orders requiring Affirmative procedure which we are considering to-day will arise. This is not a question of county reviews; it is a question of the larger reviews made by the Local Government Commission; and I repeat that this Act was introduced after the fullest consultation with the local authorities themselves.
What was sought in the Act was a fair balance between the general view that any central Government must take on local government distribution and functions over the country, and the particular, and almost always conflicting, views of local authorities. It is of course well known to everyone in this House, as a matter of common sense and of experience, that when you get a question of local government boundaries—and that, as the noble and learned Viscount was quite right in telling us, is one of the questions that is going to come up here—you hardly ever get agreement between local authorities. You may get it, but what you are far more likely to get is a conflict of interests, not merely between two local authorities, but between a whole bunch of them. And the Orders which in fact have been made under this Act, the type of Orders we are now considering, cover and refer nominally to a particular couple of local authorities, but when one looks at them one finds that they are related to other Orders and that the general effect is a bunch of Orders, or sometimes one Order covering a large area, many local authorities and many conflicting interests in the narrow sense of the word. That is the first thing.
The second matter of history is this. I take it that the noble and learned Viscount to-day, though speaking from the Front Benches, is not speaking on behalf of the Tory Party, for this particular exception was first asked for by Sir Keith Joseph, who was the Tory Minister of Housing and Local Government at the time. As we have heard from the noble Lord, the Chairman of Committees, the matter was dropped because of the Summer Recess and the General Election, and it was picked up
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again immediately afterwards by his successor in office. But it originated, I repeat, with a Conservative Minister of Housing and Local Government.
To take the history a little further, there is a third factor which I must stress to the House. We are told that we are depriving the subject of his right to petition, and a most emotional appeal was made to us in that sense by the noble and learned Viscount. It sounded as if we were coming to the liberty of the subject in a minute.
LORD BOOTHBY: So you are!
LORD MITCHISON: But in the sense of the subject here, the people who are actually concerned in this are the local authorities and institutions, and it is their right to petition which we are considering. There is no question of depriving the individual subject of anything; it is merely a question of what rights—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that the only persons who can possibly qualify to petition against the Orders are local authorities?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am taking what the noble and learned Viscount himself said, that these were questions which would affect the local authorities concerned; and through quite an eloquent and detailed speech he never suggested that there would be any individual petitioner. Of course it is possible that there may be. But primarily we are concerned with that; and the solution that the noble and learned Viscount put at the end of his speech was that the matter should stand over for the purpose of allowing whom to be heard? Not any individuals, but the local authority associations.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, with great respect, I referred to—I only correct the noble Lord in order to get factual accuracy—the County Councils Associations and the Urban District Councils Association, and I said, "anybody else who may lose their rights".
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I may say that my noble and learned friend might have added the Association of Municipal Corporations to the list of objectors.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): "And Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all."!
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, may I entreat noble Lords not to forget the Rural District Councils Association?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Or the Parish Councils Association?
LORD MITCHISON: Quite so. To continue, let us face facts: that is where the noise comes from. Those are the persons who will be mostly concerned in this matter. We must, after all, remember what local authorities do and what they are; evidence has been given about the procedures in these cases and what happens. Those are the three points that I desire to make on the history of the matter. First, that the Act itself was inroduced after the fullest consultation. Second—I forget precisely what the second item was.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The second point was the question of initiative by Sir Keith Joseph.
LORD MITCHISON: I am much obliged. The third matter is even simpler. The noble and learned Viscount was himself a member of this Committee. He examined the witness in these proceedings. He attended throughout a considerable part, at any rate, of the hearing, and it never occurred to him—and I do not think it occurred to anybody else on the Committee—to suggest that the local authority associations ought to be heard. If I am asked whether or not I feel that they ought to have been heard, my reply is that that appears to me to be a matter for the Committee on Procedure and not a matter for me to go into, nor indeed is it a matter on which I should be at all ready to invite them to hear people who may be affected by changes in our domestic rules. That is what was happening in this case—a change in the rules of the House was being considered.
It would be very difficult if, whenever a change of this sort was under consideration, one was going to invite representatives of other bodies to attend and be heard. The Minister, of course, has to be heard because it was the Minister who set the machinery in motion, who put in a written request, and who was
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asked by the Committee on Procedure, I think at the instance of the noble and learned Viscount, to send a representative there for the second hearing. I do not imagine that the noble and learned Viscount wanted the representative to attend and be silent, and for that reason Dame Evelyn was very properly heard on behalf of the Ministry.
Having said that, I would add that it is perfectly clear that nobody knew about this—not the local authorities or anybody else—until the summer of 1964. It is therefore a fact that, if the local authorities are being deprived of a right, it is a right of which they were completely unconscious when the original Act was passed, and passed as a vehicle for satisfactory inquiry into all these questions. That is to say, if the local authorities or other people had realised that there was this possibility, dependent on the form of your Lordships' Orders, it may very well be that the balance would have been weighted the other way and that the inquiry provided by the Act might have been thought sufficient because it would come to be supplemented by further proceedings in your Lordships' House. That was not under consideration. What was therefore arrived at—and, I repeat, after full consultation—was what was thought to be full and sufficient inquiry.
The noble and learned Viscount himself went into some detail in the matter, and I do not propose to repeat it since the Act itself is a little long to refer to, but perhaps I may quote the evidence of Dame Evelyn Sharp as to what happens in regard to the Orders which we are considering. She said:
"… the Local Government Commission which has been established under the Act must hear every local authority in the area they are reviewing on their ideas for reorganisation in the area They must then produce draft proposals and circulate those draft proposals to every local authority, and they will then hear the local authorities again on their draft proposals, this time in a large, sometimes a monster, conference. They get them altogether and get them all to say what they feel about the draft proposals for reorganisation which they the Commission, have made. They then reconsider their draft proposals, they very probably make some changes in the light of what has been said, and they then produce final proposals for the reorganisation which they send to the Minister and which are circulated again to every local authority, and every local authority is invited to make observations. If there are objections, the Minister must hold

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a public inquiry and he must then consider the report of his inspector and must decide what modifications he wants to make before he puts it to Parliament or, indeed, if he wants to make the Order at all. It is then subject to the affirmative resolution procedure."
That is a succinct and pretty comprehensive account of what I suggest to your Lordships are reasonable precautions to ascertain and give effect to the doubtless conflicting views of local authorities. It is not only a sufficient one. I think that it errs, if it errs at all, on the side of being rather too elaborate. And, of course, this actually involves oral evidence, and a good deal of it. It takes not merely months but years before a decision is reached. If your Lordships look at the date of the Orders and the dates when the inquiries started, you will find that I am not exaggerating in the least. It is a question of some years before the whole process is completed, and the inquiry itself, particularly the "monster inquiry", as Dame Evelyn calls it, takes a very long time indeed.
We are told that notwithstanding that, there ought to be a right to petition. It was recognised by the noble and learned Viscount that, notwithstanding the hypothetical existence of some other petitioner, the practical petitioners would be local authorities which, as it were, had lost below and felt that they ought to come here. Then we were told, "Well, of course, if the Committee of the House which considers this matter is of opinion that it has already been fully inquired into, then no more will happen. There will have been only a short delay." But that is not the only thing that they have to consider. They must consider all the circumstances of the case, and I do not know what the conclusion will be. But I do know this: if they are to consider whether there has been a slip, whether the whole thing has been properly gone into, I see no alternative whatever to doing it all again; otherwise they are going to be most unfair to somebody. If that procedure was required on the first occasion to get a fair decision between conflicting interests—and I have not heard anybody say that it was not required—how can you come to a fairer decision by cutting the procedure?
The fact of the matter is that you are then going to present even the first Committee of the House which has to consider
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the matter with exactly the original set of questions, at the instance of some local authority which has not got all it wants the first time. That is not the end of it. Supposing that the Committee then come to the conclusion that the matter ought to be inquired into by a Special Committee, that Special Committee have to do it all over again. I repeat to your Lordships that a great deal of this evidence is oral. It is not a case where one just opens a file and sees it all before one's eyes. One hears people give evidence. One of the things which must be considered is the wishes of the inhabitants. It is in order to ensure that the wishes of the inhabitants are considered that notices are given under the provisions of the Act, and that ample opportunity for objections, modification, and so on, is provided for in the machinery of the Act. That will all have to be done, or we shall be unfair to someone; and there is no alternative to that.
I think that where the mistake has been made here, if I may say so, is the way this matter has been regarded. The noble and learned Viscount is, of course, a most distinguished lawyer, and I think he is looking at this as if it were a collection of legal conflicts. Not even he would say that in a case of this sort it was a single one. I do not think it is, and I do not think that that is what Parliament intended in the Local Government Act. What is intended was that the views of the Central Government—the Minister, in this case—should be used to reconcile conflicting interests all over the country; to see that everybody got a fair hearing; to see, too, so far as he could, that effect had been given to the matters which the Local Government Commission were required to look into; and, of course, to see that his inspector—if it came to that stage—had similarly considered all the relevant factors. Somebody has to do this. This cannot be solved as a legal conflict, and it was just because it could not be solved as a legal conflict that the old Private Bill procedure was put aside. It was considered, and the Conservative Minister of Housing of the day quite deliberately introduced a different, wider and, as I see it, more flexible procedure for not only getting at the truth, not only discovering what everybody was claiming, but, at the

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end of the day, assuming the responsibility of the better reorganisation of local government—because that was the object of the whole exercise.
Your Lordships will remember that a good many years ago now there was a previous attempt on the lines of county reviews—which was a much smaller exercise than this—to reorganise the boundaries and the existence of county districts. It is notorious that the attempt broke down because there was a great deal of horse-trading. Somebody said, "I will help you to keep "Little So-and-So" if you will help me to keep "Great Thingumejig." This was very well known, and it was one of the reasons why this Act was brought in, with very full provisions to ensure not only that the public should be heard, as well as the local authorities but also that, at the end of the day, the matter should be treated not as a mere collection of disputes between divergent local authorities, but as a real attempt to get a better reorganisation of local government—and nobody would deny that there is room for that. It is very unlikely that the exact form and shape of local government in every part of the country, which derives from long history and has survived many years, is necessarily the right one now. And surely the question of what should be substituted for it is one that cannot be settled merely as a matter of conflicts between different authorities: it must be settled by the Government of the day under the provisions of this Act: and that is the purpose of the Act.
My Lords, I apologise if I have been too long, but this is a complicated matter. I would add this. First of all, appeals to sentiment on this are really a little amiss. This is not a question of the rights of the subject, in any ordinary sense of the word. This is not a question of petitioning Parliament for the redress of grievances: it is a question of trying to settle the pattern of local government in different parts of the country, which is a rather different matter. The arrangements for doing it were put through Parliament only after the fullest consultation with local authorities. At the time no one, neither the Minister who was putting them forward nor the local authorities themselves, knew of the existence of this undoubted right, and now
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we are told that the local authorities must not be deprived of it. If that view is to be supported, I suggest that it ought to be supported on practical grounds; and those practical grounds, as they are brought forward, seem to me inevitably to conflict with the structure of the Act itself.
Finally, I would say this to your Lordships as a matter of common sense. I read out what Dame Evelyn Sharp said to the Procedure Committee. It was a description of what actually happens. We have seen the process in operation. It takes a great deal of time; it costs a lot of money, and it takes a great many people, who have other duties to perform, away from their other work. It therefore involves, in every sense of the word, a very considerable expense, much of which falls on the ratepayers. Are we really justified in adding to that somewhat mountainous and elaborate procedure, procedure designed to get fairness between different interests, yet one more step—or perhaps two more steps—each of which must involve, if we are to have fairness, doing the whole thing all over again?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he could answer this question. He referred to the special review areas. Does the Motion now before the House also cover the case of Orders for the demotion of county boroughs? I believe that there has been a case—I think it was at Burton-on-Trent—where a Petition was presented against an Order demoting the county borough, one of the effects of which was that, because Parliamentary time ran out, the whole Order was lost. Am I right in thinking that this particular set of circumstances will be covered by this Motion as well?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I think the noble Viscount is right. I tried to take what I am sure will be the majority of the Orders that are likely to come up, and I think I said so. But may I point out that though the status of, let us say, Luton may appear to Luton to be pre-eminently a Luton matter, it is by no means so; and the noble Viscount must be very well aware of that. It obviously concerns the county in which Luton is; it concerns the other local

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authorities in the county, and not least it concerns the ratepayers there and thereabouts. At the end of the day a great deal of this machinery, if we go on adding to it, is going to mean additional cost to what is already an expensive process, not merely in money but in the time of local government officers and others.
4.27 p.m.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, I feel that I must first declare an interest to your Lordships, inasmuch as I happen to be the President of the Urban District Councils' Association. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, will forgive me if I say that during the course of his speech I felt rather like uttering the word "Egremont!" But then I remembered that of course he is a very experienced Parliamentarian, and when you have not got a very good case to answer, you try to shroud the real question in a certain amount of fog, in the hope that it will escape proper attention.
I want to bring your Lordships back to the quite simple issue which is raised this afternoon and it can be put very simply. If this Standing Order is amended as suggested, your Lordships will be deliberately depriving local authorities of a right which they at present possess. That is the issue. Moreover, despite what the noble Lord has said, there is not, at the present moment, in the place of that right anything equivalent to it. At the present moment, if a local authority objects to a proposal for local government reorganisation, it may—and I say "may"—have a right to petition and have its case heard by a Select Committee. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government argue that all this is superfluous and that it is a waste of time, because if there are objections the Minister must hold a local public inquiry, and thereafter the right of petition is merely duplicating a lengthy process. The noble Lord advanced that argument again this afternoon, but I feel that I must say this to your Lordships. It is impossible to equate the right of petition to this House with a local inquiry, which is conducted very much as the Minister may say it is to be conducted, and is followed simply by an Affirmative Resolution of this House. One cannot equate those two things. There is a far greater right in
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being able to petition this House than in any local inquiry.
There is a further point with regard to this. The local inquiry is concerned only with objections to what the Local Government Commission proposes, and not with alternative proposals which local authorities may wish, and indeed may have a duty to their constituents to put forward. A Select Committee of your Lordships' House would hear all sides, who would possibly be represented by counsel, and would weigh up and decide between them. Therefore, the right to be fully heard will be taken away if this Order goes through. I would respectfully urge your Lordships to consider this further—as, indeed, my noble friend Lord Dilhorne has already asked—before coming to any decision.
I should like to say again that the local authority associations have not been consulted with regard to this matter. It is true that they were consulted about the 1958 Act, as indeed they nearly always are consulted about proposed legislation, but, in regard to these objections and inquiries, the 1958 Act has not worked out as they expected. This is going to affect the position still further, and I think that they have the right to be consulted. I should therefore like to reinforce what my noble friend Lord Dilhorne has said to the Lord Chairman of Committees: that he might perhaps consider reconvening the Procedure Committee to enable the local authority associations, with whose rights we are concerned, to make their case—as, indeed, the Ministry have been able to make theirs.
Apart from this general consideration of principle, I would also urge this course by reason of what is happening now in connection with the proposals of the Commission for Reorganisation in the Black Country. A group of authorities in the West Midlands challenged the validity of a public inquiry held into the proposals of the Commission for the Black Country. Judgment was given in the Queen's Bench Division on May 31 this year. That judgment said that the inquiry was legally a valid one, but it made it clear that two alternative proposals had not been thoroughly examined. This really underlines the point that I am

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making: that the public inquiry procedure is not the same thing, and does not give the same rights, as a Petition before this House. The matter is really worse than that, because the local authorities concerned have appealed against this judgment. The appeal, I understand, is to be advanced, and is due to be heard later this month. So we now have the position that, whilst one part of the machinery, as operated, is being challenged in the courts, the long-stop right of coming to your Lordships' House is being taken away by this Motion while the matter is still sub judice. I cannot believe that your Lordships would agree that this is a right procedure.
If Her Majesty's Government are prepared to consider an alteration in the way in which these public inquiries are held, and if alternative proposals can be considered, a new situation might arise; but again I would repeat that the local authority associations should be consulted. I believe that it will be a gross injustice if this Motion is agreed to without further consideration of the local authority associations' right to be heard in a matter which is vital to them; and also, as I say, while the appeal to which I have just referred is still outstanding. I hope that the Lord Chairman of Committees may consider it wise, as he has been requested to do by my noble friend Lord Dilhorne, to withdraw this Motion in order that the matter may be further and thoroughly considered. If not, I join with my noble friend in hoping that your Lordships will reject the Motion.
4.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I do not wish to discuss any of the merits of this Report, but merely to reinforce the point that the local authority associations (and I am associated with the County Councils Association), having read everything that is in this Report, still feel that they have a case which should be heard by the Procedure Committee; and it is difficult to understand why the Committee should not accede to that request. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, said that it was not for him to advise the Procedure Committee, and it may be that my noble friend Lord Merthyr is the person to whom I should make this appeal, but I cannot see that it would be a very great endurance test for this Committee to
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assemble again and to listen to these complaints. They may, after hearing the case put forward, come to exactly the same conclusion as we have before us to-day; but at least justice will appear to be done.
4.36 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, I have listened with the greatest attention to what has been said by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and by other noble Lords, members of local authority associations, who have put forward their views. I hope I shall be acquitted of lack of sympathy with local authorities (for I was myself a member of local authorities for many years), but I venture to suggest to your Lordships that the points which have been taken are not appropriate to the particular question that we are discussing. I am quite unable to understand why it should be considered that Orders of the nature with which we are concerned to-day should be regarded as hybrid. That has never been the view of Parliament with regard to legislation dealing with the functions and boundaries of local authorities.
When the County of London was created in 1889, when the London boroughs were created in 1899, when the Poor Law authorities were abolished, when Neville Chamberlain carried through his extensive revision of the functions and areas of local authorities in 1927 or 1928, and when the recent legislation with regard to Greater London was put through, there was no suggestion whatsoever that any of that legislation was of a hybrid nature. It is no doubt perfectly true that any alteration in local government boundaries, duties or functions can have a repercussion upon individuals. It may, for instance, cause some ratepayers to pay more rates, others to pay less, and so on. But surely those are not matters which are appropriate to be dealt with by means of Petitions to be heard by a Select Committee. They are merely incidental matters which arise out of the fundamental problem of reorganising local government.
It seems to me that the real mistake lay in providing in our Standing Orders that anybody should be allowed to apply to be heard by a Select Committee of this House in opposition to one of these Orders. Therefore, with all respect to

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those who are putting forward the view that local authorities should be heard in this way, I venture to suggest that they are mistaken; that no damage is done to the interests of individuals in their ordinary capacity, and that what is at issue here is a matter between one local authority and another. And, to my mind, the evidence given to the Committee of Procedure, which I have read, is convincing that ample opportunity was given to thresh out these matters.
If Parliament is not satisfied about an Order, of course, it is open to us to have a debate upon it in this House, and any Member can ask Questions. But to have it referred to a Select Committee, and to have that kind of inquiry gone over again, is to waste a great deal of time, trouble and public money for a purpose which, I venture to suggest, cannot be properly effected by that means. All Members of your Lordships' House must realise how the proceedings upon a Bill which is considered to be either a Private Bill or a Hybrid Bill—that is to say, a Bill which in that respect is a Private Bill—are conducted before a Select Committee. They are conducted as if it were a species of litigation, in which only points that have been put into Petitions can be dealt with; and the Committee are severely handicapped in taking any wider view of what has been put before them than is contained in the Petitions or has been presented by way of advocacy and argument. With all respect, I suggest that that is not the right procedure to be adopted in matters of this kind.
4.41 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, was a member of this Committee. He has criticised the Committee's decision, and he has also appealed to the House not to accept the decision of that Committee. I feel therefore that I should rise to explain, not as a Minister but as a member of the Committee, why that Committee came to their decision. We discussed this matter on two occasions. On the first occasion, having had a fair discussion, it was felt that it would be right to hear from the Minister. We invited the Minister to send a representative, or to come himself, to explain to the Committee what he wanted to do, and why he wanted us to do it. The Com-
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mittee met, and we had an opportunity of hearing from my noble friend Lord Mitchison and also from the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry.
We then had a discussion, and eventually a vote was taken. I think your Lordships should know that that vote showed that, out of fifteen members who attended that Committee, eleven voted; and of those, nine voted in favour of the Report and two against. It cannot be said that this Committee is in any way political. It represents Members from all sections of the House. We took the view as to what is right, not only in the interests of efficiency within the 1958 Act but also in the interests of your Lordships' House. I think I should also say, in view of the impassioned appeal made by the noble and learned Viscount—which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, called an impassioned speech for democracy—that the same jealousy of the rights of your Lordships' House and of individuals is felt not only by the noble Viscount but by all members of that Committee. Therefore, what we decided to do we did not decide lightly.
It has been suggested this afternoon that this matter should be referred back to the Procedure Committee, and that the Procedure Committee should then call for the evidence of various interested bodies. I suggest that it would be rather an extraordinary matter that the Procedure Committee, which is a Committee to look into the procedure of your Lordships' House, should call in outside persons to give evidence and to decide what this House should do and the manner in which it should conduct its business.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, may I ask one question? Perhaps I should know the answer. If I should, then I apologise for not knowing it. Why were the local authorities not consulted at all in this matter before a decision was taken?
LORD SHEPHERD: As I was saying, I do not think that the Procedure Committee of this House, in considering the procedure of this House, should consult or call for evidence from outside bodies. I should have thought that this would be extremely unusual for any Committee of your Lordships' House—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The Permanent Secretary was there.
LORD SHEPHERD: The Permanent Secretary was there, at special invitation, merely to represent the Ministry involved.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: But that was an outside body.
LORD SHEPHERD: I would suggest that that was quite a different matter.
May I deal now with the major point that concerns your Lordships' House—that what we are suggesting is the removal of the right to petition this House? All we are suggesting is that the right of petition under this Standing Order should be removed. Any member of the public, any local authority, any interested person, always has the right to petition either House of Parliament. If this Report goes through, it will not in any way affect the right to petition either House of Parliament.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, as I understand it, the point the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, is making now makes matters a good deal worse than they were heretofore. It might be possible, if this Committee were to meet again, to envisage some filtering system through which any proposed petitioner would have to go—for instance, the Committee might decide that this was or was not a valid Petition which ought to go to the Select Committee. The noble Lord is now saying that, quite regardless of any procedure of this sort, any member of the public, any local authority, can petition the House; and apparently, would have the right to be heard. This would therefore make things worse.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, there is an inherent right—and I am sure that on this the noble and learned Viscount will agree with me—in every man, any authority, any body, if there is a wrong, to petition Parliament. I am surprised that the noble Viscount challenges it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I did not challenge it.
LORD SHEPHERD: I thought the noble Viscount did so. If the local authority involved feels that the Order that has been made by the Minister is wrong they still have redress in recourse to this House. We know the procedure. An Order is laid in your Lordships' House. Any Member of your Lordships' House
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or any Member of another place can then do two things. He can move that approval of the Order be refused; or he can, if he wishes, a few days before, move an Instruction in this House that the matter be sent to a Select Committee. If a noble Lord were able to satisfy this House that there had been a wrong, or a suspicion of a wrong, and a Motion for such an Instruction received your Lordships' support, the matter would be sent to a Select Committee. There it would be examined under the normal procedure, with counsel and evidence being called, and with the opportunity for cross-examination and the like. Thus it will still be open to a local authority, or to any person who feels that he has been aggrieved, to persuade a noble Lord to come to this House and move an Instruction. And if he satisfies your Lordships that there is a suspicion of a wrong, the matter can be sent to the Select Committee for investigation. This is perfectly clear.
All we are suggesting (and this is the reason the Committee took this view) is that, if we removed the 1958 Act from this Standing Order, it would mean that the Special Orders Committee would not automatically be required, as it now is, where there is a Petition, to listen to evidence and hear counsel. And it is not only evidence from one petitioner, because if the Committee is to consider the matter properly it will have to consider the whole field, which is bound to take a considerable time. We felt, and the Committee felt, in view of all the circumstances and of all the existing safeguards (which are in no way affected by the removal of this Standing Order) that there would be no loss of right to anybody involved under the 1958 Act.
I am bound to say, too, as one who has had some difficulty in trying to find members of your Lordships House to Select Committees, that if we were involved in very many and lengthy inquiries and Select Committees, it would be extremely difficult to man them. I think that the House should be aware of that fact. There would be considerable administrative difficulties to meet what might arise were your Lordships' House to decide that the Standing Order should remain. I suggest that is beside the point, but by the passing of this Motion

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your Lordships will not in any way deny anyone the right to petition Parliament, or, after they had made out a satisfactory case, for the House to decide to refer to a Select Committee, or to enjoy all the rights which now exist.
4.51 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I, with the leave of the House, say a word or two in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who has referred to me particularly, and rightly so, as I was a member of the Committee? I think I made clear from the start that I did not think that a case had been made out for this. It was unfortunate that I was unavoidably prevented from attending part of the second meeting and did not hear the conclusion; that was my misfortune. May I deal with the points made by the noble Lord—
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I ask one thing? The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has asked for the leave of the House to speak again. I am not sure that the House would wish to give it. He has no right to speak twice and it is unusual to speak twice on a Motion. It is not for me to say; it is for the House. The noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, has the right to speak twice because it is his Motion.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: That is why I asked for the leave of the House.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: That is precisely the reason why I asked for leave, and, as in another place where one frequently has to ask for leave to speak again, one assumes that leave is given unless an objection is raised. If the Leader of the House does object to my replying—I wish only to reply shortly to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, because I think it is relevant—then of course I will not do so. I did ask for the leave of the House, and I think that I am in conformity with the traditions of the House in doing so.
I wish to deal shortly with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. First, the propriety of calling in witnesses. The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government was a witness of one category and I see nothing wrong in calling in other witnesses to hear their views;
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there cannot be anything wrong in principle. If the Committee and the House were to decide to make this change, I should be far happier if the Committee had heard representatives of those bodies whose interests are affected by the change. It might be that after hearing them we should be in a much better position to reach a conclusion. It might be that, after they had been cross-examined, they might say, "We do not really want this". I do not know, but I dislike—despite the advocacy of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison—trying to determine a matter of this sort after hearing only the plaintiff, in the shape of Dame Evelyn, and without hearing the defendant's representatives.
LORD SHEPHERD: The Devil's advocate!
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I caught the noble Lord's observation. I hold no brief for either side.
What one has now as a right is the right to petition in relation to a hybrid Order as if it were an existing Bill. It is no answer for the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, to say that we could take this right away and the position would be precisely the same, because it will not be for the individual who is affected. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, talked about considering individuals in these areas. It may be that some of them can petition. I do not know. We are proposing to take away their rights. It is no answer to say, "They can still send a Petition to this House. It would not come under this Standing Order because the Order will no longer apply; and then some Member may wish to take it up". That would be substituting a possibility for action in Parliament and for a right which the subject has to send this matter and comply with Order 216. I say in all seriousness that I hope the Lord Chairman will agree that it would be wrong to conclude this matter without giving those representatives who are affected and will be deprived of their rights an opportunity of being heard.
Secondly, I should like to consider something which has not been yet considered, whether, to avoid the delay, the right of hearing counsel and calling evidence before the Special Orders Committee—I am not talking about the Select Committee—could be dispensed with

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Finally, I do not think that there is much substance in the threat by the noble Lord of a whole mass of Select Committees, for this reason. I assume that if the right remains, it would be only in the rarest case, where something had clearly gone wrong, that there would be any reference to a Select Committee. What we are here considering is what I might call the long stop piece of machinery which will never be brought into operation until something has gone wrong. It never has had to be brought into operation. We are being asked to abolish it by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, although it has never been used, because of a fear that it may be used. I do not believe that it will be brought into use unless something has gone radically wrong.
I understand from the advice that I have received that the only way we can get this matter referred to the Committee on Procedure is by resisting this Motion, if the noble Lord does not withdraw it. I feel that this matter ought to be further considered and if that is the only way to get this matter back to the Committee for further consideration, if it is not withdrawn, I think that we should nevertheless try to see that it is further considered by the Committee.
4.57 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I will not detain your Lordships for more than a few moments. I think that I should follow the excellent precedent, if it is an excellent precedent, of my noble friend Lord Grimston of Westbury and declare that I have a special interest, inasmuch as I am President of the Association of Municipal Corporations, which is a body representing municipal authorities. The Association of Municipal Corporations was not consulted or invited to express its views or make known its opinion on this matter. I join with my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne in expressing regret that this course was not taken.
I was a little puzzled by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison. He began by saying that when the 1958 Act was passed there were extensive consultations, and that in those consultations the procedure eventually introduced into the Bill was agreed between the parties. It is perfectly true that there were extensive consultations, but as I understand the
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position, at that time the then Minister of Housing and Local Government did not appreciate that these Orders would go to the Special Orders Committee. If that was so, apparently both sides were negotiating—if the local authorities were also ignorant of this—in ignorance of what the actual state of the law was to be. That being so, it seems a little difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, when he said that in some way the local authorities gave up their rights to ask for the Special Order procedure at a later stage.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, for giving way to me, but as he has quoted what he thinks I said, perhaps he had better allow me to correct him slightly. My point was that the object of those consultations was to enable Parliament and the Minister to arrive at a proper balance between the claims of the local authorities to be heard and the duty of the Minister to get a proper reorganisation of local government.
LORD ILFORD: I would certainly accept that from the noble Lord. No doubt that was the purpose of these consultations. But did not the consultations take place in ignorance of the right to go to the Special Orders Committee? If so, it seems to me difficult to argue now that in some way the local authorities have given up their right to go to the Special Orders Committee now. That was the only point I was making about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison.
The effect of this Report, if your Lordships were to agree to it, would be that these Orders made under the 1958 Act would be removed from the effective control by Parliament. The Report would leave the investigation of these Orders entirely in the hands of the Minister and departmental officials. It would virtually exclude any effective control by Parliament. I submit to your Lordships that in such an important matter as reorganisation of local government the principal decisions ought to remain under the ultimate and effective control of Parliament. Parliament ought not to be excluded, as it would be excluded, if this recommendation were accepted. Effective control can be exerted only by the Special Orders Procedure, from which

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this Report seeks to exclude these Orders under the Act of 1958.
The local authorities, after all, are popularly elected bodies, and matters affecting their future and their status so intimately as these Orders are likely to do ought not to be withdrawn entirely from the effective control of Parliament and left in the hands of a departmental Minister and departmental officials.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, is not Parliament involved?
LORD ILFORD: I said that these Orders would be removed from the effective control of Parliament. I do not regard the Affirmative Resolution procedure, under which Parliament has either to accept or reject and cannot amend, as effective control.
My noble and learned friend said that it was unlikely that many Orders would be made under this procedure. He went on to say that it will only be in cases where something had gone wrong that a Special Order will be made. It is true that there is elaborate departmental procedure, consisting of local consultation, local inquiry, further consultation, the report of the inspector, and so forth. If that procedure had been gone through, I cannot believe that the Special Orders Committee would not be able to say that the matter had been fully investigated by the Department. It would be only in those cases where they were not satisfied that there had been a proper investigation that they would order the matter to go to a Select Committee. I think that really is the answer to the greater part of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd.
We must not assume that there are going to be many cases where the Special Orders Committee would consider that something has gone wrong. Only in those cases would an Order be referred to a Select Committee. And in those cases where something has gone wrong the Order ought to be referred to a Select Committee. If the procedure of investigation within the Department has gone wrong, then the Order ought to go to a Select Committee. I hope that your Lordships will decide not to accept this Report.
5.5 p.m.
LORD CITRINE: My Lords, I shall try to conform to the generally expressed sentiment in last Tuesday's debate on shorter speeches, and let us hope that others will try, just as I do, to conform. I was greatly impressed by the statement made by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, in his opening speech. I felt that he was speaking with deep sincerity and that there was a possibility of this House taking away one of the remaining liberties of the individual. I found, in the subsequent debate, that the individual apparently has been completely forgotten, and what we are discussing is the retention of the right of a public body, a corporate body, to petition this House.
I am puzzled at what has been said. As I say, I was greatly impressed by the statement of the noble and learned Viscount, but when my noble friend Lord Mitchison replied, it seemed to me that he demolished the arguments that had been put. I may be wrong about that, but that is as it appeared to me. I hope that I am not misinterpreting my noble friend, but I understood him to say that this Order had been on the tapis, to say the least, of the Conservative Government. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, was a member of that Government.
LORD BOOTHBY: Well, that does not make it any better.
LORD CITRINE: My Lords, I am trying to discover where the noble and learned Viscount now stands and what was the reason for his conversion. Did the Conservative Government propose to treat this matter in a substantially different way from the present recommendation of the Committee on Procedure. I do not know. It might be an advantage if that could be cleared up.
Surely it is plain, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd said, that any individual has the right to petition Parliament. If something wrong had been done, when the matter was dealt with by the Committee on Procedure I am sure that this House would have been vigilant enough to find it out. The various local and public bodies referred to are obviously not without spokesmen in this House. Some of them have declared their interest this afternoon. Can it be thought

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that when an Affirmative Resolution comes before this House there would he no one here to argue the matter fully and competently on the information he would undoubtedly be provided with first-hand from the bodies concerned, and to put right any serious wrong that was thought to be done? That seems to me to be the common-sense position.
I suggest that we should not chase away on some hypothetical question of popular and individual liberty. If it is denied that the individual or the corporate body has the right to petition Parliament, that is another matter that ought to be explained; but the Affirmative Resolution required by each House of Parliament seems to me to be a very adequate protection of the rights of the individual.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, is it not the case that on an Affimative Resolution, Parliament can only accept or reject the Order and cannot amend it?
5.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House for more than one moment, but I think that there is one point which has not been made by any previous speaker. I have been involved in some of the inquiries which have taken place under the 1958 Act, and there is certainly more than one version of the procedure which takes place under that Act. There is the "monster" inquiry, to which Dame Edith refers in her evidence to the Select Committee. There is a full argument before the Boundary Commission, which makes a final report and submits it to the Minister. If there is objection, then there is a local inquiry.
It is at this stage that sometimes things may go wrong. The Boundary Commission will have made certain recommendations. Some local authorities will be satisfied with the recommendations and some will be dissatisfied. The ones that are dissatisfied will object. The ones that are satisfied will do nothing. At the inquiry that is held before the Minister's Inspector those who are satisfied will call no evidence. They cross-examine the other side. But the only people who produce evidence are the local authorities who are dissatisfied. They may be torn to pieces by the person appearing on behalf of the satisfied authorities, but they
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have no opportunity to attack those who are satisfied with the recommendations of the Boundary Commission.
I do not say by any means that in all cases, or indeed ever, has it occurred that the Ministry's inspector has failed to spot anything that he ought to have spotted. I have great respect for the inspectors, and they do a superb job. Nevertheless, there is a flaw in the procedure, and I believe that there may be occasions when it would be right for the dissatisfied local authority at any rate to have the opportunity to present to this House—I believe it can be done only in this House and not in another place—a Petition for the House to examine. I do not suggest that it should necessarily go to a Select Committee. I think that a method might be devised by which the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, and some of his colleagues could look to see if the matter is prima facie a matter to be discussed by a Select Committee. If they decide that it is not such a matter, it will go no further. But if in their opinion it is something that should be looked at by a Select Committee, then I cannot see how anyone is doing anything but taking away an important right if we deprive the authority or anybody else from the opportunity of bringing the matter before a Select Committee. I think that this matter ought to be looked at again in the light of some of the things that have been said this afternoon.
5.13 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will agree that this matter ought not to be regarded at all as a question of Party politics. We are considering a Report of our own Procedure Committee, which did not divide on Party lines, and when considering our own Rules I suggest that it is for every individual Member of your Lordships' House to decide for himself. I only venture to say a word or two, because I am thinking of possible Select Committees of the future.
I have been paid too much by local authorities in my time not to have sympathy with inquiries of this kind. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that the thing is pretty interminable. In the first place, they all, quite rightly, say exactly what they think before the proposals are made. Then, when the draft

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proposals are made, they say it all over again, and they argue it at great length before the Commission. Then, when the proposals are made, anybody who objects to them has the right to object to the Minister, and the Minister is bound to order an inquiry. There they say it all over again for the third time—and it always seems to get longer each time—and so often it is just a question of local Party politics.
I remember well a case in Leicestershire where the City Council asked for a little to be added from the County only because it was a Labour Council, the outlying districts were Conservative, and it was afraid of losing its majority. But when the proposals were published the Conservatives were in power, and they objected to the Minister and asked for an enormous area of extension to the city. There had to be a public inquiry, and three days before the public inquiry there were some local elections in wards. Power was now held by five Liberals, three of whom had never been on the council before.
Obviously when Parliament passed the Act they thought that if they gave people three opportunities of saying everything they wanted to say it would then be right for the Minister to make a decision, which in this field is a political decision. I quite appreciate that if you give people the right to say things three times over, it may be that something is missed the third time, and if you had a fourth opportunity that might be put right. But then, if there was the right to have it a fourth time, it might be that on the fourth time something would be missed, and you might say that there ought to be a fifth time. Parliament thought that three occasions were sufficient.
It was with sympathetic thoughts of future Select Committees of your Lordships' House (and these inquiries sometimes go on for days) that I thought it right to draw your Lordships' attention to this fact. Parliament never thought that after three inquiries a Committee of the Upper House only should be entitled to conduct a further inquiry, and that that was a mistake. What the majority of the Procedure Committee are suggesting is that this mistake should now be corrected.
5.16 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I should like to say a few words. First of all, I agree wholeheartedly with what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has said about this being a non-Party matter. Of course it is not a Party matter; it has nothing to do with Party. Should we disagree among ourselves, certainly no Whips will be on on this side, and I hope they will not be on on the other side. But I very much hope that there will not be a Division or disagreement on this matter, for this reason. Although it is perfectly true that in normal circumstances we always accept without very much discussion what the Procedure Committee say, on occasions there is disagreement, and I do not think the House necessarily has to take without debate or disagreement something which the Procedure Committee tell the House. After all, they are only representatives of the whole House, and it is the job of every Member of the House to make up his own mind as to the rights or wrongs of what the Committee have decided.
I do not want to say anything about the merits or demerits of what has been said this afternoon. We have listened to some most eloquent speeches, but the one thing left in my mind is that there is in this House considerable disquiet and unease about what is suggested, whether rightly or wrongly, by the Procedure Committee. One of my noble friends made an eloquent speech on a case about which he says he is worried as to what is proposed; and a number of my noble friends behind me, and the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, have also spoken in this regard. Indeed, there have been some new points raised. I think my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross raised quite a new aspect of the matter.
What I should like to suggest (and I do not know to whom I ought to appeal, whether it should be to the Lord Chairman of Committees, who is busy talking to the noble Earl the Leader of the House, to whom I was going to appeal, as well) is that there is not much against taking this matter back and asking the Procedure Committee to have another look at it. After all, this has been going on for some time, and nobody will suffer much injustice by a delay of two or three weeks. The Procedure Committee, in the light of what has been said in this

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debate, will at any rate be in a position to look at the speeches which have been made and decide whether there is any substance in them.
In addition, I feel (and here I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd) that it is for consideration whether the Procedure Committee should consider hearing the local authority associations, which have written to various noble Lords and expressed their anxiety. Although the Procedure Committee is a Committee of the House, that procedure does affect the rights of local authorities, and I do not see anything wrong in hearing the local authorities and their side of the case, in the same way that the Procedure Committee have heard the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, and Dame Evelyn Sharp. I do not think there is anything to lose in this case. It may well be that the Procedure Committee, when they have discussed it again, will come to exactly the same conclusion. In that case, I think the House should drop the matter and accept what the Committee say without further ado.
I suggest to the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman, or to the noble Earl the Leader of the House, that after this debate—and we have been debating this subject for two and a half hours—with all the anxiety and disquiet which has been expressed, it would be a good thing for the Procedure Committee to look at it again. None of us has anything to lose, and we have a lot to gain in not having a Division on a matter of this kind.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I would first observe, if I may, that the noble
Lord, Lord Boothby, must vote for this Resolution, because it would diminish the number of Select Committees of the House, and that is what he wants to do.
LORD BOOTHBY: Of course.
LORD MERTHYR: With regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Grimston of Westbury, said, I should like to remind the House that the right to promote a Private Bill to alter local government boundaries was taken away by Her Majesty's Government at the end of 1958. I, for my part, am sure that had the situation which has been disclosed by this debate to-day then been appreciated and known about, steps would have then been taken in 1958, and I should have been standing here in 1958 moving this Motion. The fact is, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has said, that this was a mistake—
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt? At that time the local authority associations were being consulted. This time they have not been.
LORD MERTHYR: It was a mistake in 1958, and I am quite certain that, if the mistake had been realised, what we are seeking to do to-day would have been then done. I do not want to weary the House with any more arguments, but am bound to confess that I think it would be my duty not to withdraw this Motion.
On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 50; Not-Contents 82.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Iddesleigh, E.

St. Davids, V.

Ailwyn, L.

Kennet, L.

Samuel, V.

Airedale, L.

Leatherland, L.

Segal, L.

Amulree, L.

Lindgren, L.

Shannon, E.

Archibald, L.

Listowel, E.

Shepherd, L.

Blyton, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Sinha, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Snow, L.

Champion, L.

McNair, L.

Sorensen, L. [Teller.]

Citrine, L.

Meston, L.

Stonham, L.

Colwyn, L.

Mitchison, L.

Strang, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Peddie, L.

Summerskill, B.

Faringdon, L.

Phillips, B.

Swanborough, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Plummer, B.

Swaythling, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Rea, L.

Taylor, L.

Henley, L.

Rhodes, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Hobson, L. [Teller.]

Royle, L.

Williams, L.

Hughes, L.

Sainsbury, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Allerton, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mansfield, E.

Alport, L.

Enniskillen, E.

Margadale, L.

Ampthill, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Arbuthnott, V.

Falkland, V.

Merrivale, L.

Atholl, D.

Falmouth, V.

Mersey, V.

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E.

Milverton, L.

Balerno, L.

Fleck, L.

Monsell, V.

Bessborough, E.

Foley, L.

Mowbray of Stourton, L.

Blackford, L.

Gage, V.

Perth, E.

Boothby, L.

Glendevon, L.

Reith, L.

Bossom, L.

Goschen, V.

St. Helens, L.

Boston, L.

Grenfell, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Burton, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L. [Teller.]

Sandys, L.

Carrington, L.

Selkirk, E.

Clwyd, L.

Haddington, E.

Somers, L.

Colville of Culross, V. [Teller.]

Hastings, L.

Strange of Knokin, B.

Conesford, L.

Hawke, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Cowley, E.

Horsbrugh, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Hurd, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

De La Warr, E.

Ilford, L.

Suffield, L.

Denham, L.

Inchyra, L.

Tenby, V.

Devonshire, D.

Jellicoe, E.

Thurlow, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Killearn, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Long, V.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Dulverton, L.

Lothian, M.

Waleran, L.

Dundonald, E.

MacAndrew, L.

Wolverton, L.

Ebbisham, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Woolton, E.

Effingham, E.

Mancroft, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICE BILL
5.34 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Taylor.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause I agreed to.
Clause 2:
Power to meet expenses incurred in connection with employment in overseas territories
2.—(1) The Minister of Overseas Development may enter into agreements relating to the employment in public or social services in overseas territories of persons designated at any time by the Minister in accordance with the agreements, being agreements under which the Minister meets, directly or indirectly, expenses—

(a) in connection with the employment of those persons in accordance with the agreements, or

(b) in respect of compensation paid to those persons,
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and may out of moneys provided by Parliament make any payments falling to be made under the agreements.

(3) No such agreement shall be entered into, and no person shall be designated under such an agreement, except with the consent of the Treasury.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "and no person shall be designated under such an agreement'. The noble Earl said: In moving the Amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Selkirk, I should like at once to repeat what my noble friend Lord Lansdowne said on the Second Reading, that we greatly welcome the Bill. Indeed, I know that it is welcomed on both sides of the House. It was considerably improved during Committee stage in another place, and a number of Amendments tabled by the Opposition were finally accepted by the Government. The Amendments which appear on the Marshalled List to-day were the only ones of substance which were not finally accepted, yet they are in fact the ones to which we in the Opposition attach most importance, and it is for that reason that I am raising them again this evening.
I recognise, of course, that this is a Money Bill but we must remember—and

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a reference to Erskine May will show this -that there is a distinction to be drawn between a Money Bill on which your Lordships are permitted to move Amendments and a Bill of aids and supplies, for instance a Finance Bill, which it is not proper for your Lordships to amend. I say this because although the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is, I know, aware of the point, some of your Lordships may not be. Indeed, I found, on making inquiries, that there was a fairly general misapprehension that your Lordships cannot amend a Money Bill. That is not the case. Section 1 of the Parliament Act defines the powers of the Lords as to Money Bills, and it is clear from that section that it is within the powers of your Lordships to amend them, although such Amendments may be disregarded in another place. Moreover, the Companion to the Standing Orders of your Lordships' House quotes several occasions on which Amendments to such Bills have subsequently been accepted in another place. Therefore, in moving these Amendments there is no question of challenging Members in another place; we are merely suggesting improvements from a technical and a drafting point of view. I should like at this stage to reserve the position as to whether or not the House should divide on the Amendments.
The substance of the matter was discussed for some hours in another place, but bearing in mind what we all now have to bear in mind, that is to say, Lord Egremont's Motion of Tuesday of this week, I will try to detain the Committee for a relatively few minutes. The nub of the matter is whether the Treasury should have a power of veto over the designation of officers under the Overseas Aid scheme. Your Lordships will observe that subsection (3) of Clause 2 says:
"No such agreement shall be entered into, and no person shall he designated under such an agreement, except with the consent of the Treasury."
It will be seen that the first part of this subsection requires Treasury approval for the agreement which is entered into, either with the Government of an overseas territory or a local authority, or with any other such body as the Bill gives Her Majesty's Government in this country power to make agreements. That is an element of Treasury control which, as my right honourable friend said in
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another place, we regard as wholly desirable and, indeed, necessary. Such agreements can, and do, commit this country to considerable expenditure, and it seems right that the taxpayers' money should be safeguarded in this way.
However, the other part of the subsection says that no person shall be designated under such an agreement except with the consent of the Treasury. This limitation seems to some of us to be wholly unnecessary and unreasonable. We do not consider that any Party political issue is involved, but we think that this part of the subsection is unreasonable, not only from the point of view of giving effective aid to the countries which we want to help, but also from the point of view of good control of public expenditure. I am sure it is agreed on both sides of the House—and, indeed, on the Cross Benches, where several noble Lords who are closely concerned with the Treasury often sit—that the effective way of controlling expenditure is not by trying to look at every single detail but more by making sure that the Treasury take a grip of the broad agreements and policy decisions which may lead to expenditure, and also by making sure that each Department conducts its affairs efficiently within the policies and Estimates already approved. We must all agree about this; and I think we all agree that a trend away from the "candle-ends" type of control towards more modern management methods has been going on, not only in this country but in all the developed countries of the world.
In putting forward this argument in your Lordships' House I should, I think, especially refer to the Report of the Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden (who I know regrets that he cannot be here this afternoon); that is to say, the Report which was published in 1961 on Public Expenditure. That Committee, which was appointed as a result of certain observations made by the Select Committee on Estimates, maintained that the old theory of candle-ends economy had not been wholly abandoned and that the new theory of departmental responsibility and partnership might not have been wholeheartedly accepted. Part II of the Plowden Report says:
"The primary responsibility of a Department is to conduct its policy effectively within

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the limits laid down by the Government. The Department is itself responsible for the efficiency with which it does its work."
It is quite clear from the Plowden Report that the primary responsibility of the Treasury is to see that the basic agreements entered into are right, but that, having done that, they should leave the Department to do its job and not to try to control every person the Department wants to appoint under any given agreement. I am sorry that the noble Lord is not with us to-day to endorse this interpretation of his Report; if he were he would certainly do so.
I know that in the noble Lord's Report it was stated that although the Treasury had been criticised in the past, some liberalisation had since taken place in regard to Treasury control. But what is now being sought in this Bill is, in fact, the exact opposite to what is recommended as good control in the Report—a Report which I think was generally accepted by both sides in both Houses of Parliament. It is true, I know, that the words in question, those in subsection (3) of Clause 2, were used in the original Overseas Services Act, 1961. But the point I must make is that the Act containing those words was passed before the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, made his Report and prior to its acceptance by Parliament.
Another reason why I am moving these Amendments is that this clause deals with developing countries and not just the few remaining dependent territories. One of the most important considerations in these cases is to meet requests from those countries as quickly as possible, and the fact that it is stated in subsection (3) that no person shall be designated except with Treasury consent must surely involve delay. There is no question of disputing the general right of the Treasury to intervene. But what some of us do dispute is the positive control that no person shall ever be designated without their consent. As was stated in another place, if those words were omitted, the Treasury would still have the whip hand. If they say they are not satisfied, and that people are being included who should not be designated, the Treasury can still withhold approval of the agreement until these matters have been settled.
I know that, on touching on this point in the Second Reading in your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, pointed out, quite correctly, that under subsection (4) Treasury consent to designation may be given generally and not in relation to individual officers. But that is not what subsection (3) says. With all the good will in the world, I still think that subsection (3), as it stands, is unreasonable, and I cannot say that Lord Taylor's observations on Second Reading have removed my anxiety.
LORD TAYLOR: If I may interrupt the noble Earl, is he discussing both his Amendments together—as I rather hope he is?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Yes, I am; although there is something that I could say separately about each; but at the moment I am speaking on the two together.
The point is that under subsection (4) there is nothing compelling; it is purely permissive. That is to say, Treasury consent may—and I underline the word "may"—"be given generally", while subsection (3) is quite positive in stating that "no person shall be designated … except with the consent of the Treasury". In my view, individual appointments should rest firmly and squarely on the responsible Minister, who in this case is the right honourable Lady, who, as we know, has herself a seat in the Cabinet and also a Permanent Secretary, a Parliamentary Secretary, several Deputy Secretaries, and Under-Secretaries; as well as a large and, I trust, efficient organisation for deciding these matters. It is not enough for the Minister to say that so far as she or he is aware there has in the past been no delay in the appointment of officers, because under subsection (3) there is a built-in delay, and that is why I think these words should be omitted. Indeed, if they remain part of the clause subsection (3) and subsection (4) will, in a sense, be contradictory and cancel each other out. One of them must be wrong. In this sense these Amendments which the noble Earl and I are proposing are, if nothing else, necessary drafting Amendments. For these reasons your Lordships can, I think, improve this Bill, and if we do so by agreeing to the Amendments I hope that another place will also see fit

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to do so. As I said at the start, they are certainly at liberty so to do. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, leave out from ("into") to ("except") in line 31.—(The Earl of Bessborough.)
5.47 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: May I say one or two words in support of my noble friend, not least that this is a non-Party measure which has been warmly welcomed in all parts of the House. My noble friend has made two points; one the straightforward point of logic, and the other a point of principle. If I may take the point of logic first, I think something is needed to reconcile subsection (3) and subsection (4). In one there is the categorical statement that no one shall be designated except with the consent of the Treasury, and the other one says that the Treasury may designate people generally. Those two propositions cannot work together. I say with respect that it is possible to add a few words to the first one such as
"no one may be designated under such an agreement except with the consent of the Treasury save as hereinafter provided".
That would at least provide a connection.
Is this really what the Government want? Do they want the Treasury to say, "We can designate people individually or collectively". I think that what has happened here is that the words my noble friend is seeking to remove from subsection (3) have been introduced into the Bill at a later date. The Bill would be quite sensible if those words were left out of subsection (3). Subsection (4) would give a power of general designation, to which I have no objection, and subsection (3) would simply say that agreements cannot be entered into except with the consent of the Treasury, and with that I should be quite content.
The other question is a broader one of principle. I think anybody who has taken a cursory glance at Lord Plowden's Report must realise that we must try to move away from very close Treasury control of detail, and it seems to me that his Report is directed entirely to preventing the sort of control which is in this clause. There is nothing in the Plowden Report to say that Treasury control over the broad issues is not important. There is
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nothing in what my noble friend and I have said to undermine the importance of Treasury control of broad issues of policy, and indeed he suggested that wider issues should be examined more fully. I think that the positive nomination of a single man before he can get any benefits under this scheme is precisely the sort of thing which should not be done. To put the matter bluntly, must the name be on a piece of paper within the Treasury building before any approval can be given?
It must be remembered that these things come from the Colonial Office to the Ministry of Overseas Aid and then to the Treasury. That cannot increase the speed with which the decisions are made. I know that the noble Lord is going to say two things. First of all, he is going to say that this was in the 1961 Tory Act; which of course is a good precedent. Secondly, he will say, quite rightly, that this point was discussed fairly fully in another place. I do not deny for a moment that our reason for raising it here is no more than that it is a matter of principle, but I think it would be a pity if this clause were agreed to without reference to this point.
LORD REITH: May I make an appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor? I have always thought him to be quite peculiarly ready to consider other points of view. I happen to know something about public corporations, and I happen to know something about development. May I, with the permission of the Committee, say that I agree with what has come from both noble Earls who have spoken. I think that the two particular subsections are not only what the noble Earl just said, but illogical, and I appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to consider this matter—in other words, to take it ad avizandum, with his usual courtesy and intelligence.
5.52 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: I must say that when I first read these two clauses I thought they were rather illogical, and I failed to make sense of them, in much the same way as the noble Earls, Lord Bessborough and Lord Selkirk, and my noble friend Lord Reith, have done. But I, too, knew that these were contained in the 1961 Act, that they were a verbatim repetition of the 1961 Act, and I

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do not necessarily accept that everything a Conservative Government does is wrong. Therefore, I felt I was bound to look at them completely honestly, completely objectively, to see if I could make sense of them. I therefore asked the officers concerned to explain how the thing worked, how it has worked in practice over the past years, and how it was proposed that it should go on working. The answer was perfectly simple.
First of all, there are two stages. There is the stage of making an agreement and, secondly, the operation of designation of an officer. An agreement is made with either the Government of the overseas territory, as in the past under the Overseas Services Act, or now, with a local authority, a university, a public corporation in that territory, or some other body; and I think we all agree that the Treasury should agree about the making of the agreement. But now comes the process of designating officers under the agreement. Let us suppose that it is a university. Here it will not be a question of appointing an officer: the subsection is dealing with officers who are already in post. Indeed, if it were a question of appointing an officer—and sometimes it will be a question of appointing an officer—there is not, and has not been in the past, any question of a hold-up. I do not see why there should be any in the future.
Using this particular form of words, the procedure has been that when the first of a new type of officer was designated, and it was decided to help that class, then the Ministry of Overseas Development had to put the case to the Treasury and say, "This is a new kind of case we are going to deal with, of which Mr. Smith or Professor Jones is the example; and if we do this there may follow twenty-seven other cases of a similar category. Taken together, this will cost quite a substantial sum of money."
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: I apologise to the noble Lord for interrupting, but may I take it that approval is given generally to that whole category?
LORD TAYLOR: The initial case of any category is submitted to the Treasury, and thereafter the approval is given generally. This rather clumsy form of words—
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Does not that contradict the phrase "No person shall be designated under such agreement …"?
LORD TAYLOR: No, because the point is qualified by the next clause; namely, that the designation may be given for a generality of officers—for a general group. This is a perfectly sound piece of Conservative legislation, which has worked perfectly well, and I really do not see what all the fuss is about. Indeed, even if this Amendment were accepted the procedure would be identical, and I am sure that the noble Earl would wish it to be identical. I am sure he would wish that, where a large new expenditure is to be made, Treasury approval of the principle should be obtained. It is no good saying that Treasury approval of the agreement is enough, because the agreement is merely in respect of institutions and not in respect of the posts inside the institutions. It is getting Treasury agreement to pay the university of Katmandu, or whatever it may be, this sum of money, but not in respect of all the professors of engineering, or what you will. I am satisfied, although I start with an initial anti-Treasury prejudice, and also with an initial suspicion of clauses which are repeated from the Acts of the previous Government, that in this case they were right, and, although the phrasing is a little clumsy, that it works perfectly well.
Now the question of delay. Both noble Earls have said that there is bound to be delay. In fact there has not been any delay. Where appointments are made in this country for new posts, the designation is a purely automatic procedure, once the initial type of post has been approved; and while the other inquiries which have to be made about candidates, such as the taking up of references, and so on, are going on, the designation procedure can be done perfectly quickly. It does not take more time at all. As I say, except in new cases it does not even go to the Treasury.
One always feels that one can improve on particular drafting, but I think it would be quite unnecessary to attempt to improve this drafting. I think it might lead to undesirable effects if we appeared to be opening up once more the whole question of designation. The noble Earl will know perfectly well that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction over the

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line that was drawn in connection with which officers should be designated and which should not, as the result of the Overseas Service Act, in Central Africa in particular. Very tragic cases they were, which his Government had to deal with. Remember, we are repealing the Overseas Service Act. It is among a number of Acts in the Schedule that we are repealing. Therefore the present OSAS arrangements, as they are called, must be continued under the same conditions as in the past, otherwise all these folk will think they are going to have their cases reopened, which I think would give them a quite false hope. I am sorry about that. I am also sorry to have to resist the appeal of the noble Lord, Lord Reith. When I first read the Bill, I felt as he did. Having studied it carefully, and having heard the arguments from my officers, I am sure that they are right. I am sorry that I must advise your Lordships that it would be unwise and wrong to accept this Amendment.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for having gone into the question so deeply. I begin to see his point, but I am not entirely happy about it at the moment. I sympathise considerably with what my noble friend Lord Selkirk said: that if one merely dropped the phrase "and no person shall be designated under such an agreement", in subsection (3), but kept in subsection (4) that might almost meet the point. Could the noble Lord give us his opinion on that?
LORD TAYLOR: I am speaking "off the cuff", but I think that we have to have subsection (3) because until that point we have no mention of designation at all. This is the lead-in to the matter of designation.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I wish the noble Lord would look at this again. He said that this was clumsy drafting, but can we not do something to improve it, even if it was Tory? The noble Lord went on to say that subsection (3) is qualified by subsection (4), but it is not in the least qualified by (4). I have suggested words which could qualify it. Are we going to repeat this indefinitely, because otherwise we might create some precedent which would upset everything? We are not anti-Treasury on this. I should have thought that the whole pur-
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pose of the Plowden Committee was to help the Treasury to do their essential task and not to be diverted by things which do not matter. The noble Lord has now described the process by which designation takes place, every word of which can come under subsection (4), and subsection (3) is therefore unnecessary. If I may say so, he is breaking the law quite specifically by not fulfilling the terms of subsection (3). I am sorry to press the noble Lord: I do not believe that we should allow sloppy legislation to go through. Our draftsmen should see whether they cannot make a little better job of it.
LORD TAYLOR: I am sorry, but I do not think that it is fair or right that I should give any hope on this one. I think that it would be wrong to start altering for the sake of attempting to achieve greater clarity here, because if we did we would be in grave danger of reopening all the appointments already made under these two subsections. These two subsections have been working very satisfactorily for the past four years. I think that I am right in saying that about 10,000 officers have been dealt with under them, and a number of officers—I could not give the number off-hand—have been excluded under these subsections. When noble Lords on the other side of the House were in power they had to be very firm about where they drew the line. Once we start altering the actual words of these two subsections, which are simply a replacement of existing law under which the past deeds were done, I think we shall be exposing ourselves to the possibility that all these people would feel that they were going to get something out of it, which they would not do. Although the phrasing is a little clumsy, it can be understood. I understand it perfectly well and it is understood perfectly by those who work it, and I believe it is understood by noble Lords. All subsections have to be taken together, one with another, and there is no question of illegality. Subsection (3) says:
"… no person shall be designated under such an agreement, except with the consent of the Treasury".
But in fact that agreement can be given to a group of persons.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: With respect, it does not say that.
LORD TAYLOR: There is no "but"; but it says that agreement can then be given to a group of persons. I do not think a draftsman is going to get it much better than that. I think that it would be very unwise to start altering it.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: I am sorry that I cannot go all the way with the noble Lord on this. The most I can now do is to ask him whether we cannot have a Report stage on the Bill, and say that we reserve the right to raise the matter again on Report. I do not think that I should detain your Lordships any longer. I have stated the full case. The 1961 Act was drawn up before the Plowden Committee made its recommendations, and I, like the noble Earl, still think that it could be improved. I hope that it will be in order for me to retain the right to raise the matter on Report.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Remaining clause and Schedule agreed to.
House resumed.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, a Committee of the Whole House to whom was committed the Overseas Development and Service Bill have gone through the same and direct me to report it to your Lord-ships without Amendment.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, do I understand that this is the Report stage?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am now in a slight dilemma. I should now move, "That the Report be now received", but I gather that, if I do that, this is the Report stage. It was not my intention to deprive the noble Earl of any of his rights.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, there is no necessity, as I understand it, for the noble Lord to move that Motion if he does not choose to. If he is content that there should be a Report stage on another occasion, then, as I understand it, he merely stays in his place and does not move that particular Motion.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I would ask that we should be given a little time to consider the matter further before the Report stage.
LORD TAYLOR: I am in the dilemma that I do not think that the noble Earl will do the slightest good by having a separate Report stage. I am sorry I cannot undertake anything. I will certainly think about it again, and he can move an Amendment on Third Reading.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: I accept that.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I now, after this somewhat odd interlude, beg to move that the Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Taylor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Report received accordingly.

PUBLIC HEALTH (NOTIFICATION OF BIRTHS) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment: Report received.

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) BILL
6.10 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a short Bill dealing with a precise and small aspect of criminal procedure in Scotland. What it in fact does is to allow the two parties, the prosecutor and the accused, to agree on facts without their necessarily being proved in cases where they are in such agreement. I think the point which is of special interest to your Lordships' House is that this Bill follows directly from a recommendation made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, in the course of a debate last year which was introduced by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross on law reform. The recommendation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, is, I think, fully carried out.
With your Lordships' permission I will read what he said on that occasion.
"Take, then, the second topic I mentioned that there is no right to make an admission in a criminal trial; everything has to be proved

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meticulously. Days and days of valuable time and an immense amount of money are wasted, and yet there is not the slightest reason that I can see why the reform should not go through. I have never understood why you can admit the whole crime by pleading guilty, but cannot admit any particular fact in the course of the trial if you plead not guilty. To my mind it makes no sense at all, but, again, for a century and a half nobody has done a thing about it because evidence and procedure have tended to be neglected. I put evidence and procedure first for this reason: nine-tenths of the litigation in this country is not concerned with law at all; it is concerned with the ascertainment of facts, in either civil or criminal proceedings."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 258, col. 1070, June 11, 1964.]
I am glad to say that I think this Bill covers the point which the noble and learned Lord made in those statements.
If I may put it this way, under the 1933 Act documents could be agreed if both parties accepted that by Minute submitted to the court. This is an extension of that Act and is a consolidation of the two earlier provisions. By this Bill there may now be admission of fact, provided, again, that both parties agree, and provided that the accused is represented professionally. I think this is desirable. I believe that it will not only encourage shorter trials, but also put less of a burden on juries. The accused will certainly lose nothing, and I believe that in some complicated cases such as embezzlement it is to his advantage that the facts in dispute should be clear and not confused. On all these counts I think that this is a desirable step forward. I believe that the profession in Scotland welcome this Bill, and I hope that the Government will be able to do so, too.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, if I may from these Benches welcome the Bill that has been presented to your Lordships this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Selkirk, I think I need say only a very few words. The explanation which the noble Earl has given will be enough in itself, I think, to commend this measure to your Lordships, in that time, money and inconvenience will all be saved—in some cases a great deal of all of them. If it were not for the plain and obvious good sense of that, the recommendation and blessing which has been given to this particular reform by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid,
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should make quite certain that the matter is all in order.
I am glad that the noble Earl has taken the opportunity to bring together the two previous statutory provisions, which occur in subsection (4) of Clause 1 of this Bill, whereby documents could be agreed, and whereby, I think, in summary trials, but not in the case of indictable offences, single matters could also be agreed between the prosecution and the defence. There is now a full range in which facts and documents can be agreed in all criminal trials. This must be an admirable improvement in the law of Scotland, and to everyone's advantage. I therefore hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will be able to give the same welcome to the Bill in this House as it received from the Government in another place.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I wish to state the Government's attitude towards this Bill in a way that would commend itself to the noble Lord, Lord Egremont. It has been considered by the Lord Advocate and, on his advice, I can say that it makes a useful amendment to the law which the Government would be happy to see enacted.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

HOUSING (AMENDMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL
6.16 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a short and straightforward Bill. Its single purpose is to raise the limit of the aggregate amount of advances which may be made from the Consolidated Fund to the Scottish Special Housing Association for its capital expenditure in building houses in Scotland. The Association is a wholly Exchequer-financed body and relies on these advances for all its capital expenditure. The amount of work which it can undertake is governed by the amount of capital money which is advanced to it under the provisions amended by the Bill.

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A statutory limit for the total amount of money which could be advanced to the S.S.H.A. was first set in 1955, under Section 16 of the Requisitioned Houses and Housing Amendment Act 1955. The limit was then set at £75 million. This limit was increased to £100 million in 1957, and most recently to £110 million in 1962. Up to the end of the financial year, 1964–65, the actual amount of advances made to the Association was, in total, £101·4 million. This is well within the present maximum, but including further advances which will be required for work which had been approved, the total committed up to March 31 was £106 million. At the present rate of work by the Scottish Special Housing Association it is likely that commitments will reach the limit of £110 million before the end of this year. Parliamentary authority for advances in excess of the present limit is therefore needed before the end of the year, if the forward planning of the Association is not to be inhibited and if its building work in the future is not to be curtailed.
I do not think that your Lordships would wish me to give you any further explanation of the work of the Association, which I think is well known to all Members of your Lordships' House. The only further commendation which I think I need give to this Bill, is that it is advancing the amount of money by the same stage of £10 million as was found desirable on the last occasion. So once again we are, as was said on a previous occasion, not accepting that everything which was done by the last Administration was wrong. In this case we think they were right, and we are even doing exactly the same as they were doing—one step enough for me.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Hughes.)
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his excellently brief introduction of this Bill, and to welcome it on behalf of my noble friends on this side of the House. As he rightly says, I think we all know the value of the work done by the Scottish Special Housing Association, and I am quite certain that none of your Lordships would wish to see this work impeded in any way by lack of funds. The only point I have been wondering about is how long the noble Lord thinks that this new
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financial arrangement will have to run. I do not expect him to give an answer to that to-day, but it is a point which struck me. I have much pleasure in welcoming the Bill and in wishing the Scottish Special Housing Association every success in its efforts.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, perhaps I might say, on the point made by the noble Marquess, that we hope to get through the £10 million a little faster than we got through the last £10 million.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
6.20 p.m.

HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL
Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
Clause 3:
Duties of the Board
3.—(1) In pursuance of their general function described in section (1) of this Act the Board shall have the following duties—
(e) as soon as possible after the end of each calendar year to make to the Secretary of State a report as respects that year on the exercise and performance of their functions under this Act; such report shall set out any directions given to the Board under section 2(1) of this Act, a summary of any proposals submitted to the Secretary of State under paragraph (b) of this subsection, and, where he has refused to approve any such proposals, a summary of his reasons for so refusing, but shall not disclose any such information as is referred to in section 12(1) of this Act without the consent referred to in that subsection.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to add to subsection (1)(e)
"; and such report shall include a report from the Council".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, if I may start the proceedings on a slightly discordant note, it is perhaps a little unfortunate that we are starting such a Bill at this rather late hour, with a number of Amendments on the Order Paper, because, while one may disagree as to whether or not it is an important Bill, it is a Bill which certainly breaks new ground.
On the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said:
"I think it is very likely that the Council would wish to make a report of this kind, but

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the Government think that it would be a mistake to make it mandatory."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Vol. 267 (No. 97), col. 1185, July 6, 1965.]
He based his argument for the rejection of the Amendment I moved at that time not so much on that particular Amendment as on an Amendment which he joined with it, rather than I did, and which was an Amendment calling for details. He said that the Council might not want to disclose the advice it gave. The Amendments I am moving on this occasion—and perhaps it would be convenient if we take Amendment No. 33 together with this one—do not require the Council to report everything that happens, but merely to report on their proceedings in the previous year. What they put in their report is left to them, but that there should be a report I really do not think can be doubted.
It is not only that the expenses of the Consultative Council will be paid by the taxpayers, and that the taxpayers will want to know what they are getting for their money; but that the Council will be a public body, with responsibility to the public. If people accept these public appointments, they must be prepared publicly to justify what they do and say, collectively and individually. By that, I do not mean that everything that everybody said would be in the report—obviously not—but they must be prepared to stand by what they are doing. I think it is desirable that they should report—I do not think that can be denied; I think it would be unbusinesslike if they did not report—and the report should be published. I do not think we should leave it to a kind of hole-in-the-corner arrangement between the Board and the Council as to whether they report or not. I would say that, if there is to be the successful relationship which the noble Lord wants, and which we all want, between the Council and the Board, then each must know where it stands. The Council must know that it has to submit a report, but that it does not have to record in it anything which it considers confidential or not in the public interest to disclose.
I suggest to the noble Lord that it would be a mistake at this stage to arouse suspicions from the start by not providing for the report. If this Amendment is refused, it is inevitable, I think, that
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some suspicion of concealment and suppression would be conveyed; and I do urge the noble Lord to accept this Amendment, even if he would like to see Amendment No. 33, which I cannot move at the moment, of course, in slightly different terms. It is this Amendment we are discussing, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 6, at end insert the said new words.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, when we were considering this Bill at the last stage I gave quite a number of undertakings to look at various aspects which had been brought forward in Amendments from your Lordships, and, as will be clear as we go along, I have accepted or propose to accept quite a number of these Amendments. This, however, is not one which I can recommend to your Lordships, and the reasons are much the same as I advanced at the Committee stage.
First of all, we believe that a most valuable feature of the Council's work must be the creation of the right kind of atmosphere in which the Board can act. This may well involve general talk on principles, or about possible courses of action, the recording of which in an annual report would be extremely difficult and could be embarrassing. I appreciate that, in speaking to his Amendment, the noble Lord has emphasised the fact that he is not saying in any way what should or should not go into the report, but a requirement in the Bill for the Council to record their proceedings, or any part of their proceedings, in an annual report would really make it more difficult for them to avoid including specific advice which they had tendered to the Board on their own initiative or at the request of the Board; and I think the noble Lord recognised that the publication of such advice, some of which might be confidential, could, in the light of subsequent events, be embarrassing to the Council.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I was very careful to say that although these two Amendments are associated, and although it is quite proper to discuss them together, it does not follow that, because he accepts the first he is thereby obliged to accept the second. All we are discussing at the moment is whether there should be a report from the Council.
LORD HUGHES: Yes, I appreciate that; but what I am trying to convey to your Lordships is that as soon as we make it a formal requirement that a report should be made annually we import into it an element of formality which could in fact defeat the main purpose of the informal consultation, which will be the most valuable part of the work which the Council can do. I think I made it perfectly clear at the Committee stage—but if, by any chance, I did not, I will, at the risk of infringing the Egremont principle of repetition, say it once again—that the Council will be perfectly free to submit a report, either annually or more frequently, on specific matters if they wish to do so, and the Board will be equally free to incorporate the whole of that report or special report, or parts of it, in their own proceedings. The fact that it is not made mandatory does not in any way prevent them from doing that—that is, if we leave it as it is in the Bill, that it is a matter entirely for the Council. It means that when they make a special report on some subject, or if they make a report which does not include the whole of their proceedings, they are not in the position that they can be accused of choosing to publish certain items and choosing to suppress others.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that this should not be part of a hole-in-the-corner arrangement between the Board and the Council. He also said that if certain things were not to be published there would be the suspicion that things were going to be suppressed, with the inference, at least, that there was something to hide. If the Council, in the completely free exercise of their own judgment, decide what they are going to publish and what they are not going to publish, and do so in the way in which the Government contemplate they will, there can be no suspicion that either the Board or the Government seek the suppression of anything; because the decision will be taken by the Council at their own hand.
There is nothing we can write into the Bill which would add to that complete freedom which the Council will possess; there is nothing which will add to the complete freedom which the Board will possess. Making it mandatory by writing it into the Bill is more likely to result in the publication of less information than
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of more; and it is also likely to defeat the object which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has in mind and with which I am in complete agreement. We want the public, both in the Highlands and elsewhere, to be fully aware of all that the Council and the Board are doing. We think this can best be accomplished by leaving it to their own discretion.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, seems to be contradicting himself steadily. First of all, he says that there will be nothing to conceal; then he goes on to say that the mere fact that the Board is not compelled to reveal all their proceedings will mean that there will not be any secrecy. As a considerable proportion of public opinion in Scotland is apprehensive about the far-reaching powers that the Board possess, I should have thought it would be only wise that a report on the lines indicated should be submitted. After all, the Forestry Commission, which spends a great deal of public money, produces an annual Report.
LORD HUGHES: But in this Amendment we are not talking about a report from the Board. We are talking about a report from the Advisory Council.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I am well aware of that. It is the Advisory Council who wish to have this report made. But, just as the Forestry Commission has to produce a Report annually, which can be, and very often is, discussed in this House, so I should have thought it very much more in the public interest and in the interests of the Board and the Council that a similar report should have to be submitted annually.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, there is to be a Report from the Board which will be discussed by Parliament in the same way as is the similar Report from the Forestry Commission. But the Forestry Commission are not obliged to incorporate in their Report any advice they may get from the committees and advisory bodies that they have.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend; that the noble Lord has contradicted himself in this matter, because he said it is a matter entirely for the Council whether

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they make a report or not. What we are talking about is whether or not the Board should suppress that report if one is made. The noble Lord shakes his head; but this is what we are talking about.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if the noble Lord will permit me to say so, I pointed out at the last stage that the Council will be perfectly free not only to make a report but to publish the report. There can be no question of its being suppressed by the Board if the Council themselves are free to publish. The only people who can suppress the report are the Council, if they do not wish to put in the information. The very fact that the noble Lord is prepared to delete the references to the compulsory inclusion of the report would enable the Council to suppress anything they wish to suppress in the same way as if they exercised their freedom not to make a report at all.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think the Committee will have been considerably reassured by what the noble Lord has said. I believe one has to judge this matter more by the spirit in which it was said than perhaps by the actual words used. I think it is plain from what the noble Lord said that the idea—I will not say the intention—is that the Council shall publish as much as possible. Nobody wants them to publish everything. I agree that it is not necessary that the Board should publish the report or that the Council's report should be incorporated in the Board's report since they might publish it themselves. For that reason I am prepared to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.36 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after subsection (2), to insert:
"() Where any proposal or related proposals which involve either the expenditure of £250,000 or the acquisition by way of purchase from one or more owners (whether by the Board or by any other authority or authorities authorised by or under any enactment contained in a public general Act to purchase land compulsorily, or partly by the Board and partly by such other authority or authorities) the rateable value of which in aggregate exceeds £100,000, the Board shall submit the proposal or related proposals to the Secretary of State in the form of a scheme. The Secretary of State may make an order approving any such scheme, with or without modifications, and
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shall lay the order together with a copy of the scheme before Parliament; and if either House of Parliament within the period of forty days beginning with the day on which the order is laid before Parliament so resolves the order shall be annulled and the Board shall not implement the scheme."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this I regard as a very important Amendment. It provides that any sizeable scheme which the Board propose should be laid before Parliament in the form of an Order subject to annulment by the Negative Resolution procedure. There are two tests of what is sizeable. One is the total expenditure involved by the scheme, the other is the amount of land to be acquired, expressed in terms of rateable value, because that is the easiest way of establishing the value of the land to be acquired.
The point is that the powers of the Board are, admittedly, very wide. As I have said before, we are breaking new ground in this Bill. It is for that reason that we recognise that the powers are bound to be wide. Nobody yet knows the scope of the schemes the Board may approve. On the one hand, nobody wants to hamper or restrict them in the good work they may do or propose for the Highlands; but, on the other hand, if they are going to concert and promote big schemes—and this is not yet certain; the noble Lord had rather indicated to me that the schemes he had in mind would be comparatively small—it is hardly enough that such schemes should be approved simply by the Secretary of State.
After all, it is the Government which is the custodian of the rights of the individual and the community. It is not the prerogative of a Council nominated by the Secretary of State; it is that of Parliament. If there are to be big schemes it is my belief that they should be referred to Parliament. The provisions in this Amendment seem to me to be the barest minimum that one could ask. So far as I can see there is no provision in the Bill for the Secretary of State to hold a public inquiry on the proposals as such. The nearest approach to that is a public inquiry on the Council's acquisition of land under Clause 4; and that is only where particular objection to the Council's acquisition of land arises. I mentioned the hydro-electric scheme at an earlier stage, and the noble Lord said he thought my noble friend Lord Strathclyde

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would agree that the procedure under the hydro-electric scheme was unduly cumbersome and would not altogether be welcomed.
But in the proposals that are being put forward now, unlike the hydro-electric scheme, there is no provision for a public inquiry before the scheme is presented. The reason for that is that any such scheme of concerting and promoting might involve the whole of the Crofter Counties area; whereas the hydro-electric scheme involved only a particular area or particular areas. The idea of this Amendment is that it safeguards the rights of Parliament and it safeguards the rights of the Members elected to represent the particular areas affected to challenge a scheme. It seems to me that it is no good saying that Parliament can question or challenge the Secretary of State about the proposals; because then it has no means of preventing those proposals from taking place, unless, of course, there was a vote of censure on the Minister. I cannot see any other means by which that could be done.
The order procedure gives an easy way to debate and probe a scheme and, if necessary, annul it. I should have thought that where a big scheme was concerned, involving, perhaps, more than one local authority and a very wide range of interests, such as setting up a national park or something of that kind, it would be desirable to allow Parliament to consider the scheme. I do not think that that would be asking too much. It would probably make the Bill a little less fearsome in appearance in the eyes of some people in so far as the extensive powers of the Board are checked only by the Secretary of State.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 9, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
6.42 p.m.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, as on the last Amendment, there is a certain amount of concern about the vast powers given to the Board. If this Amendment were accepted, it would go some way to dispel at least some of the fears. If some such provision is not inserted in the Bill, the Board would appear to be in a position to carry through very large arrangements which would change the aspect, socially and economically, of various parts of the
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Highlands, but which at the same time, unless carefully watched, might do considerable harm to the interests of many of the inhabitants there and, indeed, might impinge and infringe on the rights of the local authorities.
I can see no reason why this Amendment should not be accepted. It does not bind or restrict the Board in any way, but its acceptance would mean that Scotland as a whole would be able to know just what the Board was doing, and what was proposed before some large-scale operation was put into effect which might not be advantageous from the point of view of certain of the communities concerned; and which, therefore, would be worthy of consideration from outside before it became finally and irrevocably the law.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, when this matter was discussed during the Committee stage, contrary to the attitude which I adopted regarding some of the other Amendments, I did not give much of a welcome to the proposal. Neither the consideration which I have given to this in the week or more which has ensued nor anything which I have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, or the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, has made me feel that this Amendment would improve the Bill. Frankly, I cannot understand the argument which has been advanced when it is taken with the arguments put forward on Second Reading and during the Committee stage, that already there was far too much supervision of the Board by the Secretary of State and by the Treasury with the need to seek approval for this and the next thing. By means of this Amendment, it is proposed to place an even greater obstacle in the way of the Board.
The job of securing the proper development of the Highlands and Islands is a matter of urgency. The Government are anxious to provide machinery to do this stripped, so far as possible, of unnecessary formalities. They wish to see the quick preparation, approval and implementation of proposals and projects for the economic and social development of the area. It is vital, therefore, that the procedure in Clause 3 should be as informal and streamlined as possible, consistent, of course, with the need for consultation with local authorities and other

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bodies likely to be concerned with particular proposals and projects. The Government are convinced that the adoption of what might prove a lengthy procedure, involving Parliament and the submission and approval of major proposals, will serve only to delay much-needed action and give rise to doubts about the validity of the declared intention of the Government to rehabilitate the Highlands and Islands. That is my general objection to the Amendment.
I would remind your Lordships that, contrary to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, it is not expected that the Board will merely do small things. The noble Lord said that I had given him that impression. That may be so, if he is thinking of the specific references which I gave in answer to specific points. If the Board is to be effective, the schemes to be undertaken in the crofting areas will undoubtedly include measures of substantial importance. There may well be a whole variety of projects where the figures mentioned in the Amendment would be quite relevant; but what is not so certain is that when the Board is consorting and promoting a scheme the expenditure on which would exceed, for example, £250,000, anything like that amount of money would come from the funds of the Board. If the scheme involved three or four local authorities, the contribution from the Board might be £50,000, with £200,000 coming out of the ordinary operations of existing authorities.
If we accepted this procedure we should be creating a piece of machinery by which powers, which the local authorities can at the present time put into operation—subject only to the necessary financial approval from the Secretary of State—would be taken from them and subjected to the procedure of Parliamentary approval; because what was proposed formed part of a wider scheme consorted by the development authority. We should, therefore, be placing restrictions on the operations not only of the Board but of local authorities, such as are not placed upon them at present.
Either noble Lords wish the Board to have freedom to go ahead and cut down restrictions to the minimum, and they mean what they said when, during the Second Reading debate and the Committee stage, they criticised the interven-
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tions which have to be made by the Secretary of State or the Treasury, or they do not. If they do mean what they said, there is no justification for imposing this cumbersome procedure on the Board, because cumbersome procedure it is. Admittedly, the noble Lord has profited from what I said during the Committee stage by making it not so onerous as other actions which have to be taken by the Hydro-Electric Board, but it is not a necessary piece of machinery and can only have the effect of slowing up the operations of the Board.
By the very nature of things, the threads of development, which may range one way and another over many aspects of the economic and social life of the Highlands and Islands involving Departments and other statutory bodies—and, of course, local authorities—must be drawn together and brought into relationship with Government policies for the economic planning of Scotland as a whole. The proper and appropriate person to do all these things is the Secretary of State, but this does not mean that Parliament will be by-passed, for the Secretary of State is responsible to Parliament. Moreover, the Annual Report of the Board will provide an opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise the proposals of the Board and its operations. In the Annual Report there will be frequent references to things which the Board proposes to do as well as a record of what it has undertaken, so that Parliament will have a full opportunity without accepting this—in the view of the Government—needlessly tight restriction on its activities. I must advise your Lordships as strongly as I can not to accept this Amendment.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am a little disappointed that the noble Lord thinks £250,000 is unlikely to be provided by the Board. It leaves me with the impression that the amounts they are likely to give are small. The noble Lord has talked about informal consultations and streamlined development, but what about the people in the area knowing about any scheme? If they did not know what was happening, there would be a good deal of suspicion about what the Board was up to. Is there going to be any proposal about how the Board are to let people know what is happening? The noble Lord suggests

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that it would be in the Annual Report, but a lot of things happen during the year, if they get on with the job. I think it will help if there can be some assurance that proper publicity will be given to any proposals when they are made.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am amazed. This is the second time in half an hour that the word "suspicion" has been imported into our debate. I have never been connected with a Bill in which there has been greater emphasis on the need of advising all people concerned. If anything, the emphasis is far too much on consultation. But because this is something which impinges on the responsibilities of existing authorities, which will continue in the Highlands, we have emphasised the importance of carrying all these bodies with us.
Can it be suggested by anyone that the Highlands Development Board could undertake a scheme in a place like the Highlands, where, if a man went out with one brown shoe and one black shoe it would be known fifty miles away within a day by people who did not even have a telephone—a scheme of the order of magnitude mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, of £250,000, on which perhaps three or four county councils would have been consulted, and they would have discussed it in their committees and public meetings, and perhaps the Crofters Commission and the Forestry Commission would also have discussed it, without everybody concerned in the Highlands knowing everything about it? If there is suspicion in these circumstances, I suggest to your Lordships that there is nothing we can possibly add to the Bill which would prevent suspicion arising in the minds of the sort of folk who would be suspicious, because they must be so deranged mentally that anything in an Act of Parliament would not help the situation at all.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I agree that a scheme of this magnitude in the Highlands would be talked about, but I would ask the noble Lord what local people can do about it if they dislike the scheme. We down here may think that it is a good thing to introduce a new population in parts of Western Ross, but the people in Western Ross may not think
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it is a good thing. I think we have to consider them and give them some means by which they can make their opinions known. Is there some means by which they can make their opinions known, other than through their local county councils, which in some instances may not reflect their views at all?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, there are many ways in which they can make their opinions known, just as they do at the present time. Not everybody likes what is done by the local authorities. I would give your Lordships an example. A number of years ago, when the stretch of eleven miles of road from Loch Ailort to Glenfinan was proceeding on its leisurely way to completion, I went on a holiday in that direction. I mentioned to someone what a tremendous improvement this would be, and I was told that an old lady in Mallaig had said, "I am not sure it is the right thing. No, it will bring all sorts of people into Mallaig. "She would have much preferred the road to be made as difficult as possible for tourist travel. There will always be people who object.
They will have the same opportunity of representation against any of the Boards proposals as they have against road schemes. In that case, they do not need to vote for the candidates who supported them, but there is more in relation to the Board. There is the Advisory Council, which is not only to be representative of the local authorities; it will be much more widely representative of the area than that. The whole purpose of the advisory machinery is that that sort of opinion can be brought to the knowledge of the Board. There is the opportunity of representation not only through a variety of existing agencies, but also through the new advisory body or by going directly to the Board. I suggest to the noble Duke that there is full opportunity for objection. If a scheme is objectionable to large sections of the community, then I venture to suggest it will not get off the ground in the first instance. If we are going to proceed in the Highlands only with things to which nobody will object, then we shall be setting the clock back considerably, because nothing at all will be done.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am bound to say that I am very disappointed with the reply of the noble Lord. He has talked about cumbersome procedure, but this is amply precedented in other spheres, like the hydro-electric schemes, and I cannot see why it should not be repeated here. He says that it is placing a restriction on the operations of the Board. It is doing no such thing. The only restriction it places is on the right of the Secretary of State to give approval without the consent of Parliament. There is no restriction whatever on the Board, except that maybe it will make the Board a little more careful in working out their figures before coming to the Secretary of State. because they would have to be embodied in the scheme and put before Parliament. That is the only possible additional restriction it places on the Board.
The noble Lord talked about the need for speed in developing the Highlands. We agree with that, of course, but what is asked here? A delay of 40 days for reflection, during which Parliament can examine the proposals and during which those who are affected may have an opportunity of bringing considerations to Parliament. I should not have thought that that was in any way derogatory to the Board. But it is rather derogatory to Parliament that it should be by-passed in this way. All that the noble Lord can say is that the proposals will be put in the Annual Report—but that is a long delay. The Crofters Commission's Annual Report appears five or six months after the end of the year. That is a substantial delay before public opinion can fully bear on the proposals, unless, as my noble friend Lord Selkirk says, the noble Lord can provide other ways in which full publicity can be given to the proposals and public opinion brought to bear upon them before the Secretary of State gives his decision. That is the point. It is not enough to have the advice of 25 men and women nominated by the Secretary of State.
I believe that this is a point of real substance. I am sorry the noble Lord has taken the attitude he has. He is entirely wrong, if I may say so, in saying that this will cause delay; and he is wrong in saying that I argued at any time against the need for supervision of the Board. I did exactly the
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opposite, if he will recall, on Second Reading. We believe that this is necessary because money is involved, and it may be a considerable amount of money, and because it is undoubtedly for the Secretary of State to examine the proposals of a Board which has such wide powers. All we are asking is that where there is a really big theme of concerting and promoting—because this is what it amounts to—or possibly a scheme which the Board will undertake on a large scale, the matter should be referred to Parliament. I do not propose to divide on this Amendment, but I am certainly not going to withdraw it.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
7.1 p.m.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved, after subsection (3) to insert:
"() In the exercise of their functions under this Act the Board shall have regard to the desirability of preserving the beauty of the scenery in the Highlands and Islands ".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, put forward an Amendment which would have the effect of making it part of the responsibilities of the Board that they should have regard to the preservation of the beauty of the Highlands and Islands in their operations, and I undertook to look at it, because I was satisfied of two things: first, that it was the general desire of the Committee that this should be done; and secondly, that it was the desire of Her Majesty's Government that the Board should operate in this way. The Amendment which I have now tabled, I think, gives complete effect to the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton. The only differences are a slight difference in wording and in the place in which it appears in the Bill—namely, in Clause 3 instead of in Clause 1. I think it is true to say that the differences as between what the noble Lord proposed and what I am now moving are merely drafting alterations, and not alterations of substance. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 12, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Dulverton has asked me to express on his behalf his keen appreciation of the noble Lord's putting down this Amendment. He has asked me to explain that he made a special

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journey from Scotland in order to say this himself, but, unfortunately, because of the late hour, he is already on his way back to Scotland.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, perhaps his regret at missing it should be conveyed to the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne.
Clause 4:
Acquisition and disposal of land
4.—(1) For the purpose of any of their functions under this Act the Board may—

(b) acquire land compulsorily, if so authorised by the Secretary of State;

(c) hold and manage land acquired under this subsection, and with the approval of the Secretary of State, and subject to the subsequent provisions of this section, dispose of or otherwise deal with such land.

7.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT M ASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT M ASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved, in subsection (1), to add to paragraph (b):
"but not for agricultural or sporting purposes, unless in the interests of the crofting community or for scientific and technical research;".
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, my chief object in putting down this Amendment is to prevent the Government from acquiring large areas of land to set up as farmers at the taxpayers' expense. Under the Amendment, the Government have power compulsorily to take over land for forestry purposes, to help crofting communities, for hotels, industry or any such purpose.
I should like to refer again, as I did on Second Reading, to the estate of Glen Forsa, which was taken over by the Government, not compulsorily, after the end of the war. All the local people were informed, and it was understood that the estate had been taken over for the purpose of research. The Government have had that estate now certainly for twelve years, but we have had no report from the technical point of view, and nothing has come out of it for the benefit of West Highland farmers. I should have hoped that a Government agronomist (I think that is the right word for an agricultural economist) could have published information obtained in the
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Department's Quarterly Agricultural Review. But they have not done so.
In this Amendment I seek to prevent the Government from taking over agricultural land simply to farm as private farmers do. What on earth is the object? I should like to know what is in the Government's mind. Do they wish to start collective farming? If so, then I think they are behind the times. To put it rather crudely, what I am trying to prevent is "jobs for the boys"—that is probably not quite the right way to express it. Compulsory powers are always odious, and I think it is permissible to use them only in the interests of the poorer sections of the community, or for research if it is to benefit the whole community.
I should now like to refer to that part of the Amendment dealing with sporting purposes. Why do the Government wish to take over sporting estates? They have acquired the Island of Rum under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy for research; and that is quite in order. But can the Minister tell me for what purpose the Government desire to take over grouse moors, deer forests, or salmon fishing? I can only presume that it is based on the statement in the Report, Land Use in the Highlands and Islands, which, at page 58, dealing with deer sport, says:
"The limitation of the enjoyment of deer sport to a small number of people having access to private estates has led to insufficient recreational use being made of these areas of land. We feel that on all grounds—economic and social—it is desirable that such facilities should be available to a wider public …"
That seems to be a contradiction in terms. If we take deer sport, as the Report calls it, the essence of deer sport is that it has to be limited to a few people, just the same as a game of tennis has to be limited either to two or four people. If you have a great number of people partaking in the sport, then you do not have any deer sport; it vanishes. The Report also says that these areas should be made available to the public, but under the Access to Mountains Act the public have completely free range over all these areas.
I cannot understand what the Government mean here. Are they proposing to take over shootings and fishings at the taxpayers' expense, and allow people cheap sport? If they are intending to

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do that, I should like them to say so. I am not personally objecting to that, but I should like the Minister to explain what the object is. If that is the Government's intention, it certainly will not be economically viable. The Report on the Highlands and Islands makes the point that if the State takes over sporting estates it will make them more economically viable; but, of course, it will not, because the very big rents from Americans and other rich men will go by the board.
I have spoken rather a long time, but the other reason that has made me put this Amendment forward is that I have had practical experience of the Government's taking over large areas of land; and my experience has been that they have treated the natural fauna extremely badly. Perhaps I may again refer to this estate of Glen Forsa, the ordnance acreage of which is 15,000 acres. The Government took over this estate and rented the sporting rights to a contractor. He came up with tracked vehicles and a gang, armed with rifles, who had no experience of deer, so far as we could ascertain. They then proceeded with the most appalling and fiendish butchery. They shot deer of all ages or sexes—anything on four legs. They shot about 500 deer before they were stopped. All the tourists were in an uproar. These trailers used to come down to the pier in the morning with about 30 or 40 carcases on them, all bleeding, a most horrible sight; and, of course, people objected. If the Government are going to take over these areas, as they say, for sporting purposes, they must have them properly managed. I cannot see that the Government have any excuse to take over land for sporting purposes, apart from research. I hope the Minister can give some assurance that the terrible débêcle that we saw at Glen Forsa is not going to happen in other areas of Scotland. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 19, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Massereene and Ferrard.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, a few years ago I spent a holiday at Glen Forsa House. I doubt very much whether I would have entered on to the Island of Mull if I had thought for one moment that I was venturing into an area which was disguised as a battlefield. On second
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thoughts, no one with a gun in his hand could have looked at my head and mistaken it for the head of a deer, because nothing projects beyond my skin at all! Seriously, the noble Viscount expressed fears which are quite unjustified, and in fact his Amendment, in one direction at any rate, would not accomplish the purpose to which he has spoken. He has spoken against the Government's acquiring sporting estates. But his Amendment would not permit that. His Amendment would stop the acquiring of an estate for a sporting purpose, but it would not stop the Government from acquiring a sporting estate for another purpose altogether.
I can assure the noble Viscount that it is not the desire of the Government to take over large estates in the Highlands merely for the purpose of continuing to operate them in exactly the same way as they have been run before, or only to enable a sign to be put up on an occasional tree, "Now Under New Management". That would serve no useful purpose whatsoever. The purpose of acquiring land is to enable the whole of it, or part of it, to be put to a more beneficial use, just as the Forestry Commission sometimes has to acquire more land than it can actually plant as part of the price of acquiring it by agreement, and then subsequently disposes, by sale on the free market, of that part of the land which it does not propose to plant but which may be continued as a farming transaction. I authorised such a sale in the Border areas only the other day.
This is the reason why the Board may be taking over land which could include land of agricultural value or of sporting value. If the Amendment were accepted, it would not accomplish part of that for which the noble Lord has spoken, but it would have the very serious effect of restricting the Board in its operations. I think it is agreed that the main natural asset of the Highlands is the land, and if the Board is to accomplish its object it must be able to secure that the land is put to the best use. It may frequently, or occasionally (I do not know which in practice will prove to be the right word), be that the Board, in order to accomplish its objects, has to acquire more land than it proposes to change the use of. I can assure the noble Viscount that the Board will not be acquiring agricultural land solely for the purpose of carrying on farming, either

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as individual farmers or as a variety practised in other parts of the world but not so far attempted here. It is not the Board's purpose to take over deer forests so that the rents can be paid by Americans to the Secretary of State instead of to the present owners. That would not accomplish the object of the Bill at all, which is to provide the best use of the land.
I would also assure the noble Viscount that neither the father nor the mother of this Bill was the Highland Panel. The Land Use Report, contrary to his repeatedly expressed convictions, has nothing at all to do with this Bill. If, in fact, certain opinions are expressed by the Highland Panel which have also been expressed by Members of Her Majesty's Government, or by Members of Her Majesty's Opposition, as well as by many people in the Highlands, that merely emphasises the fact that the Highland Panel, like everybody else, cannot be wrong all the time. If so many people say this thing, then it adds to the presumption that there is certain merit in doing it. But I would assure the noble Viscount that we did not start to work out what we were going to have in an Highlands and Islands Development Bill after the Highland Panel produced its Land Use Report.
The final thing I wish to say is that all the known and proved acceptable safeguards in compulsory acquisition are in this Bill, and of course the Amendment moved by the noble Viscount refers only to land acquired by compulsion. The acceptance of all these safeguards against abuse of procedure should, I think, finally persuade the noble Viscount that we are not seeking to acquire land merely for the purpose of changing ownership. There must be a great deal more to it than that. The important thing is the use to which the land would be put, and merely changing the name of the owner would serve no useful purpose at all in the context of this Bill. Therefore I ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I referred to the Glen Forsa estate. The Government took that over, and I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has just said that it was not the Government's intention
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to take over land except to increase the productivity of it or to improve it in some way. So far as I am aware, they are just carrying on ordinary sheep farming, the same as anybody else would be doing on that land. The noble Lord's remarks were quite cheering, although the trouble is that we hear all this, but if it is not contained in a Bill it is rather "airy-fairy." In view of what the noble Lord has said I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment, though I am still rather unhappy at the great breadth of these powers.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved, in subsection (1), to add to paragraph (c):
"; but in the event of sale the Board shall give the previous owner, if still resident in the United Kingdom at the time of sale, first refusal at a fair and equitable price".
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I sincerely hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, can accept this Amendment, because it is an exceedingly mild one. If an owner has had his land compulsorily acquired, why can he not have the first refusal, at a fair and equitable price, if the Government ever want to sell that land? I have inserted the words "if still resident in the United Kingdom" for obvious reasons.
When I say "a fair and equitable price" it should be borne in mind that as the land was acquired in the first place compulsorily it was probably acquired much more cheaply than it would have been in the open market. In deciding on the price to the original; owner, presumably the district valuer would be called in, and of course he would be bound to take into account the price the Government paid for the land. Every day we read in the Press instances of where the Government or a county council have acquired land compulsorily. On a previous occasion I quoted the case of some land that was acquired for a post office and then sold at a great profit. I read in the paper last Sunday that in 1951 Bristol Corporation purchased a piece of land compulsorily from a Mr. Bertram Jutson for housing development at a price of £1,400. Half an acre of land was left over after the remainder of it was developed. The Council has now sold that half-acre of

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land at a price of £50,000. That was just half an acre, whereas they had bought several acres for £1,400. I understand that the half-acre has been sold as a site for a petrol station. Admittedly the period from 1951 to 1965 is fairly long, but it is a very large profit, nevertheless. I think that if the Government, or a local authority, are to use compulsory powers in order to purchase land, the owner should have the first refusal of buying that land back at a fair and equitable price. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 23, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Massereene and Ferrard.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I should like to say one word in support of my noble friend's Amendment. I do not think it would be just to compare the situation in Bristol which he has quoted with what would happen under this Bill, because the provisions for compulsory purchase compensation in 1951 were governed by the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, and were totally different from those of to-day, and I hope the full market value will continue to apply. I also do not think my noble friend would be right in supposing that on any compulsory acquisition less than market value would be obtained by the owner. If this occurs it is certainly not the law, and something would have had to go very seriously wrong for that to occur.
If the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, cannot accept this Amendment, can he at any rate tell the House whether it is the practice of the departments at St. Andrew's House, if they have acquired land from a private person and find in due course that it is surplus to their requirements, to offer it back to the person who first owned it; or does this happen on only rare occasions? If it is the practice of the Department to do this, then I have no doubt that even if this Amendment is not put in the Bill the effect desired by my noble friend will be achieved in the end.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords. I, too, should like to support my noble friend, but from a different point of view, because so far as I can see this would apply to all land acquired, whether compulsorily or not, as this appears at the
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end of paragraph (c) and not at the end of paragraph (b). As I tried to show on Committee stage, this would make it easier for the Board to acquire land which they wanted because no longer would the people have the fear of not getting their land back. If this Amendment could be written into the Bill, I think it would in a few cases make the Board's work easier and quicker, which is what we, as well as the Government, want.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, in the first place I will confirm the first two points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, that the position remains as it is and that it has not reverted to pre-market-value conditions. I would also confirm that it remains the position that land acquired compulsorily will be acquired at its market value and not necessarily its existing use value. I also confirm what the noble Duke has said, that this Amendment goes further than the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, intended, because his remarks were devoted entirely to land acquired compulsorily, whereas, as the noble Duke has said, it applies to land acquired by negotiation or compulsion.
It would be quite wrong to accept the Amendment, for a variety of reasons; but I will first deal with land acquired by agreement. Before I do so, I should say that I referred a few minutes ago to having authorised the sale of a farm which the Forestry Commission did not need for planting purposes. When I put this recommendation up to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, he asked me whether the land was acquired by agreement or by compulsion. The reason he asked that was because of the next question, which was that if it had been acquired by compulsion, had it been offered to the original owner? In this case it was not acquired by compulsion; it was acquired by agreement, and there was no obligation to offer it back to the original owner. I cannot agree with the noble Duke that there is any reason why the Government should put into this Bill an obligation to offer the land back to somebody from whom they have acquired it freely by negotiation in the first instance. If this were done it would be placing the Board in a position which was not nearly so satisfactory as

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that of a private individual acquiring land.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, the difference is that the Board have a power of compulsion behind them and the private individual has not. Therefore, it is free agreement with the individual. With the Board the agreement may be freely negotiated—I am quite convinced it is much better if it is—but it is much more likely to be freely negotiated if the individual knows that if the Board are going to dispose of the land he will have the opportunity to buy it back.
LORD HUGHES: I think the noble Duke is wrong in assuming that all land which may be acquired by negotiation is disposed of to a Board or a Government Department only because the owner fears that if he does not do so by negotiation it will be acquired by compulsion. Sometimes when public bodies have wished to get land and have found difficulty in acquiring it freely, they have wished that the acquisition of land by compulsion was as easy as the noble Duke appears to envisage. In fact to get land by compulsion, as I think all noble Lords, with the possible exception of the noble Duke, are aware, is very difficult indeed. So that the threat, the ultimate sanction, of compulsion is not something which is available in every case, but is available in the case where an owner is being very unreasonable. I must not give way to the noble Duke, because I must remind him we are at Report stage and we are only supposed to speak once.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has rather misrepresented me. I know some compulsory purchase is difficult, but the threat is there. And I have never said that I thought the Board would never have a willing negotiator. I am sure that in 95 per cent. of cases the negotiators will be perfectly willing.
LORD HUGHES: It may be I am misrepresenting the noble Duke, but I can assure him it is not by intention, and I have twice sat without seeking leave to speak a second time.
A NOBLE LORD: An intervention does not count.
LORD HUGHES: I must remember that as an invitation to intervene. This Amendment in fact seeks to write into the Bill something which is not applicable only in the Highlands of Scotland. If we accepted that it was a reasonable thing to do, it would be reasonable in regard to the acquisition of land by any public body or any Government agency, whether by compulsion or by agreement. It is accepted that there is a practice in relation to the compulsory acquisition of land which is followed up to the present time, and I have reassured the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, on that point. If there were any desire to go beyond that, then this is not the Bill in which it should be done: it must be part of the land policy of the Government as a whole, to be applied equally in Bristol or Coventry as in the crofting counties of Scotland. So I could not possibly accept a new principle in relation to Government policy on land in this rather narrow context.
So far as the acquisition of land by compulsion is concerned—and I would remind noble Lords that we expect that the acquisition of land by compulsion will be very much the odd case rather than the general pattern—the Board will rely very largely on having as good an atmosphere as possible in which to conduct their operations, and to a certain extent that would be defeated if they were having recourse frequently to powers of compulsion. That is the best safeguard: that the Board want to be cooperative with people and will seek to compel only as a last resort. But where compulsion is used, then those principles to which I have referred in reply to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, will prevail, here as elsewhere. In those circumstances, therefore, I must ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment for all those reasons, but particularly because of the fact that it goes very much further than the noble Viscount's expressed intention when he moved it.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I think that what the noble Lord has said is rather disturbing. Surely it would be against the interest of any landowner to sell any sizeable piece of ground voluntarily. He does not get a chance to buy it back if he sells it voluntarily therefore it is better to hold out for compulsory acquisition.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if I intervene before the noble Lord sits down I shall be in order. He has as good a chance as anybody else of getting it back. If he has sold it freely and it is to be freely disposed of, he can buy it as well as anybody else. What we are seeking is that he should not be in a preferential position to get it back at less than market value.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, if you have compulsory powers, even if you do not use them, they are always in the background. If you are dealing with somebody who has compulsory powers you know in the end you have got to sell. I do not think the noble Lord's arguments are really very valid. I sold land to the Forestry Commission. It is true I had only a verbal agreement regarding the farm on this land, but I was told that if they sold the farm I should be offered it. I was not; it was sold over my head to somebody else. Presumably I shall have to withdraw the Amendment, but I do it most reluctantly, because, as I have said, compulsory power is completely odious and can only be excused in very rare circumstances. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 [Ancillary powers of the Board]:
7.39 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1), after paragraph (c) to insert:
"() to pay to any person who, whether in pursuance of a notice under section 11 of this Act or not, furnishes estimates, returns and information to the Commission for the purposes of any of their functions under this Act."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a fairly simple Amendment. Subsection (1) of Clause 9 empowers the Board in paragraph (b)
"to do all such things as are incidental to, or conducive to the attainment of the purposes of, any of their functions."
Paragraphs (a) to (c) specify some of those things. What I am asking the noble Lord to do is to specify another of them. I ask the noble Lord whether there is any reason why this power should not be expressed in terms. I should like to thank the noble Lord for having written to me on this subject and he will not
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mind if I read out what he said. He said:
"I have discussed with my ministerial colleagues your Amendment No. 24, and we are satisfied that it will adequately meet the situation if, in the administrative guidance that can properly be given to the Board when it is constituted to advise them, that the Secretary of State would regard it as a proper exercise of the powers under Clause 9(1)(d) that the Board should pay for the excess cost of obtaining information."
I have had a little difficulty in construing that sentence, but I should like to get from the noble Lord whether it is definitely the intention that administrative guidance along those lines will be given.
I may say that my Amendment has quite respectable ancestry because it is taken out of the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Act which was passed by the Party opposite, in 1947 or 1948. I would add that paragraph (c) specifies that the Board shall have power
"to carry out or commisison the carrying out of such inquiries, investigations or researches as the Board may deem necessary or expedient for the purposes of their functions."
What one wants to reassure people about is that it is not going to carry out these "inquiries, investigations and researches" at the expense of other people. If we agree to this Amendment it will make it clear that the Board will not have to do that. So I think it will help the Board to obtain co-operation if this power is made clear in the Bill. It seems to me that it is just as important as the first three powers. It may be a little less important to the Board, but its importance lies in the interests of others in this case. Here I think it is not unfair to expect the Bill to have regard to the interests of others as well as to those of the Board. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 23, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
7.43 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I wish to suggest that your Lordships do not accept this Amendment, and I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will be unduly disappointed at that because, with my approval, he has quoted from the letter which I wrote to him. I might mention, in return, that when he wrote to me on July 9 saying that this Amendment was being tabled,

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that was in order to give me an opportunity of giving him an assurance that information, if costly to obtain, can be paid for by the Board under Clause 9(1)(d). I am sorry that he found my reply difficult to contrue. I thought that I had some abilities, but I did not think that they included the ability in my letters to conceal information rather than to give it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It was not grammatical.
LORD HUGHES: But I am tempted to tell the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, that the meticulousness with which he goes through these things led one of my colleagues to say, "If the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, had not been a Minister, he would have made a perfect civil servant." However, the powers to which he has referred in Clause 9(1)(d), and to which I have not referred hitherto, either in discussion here or in my letter, are, I think, amply covered by Clause 9(1)(c). I think that paragraph amply covers the situation. It empowers the Board
"to carry out or commission the carrying out of inquiries, investigations or researches."
I think we must accept it that when words are used they are used in their ordinary context, and to use the phrase "commission the carrying out of inquiries" in ordinary commercial practice, at any rate, connotes that you pay the person to whom you are giving the commission. If you do not, you are not commissioning him to do something; you are ordering him to do something if you tell him to do it.
So I would emphasise the fact that when we use the word "commission", we use it in its ordinary sense, and that if someone was being commissioned by the Board to do something he would be paid for it. Similarly, I would confirm that it is the intention of the Secretary of State, in the administrative guidance which he may properly give to the Board, to include a reference to the fact that information which might be excessively costly to obtain can be paid for by the Board. But I think it would be quite wrong to put this in the Bill because, if the Amendment were accepted, it could be held that there was a legal obligation on the part of the Board to reimburse anybody for any expenditure which he incurred in giving information. It could be held, in fact, that when someone sent
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along an answer to a query he could enclose a bill for a penny for stationery and fourpence for the stamp necessary to send it back. If the worst came to the worst, he would at least have been put to that expense.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, would the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting? If he is really seriously saying that, then under paragraph (a), by which the Board shall have power
"to make such charges for any of their services as they think fit",
they have no power to supply any services free. It follows.
LORD HUGHES: No, it does not follow, because we know perfectly well that the Secretary of State can guarantee to appoint reasonable people to the Board. The Secretary of State would not guarantee that the Highlands are 100 per cent. inhabited by reasonable people. I doubt whether the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, with his wide experience, would care to contradict that statement. So what is done by a reasonable person, and what is done by an unreasonable person, or a power given to a reasonable person and a power given to an unreasonable person, must, of necessity, be quite different.
I think I have given the noble Lord the complete assurance for which he would wish, that there is no intention that the Board should be required to put anyone to unreasonable expense in furnishing it with information. If it is necessary for the purposes of the Board that information which is costly to get out must be obtained it would, for instance, be a reasonable alternative in certain circumstances that an estimate easily got out would be acceptable, instead of actual figures which were difficult to work out. The Board might well accept that. If, however, for their purposes it was necessary to go to the expense of getting out exact information, and that could be done only at what a reasonable person would regard as being an excessive cost, then the guidance which the Board will receive will undoubtedly be along the lines that they should pay for that information. But, as I said on the Committee stage, it is not to become a secondary income-earning asset for people in

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the Highlands that they are to sell information to the Board.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, could I ask one question in order to be perfectly clear about this matter? Of course it is reasonable to pay for information, but not necessarily if you are compelled under criminal sanction to supply it. I think that this was the point that my noble friend was making. Under Clause 11 you are required to furnish, and you are liable to punishment if you do not. Why on earth should the Board pay for information in regard to the obtaining of which they have a criminal sanction? I do not know whether the noble Lord could give an undertaking in regard to that? It is no good talking about "reasonable people". That phrase has been almost exhausted in the course of different Committee stages. Is the noble Lord really saying that in a normal case any expensive information, or any information which costs money, will, under Clause 11, be paid for?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, once again this matter is being approached as if the Board were to proceed from the beginning with the steps which are the ultimate. I do not expect the compulsory penal powers to be applied, except very rarely. I hope that they will never be necessary and that the Board will find that the information will be given by people quite willingly. In the circumstances, I think it is reasonable that the Board should pay for information which it is costly to obtain. If the circumstances were such that they had to apply the penal sections, quite frankly if a man was fined £50 for refusing to comply with the Order I do not know whether the Board should then give him £50 to pay his fine. I do not think I can go beyond the length I have already gone in reply to Lord Drumalbyn in saying that, where information can only be got by someone at excessive cost, the Board will be encouraged to pay for the cost of that information.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and an quite satisfied with the assurance he has given, which was the assurance I wanted. I did not expect him to accept my Amendment, although I still think it is perfectly reasonable, especially as it has already
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appeared in legislation. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 [Powers of Entry]:
7.52 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (2), after "required", to insert "by the occupier or anyone acting on his behalf". The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the Committee stage I moved an Amendment which would have made the subsection read:
"A person authorised under this section to enter upon any land, shall, if so required by any person interested in the land, or any person employed by a person interested in the land, produce evidence of his Authority …"
The noble Lord pointed out that this Was both too wide and too narrow—too wide in the sense that it might allow obstruction; too narrow in the sense that it does not cover the sons and daughters, and so on, who would be excluded by that particular definition. It seems to me to be sensible for the subsection to include the words "by the occupier or anyone acting on his behalf". As the words now appear in the Bill, it would appear that there is no limit to the persons who could require the information. The subsection says only "if so required". I think the noble Lord could readily accept this Amendment. It limits the people who could require the information, and I should have thought is exactly what is required. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 2, after ("required") insert the said words.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, in withdrawing the previous Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that he thought it was a perfectly reasonable one. All Amendments are reasonable in the eyes of the tabler, and I am quite certain that nobody puts forward an Amendment which he thinks is unreasonable. In this case, however, we are both agreed that the Amendment is reasonable, and I have great pleasure in accepting it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, as I pointed out in Committee, if trouble is to be avoided, it is not only before entering but while on the land that a person should respond to a requirement

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to produce his credentials. I beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 3, leave out ("before so entering").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this was a point that on Committee stage I promised to look into. I have done so, and am satisfied that it is a reasonable Amendment. I have pleasure in accepting it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, we shall have to keep up this good progress! This Amendment provides for at least 48 hours' notice to be given. The next Amendment is to the same effect, and says that in the case of land occupied for residential purposes at least seven days' notice of the intended entry should be given to the occupier. The noble Lord was kindly disposed to this Amendment on the last occasion, and I think the only reason why he did not accept it straight away was that he did not want it to be the only Amendment to be accepted. As it will not be so lonesome on this occasion, I hope that he will now be able to accept it.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 4, after ("unless") insert ("at least").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord does not quote me exactly. I did not say that I did not wish this to be the only Amendment to be accepted. What I said was that as it was not legally necessary to have these words in because the legal definition of the stated period included the words "at least", I should be sorry if the Bill went back to another place with something that was strictly unnecessary. I did not add those last words, but that was the reason. I did not expect that I should get away as lightly as that. I agree that when other Amendments are being made to the Bill it is reasonable to include this one. I can see nothing wrong with this from a common-sense point of view. Therefore I am happy to accept Amendments 9 and 10. Before I sit down I would say to the noble Lord that, as he knows from the discussions and the correspondence which have ensued, there are still some "goodies" to come.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 5, after ("purposes") insert ("at least").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
Clause 11:
Power to obtain information
11.—(1) The Board may by notice served on the owner or occupier of any land in the Highlands and Islands or on any person carrying on a business or undertaking therein require him to furnish them with such information as may be specified in the notice with regard to the land, business or undertaking and with regard to such other matters relating thereto, as the Board may reasonably require for the execution of any of their functions under this Act in relation to the land, business or undertaking.
(2) Any owner, occupier or other person on whom a notice has been served under the last foregoing subsection may within one month of the service of the notice appeal to the sheriff on the ground that the information or any part thereof specified in the notice is not reasonably required by the Board for the execution of any of their functions under this Act in relation to the land, business or undertaking, and the sheriff may make such order either confirming or quashing or varying the notice as he thinks fit.
(3) If any person on whom a notice has been served under subsection (1) of this section—

(a) fails without reasonable cause or neglects to furnish to the Board within three months after the service of the notice, or in the case where an appeal has been made under the last foregoing subsection, within three months after a decision on that appeal confirming or varying the notice, or of the abandonment of the appeal, the information specified in the notice or required by the decision of the sheriff to be given; or

he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, in rising to move this Amendment I would ask leave to speak also to Amendments Nos. 12, 15 and 16, each Amendment being dependent on the others. The noble Lord was kind enough to indicate in Committee that he might be able to accept these Amendments. They seek to ensure that if any appeal to the sheriff is necessary it is reasonable that the appellant should know what he is appealing about. This Amendment is to ensure that the appellant will have the required information. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 3, leave out ("any") and insert ("such").—(Lord Burton.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Burton, has said, when we considered his Amendment along these lines on Committee stage I promised to look at it. Having looked at it, I am satisfied that it is reasonable, from the point of view of the occupier of property, that he should have this degree of definition, and that it can be done without being in any way detrimental to the legitimate interests of the Board. I am therefore prepared to accept Amendments 11, 12, 15 and 16.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I beg to move No. 12.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 5, at end insert ("as may be specified in the notice").—(Lord Burton.)
7.58 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to add to subsection (1):
"and that person shall furnish, or cause to be furnished, the information specified in the notice within such time as may be therein specified."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall need to take a little longer on this series of Amendments. May I take Amendments 13, 19, 20 and 21 together? These Amendments result from a further study of the Bill and are a serious attempt to improve the Bill from the point of view of its administration. As the clause is drafted, unless all those who are required to give information do so, where the information is being sought from a number of people at the same time the Board will have to wait, not merely three months, but for such further period as is needed for the legal proceedings to enforce the notice, and then, after that, for a further three months. Anybody who wanted to be obstructive would probably spin out the time until the last possible moment and could then pop in the information just before the three months was up. We have known that to happen.
There is no provision to empower the Board to say by what date they want the information. I suggest to the noble Lord that although in some cases the information will be readily available, in others it will not, and it will take time to collect or to work out, so the three months'
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period within which to give the information before you are "hauled before the beak" is not adequate in some cases, and in other cases it will be far too much. There is another set of cases. Information may sometimes be sought not about a fact that already exists, but about an incident that is to occur in the future. For example, information might be sought from the owner or occupier to record and report the number of people paying for fishing rights over the next six months, or the river levels over a period, or the number of people staying overnight at an hotel in the coming season, and so forth. This information could be collected on request, in other words, and need not just be information that is already available.
The three months provision would plainly not accord with such a requirement, unless the Board had power to specify the date by which the information was to be provided, and even then the procedure would be cumbersome. So it seems to me more practical and more efficient to provide, as is done in other cases—I have in mind, particularly, cases as regards agriculture—that the Board may specify the date by which the information is required; and, secondly, that the person on whom the notice is served shall furnish the information by that date. There are considerable advantages in this, because unless that is done the tendency is to pigeon-hole the matter, then to forget about it, and then one is late. One has experience of that, especially in farming circles.
The next point is that the person called upon for the information will no doubt receive a reminder—as I put it to the noble Lord, of the "Dear Sir, Unless" type—if he has not furnished it by the specified date, and if he does not comply the case can then, of course, be taken to the sheriff. As the clause stands, the Board would have to wait another three months after the sheriff's decision in their favour, before they would be bound to get the information. So it seems more sensible to allow the sheriff to order the person to supply the information within a definite time, which might, if the information was immediately available, be only a few days and not three months. From the general point of view of promoting efficiency, this might be a better

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way of going about it. I put the Amendment down in the hope that it might be helpful to the noble Lord, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 5, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I appreciate very much the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, put down this Amendment and the way in which he has spoken to it. I do not think there is any doubt that in many cases the Board could make very good use of this Amendment, if it were to be incorporated in the Bill. But I would remind your Lordships that the three months' period really only applies when the Board have reached the stage referred to by the noble Lord as the "Dear Sir, Unless" stage, and we believe that in most cases the information will be received in the ordinary way without these powers having to be invoked at all. The Government believe that in fixing a period of three months they have fixed a time which ought to be ample to cover almost every conceivable set of circumstances.
It is remotely possible that they might be asking for information which could not possibly be obtained within three months. Obviously, the Board could not he expected to compel somebody to do something within three months if he could satisfy the sheriff that it was not possible to do it in three months.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, there would be a defence in that he would have "reasonable cause". It would not be possible.
LORD HUGHES: Exactly. If it is impossible to do something, then the sheriff would be bound to agree with him. We are therefore confined to the cases where it is obviously possible to furnish the information within three months. I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, that in the vast majority of cases the information will be readily available in a period of much less than three months. But simply because this is a power to acquire information by compulsion, the Government felt, and still feel, that it is desirable that it should be clear beyond a shadow of doubt that the Board will
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have no opportunity of using these powers in a harsh or oppressive manner.
If we put in "such a period as the Board may determine", they might say in a particular notice, "Within three days", "Within seven days", "Within four weeks" or any period less than three months or more than three months. But I think we agree that more than three months would not matter, because of the point to which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has directed attention. It could be that in specifying a shorter period the Board were in fact getting themselves into needless difficulties, because the shorter period might really be quite impossible because of circumstances of which the Board had no knowledge. About something which could be done by just sitting down and spending five minutes writing a letter, it might be quite reasonable for the Board to say, "Within three days"—though allowing for postal difficulties in the Highlands it might be more reasonable to say, "Within seven days"—but the man might be ill and incapable of writing a letter and might not have recovered by the end of three days.
By stating a period of three months, we do not believe that there will be many cases where the Board will be hampered in their operations because individuals will deliberately sit down and wait for three months before furnishing the information. But as presently advised the Government would rather take the risk that this should happen in a number of cases than that, by giving a discretion to the Board to specify any period, no matter how short it might be, of less than three months, there should be a danger that they were operating in a harsh or oppressive way in even a single case. So, while I agree completely that this would be helpful to the Board, I wish to advise the House not to accept the Amendment because this is a case where I think the Government are justified in preferring justice to the individual, rather than convenience to the Board.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is a matter which is obviously very much within the competence of the Government, but I am not quite certain that the Board will thank them for this particular decision. As to the question of

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justice to the individual, the noble Lord will have noticed that in Amendment 17 I covered this case, because one of the defences is that the information
"could not be obtained within the time specified in the notice".
The noble Lord has made it plain that he agrees with me that this would be administratively the more effective and efficient way, but he feels that on broader grounds of policy he would rather try the other way first. Well, we hope it works. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.10 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (2), to leave out all words after "of the notice" and insert:
"apply to the Sheriff for an order calling on the Board to show that the information or any part thereof specified in the notice is reasonably required by the Board for the execution of any of their functions mentioned in the last foregoing subsection, and the Board shall within twenty-one days of the issue of the order comply with the order; and unless, after hearing the parties or their representatives, the Sheriff is satisfied that all the information specified in the order is reasonably required as aforesaid he shall make an order discharging the applicant from complying with the notice to the extent specified in that order and may make such award as regards expenses as he may think fit."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the same Amendment as was proposed in Committee, and your Lordships will remember that, unfortunately, because of an error of mine, it did not get the kind of consideration from the noble Lord and his advisers that it would otherwise have had. Your Lordships will remember that the noble Lord said of the Amendment:
"… as the Amendment was originally drawn, the opinion of my advisers was that it was a charter for obstruction; that it would enable actions to be taken which the objectors had no intention of following through, but which were calculated to put the Board to the maximum of expense and inconvenience."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 267 (No. 97) col. 1277, July 6, 1965.]
I think he did recognise, from the way I moved it and from the intention behind it, that that certainly was not the object. Unwittingly, I conveyed an entirely wrong impression of my intentions, and I am sorry about that.
I readily agree that the acceptance of Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 ensures that the person who receives the notice
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will know for what purpose and for which of their functions the Board require the information, but the person is still in no position to prove that it is not "reasonably required" for the execution of that function. At column 1278, the noble Lord said:
"The appellant states the reason why he does not think that the information should be given …",
and he went on:
"… and the Board state the reasons why they think they are entitled to get the information."
I know that the noble Lord was not using those words in any very strict sense, but, all the same, they rather conveyed the wrong impression, for a person's private reasons for not giving the information are neither here nor there. In any legal proceedings, the onus of proof must lie one way or the other, and, as the Bill is drawn, the Board are entitled to get the information unless it can be shown that it is not needed for the purpose for which the Board say it is needed. As the Bill stands, the onus of showing that it is not needed is laid on the individual. My noble friends and I do not think that that is a burden which he can discharge.
I am told that this is a procedure that is analogous to a commission for the recovery of documents. I know that the noble Lord does not like too much law to be imported into this discussion, but we are here dealing with law, and I am told that in Scotland the onus of proving the need for the recovery of documents is on the person making the motion, and that diligence must be specific enough to enable the court to draw the inference that the documents are reasonably required. So in that case the onus is clearly on the person seeking the information, whereas here the onus is placed on the person expected to give the information.
As was pointed out before, there is no difference between us as to who should initiate the proceedings. The difference between the Amendment I moved last time, which is this same Amendment, and the Amendments moved in another place is that the latter would have made it necessary for the Board to initiate the proceedings, whereas here, in both cases, it will be the person who is required to provide the information, and not the Board, who will initiate the proceedings—and in each case the person will stand

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to lose the legal costs of his application to the sheriff. The only difference lies in the onus of convincing the sheriff that the Board really need the information required.
We think it is right to put some obstacles in the way of the Board's demanding a lot of information which they do not really need, or could readily obtain for themselves; for there is—and one must face this—a clear temptation for the Board to ask for information without carefully thinking out whether they really need it. One knows this from one's personal experience, when one has been in a position to collect information of this kind as a staff officer during the war. I have—
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord—
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I just finish the sentence? I have a very vivid recollection of being reminded by the General Officer Commanding of the importance of making quite certain that you really needed the information before you asked for it.
LORD HUGHES: I just wanted to say that the noble Lord must speak only for himself in these matters, and must not assume that other people are prepared to do that.
LORD DRUMALBYN: But I was also at the receiving end, and I was well aware that a good deal of the information was not really required and could well have been dispensed with. I think anybody who served in the Forces during the war is very well aware of that.
These powers to obtain information compulsorily range over such a very wide field, and it is a fact that, as a whole, they are unprecedented. We do not want to prevent the Board from obtaining all the information they need, or make it difficult to do so. But we do want to ensure that the public are not put to a lot of unnecessary trouble and expense, or called on to divulge private information that is not really required by the Board for the execution of their function. We believe that the right course, therefore, is to place the onus on the Board if they are challenged—we hope that they will not often have to be, but if they are challenged—of convincing the sheriff that they
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genuinely need the information for which they ask. That is the simple purpose of what I think is a fairly clear Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 8, leave out from ("notice") to end of line 14 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend. This subsection was inserted in the other place, of course, and I am sure it was intended to mean something; but, if you take the words as they now appear in the Bill, the proof is that the information sought
"is not reasonably required by the Board for the execution of any of their functions …"
This may have changed—I am not quite certain which Amendment the noble Lord was referring to—but, as it reads, that is how it is. Now, the words
"any of their functions under this Act in relation to the land …"
cover, as your Lordships will see from Clause 1(1), the economic and social development of the Highlands. My Lords, with a mandate as wide as that there is no information which could ever be shown to be not reasonably required. I think, therefore, that if the Government want this subsection to mean anything, they must make the Board show a positive proof rather than compel the defendant or the appellant to show a negative one. This is the only way in which I can see this clause has a real effect.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if I might deal with the noble Earl's point first, I would remind him that, as the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, pointed out, the Amendments which we have accepted from the noble Lord, Lord Burton, considerably narrow the subsection, because it now relates it to a specific function and does not cover the whole field referred to. This is the original wording. It does not matter, perhaps, all that much, because, if it had been accepted, then presumably it would have been amended to agree with the Amendments already accepted from the noble Lord, Lord Burton.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: Then the noble Lord agrees that, without the Amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Burton, this clause would have been practically valueless?
LORD HUGHES: No, I do not agree; and, while I am shaken by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, telling me that I had written a letter which it was difficult to construe, I should be shaken still more if I thought that it was reasonable to draw that inference from what I have just said—and I do not believe for one minute that that is a reasonable thing to do. But when this identical Amendment was before your Lordships at Committee stage, I could not categorically advise the Committee to reject the Amendment, for the simple reason that, as spoken to, it was not in identical terms to those in which it had been tabled. My consideration had been given to the Amendment which was tabled, and there was an alteration in the Amendment which I think effectively limited the delay element to seven weeks instead of an indefinite period which would have been in existence under the original Amendment. I did not wish to speak to the brief which I had discussed and agreed with my colleagues as being reasons for rejecting the original Amendment, without having a further opportunity to consider the effect that the time limit would have. The Committee will however recollect that the main reason for rejecting the Amendment as first worded was that it was considered it would be a charter for obstruction. The advice I have (and the correctness of which I accept; I am persuaded to believe it is correct) is that the charter for obstruction element would still remain if this Amendment were accepted. This is a point which was also considered at a very great length in another place. I agree that that is no reason why it should not be considered again in your Lordships' House. But, unless we can elicit reasons for accepting the Amendment which were not apparent in another place, it will be very difficult to persuade Members in another place to change their minds just because the same arguments have been used in this House as were used there.
A NOBLE LORD: It is not the same Amendment.
LORD HUGHES: I know that the Amendment is not in identical words; but the objections to the Amendment are identical: it would be a charter for obstruction. I know that the noble Lord has gone a long way to try to remove these difficulties; but my advisers do not
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feel that he has succeeded in removing these objections, because it is impossible to remove the objections if you put in an Amendment of this kind. He has cut down the period from an indefinite one to one of seven weeks and he has brought in a provision about the cost that could arise to the person initiating the appeal. But it does not remove the possibility that the Board could be put to considerable expense, trouble and delay for what might prove to be no reason at all—because someone lodged an appeal which he had no intention of following through and might be prepared even to face up to the comparatively small expense that would have been involved in adopting such a course of action. This would be an expense which might be very much less than the Board would be put to in seeking to get the information necessary to fight an action which, in fact, was not going to be followed up.
It may be that, in speaking to this in layman's language in the Committee stage, I over-simplified what might happen in the sheriff court. I do not think I departed from what would in fact at the end of the day be the situation. I do not like making a purely legal point because that is not always the sort of thing which commends itself to one at first glance. But as the matter has been raised on legal grounds, I must refer to what is, on legal grounds, the normal onus. I must use the sentence which appears in front of me: "In general the Board can be expected to behave reasonably and within their powers ". I must say that because the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in speaking to his Amendment was seeking to safeguard the individual against the possibility that the Board was going to be infested with staff officers who were going to ask for information for no known purpose, for which they had no use; simply because they had the power they would say: "Let us exercise these powers. Whom can we pester with a request for information?"
I do not believe that the Board are going to ask for information from someone which they have already in their possession or which they can more easily obtain for themselves. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, expects that; but he does suppose it to be a possibility. He also put forward the

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possibility that they might ask for information for which they have no need. I can agree that that is a possibility; but I do not think it is going to happen. Why should the Board ask somebody for information that they already have? Why should the Board ask for information that they do not need? There is enough for the Board to do in the Highlands which is really worth while without occupying their time in getting useless information or seeking to get confirmation of the information which they already have. So I think this statement is one I can put forward validly: In general, the Board can be expected to behave reasonably and within their powers. That is a Civil Service statement. Personally I would have left out the first two words "In general". I should have thought it enough to say that "the Board can be expected to behave reasonably", and so on. But my advisers make provision for the fact that there may be particular cases. They chose their words carefully, and they say: "In general …". So I give the noble Lord that slight part of his case. The statement I have here then goes on:
"The normal onus of proof in appeal is for the person claiming that they have not done so to show this. There seems no reason to depart from this in this instance."
I would remind noble Lords, in conclusion of my remarks on this point, that these powers are only going to be exercised in relation to the people who have not been co-operative and who have compelled the Board to proceed by way of this Section. So we are, in fact, dealing in this particular part with the people who are most likely to seek to make use of a charter for obstruction. That is the reason why I am still unable to accept the Amendment—which is not necessary for the protection of the individual but could be quite unduly frustrating to the Board in the proper exercise of their functions.
8.27 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am very interested and I have followed with great attention what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has said. But I am not sure that I have really succeeded in picking up the real reason why he does not like this Amendment. I wonder whether I could try to follow it through. In the first place, I assume the
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noble Lord is satisfied that there is a case for having subsection (2) in the Bill as it stands at present. If that is so, he must be prepared to allow somebody to have a conscientious objection to supplying information which the Board thinks it wants; and he must be satisfied that such a person, whether for good or bad motives—and let us assume that sometimes the motives are good—would like to appeal to the sheriff court. The noble Lord's Bill contains this; so I cannot see that there is any difference between us so far.
So far as the Amendment is concerned, as I understand it, the noble Lord does not consider that there is any undue element of obstruction in either the time limit or in the cost requirement of the Amendment, in that if the appeal turns out to be a totally unreasonable one the appellant would have to pay the costs. So far I cannot see anything that would cause the noble Lord to suggest that this is a charter for obstruction. I hope I have his agreement to this point. What is it, then, that the noble Lord is objecting to? As I understand it. he says that if the onus of proof is on the Board to show that it does reasonably need the information it has sought, it might have to prepare a case which, in the event, would never be used because the appellant would not turn up and the whole thing would be wasted. On the other hand, under the Bill, am I not correct in saying that the Board will have to prepare a case to oppose a person who comes along to the sheriff court with his appeal? It would have to meet the arguments that it supposes the appellant is going to present to show that the information is not reasonably required. Therefore, whichever way round the burden of proof is going to be, the Board are going to have to prepare a case. It does not make a ha'porth of difference which way the onus lies from that point of view.
If that be so, the thing that really troubles me is that if there is no other difference, the Amendment lays the onus on the only people who can properly undertake it, whereas the Bill lays the onus on people who simply cannot undertake it because there is no means—even given the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Burton—for the appellant to find out through the intricacies of the Board's

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activities in all fields whether or not this information is reasonably required.
I appreciate that the sheriff will listen to both sides, but the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, must take into account the question of the onus of proof, because in courts it really matters who has to prove what, particularly in the case of an appeal. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has made out a case for resisting this Amendment. If we take his argument to pieces, he is left with absolutely nothing with which to object.
8.31 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, may I have the permission of the House to reply, because I think that it would be quite unfair to attempt to do so by way of an interjection? To the various points to which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, spoke in the beginning I nodded my head and this happened four or five times, but eventually I reached the point where I was shaking my head. That, of course, cannot be recorded in Hansard and so I must go a little further than that.
I frankly admit that I am out of my depth in regard to the legal procedure in the sheriff court. So far, it has not been my lot to find myself inside a court and, praise God, may I continue in that happy position! But as I recollect the discussion which took place, the procedure involves the lawyers on either side making certain submissions and lodging answers; so that it is only in the event at present of the position being carried through to a point where it is necessary for the Board to go beyond the lodging of answers coming from its agents that it would be involved in going to expense. If the Amendment is accepted, the Board would have to go a very great deal further than that right from the beginning, so that the expenditure and time in which the Board could be involved, were the Amendment accepted, would be very much greater in the initial stages than would be the case under the provisions in the Bill. There is quite a difference from that point of view between the terms of the Amendment and the provisions in the Bill. It would be easier for a possible obstructor to carry out such a course
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of obstruction if the Amendment were accepted than under the procedure in the Bill.
I have gone as far as I possibly could in conceding those points on which I am in agreement with noble Lords opposite. I think I have been very fair in narrowing down the effect of this to a very small part of the population in the Highlands. I have stated, not once but many times, my belief that the people with whom the Board will be operating, whether they agree with what the Board wishes or not, will behave reasonably and will furnish the required information. Only in a small minority of cases—if any—will the Board be required to apply these powers, but it is within that minority that we are likely to find those who would seek to use this as a charter for obstruction. From that point of view, the Government believe it is reasonable that there should be recourse to the courts, or a threat of recourse to the courts, only in the case of a person who believes in the justice of his cause and is determined to carry the thing through, and not use this merely for the purpose of causing the Board the maximum amount of inconvenience.
If it were just a case of one purpose rather than the other to serve the functions of the Board, the reasons persuading me to adopt three months rather than accepting something more convenient to the Board would—as I admitted when we discussed the previous Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn—have justified my acceptance of this Amendment, but I do not believe that factor exists in this case. I believe it will be possible for a person who has a legitimate reason for appealing to the sheriff, and carries his appeal under the procedure, to receive justice. If he has a proper reason for not complying with the requirements of the Board, it is possible, under the procedure laid down in the Bill, for him to receive satisfaction from the sheriff.
I do not believe it is necessary to accept the difficulties which come with the alternative course in order to be satisfied that justice will be available to the appellant. For this reason I must adhere to the decision not to accept the Amendment, although I do so with a certain amount of regret because I know that noble

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Lords opposite have no desire to be obstructive in this matter. I know that they sincerely believe that their proposal represents a better way.
I can assure noble Lords opposite that we have spent a good deal of time on this matter because at first glance I was disposed to accept the Amendment. I think that at some stage, either during the Second Reading debate or during the Committee stage, I said that it was better that we should lean over in the interests of the individual against a public body rather than the other way round. Where that is the general practice, I and the Government have endeavoured to put it into operation. Where the only person who can reasonably benefit is one who is seeking to obstruct the Board in its operations, and when every person who feels conscientiously that he has a case can pursue his case through the courts according to the procedure laid down and get justice, I see no reason for departing from what is laid down in the Bill.
I must accept the advice which I have received from those who have advised me about the legal effects of one procedure compared with the other. That information has come from the solicitors—perhaps I had better not say "solicitors"; it has come from the legal department (I think that is the name of the department) and it is not something which has come from non-legal civil servants or draftsmen. It has come from those who are legally qualified to express an opinion and therefore I regret that I am not in a position to accept the Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: We are bound to accept what the noble Lord says, up to a point. He speaks about the legal effect. We should have been bound to accept it had he made the legal effect really clear, but I have to say that he failed to make it really clear, and for that reason we do not feel so willing to accept what he said as otherwise we should have been. Obviously, we cannot pursue this matter further. In the circumstances we can register our dissent from what the noble Lord has said only by allowing the Amendment to be negatived.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for accept-
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ing the previous two Amendments from me. As this is a consequential Amendment, I beg to move it.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 11, leave out ("any") and insert ("such").—(Lord Burton.)
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 12, after ("undertaking") insert ("as may be specified in the notice").—(Lord Burton.)
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved to add to subsection (2):
"In determining whether information is so reasonably required by the Board, the sheriff may take into account the probable cost or inconvenience to the person who has been required to furnish the information."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment achieves much the same thing as Amendment No. 17 would have done. The noble Lord wrote to me, in his letter of July 9, that I had said in Committee that excessive cost might be a ground of objection to giving the information. I cannot find any such ground in the Bill. The word "reasonably" in page 8, line 10, could not conceivably be stretched to cover it, for it qualifies the phrase "required by the Board for the execution of any of their functions". The Government have regarded it as implicit in the clause that cost to the person on whom the notice had been served of furnishing the information required by the Board could be a legitimate factor in any appeal to the sheriff under subsection (2). I am repeating this because I think that your Lordships would consider it an advantage that this statement should be in the record. As there is doubt, however, in the noble Lord's mind whether the wording of subsection (2) would enable the sheriff to have regard to "the cost to the applicant" factor, and as similar doubts may arise in the future, it is suggested that in the interests of clarity the intention of the first part of the noble Lord's Amendment be accepted. The purpose of the Amendment which I now move is to give effect to that acceptance.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 14, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting into legal words the purpose of my Amendment. The mysteries of drafting remain mysteries to me. It seems to me that the probable cost or inconvenience has little to do with the information—it is either required of it is not required. But if the noble Lord tells me that his Amendment effects what I am seeking, I accept it with gratitude.
Clause 13 [Accounts of the Board, etc.]:
8.45 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to add to subsection (1):
"Provided that in respect of any business or undertaking carried on by the Board, whether directly, through an agent or as agent, or of any group of such related businesses or undertakings the Board shall prepare a balance sheet and trading and profit and loss account; and for the purposes of this section the expression "statement of account" shall include any such balance sheet and profit and loss account."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 22. In Committee stage, the noble Lord said [Vol. 267, col. 1297]:
"… undertakings which are financed out of monies advanced by Parliament must be subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and it is not possible to exempt any part of the monies which are used by the Development Board from the audit of that august officer and his Department."
My Amendment on Committee stage proposed that all undertakings or businesses taken over under Clause 6 should be audited by a qualified chartered accountant or by a member of one of the bodies listed in the Amendment. I have looked up the accounts in the days when the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and I were members of the Public Accounts Committee and I find that all these accounts were published in the form of simple trading and profit and loss accounts for each enterprise or group of enterprises run by the Government. I hope, therefore, that there will be no difficulty in accepting this Amendment.
I hope that I shall not be told that this is the kind of information the Public Accounts Committee would be likely to ask for, because it would be quite a time before they had an opportunity of asking for it, and it would be some time after that before it could be provided. It seems to me to be a good thing that this in-
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formation should be provided, because it is the least that could possibly be required. Perhaps I should add that separate balance sheets were not provided in all cases, but they were provided in some cases. Inasmuch as we want the undertakings acquired or carried on under the powers of Clause 6 as closely as possible in line with the undertakings with which they may be competing and with business practice, it does not seem unreasonable, as my noble friend Lord Polwarth suggested earlier, that balance sheets and trading and profit and loss accounts should be provided in this way. I am not asking that they should be provided for each separate undertaking. Clearly, if there is good reason for them to be grouped, that could be done at the discretion of the Board, and this would be entirely acceptable to the Public Accounts Committee and to Parliament.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 5, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord's Amendment to-day is appreciably different from the one which he last tabled. It has been amended to take into account some of the objections which were put forward to the previous Amendment, but it is still an Amendment which I cannot accept and I suggest to your Lordships that it is undesirable. The Amendment's reference to individual undertakings or groups of related undertakings is designed to give a certain amount of discretion to the Board about the way in which information would be given in the statement of account, but the fact remains that it would have to be provided one way or another in respect of each one of this type of undertaking. It may prove necessary and desirable that such information should form part of the accounts of the Board, but I must suggest to your Lordships that that is a matter for determination, in the first instance, by the Board and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is responsible to Parliament for the information which is conveyed in the accounts. Therefore, he must satisfy himself that the accounts give the information that is necessary and desirable.
Subsection (1) of the clause gives the Secretary of State and the Treasury ample power to determine the form of

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the accounts. I can assure the House that the Secretary of State will certainly have regard to the need for lucidity and informativeness (if there is such a word) in the statement of account, and if it is felt that he is not achieving this, there is the normal Parliamentary remedy. In saying this, I do not expect that this is what would apply, because it would mean that the Secretary of State has completely misinterpreted the wishes of Parliament, and I suggest to your Lordships that that is the last position in which the Secretary of State would wish to find himself. I am quite certain that he would prefer to err on the side of giving Parliament more information than it might ask for, rather than take the risk of its working the other way round. Secondly, the Amendment could result in the compulsory publication of accounts of a much broader detail than was necessary. Thirdly, the Amendment is based on the assumption that the Board's direct involvement in business operation will generally be on a profit-making basis, but it is much more likely to be of a pioneering, development or rescue nature.
I have indicated, I think more than once, that one would not normally expect that the operations of the Board in running any particular business would be a permanent feature of their operations, because we have specifically taken power to dispose of such undertakings. That, in fact, would be the normal pattern. The funds made available by the Treasury for this purpose could be much better used on a rotating basis than by tying them all permanently in the operation of a particular business which could be equally satisfactorily run by disposing of it to private enterprise, and then making the initial funds available for another operation at the same time. That would normally be the pattern involved. So one might well say that the position would be that, as soon as the undertaking had clearly become viable, at that point, when the accounts (shall I say?) would be in the most acceptable form, it would then have been turned over and would no longer figure in the accounts.
Therefore, one might well have the position that there would be a succession of operations in this initial stage which would convey a completely wrong picture of the operations of the Board. But,
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even so, it may well be that the information which the Secretary of State would wish to have in the accounts would give that detail in respect of these businesses. I believe that the formal statement of account which the Secretary of State determines may well in practice include much of the information which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, would seek to make a statutory requirement. I think the best that I can do. at the risk, if the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, should do me the favour of reading this speech, of infringing his admonitions against repetition, is to repeat that the Secretary of State will certainly have regard to the need for the accounts to be lucid and convey information, rather than that they should be vague and conceal information. On that basis, I would ask the noble Lord not to press the Amendment.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, so that we may keep within the Rules of Order, may I ask whether it would be possible, under the type of machinery that the noble Lord is envisaging, and the requirement that the Secretary of State would have in mind, for one to put down a Question for Written Answer as to the individual accounts of one of the undertakings that would be carried on by the Board, so that one could get the details of the accounts in that way? Is that the sort of way the noble Lord suggests that Parliament will be able to keep a check on this?
LORD HUGHES: No, that is not what I have in mind. As I said on a previous occasion, any Member of the House can put down a Question. That I can guarantee. What I cannot guarantee is the sort of Answer that he may get. I think the form of words that I used on the previous occasion was that the Answer that would be given would be that this was a matter for the Board. What I had in mind was that when Parliament was considering the form of accounts, and thinking particularly of the first time when this could be possible, it might well be said, for this or that reason, that it did not give the sort of information about the activities of the Board. I am assuming that there may be a debate in both Houses on the Reports of the

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Board, and if Members felt that the information in the accounts was not sufficient, they could indicate the sort of information which they thought should be in the accounts. If the House agreed that any particular type of information ought to be in the accounts, or that they should be more explanatory or more fully stated, that could be done. It might well be that the same thing could be accomplished by an individual Question, but I think that that would be likely to achieve much less than could be achieved in a debate on the accounts.
LORD REITH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether accounts should not just conform to the best commercial practice? That is a pretty comprehensive expression, and it is good enough for several other corporations, as it is for private enterprise. Arising out of that, I would point out that there is no arrangement in this Bill for audit except by the Government Auditor. Would not the corporation be immensely benefited (I should have expected the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, to raise this point) by an instruction to employ a firm of accountants as auditors?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: We did raise it on the Committee stage.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Reith, would allow me to explain, this was the subject of our Amendment on the Committee stage, and at an earlier stage still in another place it was moved that the whole of the accounts of the Development Board should be audited. That proposal was rejected. Then we got to the next stage. when I suggested that the accounts of undertakings and businesses carried on under the powers of Clause 6 should be audited by a chartered accountant. That suggestion also was rejected. Now we have come down to this stage, where we have been trying to provide that the undertakings and businesses should be treated separately or in groups under the trading accounts system, so far as their trading and profit and loss accounts that appear in the annual trading accounts are concerned, and should be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and submitted to the Public Accounts Committee. I do not think there is any doubt about that.
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The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has gone a long way to satisfy us as to the intentions in this respect. I am bound to say that when he says that any accounts which are published and sanctioned by the accounting officer at the Scottish Office would convey an entirely wrong impression, he is perhaps going a little further than he should have done. I cannot believe that any accounts audited and sanctioned by the accounting officer could possibly convey a completely wrong impression. I do not think that was a very good argument on the part of the noble Lord for not publishing the accounts, and for not including in the Bill, as we were suggesting, a provision for the publication of the accounts. However, as I say, he has gone a long way to meet the points that we have in mind, and we shall just have to see how this works out.
I do not think that the noble Lord need be unduly frightened of publishing accounts that show adverse trade results in the early stages. That is what one would expect, and I think what we rather hope will be the case with this process of "pump-priming" in the early stages. What we are anxious to do is to ensure that people know how the Board are getting along in their undertakings, and that the Board do not take on commitments and undertakings which are bound to be a dead loss for a long period of time; nor engage in undertakings in competition with private businesses—which can proceed only by showing profits, of course—and go on doing that at a loss. I think Parliament would be entitled to know about that. That is what we have had in mind all along. I think the noble Lord is conscious of this and, if I may say so, there is not much—I was going to say there has never been much—evidence before the Public Accounts Committee of any attempt to conceal adverse results. As I say, in these cases results may not be adverse; they may be only preliminary. I do not think the noble Lord need be unduly fearful of that. All I would urge him to do is to give as much information as he possibly can, with the greatest lucidity. On that understanding I am glad to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask that Amendments Nos. 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 and 29 be taken together? These are drafting Amendments, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 6, leave out ("accounts of") and insert ("statement of account prepared by").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, your Lordships will recollect that at the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, drew attention to the fact that the same form of wording was a contradictory use of "accounts" and "statement of accounts", and this we have had to admit. I liked the expression which one of my advisers used, which was that these Amendments had been tabled to correct an infelicity of style which the noble Lord had pointed out in Committee. I will not say what the colloquial interpretation of that was, because I am not certain that I should get away with it, but it was a little more direct. We are grateful to the noble Lord for pointing this out. All these Amendments bring the Bill into uniformity, and I am happy to accept them.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 11, leave out ("accounts") and insert ("statement of account").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 14, leave out ("accounts of the Board") and insert ("statement of account").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 15, leave out ("accounts") and insert ("statement of account").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
9.4 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved, in subsection (5), to leave out all words after "require". The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment applies to
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subsection (5) of Clause 13. The first part of the clause says that the Board will provide the Secretary of State with all information which he requires. The second half of the clause says that the Secretary of State may send someone to check whether this information is in fact correct. If the noble Lord refuses my Amendment, as I anticipate he will, he will find himself in this position. The Board are indistinguishable from Scottish administration. Indeed, I am fortified in that view by the reply which he gave to Amendment No. 22, in which he proposed to carry on businesses and undertakings and never show a balance sheet. Nobody else could do that except a deparment of the Government.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I did not say any such thing. I did not say that we would not provide balance sheets or statements of account. I have in fact given an undertaking that that might well figure in the accounts. I have only objected to making it mandatory on the Board to do so. I hope, and expect, that the information will in fact be available.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am delighted, but the noble Lord is not undertaking to provide a balance sheet. I say that no undertaking would be carried on which did not provide a balance sheet unless it were run as a Government Department. That means that we are going back to Government by public boards. I must remind the noble Lord what Sir David Milne, who wrote an admirable book on the Scottish Office, said. He said:
"Thirty-five years ago, government by board was regarded as an anachronism; and it was regarded as an anachronism for two reasons—one, that it fluffed the responsibility, and secondly, because it raised considerable staffing difficulties."
I think it is fair that we should ask the noble Lord to say something about both these points, the more so, frankly, because a good deal of the time the noble Lord has tended to say, "The powers we are taking are not exceptional". My Lords, they are exceptional. Indeed, the noble Lord's colleagues in another place left absolutely no doubt about that. I should like to read what Mr. Willis said on one point:
"We are creating a new precedent by setting up the Board. No other Board has been set up by the Government with the powers and purposes of this Board."

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It is quite unique. That is one of the reasons why we have had to use the word "reasonable" so very often, because, frankly, it was the only possible way of getting round it. I should be happier if the noble Lord had said bluntly, The Highlands are exceptional, and we are using exceptional powers." I want to make this point, because there will be the strongest objection to spreading the sort of thing we are doing here to other places. Suppose the first clause read like this: "The economic and social development of the people of London" and then there were added the powers we have in this Bill, I think one would see very easily how wide they are.
The second point which the noble Lord made in his winding up speech on the Second Reading was that the Secretary of State would leave the Board certain responsibilities. In this Bill there is no sphere in which the Board are free from the Secretary of State's control We learned a new word to-day: we learned about "administrative guidance." We knew that there would be statutory general instructions. But these are to be general lines of guidance which are to go out. In those circumstances I think it is quite wrong to regard this as a Board in the sense in which other public Boards are regarded. This is an integral part of Scottish administration, and, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, he was asked again about Parliamentary Questions and he gave an answer which I do not think will hold water for one minute. He said, "You ask a question and the Government will decide whether it is proper to answer". We all admire the skill with which the noble Lord carries on his work in this House, and no doubt he personally will get away with a great deal, but that is not an answer which the Government can give. If anyone wants to get an answer I can see no part of the Board's activities which they cannot question. Therefore, it is important that we should recognise this.
Secondly, I ask the noble Lord to say something about the staffing. I am afraid that a man will be put into this Board and he will not be able to be transferred. I should prefer free transference of senior or other civil servants from the Board to other points in the Department so that they would not feel
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this was a blind alley to which they were going but that it was part of the service of the Scottish Office, and from there they could perfectly well go on to become an Under-Secretary at the Scottish Office.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, was good enough to send me a telephone message that he intended to ask these questions, although quite frankly I can see no relationship between the questions and the Amendment which he has tabled. He has not in fact uttered a single word to justify leaving out the words which he proposes to leave out.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I said to the noble Lord that I presumed he would not accept my Amendment and in order to cut it short, in line with the great principles of the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, I then led to the conclusions which arose and asked him to meet those conclusions.
LORD HUGHES: With respect to the noble Lord the questions which he then proceeded to put, on the assumption that I would reject the Amendment—an assumption, incidentally, which was perfectly correct—were on items which have nothing at all to do with the clause or the Amendment. Having regard to the fact that the noble Earl has, I think, to a certain extent been quite unfair, both to the Government and to myself, in some of the things that he has said, I should not wish to give him the opportunity of being unfair any further, by seeking not to reply to his questions on the perfectly legitimate ground that they had been raised in the wrong place. Therefore, I will proceed on the basis that it is reasonable to answer them.
In the first instance, I shall be very much surprised if, on reading what I have said, I find that I could have given anyone the impression that I did not consider that these were exceptional and wide powers. On the contrary, I started my remarks by emphasising the great importance which I attach to this Bill because of the wide-ranging powers it contains. If it is necessary to re-emphasise that, I will state that I believe the powers which have been given to this Board are wider than have ever been given to a body of this kind operating in this country. I use the words "in this country" advisedly because of correspondence which I have

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had with the noble Lord, Lord Reith, who has directed my attention to very wide powers in connection with the Colonial Development Corporation, for example. Therefore, the width of the powers is perhaps unprecedented in this country, but not in legislation.
The noble Earl asks for some information on the responsibilities of the Board. In Clause 1(1), as he stated, the Board is given the general function
"of preparing, concerting, promoting, assisting and undertaking measures for the economic and social development of the Highlands and Islands".
In Clause 3(1)(a) the Board will have the duty
"to keep under review all matters relating to the economic and social wellbeing and development of the Highlands and Islands";
and, under Clause 3(1)(b), to prepare and submit proposals for approval using, where necessary, their executive powers. In short, the Board will exercise all the functions and in this context functions includes powers and duties conferred on them by the Bill.
As I have said in correspondence with certain noble Lords, the Board will give grants and loans to industrial, commercial or other undertakings which will contribute to the proper development of their area. They could build hotels or motels, set up restaurants, construct small factories for light industry or erect a processing plant; they could engage in agricultural land improvement, including reclamation, the creation of better agricultural units, the development of recreational and sporting facilities, for example new ski runs, in the interest of the tourist industry. It does not follow that the Board will do all these things themselves, for they will, of course, seek to assist and stimulate private and public enterprise in a variety of fields, but they will have extensive reserve powers because the Government intend the Board to be a resourceful, energetic and constructive body.
At Committee stage the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said that the Board was but a facade. I have referred to correspondence with the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and with his permission I should like to quote from the letter which I sent to him to-day and which I hope he received before the debate started. I wish I could be quite certain he had it.
LORD REITH: I had it when I was sitting here.
LORD HUGHES: I must say, in fairness to myself and my Department, that I felt under an obligation to write first of all to those noble Lords, rather many, to whom I had given an undertaking to write, and because the noble Lord, Lord Reith raised the point in correspondence after the debate he of necessity found himself at the end of the queue, and it was signed to-day. In that letter to the noble Lord I said this:
"The Board have been given extensive powers to match their wide remit—to secure the economic and social development of an area one-sixth the size of Great Britain. The initiative in the use of those powers will rest with the Board and not with the Secretary of State. Moreover no power of specific direction to the Board is proposed for the Secretary of State in the Bill. (As you know such power is accorded to responsible Ministers in the case of some other statutory authorities.) Some of the Board's powers such as those for the acquisition of land and the carrying on of a business or undertaking must inevitably be subject to the Secretary of State's approval, constitutionally and having regard to considerations of public policy and also to the considerable expenditure of public funds which the use of these powers might involve. But other powers such as those enabling the Board to erect buildings, carry out works and other operations, provide equipment and services, make available advisory management accountancy and other services, publicise their area, carry out or commission enquiries, investigations or research, may be employed by the Board at their discretion and without the need for the prior approval of the Secretary of State; and the Board would have full authority to give financial assistance by way of grant and loan in individual cases within the terms of arrangements to be agreed in advance between them and the Secretary of State and the Treasury."
I doubt very much whether the noble Earl could say that those are not wide powers and that this does not give the necessary authority to operate those wide powers.
So far as the reference to government by Board is concerned, I think the remarks from Sir David Milne's statement were completely beside the point. It may well be that government by Board was given up thirty years ago. But this is not government. We are not setting up this body to govern the Highlands. The Highlands will remain under the government of Parliament, and in respect of certain functions they will remain under the local authorities. The Board are given certain powers to do a job. This is

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not an instrument of government but an executive body to do a certain job, just as a new town corporation is a body to do a particular job in their area, just as the Hydro-Electric Board is a body to do a particular job. But no-one would suggest that a new town corporation or a hydro-electric board is an instrument of government.
To go on to the question of staffing, I doubt very much whether the point of view expressed by the noble Earl would commend itself to everyone—that the Board should be largely staffed by civil servants. I think I am correct in saying the fear was expressed in this House that the Board would be staffed by civil servants. I would direct the noble Earl's attention to Schedule 1 at the bottom of page 13, item 14(1), which reads:
"The Board?

(a) may employ such officers and servants, and pay to them such remuneration and allowances as the Board may, with the approval of the Secretary of State and the Treasury, determine".

I have said more than once that when we use language we intend it to be read in its ordinary meaning. There is no abstruse, secret, or ulterior motive to be implied into the use of any particular word, and when we say that the Board may employ such officers and servants we mean exactly that. It connotes that the Board will appoint its servants. If in a particular direction the Board feels that its interests would be best served by appointing someone who had been, or was until the time he entered its employment, a civil servant, there would be nothing to prevent it from employing him.
I want to make it perfectly clear that the Board is not to be staffed by people who will be seconded to them from Government Departments. It is for the Board to decide who it employs and, if it thinks that in a particular direction it could be a civil servant, then the Board is perfectly free to employ him. There is perhaps one possible exception, as the noble Earl knows, because I mentioned this in conversation with him when he intimated to me the lines of his thinking. The accounting officer may well be a person who is familiar with procedure in this respect, and he is probably more likely to be either an existing or a former civil servant than anybody else. But
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there will be no restriction in any way on the Board's choice of its employees. I therefore have no hesitation in saying that I do not agree at all with the noble Lord when he says that the right thing would be to staff the Board largely with civil servants.
In relation to the Amendment, if the words were deleted as proposed by the noble Earl, the Secretary of State would have no power even to conduct an internal audit. The purpose of these words is to enable the Secretary of State to do just what is stated there. From time to time it will be desirable to seek further elucidation of particular proposals which may readily come from an examination of the books. Sometimes it will be necessary in connection with the audit to require examination of Minutes giving authority to do a particular thing. This is a perfectly normal practice in bodies of this kind. It goes no further, and it does not fall short of what is being required in this direction; so I can see no reason at all for accepting the Amendment.
LORD REITH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he does not agree that, from the clause which he read, the Corporation will be unable to appoint a typist without the approval of the Secretary of State and the Treasury?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, with the permission of the House I will answer that question. The answer is quite definitely, "No". The Board will have full permission to appoint the individuals it wants. All that will be necessary will be the usual procedure, that there will be approval of establishments in relation to the number of people who will occupy particular grades of posts. The Board may be entitled, for instance, to employ a dozen typists. Whether it employs three, five, six, eight, ten or the dozen at any particular time will be a matter for the Board. Who will occupy the positions will be a matter for the Board. The same will apply to any other grades of employees. The accounting officer is the sole exception. Therefore, there will not be control; there will be no dictation, either from the Treasury or from the Secretary of State, as to who will occupy the positions, provided that this can be done within

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the monies proposed to be expended. It will be entirely a matter for the Board.
LORD REITH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord another question? Why should the Treasury have to approve an establishment? Cannot the Board be trusted to settle its own establishment?
LORD HUGHES: There must be some measure of Parliamentary control over moneys voted by Parliament for a particular purpose.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am grateful for some of the things the noble Lord has said. He has enlarged on a number of points, and it has not been without value. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 38, leave out ("accounts") and insert ("statement of account").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 39, leave out ("accounts of the Board") and insert ("statement of account prepared by the Board under subsection (1) of this section").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
Schedule 1:

SCHEDULE 1

  PROVISIONS AS TO THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT BOARD
  Constitution of the Board
  3. The majority of the members of the Board, including in particular the chairman thereof, shall be engaged whole-time in the service of the Board.
  9.27 p.m.
  LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in paragraph 3, to leave out "The majority of the members of the Board, including in particular the chairman thereof" and to insert "The Chairman of the Board". The noble Lord said: The hour is late and we had better not discuss the Amendments in the Schedules. If I were to say
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  we should do so, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who sat until after ten o'clock on the Committee stage waiting to speak, and who has been sitting all this time waiting to make a speech to-day, would probably not forgive me. At any rate, I hope that he will forgive me if I say something.
  The purpose of this Amendment is quite simple. It is to replace the words
  "The majority of the members of the Board, including in particular the chairman thereof …"
  by the words
  "The Chairman of the Board"
  shall be engaged whole-time. I did not move this on Committee stage for lack of time, and I am well aware that this Amendment was moved in another place in deference to the wishes of Back-Benchers on both sides. I personally believe that the Chairman should be whole-time, or nearly so, for he needs to live in the Highlands and be in constant touch with opinion there. I am not so certain about whether the other members should be whole-time or not. If they are to be executive members with particular functions there is something to be said for it, but apparently that was not what the Government originally intended. They did not wish to tie themselves down to any particular pattern until they were obliged to do so by Back-Benchers on both sides. I followed the debates in another place, but I am bound to say that I thought the Government agreed to this for no very clear reasons.
  I should like to put three questions to them. First of all, do they intend full-time members, other than the Chairman, to be functional and executive? Secondly, if so, what do they envisage their functions are likely to be? Thirdly, do they expect to be able to find three or four women with the necessary qualifications ready and willing to abandon all their other interests and confine themselves solely to this work and to live in the Highlands? Unless the answers are that they are expected to be functional and that the noble Lord expects to be able to get such people with the necessary qualifications to live in the Highlands, I fail to see why it should be prescribed in the Bill that a majority of the members must be whole-time. That is the purpose of the Amendment. My Lords, I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 12, line 10, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 11 and insert ("The Chairman of the Board ").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
  9.30 p.m.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn is going beyond what I intended. I do not intend to make a speech; I intend to make one or two observations in regard to this Amendment. As the paragraph in the Schedule stands, it seems that the Secretary of State is left with very little discretion, for, as I read it, out of a Board consisting of a chairman and six members, three of those members must be whole-time, and the chairman also has to be whole-time. I think it would be much better if it were left to the discretion of the Secretary of State to decide by himself what was most suitable for the purpose he had in view. It is for that reason that I am supporting that part of the Amendment which would appear to me to free him from the necessity of appointing three whole-time members.
  In so far as the chairman is concerned, I should also like to give the Secretary of State discretion. It seems to me that by insisting on a whole-time chairman you very much reduce the area of choice which is open to the Secretary of State; and this appointment of chairman is of the greatest importance. If this Board is to get off to a good start and is to have a chance of succeeding, as we all hope it will, then the chairman must be a man of the highest quality, and he must be chosen as the best man the Secretary of State can find out of the widest possible field available to him. This restriction is, to my mind, really deplorable, because I honestly cannot see any man of proved ability in any field, whether it be trade, industry, commerce or the professions, between the ages of 40 and 55, let me say, accepting an appointment of this kind, which means that he severs all the connections that he has, and takes himself, his wife and his family possibly to Inverness on an engagement which may be of only a few years' duration. I think that narrowing the field in that way is to put a brake on the whole of this operation. I repeat, in my opinion the greatest discretion should be left to the Secretary of State in choosing the gentleman who
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  is to be the chairman of this Board. I support the Amendment in this connection, by reason of the fact that I understand my noble friend was speaking to both Amendments, 30 and 31.
  LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am quite prepared to join the two Amendments, if that is for the convenience of my noble friend.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I think it would be for the convenience of the House, but it would certainly be for my convenience, because the onus on the Secretary of State will be eased, and he will be allowed at least a certain measure of discretion. It is for that reason that I support this Amendment, and I hope that the Minister will be able to accept it.
  LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, if we are talking about Amendment 31 as well, may I just raise one small point on that Amendment which appears to raise the question of the meaning of the expression
  "shall be engaged whole-time in the service of the Board."
  I take it that all this means is that the Board member will be expected to give his services to the Board during the times that the Board normally expects his services. If the Board does not require his services on a Saturday afternoon, and if he wishes to take other paid employment on a Saturday afternoon, such as a stipendiary steward at a sporting fixture, or something of that kind, I take it that he would not be precluded from doing that by reason of the wording of this Schedule.
  LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for agreeing to the suggestion of his noble friend Lord Strathclyde, that Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 should be taken together, because they carry different arguments. I regret that I have to ask your Lordships not to accept either of these Amendments. As to the first one, I have no difficulty in saying this because, for a variety of reasons, I do not think that it would be a good thing to make it possible for the chairman of this Board to be a part-time member, in the possible connotation of what a part-time member could be.
  When I come to the second Amendment, quite honestly, I find myself in greater difficulties—
  LORD DRUMALBYN: Just for the Record, the Amendments are not that the chairman should be part-time, but that all the other members of the Board may be part-time, or need not be whole-time. The Amendments would make the Bill read:
  "The chairman of the Board shall be engaged whole-time or substantially whole-time in the service of the Board".
  LORD HUGHES: I see. As it stands at the present time, of course, the chairman of the Board is to be whole-time, so it does not need any Amendment to give effect to that intention. So far as the other members of the Board are concerned, the Bill makes it obligatory for the majority, including the chairman, specifically, to be engaged whole-time in the service of the Board and "whole-time", of course, must take its ordinary meaning—I say this in reply to the pertinent point made by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. It does not mean that they must be engaged on the business of the Board for 24 hours of the day, seven days a week. It is to be the normal whole-time meaning. It does not preclude persons from doing, in what would normally be regarded as their own time, things which people in other whole-time spheres of activity would be permitted to do. The sort of thing they obviously would not be either permitted or encouraged to do would be to take on such other jobs, nominally in their spare time, which obviously could be carried out only by their devoting a fair amount of their activities or their thought to it when they were supposed to be doing the work of the Board. It is quite easy to draw a clear distinction between these two types of operation.
  I should have liked to accept the second Amendment because, quite frankly, it would have given the Secretary of State a freedom which would have been desirable; but, in fact, the discussions which have taken place since an Amendment was accepted in the other place have made it perfectly clear that the Secretary of State is not (as, quite frankly, we feared) going to be frustrated in his ability to get the right sort of man for the job by this wording. I may be wrong (because all that I know of the debates in another place is what I have read of them after they have taken place, so one can put a wrong interpretation
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  on what people might have accepted), but I have a feeling that if an Amendment in this form had been moved in another place it might well have been in the Bill to-day. I am pretty certain that my colleagues would have felt happier with it. But the fact is that what went into the Bill is something which goes beyond this; and it went into the Bill in circumstances which make it quite unrealistic to expect for one moment that another place would agree to going back on what has been decided.
  I would remind your Lordships that in the Bill as it was first drafted there was complete freedom to the Secretary of State. There was no obligation on him, even the less onerous obligation in these Amendments; but, as a result of pressure from all three Parties in another place, the Government accepted that they would not be adhering to the wishes of the House if they did not give way on an Amendment of that kind. While I know that I cannot quote what honourable Members have said, I think it would be fair to say that no one pressed this point of view more strongly than the former Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Noble; or the Liberal Member for Inverness, or the Labour Member for the Western Isles. They had these very varied people whom my noble friend prefers to call "an unholy combination"—and I think that is a perfectly proper description of that triumvirate.
  Having conceded the whole of the demand in another place, to attempt to take one-quarter back is something which just will not work. I should have risked—and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, I am sure, would have risked—having to argue this if he could have gone back honestly and said: "Inquiries I have been making in regard to membership of the Board have convinced me, since accepting this Amendment, that you have given me a task which is unworkable." But the inquiries which have taken place would not have enabled the Secretary of State in truth to say that. So it is not necessary to take this provision out of the Bill to get the people on the Board whom the Secretary of State would wish to have on the Board. I suggest that that is the only justification which really could weigh with me now at this late stage in seeking

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  to withdraw from the Bill a major concession of this kind made by the Government, against, at the time, their own better judgment, because of pressure from all sides of the House in another place. I think, for these reasons and for these reasons only, I must ask your Lordships not to press these Amendments.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, may I offer an invitation to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes? If at any moment there is the slightest difficulty in staffing the Board with the proper people because of the restrictions of this particular Schedule (though I have no doubt he will have plenty of volunteers to put down very quickly a Private Member's Bill to set the matter right) I should happily volunteer myself to do it for him.
  LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think I speak for all noble Lords when I say we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for what he has said. I know he has not dealt with the point regarding the other members being whole-time and what he expects their functions to be. I hoped that he would be able to say a little more about that. I do not know whether he can do so; but I realise that this is a matter likely to be one for discussion with the Chairman of the Board when he is actually appointed. I am bound to say that I think it was a mistake for the Secretary of State to commit himself to having whole-time members on the Board before he knew what they were going to do; and, with due respect, I think it was perhaps rather a mistake for people in another place to think that he should do so. But there it is. I think we must accept the arguments the noble Lord has put before us. He has said he anticipates being able to get the right man for this important job. That being so, I think we have explored this as far as we can; and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Schedule 2 [Provisions as to the Highlands and Islands Development Consultative Council]:
  9.44 p.m.
  LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after paragraph 1, to insert:
  ". No member of the Board shall be entitled to serve as Chairman of the Council,
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  but any member of the Board other than the Chairman and any deputy Chairman may serve as a member of the Council."
  The noble Lord said: I hope I shall not delay the Committee very long on this. My own personal view is that the Consultative Council will function properly only if it has the maximum independence. Only thus will it do the best possible work and he able to give independent advice of real value. I know very well that there are such things as an advisory committee where the chairman of the body that it advises takes the chair of the committee. I think it could work only where the Committee is appointed by the Board which it advises. In this case we have a body nominated by the Secretary of State broadly to represent the area.
  My Lords, if the Council were to be presided over by the Chairman of the Board, without question he would dominate it. The same would apply if the Chairman were a member of the Board. It may be an advantage to have a member of the Board, particularly a part-time and not a functional or executive member, sitting as a member of the Council. That is something which Parliament could well leave to the Secretary of State, but I believe that Parliament should say clearly and firmly that the chair of the Council should not be occupied by a member of the Board. In the past there have been unfortunate examples which are too well known to need mentioning. I think that we should learn from these examples and make sure that the same thing does not happen again.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 14, line 37, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I have had personal experience of one of those unfortunate incidents which he mentioned. I will not enlarge on that. I think that to have a full-time Chairman on the Board would not be a good set-up and I ask the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, to accept the Amendment.
  LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am sorry, but I cannot accept the Amendment. I sympathise with the reasons advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I think it most unlikely,

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  and only the most remote possibility, that the Chairman of the Board would also be the Chairman of the Council. It is almost as unlikely, but not completely impossible, that the Chairman of the Board would be a member of the Council. I think that he would have far too much to do without involving himself directly in the membership of the Council. I agree that one could not rule it out entirely.
  I am not so certain that the same may be said of the Deputy-Chairman. It may be an advantage to have complete freedom in this matter. It may be found desirable to have some common membership. When the Council were discussing matters they might well wish to have someone who could give direct information about the views of the Board. It may well be that the Council would prefer that this be someone with seniority, such as the Deputy-Chairman. It is more likely that it would be a member of the Board—that is provided for in the Amendment, and I should not like to rule out the possibility of what is the normal pattern in consultative councils, although I recognise that the circumstances of their appointment are different. I am not sure that it is likely to happen, at any rate at the beginning, but it ought not to be possible for the Chairman of the Council to be a member of the Board.
  This is to be a small body with a considerable job to do and probably the job will be done more easily and the Council work more effectively if they are separate bodies, but it would be a mistake to put this into the Bill in such a way as to inhibit the Board, the Council and the Secretary of State from doing the job in what would appear the best possible way. We are determined that the composition of the Council should clearly be such that no one would be able to say that they were a body of "yes-men" for the Board. Obviously that must limit considerably the direct participation of the Board by a number of members in the functioning of the Council. We think it is important to ensure that. But I do not think that it would be wise to do what is suggested in this Amendment, although it may well be that in practice everything which the Amendment seeks to make mandatory will be carried out.
  LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not think that I can press the noble Lord any further on this. He has explained the likelihoods—indeed, the inclinations—of the Scottish Office on this and I am satisfied with that. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved in paragraph 6 to leave out "Board shall appoint a person employed by them" and to insert "Council shall appoint a person". The noble Lord said: This is the last of the Amendments. Reference has been made to the need for the Council to be independent. We recognise the convenience of having a secretary who is appointed by the Board and is a member of the Board. The paragraph says:
  "The Board shall appoint a person employed by them to act as Secretary to the Council".
  The Amendment would make this read:
  "The Council shall appoint a person to act as Secretary to the Council".
  The factors are these. There is a Council nominated by the Secretary of State, with a secretary employed by the Board. This seems to me to be an untidy arrangement. Admittedly, the secretary will know what is going on in the Board and will have many jobs on the Board, apart from being secretary of the Council. Equally, my Amendment does not say that the Council shall appoint a person to act as whole-time secretary. It would probably be better, as the Council is to consist of members nominated by the Secretary of State, if it is to have a secretary foisted (as it were) on it that it should be done by the Secretary of State and not by the Board, the more so as there are likely to be assessors from the Scottish Office attending meetings of the Council.
  I think it is essential that some words should be in this paragraph to make certain that the Council shall have a secretary that is acceptable to them, and if the Council are not to appoint their own secretary, I would rather have the Secretary of State appoint a person acceptable to the Council. I think there is something wrong with this paragraph, and if the words suggested here are not right, it may be possible to put it right before Third Reading. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 15, line 8, leave out from ("The") to ("to") and insert ("Council shall appoint a person")—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
  Lord HUGHES: I wish to invite the noble Lord not to press this Amendment. The procedure in the Bill is a common one, which has been followed with complete satisfaction in a number of cases. It simplifies questions of salary, staffing, pension and so on. The Secretary of the Advisory Council on Civil Aviation is appointed by the Ministry of Aviation. The Secretary of the Highland Panel, to come nearer home, is provided by the Secretary of State's Department of Agriculture, with complete acceptance to the Highland Panel.
  Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this was the alternative I suggested. If the Council is not to have its own secretary appointed by itself, then I said that I thought the Secretary of State should appoint him, and not the Board.
  Lord HUGHES: Yes. I was only giving the best examples of secretaries appointed by bodies other than themselves. I was going on to say that for consultative councils, such bodies as the Highland Board provide perfectly acceptable secretaries. Obviously, the secretary must be acceptable to the Council for whom he is to work. I think it would be an insult to the Board and to the Council to put in wording of this kind, because this is implicit in it. But it does make certain that they have an official who will do the job properly, and whose first priority will be to the Council. I invite the noble Lord not to press the Amendment.
  Lord DRUMALBYN: In view of what the noble Lord has said, I willingly withdraw the Amendment. I would conclude by thanking him for the way in which he has conducted these proceedings.
  Amendment, by leave withdrawn.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT 1947 (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) BILL
9.56 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
Lord ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. At this late hour, I should
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have been quite happy to move the Second Reading formally, but I think that that would be discourteous to the House. Although the House has been for some time rather like a Scottish Grand Committee, there are several noble Lords and noble Ladies present who come from South of the Border, and I think that they are entitled to a few words of explanation as to the purpose of this little Bill—I say "little"; but perhaps I should say "very little" Bill.
The position is that there are five cities in Scotland with town councils that have ex officio—that is, non-elected—members. In Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth they have one ex officio member, the Dean of Guild. In Edinburgh and Glasgow there are two ex officio members, the Dean of Guild and the Deacon Convenor of Trades. This system of having these non-elected members is a legacy from the far-off past. Prior to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1833, these towns were governed, first by the Guilds, and later by the Incorporated Trades. The nearest example I can give is that they were governed by the equivalent of the Delivery Societies with which Southerners are more familar. The Municipal Corporations Act 1833, introduced democratic control into municipal government in Scotland, but it left over, or continued, an undemocratic element in the five cases to which I have referred. As long ago as 1835 a Royal Commission on the existing state of tile municipal corporations in Scotland recommended
"that the scats ex officio should be taken away, and that these councillors should be replaced by election".
That was 130 years ago, which is rather a long time to wait for the implementations of the recommendation of a Royal Commission—I believe that the average is seventeen years. But even after 130 years the Bill which I am submitting to your Lordships does not carry out the recommendation of the Royal Commission; it carries out only a small part of it.
When this Bill was introduced originally in another place its effect was to repeal Section 330 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947, and that would have meant the abolition of these ex officio appointments. The Bill was amended in the Scottish Grand Committee to provide that the ex officio members

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should continue to hold their places. They will be entitled to speak and vote in the council committee; they will be entitled to speak in full council meetings, but not to vote in full council meetings; in other words, the ex officio members lose only the right to vote in the Council as a whole. I believe that the Bill in its present form, a somewhat emasculated form, is acceptable to virtually all parties affected by it. It is certainly not a revolutionary Bill, and is an obvious compromise. It slightly advances the democratic principle in Scottish local government, and I commend it to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Archibald.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, on behalf of the large number of noble Lords on this side of the House—although I assure the noble Lord, Lord Archibald, who has waited so patiently to move this Bill that others are very interested in this Bill, although they may not have been able to stay—I can, I am afraid, add only slightly grudging words of welcome to the noble Lord's Bill, but I can tell him at once that none of us is going to do anything to obstruct it. As the noble Lord has said, it is a compromise, and a compromise I think it must remain. My own view, at any rate, is that the ex-officio members to whom he has referred do a useful job in the local authorities in which they sit. I should have been very unhappy indeed had the Bill come forward in the form in which it was originally, but, as the noble Lord has said, it is not now nearly so severe a measure. Therefore, I can give it but an unenthusiastic welcome. However, I can tell him that there will be no obstruction from this side of the House.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, it is with great diffidence that I, a Sassenach,
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step in to express the Government's welcome for the Bill, which I strongly recommend to the House.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount opposite for even the grudging welcome he gave to the Bill, and I thank my noble friend for the support of the Government.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
FAMILY ALLOWANCES BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE CONTRIBUTIONS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
STATUTE LAW REVISION (CONSEQUENTIAL REPEALS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

WIDOWS' FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES
10.5 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any proposals for relieving the financial difficulties of widows in modest circumstances immediately following the death of their husbands. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I must apologise to the whole House for raising this subject at this time, but a little earlier in the week I was advised that the Business of the House today would be limited. I must apologise to the noble Lord, the Lord Chancellor. After all the exercise he has had today, and the wearying Business he has had to endure, I feel very guilty, but in view of the subject of my Question I am sure the House will forgive me for proceeding.
I put this Question down on the Order Paper in order to focus attention on certain aspects of the problems which a widow encounters on the death of her husband. I would remind the House that between the two extremes of the widow entirely dependent upon a State pension and living in a rented home, and the wealthy widow, there are vast numbers of widows who have been left the house in which they live but little more. These are the widows in whom I am particularly interested tonight. These women have paid their way; they have been unable to save much during their married life, and have little hard cash. It appears from Press reports that more and more people are seeking to raise a mortgage in order to buy a home—workers by hand and by brain—and these people will presumably be faced with years of anxiety and hard work before a house becomes their property. During that time the wife will either work outside the home and make a contribution to the mortgage debt from her own earnings, or she will work inside the home where—and I want to emphasise this important point—she gives her services. If there are children, she will wash; she will cook; she will clean; and for the most part she will manage her home in a thrifty manner, having in mind all the time that there is this debt hanging over the family and that it is her duty to try to make a contribution to the mortgage repayments through her services.
My Lords, I am going to illustrate one particular woman's plight—perhaps "plight" is not quite the right word, because this woman is not so hard up, but nevertheless feels she is suffering injustice—by quoting the details of her case. I have given a copy of the letter from the widow concerned to my noble friend in order that he will fully understand the position.
The case I am using as an illustration is that concerning the estate of a man who was a physicist, a teacher and a lecturer, a man who, when he died, left an estate consisting chiefly of a house. This was a man with a first-class mind, who, had he gone into the world of industry, would have been well rewarded financially. He preferred to serve the community in one of the most commendable ways, but a less profitable way in terms of money. He was a hard worker and did tutoring in the evenings and on Saturdays in order that he could pay off the mortgage on his house. He died in his fifties from coronary thrombosis, leaving a widow and two daughters. I might say I have used this case as an illustration as this man was well known to me. Many years ago he tutored my own daughter in physics. He was a very fine man.
The points I am going to raise were brought to my notice by the widow, and I want to quote from some of the information she has given me. She told me that Probate cannot be granted until the duty is paid—of course, this is well known, but I want to emphasise it. Unless the widow has private savings sufficient for the purpose, therefore, this money must be borrowed, usually through a bank at 6½ per cent.—and we are told that it may soon be 7 per cent.—interest. None of the husband's cash assets are released until the duty has been paid and Probate obtained. Even his outstanding salary is frozen and is included in the amount to be paid upon.
Then the house must be valued, and the amount agreed by the district valuer; and in the case I am quoting for a ten-minute visit by an estate agent for this purpose the woman was charged £48 11s. 3d. I have been told that there is no need to have an estate agent; that the district valuer can be invited to value

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the house. But that is not generally known by widows in this country: most solicitors ask them to get the local estate agent to value their house. I would point out that the valuer benefits by the prevailing high prices, and of course the widow has to pay estate duty on the high prices that obtain today. If she should sell within two years she must pay on any increased valuation, but no allowance is made if, because of the necessity for a quick sale, the value falls. My noble friend, Lady Phillips, has told me that she is not quite sure whether that is completely accurate, but I am sure that my noble friend Lord Sorensen will correct me if I am wrong.
In this case a fee of £12 was paid to obtain registration of Probate. The fee may vary with the amount involved. The solicitors' fees, even in a simple straightforward case, can easily be £100. To sum up, on an estate comprising a dwelling-house in South London valued today at £8,250, with personal effects valued at £500 and a contributory gratuity of £2,824, making a total of £12,000, the amount in hard cash to be found before Probate is granted is approximately £900, in spite of the fact that the only cash assets were only in the form of the gratuity.
I should like to have a number of points considered—these are questions which this woman has asked me. First, is it equitable that a widow should be taxed on the family dwelling-house? Even if she is not a wage-earner, her contribution to its acquisition in service throughout the lives of the husband and wife surely cannot he disregarded. Is it right that she should be taxed on the contents of the family house, which, even if in law they are regarded as the husband's property, have, in fact, been jointly acquired through her careful management? I defy anybody to go into a house and say, "That chair or that sofa has been bought simply by the husband's earnings", when it may be that, in a thrifty home, if the woman had not been the careful manager no extra chairs or sofas would have been bought, because the husband would have been unable to afford it.
We cannot assess these things in such a cut-and-dried fashion, and I would ask my noble friend to consider a new approach to the family possessions. In
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my opinion, these are jointly acquired. The husband may bring the money into the house, but the woman is giving of her services. Is it right that she should pay on a contributory gratuity or, in the absence of this, on a life insurance, which obviously has been entered into for her protection? This woman told me that 6 per cent. of her husband's salary went towards this. What he was doing, in effect, was saying, "I will give 6 per cent. of my salary to my wife, almost as a form of savings, in order that when I die she will have a little nest-egg". I find it difficult to believe, in view of this, that it is equitable to tax this amount.
Why is it necessary for the probating of a simple will to be so complicated and so lengthy a process, requiring solicitors' fees, estate agents' fees and probating fees and borrowing charges to pay the duty before Probate is granted? Why cannot the duty be paid when the cash assets arc available? And why cannot the property be valued officially in the first place by the district valuer? And, if this can be done, why are not widows and solicitors throughout the country told that this can be done? If a widow is unable to earn, why should the foregoing conditions be allowed to force her to part with her family home? These hard facts apply to any widow of any age left with a house and contents but of course the difficulties vary in every case according to age and responsibilities; and no doubt my noble friend who is going to follow me will know of some of these cases.
Finally, I want simply to say this: it seems to me that the situation of the widow in this country is infinitely worse than in the United States of America and many European countries where community of property exists. Can the noble Lord who is to reply hold out any hope that the Government will give consideration to this aspect of marriage, which will affect an increasing number of women as house ownership becomes more widespread? I would make a plea to my noble friend not only to tell me what his Department has told him, but to speak from his heart on marriage, a subject about which I know he knows a great deal.
10.17 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, for a few moments I thought that this was

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going to be the first occasion when I could say "My Ladies", because we appeared to be the only sex here. This is one of the subjects upon which, as we all know, my noble friend has spoken so often and so eloquently, as she has done on many other subjects affecting women; and I am most grateful to her for again giving us the opportunity to voice some of the problems of the widow. Widows have no organised voice other than through the women's organisations, and if there is one thing we learn in this rather complicated society of ours, it is that if you are not organised to speak, on the whole your problems and your grievances are not dealt with quickly.
As the General Secretary of a women's organisation, I have for many years now been confronted by widows' problems—widows being one of the many groups of women who need some help. I will not touch on the question of pensions, because I am confident that the present Government are going to remedy some of the difficulties with which women at present have to contend. All I will say is that I feel that it is quite unjust that a widow of 49 years of age should be debarred from a pension just because she is not 50 at the time of her husband's death. This is a consideration which should not weigh at all, particularly as she will have to wait until she is 65 to receive a pension. However, as our present Minister has already removed the anomaly of the earnings rule, I am confident that this will be the next thing to go.
This evening we are particularly concerned with the question of Probate and estate duties. Having fairly recently been widowed, I have been able to experience some of the rather laborious processes which seem to attend this state. As my noble friend has so rightly said, the amount of money seems to have no bearing on the complications which the law can impose on a widow. I would particularly question why a house has to be assessed at market value. If the widow is living in the family dwelling-house and intends to remain there in any case, because she has no money to go elsewhere, it seems to me completely unfair that the house should be assessed for duty at market value. On my own house I had to pay estate duty at the highest price which could be obtained for it in the open market. One can get the highest prices only
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when certain conditions are present, and it does not necessarily follow that these would be present if the widow wished to sell her house.
On the question of the time taken to obtain Probate, there is little doubt that it is too long. It seems to me singularly strange that, even after Probate has been granted, the State may still return to ask for more money. I understand from one widow that she had been involved in questions of unpaid tax over a period of years. She said to me, rather wittily, that if her husband had been a burglar she would have been called upon to serve his prison sentence if they had not caught him while he was alive. If one deals with a business house there is a reasonable period of time in which matters of debt have to be dealt with. I feel that it is not unreasonable to ask that the State also should be subject to some period of time, particularly as I recently read in a newspaper that a widow who claimed for provision under her husband's will presented her case out of time—in other words, after the six months' period was up—and was therefore refused by the judge, who pointed out that the fact that the legal profession had bungled her case (he did not put it quite like that, but that was in fact what had happened) did not mean that she would not be refused because she was out of time. Surely it is not unfair to ask that with the State also there should be a period when it is out of time.
The other case I should like the Government to consider is the question of the widow where there is no will. This frequently happens, because few of us think that we are going to die, or to be ill, or unemployed, or will have any other things happen to us: it always happens to "the other fellow." I have met many widows whose husbands have died intestate. In such cases, as your Lordships know, in 1925 widows were given their husbands' personal possessions and the first £1,000 of any estate, and it was enacted that any residue was to go to the children equally. The amount going to the widow has been increased twice, and is now, I understand, £5,000. But because of inflation the law is once more out of date. Many small houses are valued at more than £5,000, and the widow may find herself in the absolutely

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ridiculous position of owning half her house while the rest belongs to the children. As the noble Baroness has said, many wives work after marriage in order to pay off a mortgage, and it is an extraordinarily difficult position if a widow in this position is left at the mercy of her children, who may or may not be helpful when the occasion arises.
It would appear that a simple amendment could ensure that the family dwelling-house went to the widow. If another figure were inserted in the Act, surely in less than a year it would again be out of date. One of the weaknesses of our law is the great enthusiasm for inserting figures which are so rapidly found to be out of date. These are the facts which I am presenting this evening. This is a subject which I hope we shall be able to raise again, because there are so many problems and so many anomalies. If we could have some assurance that even these simple matters will be looked into and remedied, I feel that our wait this evening will not have been in vain.
10.25 p.m.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, when I first came to this House after long experience in the other House, which sometimes has all-night sittings, I confess I was rather amused when round about seven o'clock some noble Lords referred to "this late hour" It is now twenty-five past ten, and I do not know what adjective one should choose at this time. At least that reminds me, as I speak now, that I must be brief, not only in view of the hour but also because of the admonitions given to us by noble Lords only a couple of days ago. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot give the full reply to the noble Lady which perhaps I would have done had we more time before us.
I must confess that at first I thought the Question the noble Baroness had put down covered a rather wider matter and would deal with the general position and condition of widows and the hardships which they have to endure. But in listening to her I speedily realised that the reference to "widows in modest circumstances" meant that she was referring to a specific form of hardship. Quite evidently, she has had in mind certain particular cases and she quoted
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one. Indeed, a letter concerning that is in my possession and I have been scrutinising it more than once today. But I would point out that the term "in modest circumstances" is a relative one. What precisely do we mean by "modest"?
I ask that because we have to appreciate, as has been mentioned, that on estates of the value of £5,000 or under no duty is paid; on estates of the value of round about £6,000 only some £60 duty is paid; and, indeed, even on estates valued at £8,000 only some £240 is paid. This, I think, has to be borne in mind because the category of widows to which the noble Lady has been referring is relatively small. That does not mean to say, of course, that the case is not a grave one, or indeed that it should not be remedied, but we must get this matter in proportion, for I repeat again that we are dealing here with a certain small category of widows who undoubtedly suffer hardship in the way that has been described.
I would point out that, according to my information—for I am not a lawyer and not very well versed in these matters—normal Probate is secured not after the lengthy passage of time that has been mentioned tonight, but within about three months. I was quite startled when, for instance, the noble Lady referred to years of waiting before the house becomes a widow's property. This must be a very exceptional case.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the noble Lord misunderstood me. I was talking about the years of waiting before the mortgage was paid off.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, perhaps the fault is entirely mine that that matter was not clear. In any case, I am certainly a little astonished to be informed that sometimes there are many months of waiting, because I understand that the average period is about three months and, indeed, in many cases it can be less when there are very urgent circumstances.
I think, too, that we must discriminate between, on the one hand, the specific case which the noble Lady may have in mind—and other cases which other noble Lords and noble Baronesses may have in mind—and the general principle, on the

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other. If we take the general principle—and I shall have a few words to say about that—we can possibly seek remedies, but in regard to the specific case some of the information that has been given to the noble Lady, and which I have read, seems to me questionable and therefore needs further investigation. It certainly seems extremely strange that someone should be charged nearly £50 for a ten-minute interview. It seems to me that such matters as this are so unusual that they need specific scrutiny and examination. I do not propose, therefore, to deal with the particular case to which reference has been made, but would suggest to the noble Lady that she might follow this up direct with the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Treasury, bringing this particular case and any cases like it to their attention, so that scrutiny can be made to see what may have gone wrong.
In regard to the general position, I have only these brief comments to make. I could spend a much longer time on this matter, because I have a great mass of stuff here which I have tried to digest, but at this late hour I feel that I should confine myself to more general comments. In regard to the alleged high cost of obtaining Probate, for instance—and, criticism was made of this in the letter to which the noble Lady referred—the comment I have to make is that while Probate fees are charged on a scale basis, by reference to the value of the estate, the amount of work required to be done in the Probate Registry does not necessarily vary directly with the size of the estate, and the small fees charged in the smaller cases are not commensurate with the work involved.
The need to obtain Probate is a safeguard provided in the interests both of those who hold the assets and of the beneficiaries in the estate, and the period required for the Registry to carry through its functions does not normally exceed three weeks. I have already said that the whole process before Probate is obtained takes approximately three months, but the other period, the registration period, is some three weeks. As for the other costs, they need not be incurred for a small estate. Probate can be obtained by personal application without the need to employ a solicitor, and the
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valuation of the house can be left to the district valuer. The noble Lady herself expressed surprise that apparently, in the instance which she cited, much more was done than need have been.
The other question that has been raised is the need to pay duty before Probate, and certainly one can appreciate the substance of this grievance, particularly with the mounting cost of borrowing money. Again, this is an essential safeguard to the Revenue, but it should not be onerous in the type of case mentioned. The requirement of payment before Probate relates only to personal property. The duty on a freehold house does not become payable until a year after the death, and can be paid by instalments over eight years. In other words, it is not necessary to pay the full duty it can be extended over a whole year, and can even be paid by instalments during that period. So that eases the situation. I grant that meanwhile, in (shall we say?) three months or so, it may be necessary for the widow to secure cash by which she can pay the duty, and it may be that she would have to go to the bank for that purpose and pay interest of 6½ per cent. or more, but again I am informed that this need not be for more than approximately three weeks.
Further, I would say this. The case which the noble Baroness has in mind. as I say, requires definite investigation. On the general issue, there is much sympathy, I am sure, in this House, and there would have been more if more noble Lords and noble Baronesses had been present. But the mere fact that the noble Baroness has raised it tonight will, I am certain, bring this matter more impressively and more emphatically to the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Treasury. All I can say, therefore, at this moment, is that I hope very earnestly that what she has said will be considered very carefully in the right quarter, but she must not expect me to give any sort of statement tonight as to what would or should be done. After all, I am only an assistant to a Minister. I am three times removed from the Minister himself; and the noble Baroness must not try, with her charming blandishments, to tempt me out of my true function and behave in a way that I would not, married man, for nearly fifty years, as I happen to be. I cannot quite

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see the relevance of the fact that I have been happily married to these other matters which she is pressing upon me, including this attempt to seduce me from the function I am fulfilling tonight.
Nevertheless, I thank the noble Baroness very much indeed, as I am sure we all do, for raising this matter, a matter of poignant interest and significance. All I can say, again, is that I hope that she herself feels that, by raising it, together with her noble friend and colleague, she has performed a great service to widows in this country, and that in course of time the grievances she has outlined will be remedied.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords. before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder if he could consider this matter in relation to the case which the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, brought up. Of course, I am entirely in sympathy with the idea of helping the widow in these circumstances referred to, but what is the
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position of the widow who has a rented house? She will lose out if anything is done to help the Position of the widow who has a rented house? She will lose out if anything is done to help the widow who owns her own house. She will get no special relief. It will be the widow who owns her house who will get the special relief. I am all for raising the level of tax-free income for a widow in these circumstances, but not with regard to her own house.
Lord SORENSEN: My Lords, with the leave of the House may I say that perhaps the two noble Ladies can discuss this matter together, because the issue that has just been raised by the noble Baroness goes rather beyond the particular province that I myself explored during my ten-minute speech. I hope that that particular point will be borne in mind, and perhaps I can arrange that a reply be sent by letter to the noble Lady on the specific instance she raises.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before eleven o'clock.