Lords Sitting of 26 July 1965

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

EMPLOYED MOTHERS AND CHILD DELINQUENCY
2.35 p.m.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will hold an inquiry into the social effects of the increase in the number of mothers of young and adolescent families who are going out to work; whether this has a direct relationship with the increase in delinquency and what action should be taken by public authorities and employers to prevent the damage to family life which this development may cause.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, such research as has already been done on this question has not given any reason to think that the children of working mothers are more delinquent than other children. The National Survey of Child Health and Development will yield further information and the Government do not consider that a special inquiry is necessary. Preliminary figures provided by the Survey about children whose mothers had worked while they were at primary schools show no significant difference in the delinquency rates.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, has the Minister's attention been drawn to the statement of the Medical Officer of Health for Leicester in regard to this problem? If he has not considered it, would he and his Department do so? Although this Question includes a reference to delinquency, there are many other social problems which are created
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by this particular development. Does he not think that it is now opportune to have an inquiry into this particular matter on a Government level rather than through private sources?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am quite well aware that this matter gives rise to social problems other than that of delinquency. I have not seen the statement to which the noble Lord referred, but I will look at it. There is a great deal of evidence in support of the Answer I gave to the Question—for example, the National Survey of Child Health and Development, which is a continuous study of some 5,000 children born in 1946. There are many other inquiries which have yielded valuable information.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will also make inquiries of the police authorities, who, as I know from personal experience in my part of the country, are concerned with this problem?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we are all concerned with developments of this kind, and in particular with delinquency; but I was dealing with the precise Question which the noble Lord put on the Order Paper. The answer to that is the one which I have given.

RHODESIAN DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATION AT LISBON
2.38 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 what exchanges have taken place with the Government of Rhodesia regarding its diplomatic representation at Lisbon.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD TAYLOR): My Lords, discussions between the Rhodesian Government and Her Majesty's Government about the question of Rhodesian representation at Lisbon are continuing. The details of

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such exchanges are, of course, confidential.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while appreciating that Answer, may I ask my noble friend whether acknowledgment of the right of the Government of Rhodesia to have diplomatic representation in Lisbon would not be a de facto recognition of its right of independence and control over foreign affairs? May we accept as a fact that Her Majesty's Government will not grant independence to Rhodesia before—in the words of the commitment of the Government—a Constitution has been accepted by the whole of the people?
LORD TAYLOR: I think that the second part of my noble friend's question was a little wide of the original Question, but, in answer to the first part, Her Majesty's Government's attitude will be governed by the need to preserve Britain's ultimate responsibility for Rhodesia's external relations and for its diplomatic representation in foreign countries.
LORD BROCKWAY: While thanking my noble friend for that additional information, may I ask how it was that the Rhodesian Government was allowed diplomatic representation in Pretoria? Did this not give a precedent which was rather dangerous?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, South Africa was, of course, formerly a Commonwealth country with which Rhodesia had exchanged High Commissioners. When South Africa left the Commonwealth it was agreed that in this special case Her High Commissioner should become known as the accredited diplomatic representative. This should not be taken as a precedent.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN PRISONS
2.40 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 for which prisoners solitary confinement is retained.]
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the Prison Rule authorising temporary segregation—that is, removal from association with other prisoners—is Rule 43. In practice this Rule applies to two distinct classes of prisoner. The first is those prisoners—the majority—who, for reasons of their own, ask to be segregated. The main reason for such requests is fear of other prisoners. Such requests are usually granted provided the Governor is satisfied that the request is genuine. The other class comprises prisoners who need to be segregated for reasons of good order and discipline, including security. In no case can segregation be imposed for a period of longer than 24 hours without the authority of a member of the Visiting Committee or Board of Visitors, or of the Secretary of State, and the authority thereby given, cannot exceed one month without reconsideration and renewal. Association must be resumed if in any case the medical officer so advises on medical grounds. The case of every segregated prisoner is considered in the Department at regular intervals, and no prisoner is kept under this Rule longer than is necessary in the interests either of his own safety or of good order and discipline.
Cellular confinement can be imposed upon any prisoner as a punishment for an offence under the Prison Rules. This can take place only after an adjudication either by the Governor, in which case the maximum period of cellular confinement is three days, or for more serious offences by the Visiting Committee or Board of Visitors, when the limit is 56 days.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that very full Answer? May I ask him whether he is aware—and I speak from experience of eight months in solitary confinement—that it is quite impossible to segregate prisoners from communication, even in solitary confinement? Would he take into regard, particularly with the prisoners who are now doing long service for the train robbery, that solitary confinement may actually increase their determination and their means of escape, more than would association with other prisoners?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I agree that it is impossible to stop all communication between prisoners; in fact,

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I said as much in the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, on July 14. With regard to the train robbers, the escape of the prisoner Biggs from Wandsworth meant that until police investigations into the escape had reached provisional conclusions it was considered necessary to place the remaining train robbers under segregation. But these cases are being reviewed on their individual merits, and these men will be removed from the Rule as soon as this can be done safely.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what is the average number of prisoners in solitary confinement at any one moment?
LORD STONHAM: The number under Rule 43—if that will answer the noble Lord's question—on July 10 last was 140, of whom 87 were there at their own request, 38 were long-term recidivists and 15 were violent or subversive prisoners.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, am I to understand, from what the noble Lord read out about Rule 43, that it is possible for a man to be given this serious form of punishment not because he has committed an offence but simply because there is a shortage of staff?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I could not accept that it was solely because there was a shortage of staff. The train robbers are adequately supervised from the staff point of view. But I think we shall all agree that this was a particular and special case, and since we have to keep these men in safe custody, we were right to take special steps until the police have made their recommendations, and then these men will be released from Rule 43.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what is the longest time any man now in prison has spent in solitary confinement?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am afraid not, without notice, but it is nothing like the time that my noble friend suggested—eight months—except for Rule 43 segregation as distinct from solitary confinement. There are men, as I indicated, who elect to go on Rule 43 and we cannot persuade them not to. They are not in solitary confinement but they are segregated.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, could the noble Lord perhaps tell me, or find out, the longest time anyone has been segregated? I can think of one case where I have heard it said that there been segregation for years. I do not know whether this is true.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am aware of cases where men have been segregated for years at their own request and where it is impossible to budge them. But I will get the answer to the noble and learned Viscount's question and write to him.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a supplementary, as this is a very serious matter? Am I to understand, then, that if these men are put into solitary confinement for security reasons alone—and he tells me that they are for only a short time—they are brought out when there are signs of psychological reaction, but that it is possible for them to be put back after they have sufficiently recovered?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if my noble friend is referring to involuntary confinement, what she suggests is not possible. I did make it clear that if a man had been "in solitary" for only a short time—a few days—and the medical officer said that he was not fit to continue, then he would be brought out.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would he be returned or is he out for good?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if a man is put "in solitary", it is subject to a decision by the visiting magistrates. It is for a term. It could be renewed only if they said so, and, a man whose health was affected in that way would not be put back again.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, one appreciates that, in the overcrowded conditions of prisons where sometimes three men occupy one cell, it may be the desire of a prisoner to be put in a cell by himself, but in those cases is exercise in common allowed, which would at least for 40 minutes in the day break the effects of solitary confinement?
LORD STONHAM: Most certainly, my Lords. Rule 43 men are given the exercise and, indeed, they would exercise together.

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If there was more than one Rule 43 man in a prison—and in some cases, as in the number I gave my noble friend, there are as many as eleven in one prison—all those Rule 43 men would exercise together and they would have the full period.

COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRATION
2.48 p.m.
LORD ELTON: 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 expect to announce what conclusions they have come to in respect of immigration as a result of the Report of the Mission led by Earl Mountbatten.]
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the Government intend to announce their policy for Commonwealth immigration before Parliament rises for the Recess.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that surprisingly encouraging Answer, may I ask him whether he realises that it would have been helpful to know the Government's intentions before we debated the Race Relations Bill, since obviously their action or inaction must affect, one way or the other, the psychological climate of the country—and the Bill is really concerned with the psychological climate? Does he also realises that all those who hope to see further restrictions on the present influx, which according to the evidence of the polls means the majority of the electorate, hope that the Government will spend as little time as possible either making up their mind or screwing up their courage?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I do not think it has ever been necessary, and nobody can suggest it has ever been necessary, for this Government to screw up their courage. I would, however, point out to the noble Lord that this matter is of such importance that it would be quite wrong to deal with it over-hastily; that we have had to have full regard to the Report of the vitally important Mission to the Commonwealth countries led by the noble Earl, Lord Mountbatten of Burma;
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and that if the Government's views and proposals on immigration are published before the Summer Recess there will be ample time to consider them before new legislation, if it should be necessary, is introduced.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned publication just before the Summer Recess. Will that be followed by action during the Summer Recess? Because it is very unfortunate that the House should have no opportunity, after these many months, of debating the Government's proposals. I am sure that many people would like action to follow upon these proposals if the proposals are generally acceptable. I ask the noble Lord: are we to wait until October and then have a debate before we have any action, or shall we get action during the Recess?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, as the noble Viscount is aware, in this matter two kinds of action are possible—administrative and legislative. He is further aware that administrative action has been taking place all the time. If there are further administrative steps which the Government think it advisable to take, and which do not require legislation, they will be taken; but I suggest to the noble Viscount that he awaits publication of the White Paper, when he will be able to judge for himself.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, is it not very understandable that the Government are taking some time over this matter, in view of the fact that they have had completely to reverse their policy?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, is unusually ill-informed in this matter, because long before this Government took office we thought that an essential factor in change was full consultation with the Commonwealth countries. That full consultation has now taken place with the Commonwealth and with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, and in our new proposals we shall be marching forward together with them. That is vitally different from what the noble Lord said.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying, or did my ears deceive me, that the Labour Party have not changed their policy on immigration?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am quite sure that the ears of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition did not deceive him—they seldom do. I was answering his noble friend's question; and, if he will look at my answer tomorrow he will see that I gave a complete answer to it, so there should be no misunderstanding.
LORD ALPORT: May I ask the noble Lord whether the timing is intended to ensure that no legislation is necessary until after the next Election?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am sorry; I did not hear the first part of the noble Lord's question.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not the case that in the Labour Party's Amendment to the original Act there was a declaration that we should reach agreement with the Commonwealth countries? Is he aware that we all welcome the fact that such consultations have taken place, but will he provide some opportunity before the Recess, if a Statement and a White Paper are to be issued, for the House to discuss them?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, it is perfectly true, and known by everyone in the House, that we insisted on consultations. With regard to the finding of time for a debate, that is not a matter for me.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware, or is he not, that the Labour Party opposed the Second Reading of that Bill in the other place—and, in fact, all stages?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am perfectly well aware—
LORD CARRINGTON: It does not sound like it.
LORD STONHAM: Would the noble Lord like to finish his question?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Go on!

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
2.54 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Taylor will be making a Statement on the Anglo-Maldivian Agreement.
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In view of the length of Business and the amount to be done, may I remind the House that suppers will be available this evening?

STANDING ORDERS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Longford, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the following paragraph be added to Standing Order No. 44A (Printing of Bills brought from the Commons):—("Likewise, if a Public Bill is returned from the Commons with amendments, or Reasons, at a time when this House is not sitting, the Clerk of the Parliaments may, pursuant to this Standing Order, arrange for the printing and circulation of any such amendments and Reasons.")—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Standing Order amended accordingly.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (EXEMPTION) ORDER, 1965
2.55 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD RHODES): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which appears in my name on the Order Paper. Many noble Lords will be aware that on the 31st of this month Part IV and the related Schedules of the Weights and Measures Act, 1963, comes into force. That means that on and after that date a very wide range of pre-packed goods (which have never had to be so marked before) will be required by law to be marked with indications of quantity. As the law stands, this new requirement will apply to all goods (of the relevant descriptions) irrespective of whether or not they had left the premises when they were packed before the critical date, July 31. This draft Order is to alter the law to give distributors a period of grace—a period strictly limited to twelve months—for selling off without quantity markings any pre-packed goods of the kinds covered by Schedule 7 in the case where the goods had left those premises before the end of this month. Such goods will, of course, be a dwindling proportion of the goods of the relevant

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kinds that buyers will find in the shops from now on. But there will at first be enough of these goods on the shelves of some shops and wholesalers' warehouses to present serious difficulties to those traders unless we defer this marking requirement. Indeed, in the case of some slow-moving old stocks of lines discontinued by the manufacturer, it would be almost impossible for the retailer to find out what the correct quantities ought to be. The goods affected by the Order are all the kinds of pre-packed goods required by the Act to bear quantity markings except the food and drink items.
Moved, That the Draft Weights and Measures (Exemption) Order, 1965, laid before the House on 24th June, be approved.—(Lord Rhodes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, we on this side of the House very much welcome this period of grace, as the noble Lord has called it. May I just ask him one question? Would he consider giving publicity, in a year's time, to the need to mark all Schedule 7 goods, so that those who are responsible will have the opportunity to bring those goods which are still left on their shelves within the law, and will he make it quite clear at that time on whom that responsibility lies?
LORD RHODES: My Lords, may I say that is a very common-sense suggestion, and I will see that notice is taken of it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WHITE FISH SUBSIDY (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME 1965
2.58 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, I beg to move that the White Fish Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1965, be approved. The Order provides for further subsidies to the white fish industry for the year starting on August 1 next. Before I describe its effect, I should give your Lordships an account of the state of the industry.
This time last year my predecessor was able to report a considerable improvement in the fortunes of the industry. I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships
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that 1964 was a year of further improvement. The total catch of white fish increased by 13,000 tons to 719,000 tons, and the value of the catch increased by over £3 million to £51·5 million. The trawler fleet improved its operating profits by roughly 25 per cent., and the inshore fleet secured a 20 per cent. increase in income, which more than covered rising costs. As in previous years, the position has been discussed with all sections of the industry. It is in the light of the improved results and the views expressed by the industry that the subsidy proposals now before us have been prepared. The conditions of subsidy set out in the scheme are the same as in the current scheme. The changes are in the rates of subsidy.
Your Lordships will recall that the Sea Fish Industry Act 1962 provides that subsidies to the trawler fleet (vessels over 80 feet in length) must be reduced annually by between 7½ and 12½ per cent.—an average of 10 per cent. In the first two years, reductions of 7½ per cent. were made by agreement with the industry. There is thus some leeway to make up. In the past year there has been some improvement in the profitability of the industry, and the Government have therefore felt justified in making a reduction of 10 per cent. This has been accepted by the industry. The Government further propose to make the same reduction of 10 per cent. in each of the two following years. This should enable the industry to plan ahead with more certainty. It will be the aim in later years to make larger reductions of up to 12½ per cent. to balance the reductions of 7½ per cent. in the first two years.
The White Fish Subsidy Scheme also provides for special subsidies to be paid to certain groups of vessels which have encountered difficulties of a temporary nature outside their immediate control. It is a reflection of the improved state of the industry that only a few vessels have been found to need this special help. The difficulties on this occasion have been mainly due to adverse fishing conditions affecting these vessels. There are 37 of them, and the total cost is estimated at roughly £32,000. The inshore fleet, of vessels under 80 feet in length, has also had a good year. There is no requirement to reduce the subsidies for these vessels by any fixed amount, but the

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Government consider that a reduction of 10 per cent. is justified on this occasion.
For all sections of the fleet the reductions in subsidies will be less than the improvements in earnings. The burdens on the taxpayer is thus being reduced while leaving the industry in a better position. Fishing is notoriously an uncertain business, but I am sure your Lordships will join with me in the hope that these encouraging developments will be maintained, and that you will give your approval to the Scheme.
Moved, That the White Fish Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme 1965 be approved.—(Lord Champion.)
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has given us a detailed account of the fishing industry and we are grateful for it. I would, if I may be permitted to do so, introduce a small red herring into this discussion merely to congratulate the noble Lord on his achieving yet another birthday. I trust that his preoccupation with white fish will not preclude his possibly enjoying pink fish, or something more exotic, later this evening.
We welcome this Order, which the noble Lord has moved in a speech in which he has given a rather glowing account of the fishing industry, but he will know that in certain sections of it there have been difficulties and also that there are liable to be difficulties in the future. I hope he will be able to give the assurance that the cuts in subsidy which he has foreshadowed will, in fact, be treated sympathetically and that the industry as a whole will be treated sympathetically, in view of the difficulties that some of the people engaged in it are likely to meet in the near future.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for his kind remarks about my birthday. I rather wish that he had not done so; because it might be called to the attention of someone who might think that ministerial Members are much older, on average, than they ought to be; and I might suffer as a result. I am grateful for the welcome that he has given this Scheme, and I can assure him that we shall look carefully at any future Schemes that will be introduced in the light of the circumstances prevailing in the fishing
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industry. I hope that it will continue, as it has been doing for some years now to improve its position and make things better for those who are engaged in this difficult, dangerous but essential industry.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HERRING SUBSIDY (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME 1965
3.4 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that the Herring Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme 1965 be approved. Following relatively good results in 1963, the herring catchers had another generally successful year in 1964. Though total landings in the United Kingdom by British vessels showed a small drop in quantity compared with 1963, the value was virtually unchanged at £2·7 million. When we look behind these total landing figures and examine the situation of the fishermen who are engaged in the fisheries, it is encouraging to find that average profits have generally increased over the year. The herring fisheries are, in the main, carried out by Scottish vessels which fished entirely for herring, the average profits of the ring-net vessels and the 65 to 80 feet drifters showed an increase in 1964, while the profits of the smaller group of 60 to 65 feet drifters were the same as in 1963, which was a good year for them.
I am glad to say that for 1964, the ratio of profit to the improved value of the vessel—and this has been quoted to us by the fishermen's associations as the best index of profitability—was, for most classes of vessels fishing principally for herring, at a level which the associations themselves regard as satisfactory. As your Lordships will know, there is now a greater degree of flexibility in the inshore fishing industry so that many vessels can go out to fish either for herrings or for white fish or shell fish, according to which fishery the skipper deems most profitable in their overall results, the majority of the dual-purpose vessels—those which fished for herring for only part of the year—showed on average increased profits during 1964. It is interesting to note also that, in general, herring fishing proved more profitable to the dual-purpose boats than fishing for white fish.

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The general picture, then, of the herring industry is that the profits of 1963 were improved upon last year. We are satisfied that, as in the case of the inshore white fish industry, a step should be taken towards the objective of a viable industry, in comformity with the policy outlined in the White Paper of August, 1961. This will in fact be a second step, since some reductions were made in the herring subsidies in 1963. The Order now before your Lordships proposes a reduction of 1d. per stone in the rate of subsidy paid on the landings of herring by boats under 40 feet in length and a reduction of 10 per cent. in the daily rates of subsidy paid to the larger boats. The herring industry receives some additional assistance in the form of a subsidy paid on herring consigned for reduction to oil and meal, subject to the restriction that no more than 20 per cent. of the total landings in a particular month at a port or group of ports will qualify. In practice, about two-thirds of the herring sold for oil and meal attracts this subsidy, which by the Order will be reduced by 6 per cent. from 25s. to 23·6d. per cent. The conditions applying to the herring subsidy, apart from the changes in the rates, are unaltered. Some minor changes have been made in the Order, largely to maintain uniformity as far as possible with the Order relating to white fish subsidy.
Moved, That the Herring Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme 1965 be approved.—(Lord Hughes.)
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for following his noble friend and giving the details of the herring industry. We welcome this Order also, although it may seem curious to welcome something which, in fact, reduces subsidies; but this was not entirely unanticipated. We therefore give it a welcome.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC HEALTH (NOTIFICATION OF BIRTHS) BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

RACE RELATIONS BILL
3.9 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the Race Relations Bill be read a second time. I think your Lordships will agree that it is almost impossible to approach this subject without acknowledging the very great work done in this field over the years by my noble friend Lord Brockway. It is many years since, in another place, he first introduced a Private Member's Bill aimed at outlawing racial discrimination. He was not successful then; nor was he in the many other years when he tried to do the same thing. But I am quite sure that we all agree that he has made a very great contribution. He has helped to bring us to the point at which we are now, and we shall certainly look forward to his contribution later in the debate.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I appreciate tremendously what he has said, but I think it ought to be said that my noble friend Lord Sorensen was the pioneer in the matter of introducing legislation against racial discrimination in the House of Commons, and recognition should be given to that fact.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful for that intervention and glad to acknowledge my noble friend's very great contribution.
The Bill we are discussing falls into two distinct parts, the first dealing with racial discrimination and the second with incitement to racial hatred. As your Lordships will be aware, considerable modifications have been made in the first part of the Bill since it was first introduced into another place; the effect of these has been to substitute processes of conciliation for the criminal sanctions originally intended. Should conciliation manifestly fail there is provision for proceedings in the civil courts by injunction. This change was made to avoid bringing the flavour of criminality into the delicate question of race relations.
The change in the Bill has been one of approach, not of objective. This remains that of assisting the integration of immigrant peoples into the community and

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the prevention of the spread of harmful and irrational prejudices. The Bill is also intended to support positive efforts towards integration in larger fields, such as employment and housing, of vital importance to everyone, but not in themselves amenable to legislative action. Colour prejudice can best be banished by change of heart rather than change of law but, that acknowledged, we are determined to use the law to banish as far as possible the wilful fomenting of racial prejudices by word, writing or insulting public example.
The first principle we must establish is that people, irrespective of their colour, race or national origin who come here for long or short periods must be treated as an integral part of the general public. For that reason the first part of the Bill is directed against the practice of discrimination in places of public resort. Two considerations in particular have guided the choice; first the necessity to deal with actual or threatened, and not with mere theoretical, abuses; second, that if legislative measures are taken too far they might revolt and offend rather than guide public opinion. The emphasis first is on persuasion, and only if this fails on coercion. For that reason it is not individual acts of discrimination that are declared to be unlawful but the practice of discrimination, meaning a course of conduct. Complaints of discrimination are to be dealt with first by conciliation committees, local in character and informal in their methods of work. It is only when conciliation has failed, and no settlement can be achieved, that a case would be reported to the Race Relations Board, to be established under the Act, whose duty it will then be to consider whether there has been a persistent course of discriminatory conduct which is likely to continue, and which should therefore be reported to the Attorney General with a view to possible court proceedings. Since the issue would be a denial of civil rights the proceedings will be taken in the civil courts and the remedy sought will be an injunction restraining the defendant from committing any further acts of discrimination. Clearly it is only in the most obdurate cases that this sanction will have to be used. If experience in the United States is any guide the great majority of cases will yield to con-
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ciliation, and only a very few will ever get as far as the courts. The offender will be given every possible opportunity of reforming his ways, but if he fails to do so correction will be none the less certain and effective.
To turn now to the detailed provisions of the Bill, Clause 1 makes it unlawful for the proprietor, manager or an employee to practise discrimination on grounds of colour, race or ethnic or national origin, in any of the places of public resort specified, which comprise hotels, restaurants, cafés and public houses; places of entertainment, recreation and sport; public transport operating on a regular schedule, and the premises it uses; and other places of public resort maintained by local or public authorities—for instance, municipal libraries, museums or art galleries. The clause declares unlawful the practice of discrimination on grounds of colour, race and so on, but it will still be permissible to refuse entry to a public-house or hotel, or other facilities to any individual on grounds personal to him, irrespective of his colour or race—for instance, that he is dirty, improperly dressed, drunken or a known trouble maker.
Clause 2 of the Bill provides for the constitution of the Race Relations Board, and of the local conciliation committees which the Board is required to appoint. The Home Secretary will not be responsible for the actions of the Board in individual cases but will be answerable for the way in which it conducts its affairs in general and the Board must submit an annual report to him to be laid before Parliament. The independence of the Board from direct control by the Home Office has been emphasised by making the appointment of the whole-time staff subject directly to the consent of the Treasury. We expect members of the Board will serve part-time but they will be assisted by a small full-time secretariat. The local conciliation committees will serve in a voluntary capacity, but they too may require some full-time assistance. If so, it is intended that the appointments should be made by the Board and the officials concerned treated as servants of the Board on post to the committees.
Clause 3 deals with proceedings for enforcement in England and Wales, and Clause 4 with enforcement in Scotland,

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the two systems being essentially the same. Proceedings will be brought by the Attorney General or the Lord Advocate, and will be for injunction only and not for damages. This is because the object is not so much to provide compensation for individuals, who may, in fact, have suffered no financial loss through the discrimination practised against them, but to put a stop to a course of conduct which is aimed against a whole class of people and which is contrary to the interests of the public as a whole. Before an injunction can be granted, the court, which in most cases will be the county court, will have to satisfy itself that there has been a persistent course of discriminatory conduct which is likely to continue. It will be for the court to decide the form of injunction, which may be to restrain the defendant from committing further acts of discrimination either against specified individuals or against a specific class of persons, such, for instance, as coloured people in general. Where a person is in breach of an injunction it would be for the Attorney General—or Lord Advocate—to move the court to commit him for contempt.
Clause 5 of the Bill deals with discriminatory restrictions on the disposal of leases, and applies to tenancies existing whether before or after the passing of the Bill. It operates in two ways. First, it provides that where the consent of a landlord is needed to the disposal of a tenancy, any refusal of consent on grounds of colour, race, and so on, should be treated as unreasonable; but with the exception that this will not apply where the tenancy is in a house where the landlord himself lives and where he shares some accommodation with the tenant. Secondly, it converts any covenant which prohibits the disposal of tenancies to people of a particular colour, or race, into one requiring the landlord's consent to disposal; and the provisions of the first part, including the special saving, will then apply. It may be asked why tenancies of the second type are not to be declared void altogether. The answer is that, particularly in the case of certain existing leases, this might have the rather curious effect of depriving a landlord of the right to refuse consent to the disposal of a tenancy to a coloured person even on perfectly legitimate grounds—for instance, that he was an undischarged bankrupt.
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I now turn to the part of the Bill dealing with incitement to racial hatred, which, in my view, is designed for only a tiny minority of people in this country. For example, the various Fascist groups, which attempt to achieve notoriety by posting their sticker labels and by their pamphlets, are no more than a few loud-mouthed individuals, who have almost no support from the public at large. Nevertheless, at a time of social strain, these people can attract quite disproportionate publicity by exploiting and intensifying unthinking prejudices about race and colour.
We now have substantial numbers of coloured people in our midst who are only newly arrived and whose need for full integration into society the Government accept. The apostles of racial intolerance may have little effect on people with long-established roots in this country, but it may be quite otherwise with the newcomers. They find it difficult to believe that inaction does not imply some sort of tacit assent, and remarks about sharing the common detestation of such views, however well meant, do little or nothing to convince them to the contrary. The key to integration is a willingness to come together. The Race Relations Bill is a first step in this process, and the proposal to make it an offence to incite to hatred on grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins is, I believe, an essential part of this first step.
The problem, as always in matters of this kind, is to frame a provision which will penalise indefensibly scurrilous and inflammatory speeches or publications, without curtailing legitimate freedom of comment and controversy. Although there have been no recent public disturbances on a substantial scale, we in the Home Office—I am sure it was also the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent—receive continuing complaints of anti-Semitic or anti-colour articles in Fascist news-sheets and flyposting of the "nigger neighbour" variety, and under the present law, unfortunately, highly offensive remarks can be disseminated and a scurrilous campaign mounted on a sufficient scale to produce a considerable effect, without falling foul of the law. A situation could arise where a determined man, with sufficient backing behind him, could exploit the present situation and

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do a great deal of harm. It is this potential bad case that Clause 6 is designed to deal with.
The clause achieves this by penalising deliberate incitement to racial hatred, oral or written. We are determined, however, that legitimate public debate and controversy should not be inhibited, and have therefore defined the new offence closely to ensure that it shall bite only on the race-mongers. It is designed to operate selectively against the leaders and organisers, and not be capable of becoming a weapon used against the ordinary man in the street engaged in ordinary conversation or discussion of the issues and events of the day.
The new offence in Clause 6 has three limbs. First, the matter or words complained of must be threatening, abusive or insulting. It is, in fact, hard to conceive of some or all of these criteria not being met in the sort of cases I have been describing, but reasonable discussion would not be affected. Secondly, the matter or words complained of must be likely to stir up hatred against a section of the public in Great Britain on grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins. This will be a question of fact, which will turn on the circumstances of the particular case; but it must be shown that it is on one of the prohibited grounds. It is not necessary for there to be more than a likelihood of the stirring up of racial hatred. For example, a breach of the peace does not have to be shown or proved. The presumption will lie that the person concerned intended the natural consequences of his action, and the rule will apply that a person must take his audience as he finds it. Thirdly, there must be not only a likelihood but also the intention of stirring up hatred against a section of the public. This will make it clear that ordinary discussion, even if misinformed, will not be caught by the section, but only the person deliberately pursuing a course of conduct which in its way can cause as much harm to our fellow citizens and do as much damage to the fabric of society as the crime, say, of housebreaking.
A distinction is drawn between written matter and spoken words. Spoken words come within the clause only if they are spoken in a public place or at a public meeting. A man privately in his own
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house or at some other place may say what he pleases; but what he says in a public place or at a public meeting must be assumed to be intended to be published to the whole world and is dealt with on that basis. Written matter is also limited. Any method of publication or dissemination comes within the clause—it does not have to be done in a public place—and so the sly letter box campaign will be included; but publication of written matter strictly among members of an association does not provide cause for action. This is necessary if the affairs of clubs, businesses and even political Parties are not to be liable to unjustifiable interference.
It is especially important that any legislation prohibiting the expression of certain views, however undesirable or disreputable they may be, should not be misused for other ends. We must remember that the issues, which give rise to passionate feelings, and possibly even violence, in one generation, pass away and become almost forgotten by the next. The law, however, does not change so quickly, and it is important that the law made to deal with one situation should not be so drafted that it may be misused later on to deal with another. As an additional safeguard, therefore, Clause 6 requires that the Attorney General's consent must be obtained before proceedings may be instituted. This is an important safeguard against proceedings being taken in circumstances which would penalise or inhibit legitimate controversy, and will ensure that their use is confined to the ringleaders and organisers of incitement to racial hatred. This clause will serve to check effectively the emergent Fascist leader. The maximum penalties of two years' imprisonment and a fine of £1,000 upon conviction on indictment will enable the courts to hit this sort of person where it hurts—both in his person and in his pocket—without making a political martyr of him, and without infringing the liberties of ordinary men and women.
Clause 7 of the Bill re-enacts Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 in extended form. This section provides that
"any person who in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening. abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned shall be guilty of an offence".

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Section 5 of the 1936 Act is directed primarily to securing that public meetings and demonstrations in public places take place without breach of the peace. Freedom of public speech and demonstration is of little value unless this can be assured and, at the same time, those not taking part are entitled to expect that they shall not become occasions for brawls and disorder, in which members of the public may be injured. The purpose of the section is esssentially preventive—either to prevent disorder when a breach of the peace seems likely, or to limit and end disorder that has occurred. This can be effected only by immediate police action, for which Clause 6 is not designed to provide.
As Section 5 of the Public Order Act now stands, it does not state in clear terms to the man in the street that it covers such conduct as the dissemination of pamphlets and waving of banners at public meetings, or the sale of offensive literature in streets. The view has been expressed, and has much to commend it, that in law the word "behaviour" as it stands is sufficient to cover all these activities, and that accordingly no amendment of Section 5 of the 1936 Act is necessary. On balance, however, we have thought it right to take the opportunity to re-write Section 5 in extended form, so as to make its scope completely and unequivocally clear, particularly to those likely to be directly affected. The present penalties in Section 5 of the 1936 Act (which are, in fact, set out in the Public Order Act 1963) will continue to apply. Thus on summary conviction an offender will be liable to three months' imprisonment or a £100 fine, or both, and on conviction on indictment to twelve months' imprisonment or £500 fine, or both.
Taken together, the powers contained in Clauses 6 and 7 will enable the police to deal with the rabble-rousers in the street and with the backroom organisers who now are careful to keep on the right side of the present law. Without infringing our cherished liberties of speech and of the Press, these clauses will, I am sure, enable effective action to be taken to prevent the evil of incitement to racial hatred becoming established in our society, and will help to encourage the integration of coloured immigrants and the maintenance in
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modern conditions of our long tradition of tolerance.
My Lords, for two thousand years we have welcomed to these shores—and sometimes it has been a welcome too warm for comfort—the people of many races. They have broadened and enriched our economy and culture. They—and it applies literally to all of us—are an integral part of our democracy and the British way of life. In recent years we have welcomed perhaps a million Commonwealth citizens who are easily distinguishable by their colour. They have made an important contribution, and will make an even greater one. Their coming has created problems in our crowded island, problems which are being and will be solved by the good will and sense of our people, assisted by measures towards integration promoted by local and central Governments. This Bill will make its contribution towards that integration, and as such I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stonham.)
3.33 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, in spite of the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, this Bill has a rather strange history. It has been through the other place, but it has never had a Second Reading. What happened in the other place was this. A Bill of the same name was introduced, and it depended almost entirely on the sanction of the criminal law; and the Opposition moved against it on the ground that it should be subject to civil law and that there should be conciliation machinery. The Government resisted this proposal. There was a Division, which the Government won, and the Bill was then sent to Committee.
On the first morning of the Committee, the Home Secretary announced that the night before he had put down Amendments making the Bill subject to civil law and setting up conciliation machinery, which is what the Opposition had asked for. Most of the members of the Committee, when they appeared in the Committee, had not even seen the Amendments, because there had not been time. Many Members of the other place wanted the Bill withdrawn and to have a new Bill, on the lines suggested by the Home

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Secretary, with a Second Reading. However, they did not succeed in this. So, as I say, this is the first time that this particular Bill has had a Second Reading.
I do not want to be depressing, but I do not know how much there is to be said for this Bill. I do not know what, if any, effect it will have. I suppose that it is an effort, and there is nothing very much to be said against it. It does not deal with any of the questions (because, as the Home Secretary said, it is almost impossible to deal with them through legislation) which cause most friction in integrating immigrant communities. It does not deal with housing; it does not deal with jobs; it does not deal with matters such as apprenticeships, and so on. What the Bill does, I think, is to express a pious hope that these conciliation committees will be able to help; and, indeed, they may.
There is this further point—and perhaps it is a good thing. Under this Bill I think it is unlikely that there will ever be any prosecutions. I find that the Home Secretary and the Solicitor General agreed with this view. And I gather that they would not argue against the thesis that it would be almost impossible for the prosecution to succeed.
LORD STONHAM: Perhaps I might interrupt the noble Lord. When he says it is unlikely that under this Bill there will be any prosecutions, I imagine that he is confining his remarks to the first Part of the Bill.
LORD DERWENT: The noble Lord is right. But in any case we hope that there will never be any prosecutions under the Bill, and that, if it has any validity, it will be possible to do something without bringing in the law.
I have said that there is very little to be said against the Bill. There are, however, two matters about which I feel rather strongly, and perhaps I may explain them in some detail, because I intend to put down Amendments on the Committee stage to deal with them. The first matter arises under Clause 5. It arises particularly with houses which are sub-divided: it does not, I think, apply to flats. What can happen under the clause is this. A landlord—and let us suppose that he is a good landlord—lets out his house in tenancies of one and two rooms, as is not uncommon in
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crowded areas. Two tenants may under the terms of their tenancies have to share a kitchen or lavatory, or both. As we all know, sharing a kitchen in the best circumstances is not too easy and, I understand, it apt to lead to friction.
In the sort of area to which I am referring the tenants who take one or two rooms are (shall I say?), on the whole, orthodox Hindu families: it does not matter what they are but let us take two orthodox Hindu families. Of course, when the people who are to share the kitchen take their tenancies they ask who is going to share the kitchen, and, if they are satisfied, they take the tenancy. But let us suppose that two Hindu families are doing this sharing and that one of them decides to leave and sub-lets to an English family. In such a case, what is going to happen in the kitchen? The orthodox Hindu has a form of cooking which, as a rule, is very highly spiced and scented and rather obnoxious to people who are not used to it. What will happen in the English family? Almost without doubt they will at some meals be going to eat beef; and I cannot see an orthodox Hindu sharing a kitchen with somebody cooking beef.
Under this Bill, if the landlord, who wants to run his house properly, and to avoid friction, says: "I am afraid that, as regards this second tenancy—the subletting—owing to the sharing of the kitchen, I cannot accept anyone but a Hindu family", he will be committing an offence. It may be a Pakistani, or any of a number of others, but if he sub-lets in this way then under this Bill he is committing an offence, because he has said: "I will not take anybody of any race other than a Hindu, due to the sharing of the kitchen." It does not apply to actual rooms in which they are living: I am talking of the kitchen and the lavatory. A landlord wants to act with the best possible motives, because he does not want friction in the house and he wants his tenants to be happy. But under the Bill he cannot say, "I cannot give a licence, except to a Hindu family, so long as tenant No. 1 is there." The same thing applies to lavatories. As many of your Lordships know, the use of lavatories in India differs from the way in which

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English people are accustomed to using them. In case your Lordships think I am exaggerating this, down in the docks, among the dock labour force, they have had to build lavatories for Hindus. The Indians regard our method of using lavatories as obnoxious, and we should think their method obnoxious, certainly if we had to share them. But they are both equally good for the respective people concerned.
This Bill is meant to be a Bill to avoid friction, and if the landlord has absolutely no option in those circumstances it must, in my view, be wrong. The Amendment I hope to put down on Committee stage is to take the sharing between tenants of either a kitchen or a lavatory out of this clause so that the landlord, not on the actual tenancy of the rooms, can say, "We will not have such-and-such a tenant, because he would have to share the kitchen or the lavatory with this other class of person". I think that must be right if we want to avoid friction. This is not a question of colour or race; it is a question of habits and customs. I think there should be something in the Bill to try to put this right.
The only other matter I want to mention is one which the noble Lord explained in detail to some extent, but rather glossed over. It is Clause 6(1). May I read it, taking paragraphs (a) and (b) separately:
"A person shall be guilty of an offence under this section if, with intent to stir up hatred against any section of the public in Great Britain distinguished by colour, race, or ethnic or national origins—

(a) he publishes or distributes written matter which is threatening abusive or insulting; or

being matter or words likely to stir up hatred …".
That is as regards publication of things pushed through letter-boxes, and so on. I said rather doubtful words about this Bill at the beginning, but I believe this subsection is the most important part of the Bill.
Paragraph (b) reads like this:
"A person shall be guilty of an offence under this section if, with intent to stir up hatred against any section of the public in Great Britain distinguished by colour, race, or ethnic or national origins …
(b) he uses in any public place or at any public meeting"—
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the important words are "any public place"—
"words which are threatening, abusive or insulting, being matter or words likely to stir up hatred against that section on grounds of colour, race"—
and so on. In my view, this goes much too wide and really interferes with free speech.
Let me take an example. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and I get into a taxi and I say "I will pay this". It is a long way and the fare is 10s. I fumble in the dark and tip the driver a penny, thinking it is a two-shilling piece. The driver, not referring to my race, or to my religion, says, "You bloody Jew", meaning that I have given him only a penny. Under this Bill he is committing an offence. If he did not mention the word "Jew" he would not be committing an offence, but in fact he is. I see why the Government want this put into the Bill, but why must we have this very wide power which might go very wrong, particularly when sometimes—if I may mention the East End of London—people are a bit outspoken? This is already adequately covered as regards words, but not publications, by the existing law.
I recommend your Lordships to turn to Clause 7, where it goes into Section 5 of the Public Order Act. There it says:
"Any person who in any public place …

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour …

with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned …"
Surely that is enough for an offence, and covers this other point. In my view, the clause, as it is drawn, goes much too wide. There may be a quarrel between a man with a fruit barrow and some Indian. They have an argument and the man calls the Indian a damned nigger—regrettable, I agree, and it is not something your Lordships would say; but it does happen. Under this Bill he will be committing a serious offence. If there is then a fight in the street, he doubtless would be caught under the Public Order Act. But those words would create an offence, and I submit it is going much too wide. On the Committee stage, I shall move an Amendment to delete Clause 6(1)(b). I hope your Lordships will support me on that, because I do not think one ought to

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have such vagueness in a new Statute. Apart from that, all I can say is I hope the Bill will have sonic good effect.

NEW ANGLO-MALDIVIAN AGREEMENT
3.46 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will read a Statement which has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. The Statement is as follows:
"I am glad to be able to inform the House that the negotiations with the Maldivian Government have been successfully concluded, and that a new Anglo-Maldivian Agreement was signed in Colombo this morning.
"By this Agreement, which confirms that the Maldive Islands are a fully independent State, Britain ceases to be responsible for the defence of the Maldive Islands and for the conduct of their political relations with other countries and with international organisations.
"The Agreement confirms Britain's unrestricted and exclusive use of those facilities in Addu Atoll which were accorded under the 1960 Agreement for the purposes of Commonwealth defence.
"I have arranged for copies of this new Agreement to be placed in the Library, and I shall in due course be presenting the text to Parliament for publication as a White Paper.
"I am confident that this satisfactory outcome of the negotiations will mark the beginning of a new and happy era in Anglo-Maldivian relations."
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for repeating this Statement. What is important about Anglo-Maldivian relations is what concerns Addu Atoll and Gan. I probably ought to know this, but may I ask the noble Lord for how long the agreement which we reached in 1960 operates for the use of Gan, and what arrangements there are for its re-negotiation if it is on a fixed term?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am speaking without having checked as
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closely as I could, but I think the period covered by the present agreement continues until 1986.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am a little concerned with this situation because, as I understand it, the Gan, if it comes under this agreement, as I believe it does, and Addu Atoll are a very important part of our staging-post arrangements for military aircraft from this country to South-East Asia. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he is satisfied, and whether the Government are satisfied, if they no longer have the responsibility for the defence of the Maldives, that they can in fact ensure the defence of Gan and the Addu Atoll.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are so satisfied that they can defend Gan and Addu Atoll.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, if Britain is not going to defend these islands, may I ask who is?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, Britain never had these Islands. They were the property of, and belong to, the people of the Maldives and the Government of the Maldive Islands. They were in the relationship of a protected State.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, is this not being completely artificial? To think that the Maldive Islands could really defend themselves from a serious attack is just Gilbert and Sullivan. Is it not a fact that, if we are no longer responsible, and no longer have the right to defend them, then we cannot defend our important staging post?
LORD TAYLOR: Our duty will be to defend our staging post if need be, and if the consequence of that is that the Maldive Islands are defended, so much the better.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I say how much I welcome the success of these negotiations, which I am sure have been difficult, as they always have been, and if this is an example of the way in which the Maldivians conduct their relations with other countries I think they are more than capable of looking after their own interests. May I ask two questions? Are we going to have a representative, as we had on the previous agreement at Malé? Secondly, is there

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any agreement running concurrently with this whereby we continue to assist them, technically and financially, in the development of these remote but attractive islands?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord knows a great deal more about these islands than I do, since he played a great part in the earlier agreement. With regard to his first question, there is a clause in the annexure to the agreement under which the Maldivian Government agrees to receive a representative of the United Kingdom, if so requested, at Malé, but for the present both parties to the agreement are happy that the British representative should be Her Majesty's High Commissioner in Ceylon. With regard to the second part of the question, a considerable proportion of the £750,000 set aside for the economic aid scheme to the Maldives, I think largely owing to the initiative of the noble Lord in 1960, has yet to be committed, and until that has been committed fortunately no further question of aid need arise.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I seem to recollect that the previous discussions about this subject revealed that there had been some considerable trouble with regard to the ex-chief of Addu Atoll, who was, I think, named Nasir.
LORD TAYLOR: He is the present Prime Minister; it was Mr. Afif Didi.
LORD CARRINGTON: There is no bargain, I take it, to hand him over as a result of this agreement?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, Mr. Afif Didi is still, I think, in the Seychelles, and it is entirely a matter between Mr. Afif Didi and the Government of the Maldive Islands where he goes and what happens to him.

RACE RELATIONS BILL
3.54 p.m.
Debate on Second Reading resumed.
LORD WADE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends on the Liberal Benches I support the Second Reading of this Race Relations Bill. I am aware that there are genuine doubts as to whether legislation can deal effectively with the stresses and strains that arise out
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of differences in race and colour, but I think legislation is called for. The question is not whether there should be legislation, but rather what form that legislation should take. As the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has pointed out, there have been major changes in this Bill since it was first introduced in another place. The emphasis is now on conciliation rather than on criminal prosecution, and in that respect I think the Bill has been improved. I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to the all-Party representations that were made to them on this subject. I do not think criminal prosecutions can ever be of much help in dealing with the causes of racial conflict.
I hope I may be forgiven if on the Second Reading I spend a little more time on the causes of these stresses and strains rather than on the contents of the Bill. One cannot very well discuss this Bill without turning for a few moments to our immigration policy, and I should like to make a few comments on that. It has been suggested in some quarters that this Bill can be approved because it is to be accompanied by a much stricter restriction on the entry of Commonwealth immigrants into this country. It has been suggested that the hard feelings that may be aroused by this stricter restriction can be offset by the introduction of this Bill. My Lords, I think that the subject is much more complex than that.
I admit at once that there is need for some control, but in my view the adoption of a quota is in some respects an admission of failure, and I am disturbed at some of the suggestions which have been put forward. Various figures have been bandied about as to the numbers which we could in the future accept, and I think the worst suggestion is that the Commonwealth immigrants should never exceed the numbers of those who leave this country at any one time. In my view the "one in, one out" policy is quite unrealistic from the point of view of our own economy. It does not take into account the need for teachers and doctors, not to mention those who help to run our transport system. But there is an even more serious objection than that. It would constitute a complete breach of the principle that when an immigrant comes to live here and finds an occupation and wishes to settle down

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lie should be allowed to bring his wife and children here to join him.
I can see only too clearly how this "one in, one out" policy would work. A man having settled here would apply for his wife and children to come and join him and he would be told that he could have only one: he would have to choose between his wife or one of the children. I am not suggesting that the Government are going to introduce that policy, but it has been mentioned, and it seems to me it would be inhuman, illiberal and very difficult to reconcile with the concept of membership of a multiracial Commonwealth. If we are going to avoid the discrimination and incitement referred to in this Bill, we must think of the feelings of those who come here and those who are denied coming here, as well as those who have, throughout their lifetime, lived in this country.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Wade, I would point out that there has never been any kind of suggestion that the Government would go back on this principle of a multiracial Commonwealth.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I am very glad to hear that. I would go further and say that I do not believe there is any numerical formula which by itself will solve this problem. Limitation there must be, but I think it should be dependent on our solving the problems of housing, health and education. Many of the fears and prejudices arise from the belief that there are not adequate health checks, from the knowledge of overcrowding in housing, and from the problems of the children's schooling, and there is much to be done in that field. I should like to see it clearly stated that we welcome immigrants from all parts of the Commonwealth and that entry is limited only by the need to safeguard health, to provide adequate housing and also to provide for the children to be educated, and ensuring that there are opportunities for employment. I think it is a tragedy that in this last ten years, while this problem of immigration has built up, so comparatively little has been done to provide for the people coming here to have adequate housing and to ensure that they are welcome.
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In a debate in your Lordships' House a little time ago my noble friend Lady Asquith of Yarnbury referred to the situation in Holland. I agree that the circumstances there are not quite the same as in this country, but I think the Dutch Government have shown greater readiness to anticipate the difficulties that arise from bringing in a large number of immigrants, and they have taken steps to avoid the problems that they foresaw. In this country there has been a mass of immigrants struggling along as best they could, and it is not surprising that in some parts of the country the situation has deteriorated. May be we are all, to a greater or lesser extent, to blame for not having foreseen sufficiently clearly the need for welcoming, these immigrants. If what I have said is true, I think it follows that the main solutions lie outside the scope of this Bill. Nevertheless I think the Bill is a worthwhile attempt, and I hope it will succeed. I hope the Race Relations Board which is to be set up, and the conciliation committees, will help towards the solution.
There was a great deal of discussion in another place on the procedure for dealing with discrimination, and certainly the new procedure is an improvement. But I think it must be realised that this will not replace the need for the bodies set up by local authorities and the good work of many individuals and many voluntary bodies who are trying to make the lives of immigrants in this country a little happier. But it will take much time and patience to allay the fears that are held by some of our own countrymen and also lessen the disillusionment of some immigrants who come here. I think that the subject of disillusionment was described very strikingly in an article by Jean Stead, in the Guardian on July 24, writing about a West Indian.
I am aware that one cannot generalise on this subject of integration and discrimination. For example, there are great differences between the Pakistanis and the West Indians. I know something of the problems of the Pakistanis in the West Riding of Yorkshire. I have been into their homes; I have talked with them, very often with the aid of an interpreter. Very often the homes are overcrowded. There ways of life are different. But I have got to know them and found them a very kind and friendly people. But they

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do not easily mix; they cannot easily be integrated. Some are here for only a few years, in order to earn enough to go back home and buy a piece of land. While they are here there are problems of language and differences of religion. I remember one representative of their community telling me that in Britain, if you wished to get to know people and become a good mixer and friendly, it seemed to be the normal thing to go to a public house. But their people were forbidden by religion to go to a public house and drink alcohol, and therefore that medium of getting friendly with others in this country was not open to them. I think we have to realise the differences in the way of life of the different immigrants, and much of the discussion that occurred in another place about public houses does not apply so far as the Pakistanis are concerned.
While speaking of them, I should like to refute the belief, that they, or any others who have come from other parts of the Commonwealth, have come here to take away the jobs of British workers, still less to live on unemployment pay. I have made a point of paying regular visits to the local employment exchange, and I am quite satisfied that there are very few who are receiving unemployment pay over any long period of time. They come here to work, and there is a need for them, the jobs are there for them. I think the more one examines the question, the clearer it is that there is very little ground for the fear that immigrants are taking away the jobs of British workers or coming here to live on unemployment pay. But the fear exists; although all the evidence is to the contrary, the fear is very real, and sometimes this leads to discrimination in the realms of employment. I am rather sorry this subject is not touched on in this Bill. I have examined the Bill and it does not appear to be. I agree that legislation cannot be expected to cover all contingencies, but why should nothing be done about discrimination in the realm of employment?
I should have thought that in that connection it would have been possible to adapt the procedure in Clauses 1 to 5, which was described by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and described in greater detail by the Home Secretary on the Report stage in another place. I
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should have thought that the procedure, of making a complaint, considering it and trying to conciliate, and ultimately referring it to the Race Relations Board, could have been adapted, except that in the last resort the matter would have to be referred, not to the Attorney General, but to the Minister of Labour or the Board of Trade. It seems unfortunate that nothing is done about discrimination in the realm of employment. The omission suggests that the Government is prepared to condone it, and I hope we shall have an assurance to-day that that is not so.
In conclusion, I welcome the clauses about incitement. I was interested in the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dement. I think that, generally, one can rely on the good sense of the police, and there are also the further additional safeguards that have been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. But at least by this Bill we do show that we are striving to create a society in which every individual will be treated equally. regardless of his colour, race or religion.
4.7 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF COVENTRY: My Lords, while recognising, as I am sure we all must do, the potential dangers of this Bill as it affects liberty of speech and of writing, I nevertheless find myself very strongly in support of its main contentions, and I think more in support to-day than I should have been at its First Reading in another place, because the emphasis to-day is rather more on conciliation and rather less on legal sanctions. I am delighted that this Bill once again makes possible a debate in your Lordships' House on this all-important subject of racial integration. This Bill which we are discussing to-day seems to mark a definite and praiseworthy step in advance towards a happier handling of those who are our guests in this country; for that is what they are: our guests, for better or worse, for longer or shorter time. And in so far as law can create good relations, some of the Bill's provisions, such as those for the Race Relations Board and the local conciliation committees, seem to be timely and helpful.
But—and this is perhaps the main contention that I have to raise to-day—if these are to work happily, they are, as I

1027
am sure we all must realise, dependent upon a long-term, patient and widespread process of education which removes certain misconceptions, such as the misconception one often hears, that immigration of coloured people causes shortage of work, and that the coloured man is prospering at the expense of his host community. This, generally speaking, I believe, is not true. On the contrary, many coloured peoples are doing work not easily undertaken by British-born white people, and they have therefore contributed substantially to the general economic welfare of this country. Furthermore, I believe that we ought continually to express gratitude for the kindliness and courtesy of many coloured people in such services as the Underground, on the buses, notably in hospitals, and in many other spheres of work where coloured skins are often to be seen.
A second misconception which must, I think, be got rid of is that coloured people are more prone than white people to traffic in things like drugs and other vices. This belief is seriously open to question, and we should take the trouble, by production of facts and statistics, to destroy once and for all this cruel innuendo. Thirdly, there is the misconception that house occupancy by a coloured man brings down property values. Of course that does happen in certain cases, but it is not always the fault of the coloured man; for as soon as he arrives the white man tends to go, and so the neighbourhood becomes a coloured neighbourhood. In this respect there are faults on both sides. Such misconceptions ought to be removed, and they can disappear only as a result of education and of wise, sane unemotional facing of facts. To aid this, some very wise things are said, in Clause 6 of this Bill, relating to public order. Particular praise should be given to the setting up of local and national conciliation boards, and to the wise provision that prosecution under this Bill can be brought only by the Attorney General, for these provisions ensure that the facts are well established away from the emotional temper of a local situation. Equally important is the provision that requires evidence that the offender is likely to persist in his offence unless restrained by the order of a court of law.
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With regard to one small point in Clause 1, I am a little astonished that discrimination in places of public resort does not include taxis and charter 'planes; and I wonder whether "hotels" includes private hotels. I would hope that that point could be looked into on the Committee stage. Of course, we must not be foolish enough to imagine that man in his astute cleverness will not find ways and means of getting round the law in certain directions. For instance, while it may be reasonably easy to enforce the clause dealing with tenancy agreements, it will still be all too easy to set up restrictive practices of some other means or on some other basis. Differential rents may be one way; and one can envisage other ways of getting round the wise provisions of this clause.
That brings me back to my basic contention, that while we should be grateful for a tightening of the law with which to prevent, or deal with, the worsening of race relations, the law itself is inevitably limited in its effects. The long-term way to peaceful racial integration is through education, removal of prejudice, the setting-up of local conciliatory boards, the strengthening—and I underline this—of voluntary welfare agencies, such as the Citizens' Advice Bureaux (for whom no praise can be too high) and an increased number of those (dare I say it?) spiritually-minded people who go out of their way to welcome coloured immigrants, make them feel at home and try to resolve their problems, all in an atmosphere free from distaste and suspicion.
I believe wholeheartedly in the value of local voluntary committees, and to the work of such people in my own City of Coventry I should like to pay a warm tribute, as one could in most great cities in this country. Nevertheless, although the effort throughout the country is impressive, when added together it is still grievously insufficient in relation to the size of the problem. I need hardly add that one of the most hopeful fields of local activity is the school. But even here, although there is as yet little trace of racial prejudice among the under twelves—there is some—one cannot say exactly the same of the position among the over-twelves.
In short, while one must be grateful indeed for many of the provisions of this

1029
Bill, they are dependent upon a clear and vigorously pursued plan of public education on racial issues. Though here one enters upon a controversial field, albeit not so controversial as one might have imagined an hour ago, because one finds that now both political Parties are united in the conviction that we shall be greatly helped and encouraged by planned immigration. But I hope that overall responsibility in this connection will be given to one Department of State and not, as at present, fragmented among several Departments.
A clear national policy along these lines would do much to put an end to irrational fears that white people will lose their jobs, that house property will deteriorate and that we shall have a flood of mixed marriages. I would again remind your Lordships that this country should be perfectly capable of absorbing a carefully-planned, annual immigration of coloured people, and, as the result of wise education and a warm welcome, and a freedom from prejudice, of benefiting greatly by their advent, as we have benefited in the past by the coming of Norsemen, Danes and even Scots and Welsh. Nevertheless, I end by reiterating that the achievement—
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am a little surprised to hear the right reverend Prelate refer to the Welsh as immigrants. I always thought that we were here first.
THE LORD BISHOP OF COVENTRY: My Lords, for many hundreds of years the Welsh have been immigrants into England, and we have been immigrants into Wales. However, I would end by reminding the House that the achievement of the objects of this Bill depends greatly upon men like Mr. Maurice Foley, who has been asked to do a great work in co-ordinating and developing local groups, voluntary and statutory, thus developing a good and understanding spirit among trade unions and employers. It will depend more upon people like him than upon the vigilant enforcement of the sanctions embodied in this Bill, important and valuable though they are. I should like to end by expressing my warm approval of the provisions of this Bill.
4.16 p.m.
LORD SIMEY: My Lords, I recognise that this is a first attempt to deal with what is, in fact, one of the most intimidating, if not the most intimidating, of all social problems of to-day. It is urgent. It has to be dealt with as an urgent problem now, and will need to be dealt with with increasing energy as the years go by. We recognise that we in this country must take up a position in regard to race relations because the problem is upon us. It has created a situation into which we have drifted rather than have been steered into. We have endeavoured to muddle our way through it, but we cannot do so any longer.
We have come to recognise that the problem we have to deal with arises more from the emotional forces which are present in every man's mind—none of us is free from them—and these forces express themselves in terms of ignorance and prejudice. We have discovered that these forces are a great deal stronger than we should like them to be. We cannot take the situation for granted. We cannot, in the opinion of such social scientists as myself, hope that this situation will in some sense right itself. We now have to take an initiative in this matter and do something about it. The onus of responsibility, therefore, is now on us to seize this initiative and to hold it.
If we proceed merely to deal with situations as they arise by using the procedure of this Bill simply and solely, I am afraid the situation will deteriorate. On the other hand, we have at least taken a positive step so far as this Bill is concerned, and I hope that one step can lead to another. I am afraid that, as things are, we know that any activity of this kind will lead to opposition in Britain, and we must not blink that sorry fact. We must recognise that there is a great deal of prejudice—and, in my opinion, we must recognise that to our shame. But at the same time we must act. We must act, first of all, along the lines set down in this Bill. They seem to me to be excellent. As there is so much emotion in this situation, I think we would all agree that it is impossible for us to proceed any further by way of substantially strengthening the criminal law. We have to proceed by education, and

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in so far as the criminal law is concerned act only where cases arise which are shamefully difficult, shamefully antagonistic to our democratic way of life.
This brings me to the point of the right reverend Prelate, who tells us that we must have more education. Of course we must. I myself have no complaint with the way in which the educational system of this country is now proceeding in this matter. There are many schools in which we have conducted investigations in matters of race relations and which have been found to be entirely "clean" in this way. Racial prejudice is certainly not encouraged; it is positively dealt with by professional teachers. In regard to boys and girls at school there is virtually no problem. The problem arises when children leave school, go into employment, marry, rent or buy houses, have families, and so on.
How is this matter to be dealt with in the future? We may talk of education, but who is to be made responsible for educating our ignorant fellow-citizens? Would it be possible, for instance, for the Race Relations Board which is to be set up under this Bill at least to start by publishing an annual report? Let it investigate the cases which are of matters of concern. For instance, in my own city of Liverpool we have a large number of coloured people living among us and they have integrated with the community quite well. There is, for instance, absolutely no problem of crime, so I am informed by senior police officers; but, at the same time, they are not rising socially within the community as they ought to. They have been with us now for two generations and more, and there are a large number of locally-born, coloured fellow citizens who are concentrated in an area which is represented by my wife on the City Council. Many of them are our personal friends. Why is it that they have not managed to find themselves employment in keeping with the physical abilities and the mental characteristics which they possess? That is the sort of thing which needs to be investigated by the Race Relations Board. We know, for instance, that some employers are glad to give them employment. We know that other employers are reluctant to give them more senior
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posts such as they are entitled to hold. In this matter I feel that we must not allow ourselves to deal in platitudes; we must try to face the grave situation in which we are now placed as what it is.
I now ask your Lordships for permission to turn for a moment from the physical audience that I am now addressing to the unseen audience of which I am fully conscious, the audience composed of those with whom I worked and lived in the Caribbean for some years, citizens of Bermuda and other countries, and my fellow citizens in Liverpool. What would these persons have me say on an occasion like this? They would, I am afraid, be critical of the steps we have taken so far. It is one thing to look at legislation of this kind from the point of view of a knowledgeable English subject; it is another thing entirely to look at this legislation from the point of view of a citizen of an overseas territory. I am afraid they would be critical of the speed at which we are dealing with the problem. They would know full well that the problem needs to be dealt with urgently. They would also remind me that part of the problem is the moral depredation suffered by members of a so-called race which deems itself to be superior. They would also call my attention to the crying need for somebody, somehow—some agency perhaps—to come to the rescue of those people and tell them of the error of their ways.
They would remind me in the course of our conversations of what it means to be, shall I say, a Negro—a person who suffers frustration and whose life is led in terms of spiritual depriviations. They would ask that there should be a wider understanding of such things. It is not only a matter of the position of the Negro; it is a matter of what he feels about the life he is living, and the pain which he suffers in this regard is extremely keen in many respects. I have myself taught coloured students for many years, as well as worked among them. I know how keenly they feel when English people blandly assume from time to time that because these people are coloured they are inferior. We must be jolted out of this complacent frame of mind somehow or other by some agency such as is outlined in the Bill. I would therefore ask that these matters be dealt with constructively.

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I am not in any sense opposing the Bill; I am supporting it. I am asking, however, as a matter of policy that it should be made the first step towards measures which go further than the Bill itself does, measures which have some definite bearing on the fact that we in this country will, as the years go by, come to be a rapidly diminishing proportion of the world's population, and quite quickly so. We must recognise that, somehow or other, there must be some kind of world polity which creates one world. We must learn to play our parts in it, not in any sense of superiority, but as colleagues of the people involved in the administration of the institutions concerned. I therefore close by saying that I am extremely conscious of the deep significance and impact of the motto which the Government of Jamica has made its own. They say "Out of many, one people". That must be the kind of motto which must increasingly motivate us in this country in the years which lie immediately ahead.
4.28 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I suppose that nobody would deny the good intentions which lie behind this Bill, but what one might perhaps question is in what direction the good intentions are leading us, if indeed in any particular direction at all. If I may initially make one comment upon what the noble Lord, Lord Simey, had to say, it is this. He referred to the necessity for "educating our ignorant fellow citizens". I suggest that that is one of the misconceived attitudes on this question. Who are these ignorant felow citizens? Generally speaking, that phrase would comprise those who are in contact with the realities of the immigration situation in this country—the people who live in areas where the immigrants have congregated. Therefore they are in contact with realities which supersede all the beautiful ideas which one may have when sitting in a Chamber like this, or when sitting in a study evolving beautiful thought on humanity. The old remark is very true:
"The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes;
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad".
Those who preach this sort of thing about the racial question in this country are, I
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suggest, only too often the butterflies who know nothing whatever about it.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, in his remarks has made my speech even briefer than it will be by referring to the genesis of the Bill. I do not intend to go into any detail myself, because I propose to make a few Second Reading remarks about the principles behind the Bill and to leave details to a Committee stage if such a stage is reached.
I am unable to look upon the Bill with any enthusiasm, because I regard it as a legislative attempt to deal with problems which defy legislation. More than that, the real basic problems as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, pointed out, are untouched by this Bill, and surely you cannot cure a sick patient by dealing only with the symptoms. I am well aware of the acute problems which have arisen in this country over the flood of immigrants, the bulk of whom, generally speaking, bring with them to an already overcrowded land—and here I would join issue with the right reverend Prelate; I suggest with due humility that there is not plenty of room in this country for many more immigrants—a lower standard of life, different social habits, different hygienic standards, different language, different traditions; in fact, a totally different way of life and outlook on life.
We have had all this before, during the past few years in debates wherein many of your Lordships, myself included, have expressed our views more than once. I do not propose to take up your Lordships' time by restating them in any great detail. My views have not changed, but for the purpose of this Second Reading debate it is, I think, necessary briefly to recapitulate the reasons why I deplore some of the sanctions of this Bill. By all means have the conciliation arrangements and, if need be, reference to civil courts, but surely the sanctions restricting freedom of speech do not properly belong in a race relations Bill at all. Law and order should be dealt with in a comprehensive Bill covering, where necessary, such circumstances as these. Anxious as I am—indeed, as we all are—to encourage interracial harmony, especially in one's own country, I feel that one cannot produce such harmony while leaving untouched the sources from which disharmony arises.

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We have already in this country, it is estimated, a million non-European immigrants, and hence the conciliation provisions are a desirable attempt to ameliorate the inevitable friction caused by their presence. It seems obvious that the entry of more immigrants of other races should be drastically controlled in the interests of social peace, certainly while the possibility of integration in any acceptable sense is still very much in doubt. I have the temerity to suggest that it is not at all unlikely that, in the end, we shall be driven to the conclusion that integration, in the sense in which the word is usually used in discussions of this subject, is absolutely impossible for the majority of these immigrants.
To my mind, it is no answer to say that we need their labour for the jobs that our own people dislike and in the same breath to deplore the idea of the growth of second-class citizens. What else are we breeding in this country, my Lords, by allowing people of certain standards who are only too numerous among the immigrants to come to do minor jobs? In the circumstances, how can you stop such a result? However much you may deplore the appearance of second-class citizens you will inevitably produce them by such arrangements. The distinction in reality is almost inevitable.
Equally, it would be unwise to emphasise the problems of housing and employment by creating a special, protected minority. Racial tension can only be exacerbated by the resentment, and the justifiable resentment, which such provocative selection naturally excites. Such resentment is not fundamentally racial prejudice at all; it is merely that the accident of colour marks out the newcomer and easily identifies him. Also, the resident population has great fears, and justifiable fears, for its own material interests. It looks askance at the excessive fertility of these immigrants, and it fears miscegenation. My Lords, you cannot successfully legislate against personal feelings and attitudes of mind which are based on factual experience. It is, indeed, questionable whether the immigrants themselves really want integration in the sense of giving up their own way of life for an alien one.
In the end, one has to rely on an educated public—an educated public
1036
opinion, shall I say—buttressed by the realities of the situation, and the question is: Are these people, or are they not, a nuisance and possibly something more than a nuisance? The imposition of sanctions will, as I have said already, merely provoke opposition, and the provisions curtailing freedom of speech appear to me to have dangerous implications. The freedom to say any unpalatable and unpopular thing is, and always has been, in this country one of the chief pillars of freedom. The question of dealing with law and order is not, I suggest, once more, one to be singled out specially for a race relations Bill. However much our ideas and ideals may change, basic human nature does not change perceptibly over the centuries, and human nature views with natural suspicion and apprehension, and always has done, the influx of strangers within its homeland.
To sum up, my Lords, I suggest that, apart from the conciliation provisions, this Bill is misconceived, and possibly dangerously likely to defeat the laudable object of its sponsors. As has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, the real problems of housing, employment, hygiene and social habits remain intractable problems in a crowded land where there are no large areas able to digest an influx of immigrants. Public opinion is suspicious and anxious, and you cannot eliminate prejudices based on realities by penal legislation. The only hope lies, I suggest, in the steady education of public opinion and, to back that, the amelioration of the conditions which adversely affect the local population of this country. If these immigrants cease to be a nuisance or an irritation to the people among whom they settle, and become an obvious and innocuous addition to the population, then there will be no need of such legislation as this. If that does not happen, then no amount of legislative dragooning will make people of this country accept them without protest, which may even end in violence.
In conclusion, if I may so end, there was a very popular song in a fairly recent American musical which was even more popular than the play itself, and that was, "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun". That principle lies behind some of my opposition to this sort of legislative attempt to deal forcibly with matters

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which do not admit of any such treatment. I suggest that if this Bill gets a Second Reading it will still require material alteration.
4.40 p.m.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I shall confine myself to Clause 6, which in my view is the most dangerous and unnecessary part of this Bill. The rest of it, I think, will be largely a dead letter, in any case. I have been surprised that, up to now, nobody in the course of this debate, I think, has said anything about the present state of mind of those whom the Bill is likely most intimately to affect—and those are, of course, the dwellers in the back streets of the areas of mass immigration. Because I do not think that we ought to accept at their face value the reassuring statements by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that this Bill is directed against, and is going to affect, only Fascists. Almost every gagging Bill in history has originally been directed against only one class of person, and almost every gagging Bill in history has ended up by affecting a great many more than that original class. It is the present psychological climate among those whom this Bill is going most intimately to affect, as the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, has just reminded us, which makes the Bill so dangerous and so unnecessary, and it is to that aspect that I wish, just for a few minutes, to direct your Lordships' attention.
Like most of your Lordships, I do not live in close and constant proximity to an area of mass immigration, but for the last nine years I have at intervals been writing in the Press or making observations in your Lordships' House on various aspects of the manifold problems of immigration; and in the last year or two I have received many hundreds of letters—only one of them expressing a dissenting opinion—from members of the public in all income groups, all Parties and all areas of the country. I feel, therefore, that I have some knowledge of what is going on in the mind of a large section of the electorate—indeed, according to the evidence of the opinion polls, a majority, both within the electorate as a whole and within each of the three Parties.
Wherever there has been mass immigration there is widespread and deep
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seated resentment—not prejudice against the colour of the immigrants, but resentment against their overwhelming numbers, against their sudden arrival, and against the varied social evils to which, not the individual immigrant but the mass immigration itself inevitably gives rise. And yet, if ever a dweller in a back street wishes to voice his legitimate grievances against some distress or disorder in his neighbourhood, he knows already, only too well, that somebody, and very possibly somebody far removed from the back street and from contact with immigration, is likely to accuse him of racialism—a word nowadays used so loosely and emotionally that it begins to remind one of "that blessed word, 'Mesopotamia'."
My Lords, those who live in these back streets can be extremely caustic about advice on racial problems emanating from the Cotswolds or from Hampstead Garden Suburb, or even from Westminster, if the source is someone who is not living in close and constant contact with an area of mass immigration. As one of my correspondents wrote to me, "Let her come and integrate with us in Plaistow". These people feel that their legitimate grievances have been ignored by politicians, of all Parties, who have constantly hesitated to discuss them in public. At the General Election, there was something very like a general conspiracy of silence as to immigration. Mr. Gordon Walker, who had been defeated in one area of mass immigration, did not even mention immigration in his Election address when he set off to contest another; and, in that, he was typical of the politicians of all Parties, who treated immigration as something too embarrassing to mention during the, electoral campaign. After the Election, a Labour Member said that no sooner had he set eyes on his Conservative opponent than he realised that here was a decent fellow who could be relied on not to bring immigration into the Election campaign—much as he might have said, "Here is a man who will never talk obscenity or treason". After that, one can only ask: What in the name of Gladstone, Disraeli and Keir Hardie are democratic politics about if politicians are to be too timid to discuss the gravest problem of the century at a General Election?

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Already, without this Bill, the widespread fear of "that blessed word, 'Mesopotamia'", is actually inhibiting remedial action. The Medical Officer of Health for Lancashire, for example, has said that officials are refraining from taking action in respect of overcrowding among immigrants, of a kind which would not have been tolerated among whites, for fear of being accused of racial prejudice; and the author of The Times' articles, "The Dark Million", wrote:
"Some councils treat facts and figures about coloured people like naughty novels, to be passed surreptitiously from hand to hand and read under the municipal bedcloths. I know of one report which is considered to be so shocking that it is fit to be read only by senior officials; the council are not seeing it ".
I know perfectly well, of course, that Clause 6 is ostensibly directed only against those who speak with intent to stir up hatred, and that theoretically it should not in any way inhibit a free and frank discussion of the multifarious social evils which inevitably result from a mass immigration. What I am trying to make clear to your Lordships is that already, and without Clause 6, "that blessed word, 'Mesopotamia'" strikes such irrational terror into all and sundry that, for fear of it, public officials will evade their duty or conceal the facts—and, incidentally, for fear of it, the Conservative Party threw away the prospect of winning the last Election—and that, in this psychological climate, Clause 6 is bound to make much more formidable inroads into the rights of free speech than its framers either expect or intend.
I should like, if I may, to give one more, and very striking, example of the fatal ease in confusing genuine grievances with racial prejudice. In the course of a radio interview, after the sweeping Conservative gains in the recent borough elections, the Secretary of the Labour Party was asked by the interviewer whether he thought that race questions had in any way contributed to the defeat of his Party. At this, the Secretary seemed to shy like a startled horse, and he replied that as to that he had no evidence, for he could not imagine anyone admitting to having voted out of racial prejudice. He assumed instinctively that any votes influenced by racial issues had been cast out of racial prejudice, and not because the voter was genuinely
1040
dismayed by some disorder or discomfort which had developed in the town or street in which he lived.
Now let us suppose that Clause 6 has been passed and that some dweller in a back street gets up at the street corner and says, "This street we were once so proud of has become a slum. It is full of houses in which rooms are occupied, four and five deep, by immigrants. Sanitary regulations are being flagrantly violated, the rate of tuberculosis among the immigrants in our area is said to be anything up to thirty times that among the natives. And, as to integration, we know that these particular immigrants do not wish to be integrated; they prefer their own ancient customs and religions, and even their own language". All these would be plain statements of fact, which have been reported time and again in the Press. The speaker might be just as well aware as your Lordships and I that all these social evils are not the fault of the immigrants, as distinct from mass immigration in itself, and that if there are any villains in the story they are neither the immigrants nor their native hosts but the policies of laissez-faire of successive Governments which have permitted this mass immigration into this already-overcrowded island, since, as I have said for many years past, it is not the colour but the numbers of the immigrants which is the root of the trouble.
Now, supposing our imaginary speaker goes on to say that in his view no more immigrants should be admitted. Again, this is a perfectly legitimate expression of opinion. But let us suppose that in his excitement when referring to the immigrants, he uses some derogatory term of a kind which is current among his workmates. Is he to be charged with using insulting language likely to stir up hatred against an ethnic group? We can be told: "Of course, not. The police and the courts will discriminate. One cannot imagine the Attorney General prosecuting in such a case." But remember the history of other gag Bills. They always went beyond what was originally intended. And I should like to remind the House how extraordinarily sensitive the relationships are in this field, and how easily sensitiveness can lead to confusion. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham, speaking in your Lordships'

1041
Chamber a week or two ago, told of a coloured immigrant who had applied to the B.B.C. for a post as an announcer; he had a bad stammer, and was rejected, and he came out saying that he was a victim of colour prejudice. A Member of another place not long ago told how a responsible leader of the immigrants in his locality had complained to the Press that a local firm was separating the washing of the whites and the coloureds and was stamping the articles of clothing with a "W" and "C" respectively; whereas, in fact, as it was soon proved, the firm had been using not only "W" and "C" but all the other letters of the alphabet in the normal process of organising its laundry.
I was glad to see that in another place it was a Labour Member who stressed the point that I am now trying to make to your Lordships. He said
"Both sides of the House have some responsibility for the resentment felt by many of my constituents against coloured immigrants"—
He should have said "against coloured immigration".
"I am afraid that under this Bill this resentment will be mistaken for racial prejudice and that some action will be taken against it".
That is precisely the danger that I am seeking to emphasise to your Lordships now: the danger that this unnecessary clause will make disastrous and largely unintentional inroads upon the right of free speech so that we shall soon find ourselves presented with that situation so familiar in the dictatorships of the Left and of the Right in which a large element of the community are convinced that the Government are determined to make it dangerous for them to voice their legitimate grievances.
Surely, my Lords, what we ought to do is what we have done for centuries: to trust the kindly common sense of the British citizen, and no more rush into panic legislation because an insignificant minority on the lunatic periphery of the Right may sometimes preach racial hatred than we have rushed into panic legislation in the past because an insignificant minority on the lunatic periphery of the Left has preached class hatred. It is difficult not to see this Bill as a mere political gesture, primarily designed to placate that all-too-influential minority of Government supporters who would wish the flood-gates still to be open, who
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resent even the retention of the Act of 1962 and who will bitterly resent any further restrictions, if and when the Government propose them. But I never thought to live to see a threat to free speech from a Labour Government.
4.55 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, rarely have I risen to welcome a Bill on Second Reading more deeply than I do on this occasion. My noble friend Lord Stonham, in introducing the Bill, referred to the fact that I have tried over a number of years to secure legislation on this basis. The spokesmen from the Opposition Front Bench made some play with the fact that the Home Secretary had, after pressure, included a conciliation provision within the Bill, and suggested that that was largely due to the activities of the Opposition. I speak with particular appreciation to-day because I think it unlikely, despite the last two speakers that we have heard, that the Second Reading of this Bill will be opposed. But when the Opposition is claiming that it has secured some Amendment to this Bill, I think it should be reminded of the fact that for over ten years it has opposed in principle any legislation of this kind.
During those ten years I have introduced Bills against racial discrimination very similar to the Bill now before the House; and they have been persistently obstructed by a group of Conservative Members in the House of Commons. One might dismiss that as the obstruction of a minority; but in discussions which I have had with the leaders of the Conservative party, with Mr. Macleod and Mr. Selwyn Lloyd in particular, they have objected to legislation against racial discrimination on the grounds of principle. I can refer to that fact publicly because they have not only said that to me in discussion but have said it in the House of Commons. They have put forward the extraordinary argument that since our Statutes do not include any reference to race or colour, to have a measure which makes racial discrimination illegal is to give recognition to race or colour. They have also argued that legislation is of no value in this field and that it is entirely a matter of education—to this I will refer later. Therefore, facing the Opposition, they will

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understand how grateful I am that today, after ten years, the Opposition has retreated from that view and is not going to oppose on Second Reading the Bill that is now before the House.
My Lords, we have to face the fact that there is probably a greater feeling about race and colour in this country than in any other European country. I have often asked myself why that should be so. In part, it may be a sequence of the Imperial authority of this country, an assumption that we had the right to govern and administer peoples of other races and colours all over the earth. However, I do not think that can be the only reason. There have been empires of France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, yet one does not find among those people the same racial prejudice that is so often encountered in this country. I suppose that the real historical reason is the insular position of our islands.
I am going to discipline myself and not speak, except for a few sentences, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I would, however, just say this to the noble Lord, Lord Milverton. Of course it is true that all through the history of mankind a sense of strangeness has caused prejudice. It began between tribes. It went on to wider areas. It became intensified when there was difference of race, in the pigment of the skin or in the features of the face. But I suggest to the noble Lord that he is quite wrong when he says that because that prejudice has existed in the past, it must necessarily exist in the future. We are now living in a smaller world in which we are intermingling. I doubt whether there is a Member of this House who does not claim among his personal friends people of a different race or colour. There are students from Asian, African and Caribbean countries, thousands of them, at our universities; and there are thousands at the universities of Europe and of America. They are proving the possession of an equal ability with white students, and between the students there is no racial feeling at all.
In the United Nations we now have representatives of every race and every colour, and they are proving in their
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representation an equality of capacity, and a greater ability to understand the new and wider world in which we are living than some of the representatives of our own territories have shown in the past. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, that we are now living in a new world, and that in it all the forces of progress, every historical contribution to the future, must tend to break down racial differences and not seek to maintain them.
I welcome the fact that in this Bill there are provisions for conciliation, because the main purpose of every one of us must be to discourage discrimination and expand the sense of racial solidarity and friendship; and not merely to punish or penalise those guilty of discrimination. Experience in America and Canada shows how valuable this conciliation machinery can be in overcoming discrimination. I was in Canada last week and I spoke to those responsible for the quite extraordinary human rights code which is in practice in Ontario. The conciliation procedure adopted there has meant that in less than 2 per cent. of the cases reported to the Commission was it necessary subsequently to have recourse to the law. All of us will wish that every possible effort to bring about racial co-operation by understanding and conciliation will be taken to the furthest possible point before sanctions and penalities are imposed.
I listened with great interest to the speech of the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry. Of course he was perfectly correct; this problem cannot be solved by legislation. It can be solved only by education, by experience and by an acceptance of the ethic which is supremely expressed in the Christian religion. Only then shall we be able to live in the brotherhood which recognises the sanctity of the human personality as above the colour of our skin or the race to which we belong. I suggest to the noble Lords that legislation can be an educational contribution if in their legislation nations adopt the principle of human equality. The very fact that they have done so will create a psychological climate among their people which will be responsive to that new conception.
I recognise at once that there must be limits to the scope of legislation. I suppose that the major sense of racial discrimination which those of a different

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race and colour have in this country, particularly students, is when they are declined lodgings in a private house because the landlady either objects herself to their presence in the house or says that other lodgers would object. I recognise that we have no right to ask a woman to take into her home anyone to whom she objects. To me that is a private sphere over which it would be wrong to legislate, and where one must depend upon education. But surely, my Lords, in all spheres of public resort, in all the spheres of normal social opportunities of life, education, employment, housing and the day-to-day provisions for enjoyment and security, we have the right to lay down that racial discrimination shall not be practised.
This weekend I attended a conference of the Campaign against Racial Discrimination. I was a little disappointed to hear their spokesmen express the view that this Bill is useless because it does not go far enough. As I shall indicate, I should myself have wished the Bill to go further, yet I do not take the view that it is useless. I take the view emphatically that it is of enormous value that we should lay down the principle of racial equality in our legislation. I hope that, having laid down this principle in a first Bill, we may be able, after a year, or maybe a few years, to review its operation, find where it is inadequate, find the mistakes that may be within it, and, having begun upon the course of declaring for human equality, expand that until we express it in the fullest way.
Nevertheless, I think that the spokesmen for the Campaign against Racial Discrimination are justified in saying that this Bill does not meet many instances of racial discrimination. I spoke just now of the normal social opportunities of life. I should put education first. I think that all of us should take pride in the fact that, in our schools under public authorities. both teachers and educational authorities seek to educate children together, whatever their race or whatever their colour. But I believe that we have to go a little further than that. We have to extend this principle to private schools. We have to ask that in no schools in this country shall racial discrimination be practised. I know of one public school, for example, which places a limit upon the number of Jews among its pupils. This is not only
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an issue of colour and race. Everyone is aware that anti-Semitism has been rife, and we must give some protection.
Incidentally, may I say to the Minister that I very much regret the proposal which is now being made under the Ministry of Education to limit to thirty the number of coloured children in a school? I appreciate the difficulties in teaching children who do not know English, and that special steps have to be taken; but to segregate children on the ground of race and colour and send them to different schools is surely an acceptance of the very principle of segregation against which this Bill is to operate.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, with regard to what the noble Lord has just said, I think that it is fair to say that my right honourable friend has not sent out any mandatory instructions on this point. He simply sent out advice, and whether or not local education authorities follow it will depend on local circumstances.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. I did not mean to misrepresent the facts. I am glad to know that a number of education authorities, including the London Education Authority, have rejected this suggestion.
The Campaign against Racial Discrimination also regrets the fact that there is no reference in the Bill to employment. A number of firms decline to accept coloured workers. The managers at the employment exchanges are put in a position of great difficulty. They do not want to discriminate. I think it is unfair that they should have to say to a worker who happens to be coloured that there is a vacancy at a certain firm, if they know very well that at that firm he will be refused a job because he is coloured. In my view, the Bill ought to relate to employment. It ought also to relate to promotion within industry. The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, referred to the possibility of second-class citizens being developed in this country. There is a great danger of that in the sphere of employment. If we take the woollen industry in Yorkshire, where the sons of English mill workers are declining to work at night time because of the heat, the noise and nightwork, that work is being done almost entirely by Pakistanis. We have to be careful that in industry

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we do not develop, on the basis of race and colour, a second-class citizenship. This is tremendously important at this moment, because now, for the first time, we are beginning to have the children of the immigrant population leaving school, and already, in certain towns, we are getting reports of the difficulties which they have in obtaining employment.
The third sphere which I regret the Bill does not cover is that of the original purchase of houses or leasing of houses through estate agents. I recognise that the Bill covers cases where a landlord has entered into a lease and the tenant subsequently wants to sub-let or pass on the lease, but it does not cover original purchases or leases. In the last year, I have heard of three cases of senior members of embassy staffs in London where the estate agent with the solicitor acting has agreed the sale of a house and then, when he discovered that the buyer was a coloured man, even though high on the staff in an embassy, has refused the house. Actually, in one case, a high officer of the United Nations was refused a house in similar circumstances. I regret that the Bill does not extend to that.
I also regret that the Bill does not cover insurance and credit facilities, which on occasion are refused to people because they are coloured. I regret that it even does not cover advertisements in local newspapers which say, "No coloured". I admit that there is some difficulty about this, because one does not want a coloured person to go to a house and then be informed that, because he is coloured, he cannot be admitted, but after careful consideration, I have come to the view that, from the point of view of public psychology, there is greater harm in having columns of notices in the newspapers week by week, particularly in the London suburbs, saying, "No coloureds wanted" than the effect of refusals to the individuals who knock on doors. My last regret is that clubs otherwise open to the public should be able to refuse a coloured person. I do not think we can apply this to private clubs of a special character or for a special purpose, but where a club is open to the general public I think that some action should be taken if it applies discrimination against coloured persons.
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I want to express one regret which goes beyond these factors of race—that is, that, unlike the Bills which I introduced, this Bill does not cover religious discrimination. There is a fear that discrimination may be practised—for example, against Jews—and may be justified on the ground of their religion rather than of their race. There is the possibility that this may be done against Moslems, who may be of Asian race. I especially regret that this Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland, because it is in Northern Ireland that religious discrimination is carried out in its most evil form. I do not think that there is any denying the overwhelming evidence, which has come to other Members of your Lordships' House, as well as myself, of local authorities, Protestant in character, which decline houses to those of the Catholic religion. It may be true that there are certain local authorities, Catholic in character, which refuse houses to Protestants. There is no doubt that religious discrimination is practised in the case of corporations and public bodies in Northern Ireland. My regret is that this Bill does not apply there.
I should like to say a word to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who emphasised particularly the dangers of the clauses against incitement of hatred. I paused a long time before introducing in my own Bill a clause of that character, because I believe so tremendously in freedoms of speech and freedoms of writing. I eventually did so—and the clause in this Bill largely follows what was then done—because I came to the view that, just as it is possible to take proceedings against an individual for libelling and slandering another individual, so it ought to be justifiable to take action against an individual for slander against a whole group of people and a whole race. I would draw the attention of the noble Lord to the fact that this clause has been carefully drafted so that, before anyone can be prosecuted under it, there must be proof of intent to stir up hatred. I doubt whether the instances he gave would come under the clause as it is now drafted.
My Lords, those are the principal things I want to say about this legislation, but let me conclude by saying this. I believe that the adoption of this Bill will be a great step forward towards what is,

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after all, a fundamental human principle of life: that when a child is born it is not the pigment of the skin which makes that child sacred; it is the life within. Whatever be the pigment of the skin of any human being, it is its personality to which we must seek to give every opportunity and which we must develop. Only when we recognise the equality of us all shall we really be a human society. This Bill is a milestone in the advance of our country towards that full humanity which, after all, must be the aim and ideal of all of us.
5.24 p.m.
LORD TWINING: My Lords, I am a little fearful at following the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, who for so long has been the champion of coloured people and a crusader against all forms of racial discrimination; but, despite his eloquence and deep sincerity, I am not, and never have been, entirely in agreement with his views. I, too, have spent a great part of my working life trying to establish good relations and to stamp out racial discrimination. To-day I am closely associated with several organisations which are working to the same end. I have always regarded the people I meet for their own worth, whatever their colour, be it white, black, brown or yellow. My approach has been one of human relations rather than of race relations. All my experience makes me feel that the real solution to the problem does not lie with legislation, but in the creation of a healthy public opinion.
It is about the contents of Clauses 1, 2 and 3 of this Bill that I have some doubts, though I recognise that conditions have somewhat changed during the last few years and some special situations have arisen. What, one may ask, is likely to be the effect of these clauses? What impact will they have on the problem? I have no doubt that at first, at least, they will be welcomed by the majority of coloured people in this country, who will regard the Bill as their charter. The Bill will also, no doubt, be well received in those countries of the Commonwealth from which our coloured immigrants and visitors are drawn. But unless the provisions of the Bill can be made effective, there will be disillusionment, and our sincerity will be called in question. Here the danger lies. I fear that the more effectively the provisions of this Bill are
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administered, the more will those of our people who are affected resent them; and this could lead to a worsening of race relations, and feelings could be exacerbated. We may expect that every device which can be thought up will be used to evade the provisions of these clauses, and the result could be the opposite of what is intended.
An important question is whether there has been a sufficiently close analytical survey of the problem. Recently, a limited survey was undertaken by the Institute of Race Relations, the results of which have been published under the title of Colour and the British Electorate. But I am unaware of any comprehensive survey having been sponsored officially. I feel that much could be done, and that more active and energetic steps could be taken to educate public opinion. It must be remembered, too, that the problem of race relations is a two-way traffic: it is not only that some of the citizens of this country are at fault, but that some of our visitors are far from blameless. A lot more could surely be done to educate them regarding the standards of conduct expected of them in this country. We should do well to see what steps have been taken in other countries to deal with the problem, often with greater success than here. I hope that efforts to educate public opinion will succeed, because I believe that if determined steps are taken in this direction the time should not be far distant when the necessity for such a measure as this should be as dead as the dodo.
5.28 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said that he did not think this Bill was going to achieve very much. I feel that it will achieve something, and that the something is rather a mistake. I should like first to take up one thing which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, said. He spoke about religious discrimination, and he started of by referring to Jews and Moslems. I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware of the fact that throughout this country there are well-established synagogues, which are faithfully attended; that the same applies to Moslem mosques, the head of the organisation being at Working; and that practising Jews occupy some of the most distinguished posts in our country. I do not think it can be

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said that there is any kind of religious discrimination in this country when one sees this to be the case. And I am glad that there is not. This country has always enjoyed complete freedom to practise any form of religion.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: Not always.
LORD SOMERS: If you like to qualify that, I will say that Black Magic is illegal. But apart from that, I should think you can practise practically anything you like.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): I think that some noble Lords will raise their eyebrows a little, not at the assertion about the present day, but at the assertion that it has always been so.
LORD SOMERS: It certainly has not always been so—the noble Earl is quite right there. But for a good many years—I should say a good many centuries—
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I wonder whether I may interrupt? I think I must have stated myself without clarity. I was not suggesting that there was discrimination of religion. I was suggesting that there is discrimination against Jews and discrimination against Asians, and that that discrimination—that is, in employment and in many other ways—might be justified on the ground of their religion rather than on their race, if religion is not included in the Bill.
LORD SOMERS: I should think that unlikely, since any discrimination which may exist against Jews—I know it exists in places—is certainly not on account of their religion, because it is chiefly against those who are not practising Jews. In any case, I will leave that.
More nonsense has been talked over this subject of race relations than practically any other subject. Personally, I am all in favour of integration and a healthy race relationship, but I do not think legislation is the way to achieve it. I have no objection to the coloured man as such. The best specimens of them are extremely admirable people. I remember my noble friend Lord Elton, when we were discussing this question a short time ago, saying—I hope I am quoting him accurately—that when he saw a coloured
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person in the street his first impulse was to go over and say a kindly word to him. I feel the same. In London to-day you see so many of these coloured people walking about the street, sometimes looking rather lonely, that one feels one wants to help them; but I do not think legislation is the way to do it.
I should like to tell your Lordships of an experience I had three weeks ago when I attended Matins in the Temple Church. Just opposite me was an African, a very fine looking man. He was in the pews reserved for barristers. He was so fine looking that I could hardly take my eyes off him. His face had, as it were, almost something of a saint in it, and the curious thing is that when we came out I found my wife had had the same impression. A man like that would be accepted by everybody. But all the 1 million immigrants who come into this country from abroad are not necessarily like that.
I am as much opposed to the colour bar as I am to any other bar, but I think one has to see this subject in perspective. The colour bar must go, most certainly. But one must remember that it has to go in both directions. Just look at Africa today, where the white man's rights are being gradually taken away from him. He is being chased out of the land; he is being deprived of any rights to sit on the legislative council; he is being deprived of even the right to vote in some countries, I think, though I would not swear to it. Yet we look upon that with a sort of bland indifference—that is all right when the Africans do it, but when we do it in our own country it is the most heinous sin. That is not a balanced view. If one is going to remove the colour bar it has to be removed in both directions. Some would say, of course, that that attitude in Africa is due to many years of subservience under the white man, but that is entirely false. If it had not been for the white man, they would still be living in the jungle. They owe a great deal to the white man, and the best of them appreciate it.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt again, but could the noble Lord—I am really interested—name one African country where a white person who has residential qualifications is not allowed to vote, or is not allowed to become a member of the Legislature—one?
LORD SOMERS: I am afraid I cannot, because I have not enough knowledge. I am merely going on what I have read and what I have been told.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, I really think the noble Lord should withdraw a remark which he cannot substantiate. The position of the white man in African countries is one of great importance and of some delicacy sometimes, and will not be improved by remarks of the character to which the noble Lord has seen fit to give utterance.
LORD SOMERS: Most certainly, as I cannot substantiate them, I am perfectly willing to withdraw them. I leave it to your Lordships to make your own decisions. Once the colour bar has been removed, however, there are plenty of other bars. You can have nasty specimens and rowdy hooligans of any race, be they coloured or white, and no proprietor of a place of entertainment wants to have such specimens within his premises. This, it seems to me, is just where the Bill fails. He can throw out a white man without any offence whatsover, if he considers that he is not suitable for his premises, but if he throws out a coloured man for exactly the same reasons he is liable under Clause 1 to be accused of racial discrimination. Under Clause 3, he is then obliged to go through a lengthy process of inquiry to find out whether or not he has offended in this way. My Lords, why should he have to do that? They are his own premises, and he is perfectly at liberty to throw out any offender of whatever colour. If it is legitimate to treat a white man in this way it should also be legitimate to treat a coloured man so, if one is going to abolish the colour bar in both directions.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, does not the noble Lord realise that this Bill would deal with the white person in exactly the same way as the coloured person? It is against discrimination on the ground of race, and it would apply to a white victim just as it would apply to a coloured victim.
LORD SOMERS: I quite agree in theory, but, on the other hand, who is to say whether he did it from racial discrimination or whether he did it simply because the man was making a nuisance of himself? If the coloured man claims
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that he did it on the grounds of racial discrimination, he can make things very difficult for the proprietor. Unfortunately, some of these coloured immigrants from abroad suffer from that painful disease known as a chip on the shoulder, and they are only too anxious to take offence on grounds of their colour where none is meant. I well remember a boy we used to have at Epsom College when I was teaching there. I believe he was the son of an African chief. As your Lordships know, boys all go through various patches of bad luck—they do not win a certain race, or they do not win a certain prize, and so on. The others took it in their stride, but his invariable complaint to his housemaster was, "This would not have happened if I had not been black." That was his opinion, but it was not true.
We all want equality of privilege, but we must also have equality of restriction and discipline. I remember well that when I lived in Kew some friends on the other side of the road had next door to them a house which had been bought by a large African family. I think there were about ten of them all told, and they used to have very noisy and lengthy parties which lasted into the small hours of the morning, and I remember our friends saying how they could look through the windows and see them lying out full length on the floor at about 2 o'clock in the morning. You may say that they are perfectly entitled to do that in their own house, but it is not pleasant to have to live next door to a family like that, and I take the opportunity to say this. If the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, is really sincere, he will go and rent a house in one of the immigrant districts for just a fortnight, and he will live there and see what it is like. I think that a fortnight would be enough, and I should be interested to hear his comments when he got back.
If there ever was a Bill to enforce racial discrimination it is this, since it gives the coloured man all the rights, privileges and pre-eminences from which the white man is debarred. As I said before, I am very much in favour of integration but I agree with the right reverend Prelate that legislation is not the way to bring it about. Voluntary social services, I am sure, provide the way in which we shall eventually solve this problem.
5.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I should like to tell my noble friend Lord Somers that when I was in a black republic a few years ago I was in a bar where, believe it or not, a black man was arrested for racial prejudice against a white man, so I really do not think the noble Lord is quite correct in everything he has said. I shall certainly not oppose this Bill, the motives of which are excellent; I only hope that they can be carried out. But, of course, we have to remember that we are legislating for human prejudices, many of them caused by ignorance. We have had these prejudices for thousands of years. I remember that three years ago we had a Bill in this house, originated I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and introduced here by the noble Lord, Lord Walston. Of course, the case is not quite parallel, but I remember on that occasion saying it was rather like trying to introduce legislation to ensure that all men between the ages of 20 and 30 prefer blondes and all those between 30 and 40 prefer brunettes.
The great point about this Bill is that it sets a good example, and that is extremely important. The other good thing about it is that, owing to the machinery of the conciliation committees, it will probably help the different races in this country to understand one another. If the Bill had come to your Lordships' House as originally drafted, I should have voted against it, because I understand that racial discrimination was going to be made a criminal offence, which I think would have been very wrong. However, under the present proposals, one would have to be a very persistent offender ever to be taken to court, and in any case the action would be a civil one.
I should now like to mention two clauses over which I find some difficulty. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be able to help me. To take first Clause 1(2)(a), in the South-East of England, which I know best of all, in the hop-picking and fruit-picking time we have a great many gypsies who come to pick the fruit and help with the hops; and quite a few of the pubs have a sign up saying "No gypsies". I should like to know whether if a publican put up such a notice he would be infringing
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the law under this Bill. Are our gypsies a separate race? Can it be said that they are of a separate ethnic origin? The trouble, as I see it, is that there are the Romany gypsies who can be called a genuine race, but, on the other hand, there are a great many other gypsies who are really vagrants imitating gypsy ways. Do the latter come under the term "gypsy"? For instance, if a publican puts up a notice saying, "No tinkers", would he be infringing the law?
While talking about publicans, I would add that there is no doubt at all that this Bill is going to be onerous on publicans. I have often been in a public house, as perhaps the majority of your Lordships have been, although perhaps some have not, and I know that if one is in a bar on a Saturday night just before closing time there are perhaps a hundred or two hundred people present, with possibly a few wild Irishmen and perhaps two or three Jamaicans, all very excited, and possibly one or two Pakistanis. When the barman shouts "Time, Gentlemen!" there is always a rush for drinks and it could happen that, through no fault of the barman, perhaps a Jamaican would not get his last drink. He might then get excited and "cut up rough", and then if the barman told him to leave, or had him removed, the Jamaican might lay a complaint against him. Conversely, under this Bill, if the barman had a rowdy Jamaican—I am sorry to keep on mentioning Jamaicans, but it is only because I happen to have a quite extensive experience of Jamaica—to deal with he might be frightened to evict him for fear of having a complaint laid. In any event, it seems to me that this Bill will make it very hard for publicans. As it is, they have a tough job to maintain order.
My other point is with regard to hotel keepers. We are rather inclined to imagine in this Bill that it is only white people who show intolerance, who show racial discrimination. But consider, say, a Mohammedan hotel keeper in this country. Of course, he will presumably object to having Hindus in his hotel. But under this Bill he has to do so. We are rather legislating against religious customs here, and I should have thought it was an extremely difficult thing to do. There is no doubt, of course, that this does take a freedom from a hotel proprietor; it takes his freedom to choose

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his customers, whom he allows into his hotel. But perhaps by taking away that freedom we are bringing in a greater freedom, so maybe it is all right.
The other clause that I am extremely worried about, as was my noble friend Lord Derwent, is Clause 5, which refers to discriminatory restrictions on the disposal of tenancies. The point I should like to get the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to explain to me, as I am sure nobody else can, is when is a dwelling-house not a dwelling-house. For instance, is a dwelling-house a block of flats, because if a dwelling-house is not a block of flats I would prefer to have the word "dwelling-house" taken out of this Bill. To me a dwelling-house is a house built for private use; in other words, a private house. But the house has perhaps been divided into four or five flats; I think the correct description is "twilight houses". It is perfectly true that if you are going to share bathrooms and lavatories and kitchens you are going to have a great deal of trouble, if you are going to have different races with different habits sharing these amenities. I do really think it will probably make more racial hatred if you force people to share kitchens when they have completely different eating habits, as, of course, have the Hindu and the Mohammedan, or the Mohammedan and Christian. With some peoples you have only to have the shadow of a Christian fall on their food and it is unclean.
In this clause I cannot understand this—it appears to be rather hypocritical to me. Apparently a landlord or the person holding the lease is entitled to refuse to share with another tenant if he does not want to, but apparently a sub-tenant cannot refuse. Why is that? Surely you cannot make one law for the landlord and one law for the tenant regarding racial discrimination. I cannot understand that. But I can quite understand, if it is impossible to differentiate a dwelling-house from a block of flats, why we have to have dwelling-houses in. But it is surely within the scope of the law to differentiate between dwelling-houses and blocks of flats, so that dwelling-houses do not come under this Bill.
I should like to back up my noble friend Lord Derwent in his remarks on Clause 6, because I quite agree one can easily legislate regarding documents,
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written propaganda, of a racial nature; you can perfectly well legislate against that. But if you are going to legislate against the spoken word you are going to get very tied up, I think, and it is an imposition on freedom of speech. I should have thought that the existing law to maintain public order is quite sufficient in that respect. Having said that, I will just say that I hope that the Bill does some good. As I said, I am quite sure the conciliation committees are an excellent idea; and of course the Racial Relations Board will have to be very knowledgeable as to how they choose the local people to sit on these committees, because a great deal of the power for good of these conciliation committees will obviously rest on the type of person on them. Having said that, I should like to welcome the Bill; but I hope that if a dwelling-house can be separated from a block of flats it will be done on Committee stage, because I see great danger, having travelled extensively in different places, if different races share extremely personal amenities such as cooking facilities. I welcome the Bill, subject to these remarks.
5.58 p.m.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I am quite sure that the noble Viscount will not expect me to follow him, at this stage in the debate, on the many points he has raised. But I am quite sure your Lordships would desire me to say how we have appreciated his study of the Bill and the very interesting points he has brought out. I found some of them, particularly his reference to the gypsies, most entertaining. Again, at this stage, I do not want to weary your Lordships by delivering the impassioned speech that I expected I might deliver in view of my interest in the Second Reading of this Bill; but because I have had some associations with the West Indies and with its people who are in this country, perhaps I might be forgiven for occupying two or three minutes at the end of this debate.
I want to say, first of all, that I welcome the Bill pretty well along the same lines as my noble friend Lord Brockway and the right reverend Prelate do. These are matters which have occupied my mind for many, many years, and I am happy indeed to see that, after the great efforts that have been made in days gone by by my noble friends Lord Sorensen and Lord

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Brockway in another place, we have reached this stage of a Bill of this kind.
First of all I want to express my deep regret that there has ever been a need for this Bill. I do not believe that it is of any credit to our nation that we have even to think of legislation along these lines and, in effect, legislation along the lines which has had to be introduced in the United States as the days have gone by. With my noble friend Lord Simey I had always believed that the way to solve this problem was by education; but it is difficult to know how to apply education. I had hoped through the years that our people would see sense in this matter and would realise the importance of the subject of discrimination, and that they themselves would have made it impossible that we should even be thinking in these days in terms of legislation with regard to race relations. After all, the victims of race discrimination are, in the main, our Commonwealth brethren, or people who have joined us in days gone by, it may be as a result of persecution in their own country, or, on the other hand, people who are not strictly of our blood. The obvious question in that regard is what breed each of us in your Lordships' House can actually claim, when we remember the long history of blood mixing in the United Kingdom.
But the situation has to be faced. We failed to do what we wanted to do by education and understanding. Therefore at this stage I believe it is necessary that we should introduce legislation on the matter. It is because of the existing situation that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Derwent—he can take all the credit he likes for it—that conciliation is the way to deal with the problem. I do not care who takes the credit. This is the right way to do it, and anything in the way of prosecution must be only the last resort. Therefore we are approaching this matter in the right way at this time.
I believe that this is a good Bill; but I am with my noble friend Lord Brockway in the view that it is not sufficiently comprehensive. It may easily leave many loopholes for some of the people who indulge in discrimination. Briefly and quickly, I think of travel agencies and of private employment agencies—they come to mind at once—of shops,
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and maybe particularly hairdressing establishments. I am terribly worried because employment is not mentioned in the Bill. I believe that at some time or other it must be put into this kind of legislation, because any of us who knows anything about, and mixes freely with the immigrants, knows the great difficulties that they have to cope with in regard to employment in certain sections of industry.
We hear many cases of immigrants. particularly coloured immigrants, being refused insurance cover on all manner of things—their lives or their property. As a building society director, I sincerely hope that it does not apply to many building societies, but I know of cases where mortgages have been refused absolutely on the ground of colour. I think this is a deplorable situation. On the question of tenancies and leases, which comes later, I feel that the Bill leaves much to be desired. This is the last thing I want to talk about at this stage. I am wondering whether my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack can help me in my views on this matter. I feel that Clause 5, which deals with tenancies and leases, leaves much to be desired as at present drafted and that a great deal of doubt exists. For example, as I read the Bill and try to think about it, it would, in my view, be possible for a clause to be inserted in the deeds of property stating, "No Negroes", "No coloured people". I fear also that the Bill does not apply to freeholds. The freehold question does not seem to be sufficiently covered within the terms of the Bill. I hope that my noble and learned friend in a word or two may give me some assurance, or may express some view on the matter; otherwise I feel that I shall have seriously to consider putting down an Amendment on the Committee stage of the Bill.
I had intended to say a good deal about incitement, but I realise that your Lordships have had quite a debate on this subject. The other matter that I should really have loved to "go to town" on was what I can only call the reactionary speeches from three parts of your Lordships' House to-day. I restrain myself. I feel that my noble friend Lord Brockway has fully dealt with that reaction. I would conclude by saying that I sincerely hope that that spirit departed

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from our country many years ago. It may well be that one of the speeches, at least, would have been popular about 140 years ago; but to-day I believe that the British people do not think like that. I welcome the Bill as it stands, with enthusiasm.
6.7 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, in replying to this debate may I first apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lord Stonham, who has asked me to say that as he has to represent the Home Office at another function he is unable to stay for the conclusion of the interesting discussion that we have had. I am grateful for the general reception which this Bill has received, and, speaking about it as a whole, such criticisms as have been made seem to me to be about equally divided between those who think that it goes too far and those who think that it does not go far enough; and that perhaps should encourage the Government to feel that, on the whole, they are probably about right.
As your Lordships know, this Bill deals really with two different things: incitement to racial hatred and discrimination. If I may deal first with incitement to racial hatred, there has been relatively little criticism of Clauses 6 and 7. I am sure that we all regret that in this country it should ever have been necessary to legislate against intentional incitement to racial hatred. But in the circumstances in which we now live, the law would be defective if it did not provide against it.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, first of all expressed the view that there was little to be said against the Bill, and he seemed to be rather disappointed about that. Then he said that he thought there would be circumstances in which this clause would be misused, and, if I followed him rightly, there was a case of two people in a taxi and, when somebody was fumbling about for money, rather reluctantly, or as a joke, the other said, "You are a bloody Jew". In the first place, a taxi is not a public meeting or a public place, and so the clause would not apply at all. It is always possible to find some silly sort of example to take. But, in any event, in that case the other man did not mean to incite hatred against Jews, and nobody would have
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taken any proceedings. The clause applies only where two circumstances obtain: first, that the words are likely to incite racial hatred, and, secondly, that the person who is charged intended them to do so. If there is any doubt after all that, there is the safeguard that no prosecution can be undertaken without the consent of the Attorney General.
It is precisely because experience has shown that our existing laws are deficient that it is necessary to have a provision of this kind. At the moment this sort of law depends on two things. First of all, if you can bring it under the law of sedition, the stirring up of groups of Her Majesty's subjects to violence is an indictable offence. But that means a jury, and it is difficult to get juries to convict because they have to be satisfied that violence would take place. The other, although a lesser offence, is where one has to prove that it was likely to cause a breach of the peace. That also is not easy. Therefore, I would suggest that if, under our law, it is not unlawful deliberately to incite to racial hatred, it certainly, however regretfully, ought to be.
LORD DERWENT: May I interrupt the noble and learned Lord? Surely if the language used is sufficiently severe to come under that clause, it is likely to cause a breach of the peace. I should have thought that in almost every circumstance that would be so.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: A breach of the peace really means that actual violence takes place. This is not necessarily the effect of somebody's inciting to violence. Under our existing law you could spend a great deal of money placarding every place in a relatively small area saying "Niggers, go home", and it would be difficult under the existing law to prove that there was any offence; whereas under this Bill, if it were established that the acts were intended to cause racial hatred, and were likely to do so, that would be sufficient.
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt again, but I want to try to get the point right, and it may save time at the next stage. If you placarded a place, that would come under subsection (1)(a), publishing the matter, would it not? That is where I find it difficult to see why it is necessary to have a new law.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In regard to words at public meetings, the same is true. There are things which I hope would not be allowed to be said under this Bill, but so long as it is necessary to prove that they are likely to lead to physical violence there is in practice difficulty at present in getting a conviction.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, did not exactly welcome the Bill. He thought that everywhere throughout history there was always resentment against immigrants. To some extent, of course, that may be so. I should not have thought that it was so in France.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but I did not intend to say that. Having just read my speech through in the Office of Hansard, I know I certainly did not say that. I did not say that all through history people had resented immigrants. I was once a professional historian.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sorry that I misunderstood the noble Lord, because I thought that my noble friend Lord Brockway spent some time in answering that argument.
LORD BROCKWAY: I was answering the noble Lord, Lord Milverton.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Then the noble Lord, Lord Elton, thought that Clause 6 was an invasion of free speech. Of course, here one has to hold the balance between the desirability of protecting free speech (and I suppose that I have been known as a fanatic about free speech all my life) and ensuring that such limits as are required are placed on it. No doubt at the end of the day this is a matter of opinion. I was not sure whether the noble Lord was saying—here again I may have misunderstood him—that the Tories could win the next Election on racial prejudice but that this Bill might interfere with it, or words to that effect. But I may have misunderstood him.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I am sorry; I must have made myself extremely obscure on this point. What I said was that, just as various people had been afraid to talk immigration during the Election, so the Tory Party itself had thrown away the chance of
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winning the Election simply because it did not talk about immigration, which would probably have won it those few extra seats which it needed, owing to the unpopularity of the Labour Party's opposition to the 1962 Act.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can assure the noble Lord that if the Tories want to run the next Election on immigration, there is nothing in this Bill to stop them, provided that what they are saying is not said with the deliberate object of inciting to racial hatred.
The noble Lord, Lord Twining, said that there might be devices to evade this clause; but, with respect, in view of its terms I should not have thought that that was so. He finally said that the ultimate answer to this whole problem is really the education of public opinion. I am quite sure that we should all agree with that. Still on Clause 6, the noble Lord, Lord Somers, said that the Bill gave privileges to coloured people that white people had not got. Of course, it would be quite possible, under Clause 6 of the Bill, to have a prosecution of a black person for inciting to hatred against white people.
On the question of discrimination, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, said that there had been a Government change of mind. It is rather difficult to please some people. There arc occasions in which it is complained that the Government will not allow anything in a Bill to be changed and that they have not got sufficiently receptive minds to be able to take advantage of the good ideas which other people put forward. Then, if they do change their minds because of what they have heard, the complaint is that they have changed their minds. The noble Lord also complained that the Bill did not provide an answer to the housing shortage. It is quite true that it does not provide an answer to the housing shortage—or do anything about sending a satellite to the moon. But this is not, if I may say so without offence, the object of the Bill.
Then there was the case of the two Hindu tenants. I think that there is some misunderstanding about this. This Bill does not deal with housing. It is a matter of criticism among some of my noble friends that it does not deal with housing; but it does not, except only

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that where a landlord has granted a lease and somebody wants to assign it the landlord's consent is not to be refused simply because the proposed assignee is of a particular colour. The exclusion of dwelling-houses altogether would defeat the purpose of the Bill, because there is little evidence of discrimination in business premises. As I understand the suggestion, it was that the proviso should apply to cases where the accommodation is shared with another tenant just as much as where it is shared with the landlord. This is to misconceive the justification for the proviso. It is not intended to condone the sort of prejudice which would lead a person to object to sharing a kitchen with, for instance, a coloured person. It simply recognises the principle that a landlord is entitled to some choice as to whom he should accept into his own home and share his own accommodation with, however irrational or misguided his choice may be thought to be. This right cannot be held to extend to a tenant occupying under contract premises which are not his own. However, if and when the noble Lord puts down a clause we shall no doubt consider it carefully.
The noble Lord, Lord Milverton—who was courteous enough to tell me that he has to be elsewhere, and therefore perhaps I need not reply to what he said at length—had none of the enthusiasm for the Bill which was displayed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. He asked, "Do immigrants really want to give up their own way of life for an alien one?" So far as West Indians, for example, are concerned, they look upon us as the mother country. Their language is English; they wear the same sort of clothes as we do, though they may not be so expensive; they eat the same sort of food as we eat. To-day I was talking to the High Commissioner for Trinidad—not at all about this Bill, but about a point affecting justice—and he was telling me that his No. 2 is a white man, that they went to school together, that they play games together, that they worship at the same church and that they belong to the same clubs. It is quite obvious to me that in Trinidad, where I have been myself, there is no colour bar of any kind at all. Even with marriage—West Indians, Chinese, and Africans—there is no sense of colour bar. When West Indians come here, they
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encounter their first experience of there being such a thing as a colour bar, because they have never experienced it before.
My noble friend Lord Brockway thought that the Bill ought to go further than it does in dealing with purchases of freeholds and insurance credit facilities, and in regard to its extension to Northern Ireland, and I can appreciate some thinking that it ought to go further. In relation to what my noble friend and other noble Lords have said, I think that the Bill is quite right not to deal with either housing or employment. Employment, for example, is a very difficult question which varies so much everywhere. It is by no means always the employer who is the difficulty; not infrequently it is the other employees. It depends on the particular place; it depends very often on the particular factory. A great deal is being done in this field by the Ministry of Labour and by the trade unions, and on the whole I think it is very much better left to them. Of course, in relation to employment, if later on when we have our local conciliation committees they appear to he a success in the fields in which they are to start, it may be that we shall find it useful to extend them to employment.
Until the appointment of our friend Mr. Foley, we have never dealt with the whole problem of integration nationally. If we are going to have local conciliation committees and a central board, then for the first time we shall have a central body which will have its ears all over the country. It will really know how the situation in one place compares with the situation in another place and why one particular conciliation committee appears to be more successful than another. It is not a bad English plan to start a thing off without trying to take on too much at first.
So far as Northern Ireland is concerned, we cannot, in accordance with our constitutional arrangements with Northern Ireland, include them in this Bill against their will. They have said that they do not wish to be included in it.
The noble Lord, Lord Somers, rightly said that the Bill will not integrate, and that it is impossible to stop colour feeling, but it may be possible by legislation of this kind to prevent it getting worse. Then the noble Lord was worried about

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the brewers. I do not think he need be worried about the brewers, or feel that they have anything to worry about. As it is at the moment, of course, anybody who thinks he has been discriminated against can object at the brewster sessions to renewal of a licence. If he were a coloured man, and was alleging discrimination against him, the first thing he would be asked would be: "Have you been to the conciliation committee?" I should think, if anything, that a licensee would be in a better position than he is now, and I am sure that nobody will find himself anywhere near a court unless there is a persistent course of conduct. Obviously, the conciliation committees will be as anxious as anyone to achieve their object and to effect conciliation.
Lastly, but by no means least, the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, spoke about gypsies. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary was asked in another place about the gypsies, and he gave a very cautious answer, saying that it would be a matter for the interpretation of the courts. I am perhaps being somewhat venturesome in saying that I should have thought that gypsies were probably an ethnic group, and that if some licensee put up a notice saying "No gypsies of any kind, however well-behaved and however respectable" there might be some difficulty.
So far as hotels are concerned, it has of course always been the law that what is called a public inn is under an obligation to take in everybody: they cannot choose. Therefore, so far as the Sikh owner of the hotel is concerned, either he is running a common inn—which you always know, because by Statute the licensee must put up a notice—or it is a private hotel. If it is the former, he is in the same position as he was in before; if it is the latter, the Bill will not apply to him. It has been held that a block of flats can be a dwelling-house, but this is not a Bill to force anybody to share a kitchen. My noble friend Lord Royle, as well as other noble Lords, wished that the Bill had applied to housing in general, but, as I have said, after careful consideration and for many reasons the Government thought that was not practicable. If the Bill, when it becomes an
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Act, does well and appears to work well, and if the local conciliation committees are successful, then no doubt an opportunity may arise when we should consider the desirability of extending it to the fields of housing and employment.
I am sorry that I have omitted to say anything about the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wade. I am sure he will not mind my saying that it was primarily directed to the problem which is behind all this; to the whole question of both immigration and integration. If I may say so, I agree with almost all that he said, and if I have not replied to his speech it is because we had in March a long debate on immigration. I am sure that when we meet again we shall all want to discuss the very interesting White Paper which is rather tantalisingly coming out just after this Bill, instead of before it. I regret this very much, because I should have liked to discuss this Bill in relation to this policy. Unfortunately, the Mountbatten Commission reported only in the middle of June. The Government lost no time, but of course the Home Office have had to consider their views; the White Paper has bad to be written, and so on. But so far as this Bill is concerned, I am grateful to your Lordships for the consideration which you have given to it, and I hope I am right in supposing that as about half of your Lordships think that it goes too far, and the other half think that it does not go far enough, it is probably, in the usual English way, just about right.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

JUDGES' REMUNERATION BILL
Brought from the Commons: read 1a, and to be printed.
STATUTORY ORDERS (SPECIAL PROCEDURE) BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendment agreed to.
FIREARMS BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL
6.30 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I am sorry to speak again so soon, but I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a small but important Bill, and I hope that your Lordships will give it a speedy Second Reading. I have inherited the Bill from my honourable friend, the Member for Goole, Mr. George Jeger, and it was supported in another place by honourable Members from all sides. In excuse for not going through all the eight clauses and two Schedules, I would say that the Bill received a Second Reading in another place without debate after a ten-minute speech in seeking the leave of the House to introduce it; in Committee there was one explanatory or draft Amendment; and the Report and the Third Reading of the Bill were obtained without any further debate at all.
I think your Lordships will find most of what I would want to say in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill as printed for your Lordships' House. Very briefly, the Bill is concerned with the complicated subject of the measurement of ships for tonnage. It continues legislation which is scattered through the? Merchant Shipping Acts from 1894 down to 1954, but the wording of those Acts seems to be rather archaic and it is felt that at this stage the law on the subject ought to be given a new look and brought up to date. The Bill confers powers on the Board of Trade to act by means of regulations, and sets the basis for agreements with the International Maritime Consultative Organisation concerning what are known as "shelter-deck" ships. I suppose that. after all, this is merely an extension of Plimsoll and all that, and continues the great work done in the past to ensure the safety of our seagoing men and the preservation of our ships.
I am sure that, in view of the Business with which your Lordships are still concerned to-day, I shall not be expected to make a long Second Reading speech, and I will content myself at this stage by asking your Lordships to support the Second Reading and principles of the Bill. I give an assurance that, if
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your Lordships desire it, I will try to deal, either at the end of this debate, which I hope is going to be a very short one, or at the later stages of the Bill, with any detailed points which are raised. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Royle.)
LORD HOBSON: My Lords, I want first to congratulate my noble friend Lord Royle on introducing this Private Member's Bill, which, of course, received Government support in another place. Like my noble friend, I do not propose to transgress what we are coming to know as the "Egremont rules". My speech, I trust, will be commendably short. Nevertheless, although this is an unopposed Bill, and not a very long one, it is of very great importance, and I think it would be quite wrong if we were to let it go through without explaining, in your Lordships' House, what the Government's position is.
The particular subject with which it deals—that is, the tonnage of ships, gross and net—has been traditionally a very complicated matter, and there are various systems of measurement of tonnage. We can take pride in the fact that our method of assessment of tonnage is pre-eminent in the world, but the time has come when these matters have to be regulated internationally. They are internationally governed by the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation, which is part of the United Nations and is one of the few international organisations which has its headquarters here in London. In view of the need for standardisation in the measurement of ships, it is necessary that we bring ourselves into line with the international decisions of what is known as IMCO.
This Bill, as I say, went through all its stages in the other place without any opposition, and I do not think that any of your Lordships will find anything to disagree with in its contents. However, if any Member of your Lordships' House desires any elucidation, I shall be only too happy, with permission of the House, to offer any explanations.
LORD GREENWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Royle, or the noble Lord, Lord Hobson, for clarification of one point? What is the meaning

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of the words "artificial openings" in the Explanatory Memorandum?
LORD HOBSON: If the noble Lord will allow me to say so, we cannot hear him.
LORD GREENWAY: In the Explanatory Memorandum there is mention of "artificial openings". I should like to know if either the noble Lord, Lord Royle, or the noble Lord, Lord Hobson, could kindly tell me what is an "artificial opening" in a vessel—whether it means in the hull, a hatch, or what it means.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, the noble Lord knows a great deal more about this subject that I do—I confess that at once—but I gather that the main problem with regard to the changes now envisaged is that, on the upper decks, there are places used for storage which are not quite closed and not quite open, and that this state of affairs has been regarded as one of the serious deficiencies in the existing legislation. I hope the noble Lord will feel that that is an answer to his question—I think it is—but if this does not satisfy him then, at a later stage of the Bill, I will try to give him a more complete and better answer.
LORD GREENWAY: I was thinking about motor cars driving in through the hull, as they do up the St. Lawrence; or in the ships that take motor cars across the Channel. I was thinking of that idea, and not so much as up topsides; that is all. I gather it is nothing to do with that at all; but I thank the noble Lord very much for his answer.
LORD ROYLE: I do not think that is what was intended or thought of at all. If there is no other noble Lord who wants to speak on the Bill, I will exercise my right to speak a second time merely to thank my noble friend Lord Hobson for the Government's support in this matter. I tried to pay your Lordships the compliment of believing that you would have read the Bill. I am now assured you have, so I think we can proceed to Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

RENT BILL
6.37 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Champion.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair.]
Clause 12 [Release from rent regulation]:
On Question, Whether Clause 12 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD HASTINGS: In Clause 12 we are dealing with release from rent regulation, which is a very important matter. I am much intrigued by the words in subsection (1)(b), where the Minister has power to take out of regulation houses "of any class or description", in one case of a specified rateable value and in another case of no specified rateable value. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, could tell us just what the Minister has in mind under the words, "any class or description". I should like an example of what might be done under subsection (1)(b).
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): So far as I know, I have had no information of any particular class. Clearly, the words are wide, and I think they have to be. There has to be a special class or kind (if I may use that word, instead of "description"); and if in fact the Minister is satisfied that there are enough of them, I see no particular reason why they should be kept under rent regulation—and that, of course, is the purpose of the paragraph.
LORD HASTINGS: It seems that some houses of a certain rateable value might remain under regulation and other houses of the same rateable value might not.
LORD MITCHISON: Yes, provided that the excepted houses fell into a definite class or description. I can think of various instances where something of that sort might happen, as I am sure the noble Lord can. I should have thought it was wise to leave a loophole of this

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kind in the case of houses of that type, if I may use such an ambiguous word, where the Minister was satisfied that there were enough of them.
LORD MOLSON: I think this is a very important clause and, so far as noble Lords on this side are concerned, one of the most valuable in the Bill. It enables the Minister to take almost any category of house out of the Bill and, indeed, to reduce the rateable value to a level at which no houses will be included. Therefore, although the purpose of the redrafting was to meet the agitation by the noble Lord's honourable friends in another place, it is, I am glad to say, such as would enable a Conservative Minister to take housing out of regulation in complete areas. Mr. Crossman was quite frank about this when speaking on the Report stage on June 29 in another place when he said:
"Legally, an area could not be taken out, although de facto one could virtually remove an area by taking the houses out; that is, by reducing the rateable value limit to a low level. It is, therefore, a factual power and not a legal one."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 715 (No. 143), col. 462, June 29, 1965.]
When Mr. Boyd-Carpenter asked for more detail about this, and said that it appeared to him that what the Minister was saying was exactly what he, Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, had been saying before, Mr. Crossman replied:
"Legally one must put it in terms of housing. Factually, this means that one could reduce the rateable value to a certain level where de facto one wound up the administration in this connecton."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 715 (No. 143), col. 463, June 29, 1965.]
That I regard as being extremely frank. It means that the Government are looking ahead to the time when not only will they have brought control to an end but will also take (or may take, when they are satisfied that it is possible to do so) all the housing in an area out of the scope of regulation. This, I think, is a most important clause. I am glad that the Minister confirms that that is what the effect will be.
LORD MITCHISON: May I take the opportunity of saying that I am glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, approves of this clause which is, and so far as I know has always been, an integral part of the whole machinery. It is men
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tioned in the Explanatory Memorandum at the beginning, which says that the Minister:
"also has a similar power stage by stage to release regulated tenancies from regulation."
That is a fair statement of the position. Of course, it illustrates the necessary confidence that one must place, not necessarily in a particular Minister, but in any Minister of Housing and Local Government, in a matter of this sort.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Second transmission on death]:
LORD HUGHES: Clause 13 was added to the Bill at a fairly late stage in another place, and the purpose of this Amendment is to repair an omission in another place. In order to comply with Scottish procedure it is necessary to add the words, "or, in Scotland, the sheriff" because in Scotland there is no such thing as a county court. So this is merely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 20, after ("court") insert ("or, in Scotland, the sheriff").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 13, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD HASTINGS: As the noble Lord said, this provision was put in at a fairly late stage. It introduces into the Rent Acts a very important new principle, the second transmission on death. That is to say, not only the widow of a tenant who dies has the right to take a tenancy; but, in the future, the widow's family, perhaps a daughter or a son or a grandchild living with her, would be able to carry on the tenancy. I see that subsection (1) says that this provision
"shall apply on the death of the tenant under a statutory tenancy … by virtue of the Rent Acts …".
I want to be quite clear whether this refers only to an "existing controlled tenancy" (which are the words used in Clause 11) or whether we are here dealing also with regulated tenancies. Again, it is a confusion that arises out of the word "statutory" and out of the interpretation of "by virtue of the Rent Acts". Is that a reference to the old Rent Acts, or does it include this Act, in which case "statutory" will, in this

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sense, presumably refer to the tenant of a regulated tenancy. If it is referring to the old Rent Acts only, it will be referring to what is, in Clause 11, called "existing controlled tenancy" under the old rateable values of £40 or £30. I want to know whether this clause covers the whole field or only that more limited field.
LORD MITCHISON: I understand this clause to refer to statutory tenancies as defined for the whole Act at the end of Clause 44(1). That is the definition stating that it has the same meaning as in the 1954 Act or as in a corresponding Scottish Act. Since that Act was enacted before this Bill, it is difficult to see how a statutory tenancy (if one thinks about it under this Bill) could be the kind of statutory tenancy here referred to. It must be something that was in existence at the time the 1954 Act was passed. I am not clear where one finds "statutory tenancy" within the framework of regulations. Regulations, broadly speaking, do not deal with succession. They are rather a matter of the adjustment of rents.
LORD HASTINGS: I am interested in that explanation. I have, in fact, looked up this definition in the 1954 Act and it confirms what I believe to be the meaning of this clause: that this power of second succession rests only with tenants of the existing statutory tenancies under the old Acts and not of the new regulated tenancies. But I am not sure about that; because if you look back to Clause 1(4) you will see that paragraph (b) of that subsection refers to
"a statutory tenancy arising on the termination of such a tenancy"
under this Bill. Therefore, I was not sure in this case whether "statutory" refers to this Bill or to the previous Acts only. As the noble Lord seems to think it refers to the previous Acts, I hope that is the case. I think it should be so.
LORD MITCHISON: I will willingly check my own opinion. I find the language quite clear; but I will gladly check it and let the noble Lord know if there is any difficulty, in time for him to deal with the matter.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 14:
Recovery of possession of owner-occupied houses
14.—(1) Where a person who has occupied a dwelling-house as his residence (in this section referred to as the owner-occupier) has let the dwelling-house on a regulated tenancy and the conditions mentioned in subsection (2) of this section are satisfied, then if—
(b) the court is satisfied that the dwelling-house is required as a residence for the owner-occupier or any member of his family who resided with the owner-occupier when he last occupied the dwelling-house as a residence;
the court shall make an order for the possession of the dwelling-house, whether or not it would have power to do so under section 3 of the Act of 1933, and section 5(2) of the Act of 1920 shall not apply in relation to the order.
6.50 p.m.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, in subsection (1)(b), to omit all words after "family" down to the end of the paragraph. The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment to which we attach considerable importance, but I hope that I can move it briefly. Clause 14 deals with the recovery of possession of owner-occupied houses, and this clause was inserted in another place on Report stage because during earlier proceedings there, particularly during the Committee stage, there had been a great deal of discussion and concern about the position of a man who owned and occupied a house but had to go abroad to take up some appointment or other and leave his house for a period, but who had every intention eventually of coming back to reoccupy it.
Undoubtedly, this clause goes a considerable way to meet that situation and is therefore to be welcomed. It will help an owner-occupier who has to leave home for any reason for a short period, and lets his house but plans to return, and has warned the tenant accordingly—a very important provision. It seems to us, however, that, as drafted, the clause does not give sufficient protection to the interests of the man's family. I suggest that subsection (1)(b) is too restrictive. As drafted, the clause does not cover the man's widow unless she had been resident with him in the house before he left it. The man may not have been married at all when he last occupied the house. Alternatively, his wife may have resided

1077
with him then but she may have died; or they may have been divorced, and the man may have married again, and died, and the second wife, his widow, would not be covered under the clause.
As drafted, the clause does not cover the case of a son or daughter who might not have been born at the time of, or during, the original occupation. We must envisage that this clause will cover cases where people may have let a house for twenty years or more. It does not cover the case of a son or daughter of the owner-occupier who, for some reason, did not happen to be resident in the house during the qualifying period, and it does not cover the position of a widowed daughter-in-law who may well have several small children. Take the case of a son of the owner-occupier who went abroad to work and married while abroad and then died. His widow and the children may have nowhere to go. They come back to this country, but she would not be covered by this clause, and her father-in-law would not be able to claim possession of the house for her.
One does not wish to open the door too wide by amending the clause, or to make abuse possible, but it seems to me that there are in the clause two strong safeguards against abuse. The first is that in subsection (2)(a) there is a provision that advance warning must have been given by the owner-occupier to the tenant of his intention eventually to recover possession and, secondly, a court has to be satisfied that the house is required as a residence for a member of the family of the original owner-occupier. I am not particularly wedded to the words of the Amendment, and it may not be the best way to achieve the purpose which I have in mind, which is to safeguard the interests of the immediate family of an owner-occupier. It seems to us that this safeguard is essential on humanitarian grounds, and if the Government cannot accept the Amendment, I hope that they will accept the principle.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 11, leave out from ("family") to the end of line 13.—(Lord Newton.)
LORD MITCHISON: It depends on what you want to do in the clause. The side-note calls it
"Recovery of possession of owner-occupied houses".
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I think that is a fair summary of its general purpose. It is so drafted that when an owner-occupier goes abroad, if he gives the notice required by subsection (2)(a) and the condition in subsection (2)(b) is fulfilled, he can get his house back. That, I think, is a matter on which we can all agree. That has been extended to cover the case of other people who have occupied the house or, if you like to put it more accurately, lived with the owner-occupier when he last occupied it. Those people must be members of his family.
The object of this Amendment is to extend it to members of the family who did not reside with the owner-occupier when he last occupied the house. That seems to me an entirely different and much wider object. In the form in which the Amendment appears on the Order Paper, it would allow, in my case, other conditions being fulfilled, of my nineteen grandchildren putting in claims—and I cannot be the only person with nineteen grandchildren. In fact, it would cover a very much wider field than even that. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, recognised this. He suggested that one should treat this as if it were a narrower range—that is to say, the children, or widows, or something of that sort. I am quite prepared to treat it in that way, but it would still be open to the same objection. This is essentially a clause giving a special right, as of right, to recover possession of an owner-occupied house. How can anybody be said to recover possession when he has never lived in the house? It baffles me.
LORD NEWTON: If the real object of the clause is as narrow as the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison. has said, why are the family included in it at all? The Government have included the family, provided that they have resided with the owner-occupier. My argument is that that could cause injustice to widows.
LORD MITCHISON: The short answer to the question, "Why are they included?" is, "Because they lived there, because it was their home". That is the whole point. This is a clause about owner-occupied houses, and what is recovered is the possession of such a house. I imagine that in most cases possession would be recovered by the owner-occupier himself, he having given notice and fulfilled the conditions. That

1079
is extended to other members of his family who have lived with him, and the moral case for that seems fairly clear: it was probably their home. Now it is sought to bring in other people whose home it never was. It is not the recovery of a home: it may be the recovery of a piece of property; that is all. I can see that an argument could be brought forward, though I would not agree with it. for stretching it wider. But that goes far beyond the purpose of the Bill, which is to allow people who have this house as a home, and have gone away, to come back to it, after they have given previous notice.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I wonder whether the noble Lord has set out correctly the argument for extension to members of the family. What the clause seems to me to mean is that the owner-occupier himself should be entitled to come back, having given due notice, but any extension to the family is an extension through the owner-occupier, whose house it was before he went away and rented it for a certain period. The extension to the family covers cases where the owner-occupier does not come hack and one member of the family, who lived with him or possibly did not live with him but nevertheless regarded it as something to which he was entitled through the owner-occupier, claims possession.
The wording is derived, I think, from Section 12(1)(h) of the 1953 Act, whereby on the death of a statutory tenant the widow or other member of the family living with him at the time can continue as tenant. It is entirely different here. The only justification for allowing a widow or member of the family to live in the house is that at the time of the man's death they were living there. In this case, there is no justification whatever in logic for excluding a member of the family, while a man is abroad, from going back to the house, provided it is tied down to a narrow range and does not include the uncles and aunts and the great grandchildren. There must be something for the new wife, who married the owner-occupier while he was abroad. She is entitled to say that she has some claim through her husband, who may always have told her that when they retire they would go and live at his home. Now she is prevented from doing so by the terms
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of the Bill. I hope the noble Lord will look at this again.
LORD MITCHISON: This does not happen to come from the particular place the noble Lord thought it came from, but I do not think that that matters. There are few aspects of rent control about which the same thing could not be said—most of them, nevertheless, erroneous. Your Lordships will remember that it was Anatole France who said that error always had one advantage over truth: there were many errors and only one truth. Whether he was right or not is an arguable question.
Then it is said that this is not logical. It all depends on what you mean by logic, as Professor Joad used to say. All I can do is to point out what mischief is sought to be met by this clause. It is the case of someone who has a home, leaves it temporarily intending to return, and when he goes back gives notice that he will return. Then he is allowed to return. It may be said that logically this should not be extended to anyone else, but that would exclude the people who lived with him in the house and had their home there. I do not think that that is good sense. The whole thing depends on the conception of not depriving people of the home they own or one member of the family owns by reason of their temporary absence. It is founded on occupation as well as ownership by an individual. And we drop the principle of occupation if we let in members of the family who never lived there. That is the object of this Amendment, whether it is in the form in which it appears in the Marshalled List or in the form the noble Lord, Lord Newton, suggested at the end of his speech.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The whole point is that it would exclude members of the family who may have lived there for 15 years and happened to move out a very short time before the owner-occupier went abroad.
LORD MITCHISON: This Amendment does not deal with that case, and if the noble Viscount wants to put down an Amendment to say that a person must have occupied the house within three months of the departure of the owner-occupier or something like that, I will consider it on its merits, but I cannot go into any more hypothetical Amendments. The substantial point here is the

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recovery of possession of a house which was owner-occupied and there is not only the question of ownership but occupation. If I may venture to discourage the noble Viscount, I would point out that if he started drawing a line so many months before the owner went abroad he would cause a great many anomalies and a great deal of unfairness. The only way to deal with this matter is to deal with the state of affairs at the time the owner-occupier left the house for some reason or other. What is the real moral case for giving a special right of recovery of possession to someone whose only connection with the house (as this Amendment is drafted) is that, though he never lived there, he is related to the chap who did? It is not good sense.
LORD HASTINGS: I think that that is one of the most staggering replies I have ever heard from any member of any Government in the years I have spent in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord is attaching more importance to the house than to the people. The family is important only because it has lived in the house and not because it is the family of the man who lives there. Is it possible that the Government believe that the family is insignificant if it happens to grow up outside the confines of the house, and that no importance is attached to the right of ownership of the house by the husband and father of that family? I think that that argument is completely fallible. It surprises me very much. I cannot see that the argument put forward by the noble Lord has any logic or humanity about it at all.
LORD MITCHISON: Let me try to help the noble Lord. I am sorry he should have been so staggered, though he looks all right. The point is that here people are being given a special right to recover their home in certain circumstances.
LORD HASTINGS: A special right which arises only as a result of this Bill. It was a natural right before this.
LORD MITCHISON: I see nothing in the least extraordinary in distinguishing a man's home from a house in which he has some completely bogus proprietory interest. I say "complete bogus" because a member of the family is said to have a proprietary right of some sort through the original owner-occupier. I
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wish the noble Lord would tell me which of my nineteen grandchildren has a proprietary right in my house, and why. This extension of the rights of property in order to get tenants out of houses is, I think, a remarkable development, even in the Conservative Party. I cannot say that it staggers me: nothing surprises me about them; I am long past being surprised. But let us see what we are getting to.
LORD HASTINGS: May I make it quite clear to the noble Lord that we are not now talking about grandchildren, but we are talking about the immediate family, and we are limited in that respect. If the immediate family has no right to a house occupied by the father and husband, I do not know what we are coming to in this country.
LORD MITCHISON: I must apologise to the noble Lord. I thought he was speaking to the Amendment on the Marshalled List.
LORD HASTINGS: I cannot stand for this. The noble Lord is trying to make debating points. My noble friend Lord Newton made it plain, and so did my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, that we wish to limit it to the immediate family. The noble Lord cannot wriggle out of this on a debating point of that nature.
LORD MITCHISON: I am not trying to wriggle out of anything. What is the immediate family? Supposing there are nineteen children—and I have known of such cases. Which of them is supposed to have the proprietary right in a house in which none of them may have lived? I cannot understand what the noble Lord is talking about. He has given up trying to found his argument on the right of a man to come back to his home, which is really the right, with its limitations and in certain circumstances, in this clause. He now founds entirely on a proprietary right, and a proprietary right which is said to exist in, let us say, all the members of the family. I hesitate to say it, but that is really nonsense, and nothing on which to found at all.
LORD AIREDALE: Supposing there were a dispute between several of the children. none of whom had lived in the house, but all of whom wished to have possession of it under this clause, how would this dispute be resolved as between

1083
those children? It would seem to me to be a hopeless task.
LORD NEWTON: In one of his earlier interventions, the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, said that he could not understand what moral justification there was for extending the provisions of the clause in the way in which this Amendment does. I think the moral justification is this. If you have a house which has belonged to the owner-occupier, say, for most of his life, and to his father before him, the owner-occupier's widow, even though she may never have lived in that house with her husband, would, I think, regard it as her home. I cannot imagine any woman in those circumstances not so regarding it. It is for that reason that it seems to us, simply on humanitarian grounds, right that, provided, as the clause provides, proper notice has been given to the tenant by the occupier at the beginning of the letting, it is not unreasonable, but, on the contrary, is most desirable, that the nearest members of the family (not the nineteen grandchildren) should be able to occupy the house.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, does not seem to be prepared to meet us at all in this. I thought that he would. I did not expect him to say that this particular form of amending the clause was appropriate; I expect that it does open the door too wide. But I had hoped he would say that he would wish, if he could, to give some sort of protection to safeguard the interests of the immediate members of the occupier's family. However. I do not think we shall get further with this by continuing to debate it. I will not withdraw the Amendment, because the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has not convinced me that I should. I hope that the Committee will support me (we shall have to see whether they do or not), and if they do, then it will be open to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, to put down an Amendment on the Report stage for the specific purpose of seeing that his nineteen grandchildren will not be covered by it.
LORD MITCHISON: I am sorry that the question asked by the noble Lord,
Lord Airedale, remained unanswered. It would be interesting to know what the answer is.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, is going to arise under the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has quoted the case of the man who lives in a house with nineteen children, and all the nineteeen children were living in the house at the time when he went abroad, and at the time when he created this tenancy, having given due notice that he wanted it back. Very well. But he dies when he is abroad, and all the nineteen children come back to this country and they each say that they would like the house. There is the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. It has got to be sorted out under this Bill, as it would have to be under the Amendment.
LORD MITCHISON: I do not see the provision for sorting it out in this clause as it would be amended by the noble Lord, Lord Newton. We are now getting another class. We are getting the case of somebody who has lived in the house for a very long time and has had a forbear living in the house, and who founds on that a proprietary right that I hoped your Lordships agreed a little time ago could not well be found in the majority of cases. Conservative Peers are fully entitled to divide the House on this, but let me tell them clearly what they are doing. They are extending a right which was intended to apply only to houses as pieces of property. They have invented a most remarkable doctrine, that all the immediate members of a family have a proprietary right of some sort—if they have no occupation right under this clause—in the house occupied by the owner-occupier. If they choose to found on what I might perhaps say I regard as absurdities of that kind, they must not expect me to try to help them at any later stage of the Bill.
7.20 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 18) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 54; Not-Contents, 49.

CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Bessborough, E.

Brocket, L.

Albemarle, E.

Brecon, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Atholl, D.

Bridgeman, V.

Carrington, L.

Clinton, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Monson, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hailes, L.

Newall, L.

Conesford, L.

Hastings, L.

Newton, L.

Coutanche, L.

Hawke, L.

Oakshott, L.

Derwent, L.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Redesdale, L.

Digby, L.

Ilford, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Dilhorne, V.

Kinnoull, E.

St. Helens, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Long, V.

Sandford, L.

Effingham, E.

Lothian, M.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

MacCorquodale of Newton, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Falkland, V.

Mancroft, L.

Thurlow, L.

Ferrers, E.

Margadale, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Forbes, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Ullswater, V.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Mills, V.

Wolverton, L.

Greenway, L.

Molson, L.

Woolton, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Haire of Whiteabbey, L.

St. Davids, V.

Airedale, L.

Henderson, L.

Samuel, V.

Arwyn, L.

Hughes, L.

Shackleton, L.

Attlee, E.

Latham, L.

Shannon, E.

Beswick, L. [Teller.]

Leatherland, L.

Shepherd, L.

Blyton, L.

Lindgren, L.

Simey, L.

Bowden, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead L.

Snow, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal)

Sorensen, L.

Brown, L.

Mitchison, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Burden, L

Morrison of Kenwood, L.

Strang, L.

Burton of Coventry, Bs.

Peddie, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Champion, L.

Plummer, B.

Taylor, L.

Chorley, L.

Rhodes, L.

Terrington, L.

Collison, L.

Royle, L.

Wade, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Rusholme, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sainsbury, L.

Williamson, L.

Greenhill, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
7.27 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved to add to the clause:
"() Not more than three months before the date upon which recovery of possession of a dwelling-house from a tenant or an occupier thereof is obtainable in accordance with subsection (1)(b) of this section proceedings in the court may commence against the tenant or the occupier as the case may be in order to establish the future right to recover possession of the dwelling-house and the court may make an order for possession suspended until the due termination of the tenancy or of the right of occupation.
() The costs of proceedings under this section shall be borne by the applicant if the proceedings are undefended; if the proceedings are defended the order as to the payment of the costs thereof shall be in the discretion of the court."
The noble Lord said: I should like to assure the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, that in spite of his last remarks I shall do my best to help the Government through the other stages of the Bill. This Amendment is designed to be uncontroversial, although in view of his latest remarks I hardly expect the noble Lord to accept it. This, as the noble Lord
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has said, is a special case where we are dealing with the owner-occupier who has had to go abroad, probably on the service of his country, and wants to come back. With him he will bring his family. The tenant of his house will, of course, have to leave when the owner-occupier applies to the court for an order, if by any chance the tenant refuses to leave on the return of the owner-occupier. If the owner-occupier had written from abroad giving notice to the tenant of his intention to return on, say, May 1, and he turns up on that day, which is probably two or three months later, and the tenant is still there, an unhappy situation might arise: the owner-occupier might be left in the street with his family. He has to go to stay with somebody. He is lucky if he can do that, because, if not, he may have to go to live at a hotel or boarding house for the period during which he is applying to the court for a court order, which I gather, may take a month and perhaps longer.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord will forgive me. The average period between the issue of the plaint note and the actual hearing of the case

1087
in all courts has been seventeen days for those who apply for expedition.
LORD HASTINGS: I am glad to hear that it is not quite as bad as I thought it might have been. But, even so, seventeen days is a hardship and an expense. It seemed to us only reasonable, from the point of view of the owner-occupier and the tenant, that this sort of action could be taken in advance of the day on which it is apparently agreed that the owner-occupier should return. If that notice is given in advance, then the tenant himself is in a position to know how he stands and the owner-occupier can be quite sure of getting his house on the day he returns from abroad. At the time we said "not more than three months before", and it is really an insurance policy, or an assurance that the owner-occupier can walk into his house if he likes to take advantage of this procedure. The tenant still will not leave until the day agreed for the owner-occupier to come back, and if he wishes to take his form of assurance in advance he will naturally have to pay the costs of going to the court. It would be a great help to owner-occupiers to be able to take advantage of this clause. Therefore we hope the Government will agree to something of this nature. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 29, at end insert the said subsections.—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD MITCHISON: I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment, but I recognise that to some extent at least it is a question of the balance of convenience. One must bear in mind that this kind of point has arisen under rent control cases before, and I do not think there is any special provision to enable an early determination to be made. No doubt the reason for that is that there are general considerations to be taken into account in any claim for possession under the Rent Acts, and those general considerations might well be different at the end of the three months from what they were at the beginning.
Off-hand I cannot recollect any case in this rent legislation in which this rather peculiar right has been given, and there are some obvious objections to it. The first is that I cannot think that in general it is right to try to determine legal rights
1088
three months, or whatever it may be, before they actually fall to be exercised. I think in principle that that is thoroughly bad. If there were a case of undue delay which was going to be a matter of hardship, one would see the point and try to do something to meet it; in fact something has been done. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, seemed a trifle surprised at the statement made by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. It had been made to me beforehand so perhaps I was not so surprised, and to the best of my recollection I think something of the sort was said in an earlier debate in this House, although I would not be certain. Undoubtedly it has been singularly successful. After all, seventeen days in the circumstances here set out does not seem to me to constitute great hardship, whereas, of course, tenants who are turned out may also meet great hardship.
I should look at this proposal with far more sympathy if there was any indication that hardship existed or was likely to arise. It is not only a question of the seventeen days to which the average delay has now been reduced; it is also a question of the number of people who really find expedition necessary. If they want special expedition in the county court in this type of case they have to ask for it, and I understand that out of 6,000 applicants only 35 asked for expedition. People are not slow to ask for it if they think they are really going to be inconvenienced, and many of those who did ask may well have asked as a precaution. But a proportion of that sort is very small and I do not think we should be justified in allowing rights which have not yet accrued to be determined in advance in this particular case when there is really no suggestion that to act otherwise would cause great mischief.
I am putting it as moderately as I can because I think this is a more reasonable proposition than some others, but I think the noble Lord ought to be satisfied with what has been done already to expedite the proceedings as a matter of practice, combined with the fact that o expedition has so rarely been asked for, and with the general principle that if it can possibly be avoided one ought not to determine rights beforehand which may change in some respect by the time they come to be exercised.
LORD MOLSON: From the tone of the Parliamentary Secretary's reply, I do not despair that he will give this matter a little further thought before the Report stage. I want briefly to put the kind of case that is likely to arise. It would be the case of a regiment that has gone overseas for a period of time; a number of the officers and men of that regiment might have bought houses during the time they were in this country waiting to go overseas. They have taken advantage of this clause in order to make sure that when they come back they will be able to move straight back into their houses. No doubt in a number of cases the tenant will act honourably and decently, but what is one to say of the case of a family which comes back from overseas in the confident expectation that the rights given to them under this clause will be honoured and that they will be able to move into their house again, but this is not so?
I am very much interested that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said that the average time taken is only seventeen days. That is extremely satisfactory and, if I may, I would congratulate him upon having speeded things up to that extent, but of course if the average is seventeen days then obviously a great many cases will take longer, just as some will take less time. Again, the cost and inconvenience to a man coming back from overseas with his family and finding that a tenant is deliberately disregarding the provisions of this clause can cause suffering and expense quite out of proportion. I fully accept the points which the noble Lord has raised against this clause, but I think there is a point of substance in this Amendment and I would ask the Government to look at it again between now and the Report stage in order to see whether there is not some other procedure which could be laid down. The noble Lord spoke about the inconvenience and suffering caused by lack of security to tenants. Is not the lack of security equally great in the case of somebody coming back from overseas, expecting to reoccupy his house but finding that the tenant has refused to move out?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As the noble Lord referred to me, I wonder whether he could tell us whether he has ever heard of such a case of hardship
1090
having happened? What is proposed here has always been the law in Scotland; the returning soldier has always had to go to the courts. I have inquired from the Service Departments in England and I have been unable to find any single case which has ever happened in reality. Would the noble Lord tell us if he has ever heard of such a case?
LORD MOLSON: I know of no case exactly parallel to this, but under the whole of the Rent Restriction Acts there are many cases of hardship where a landlord has tried to obtain possession of his house, and in a great many cases, after the matter has been weighed in the light of the comparative hardship caused, the landlord has been given possession, but he has been kept out for a considerable time. If he has a house which he is at present occupying, then the hardship is not as great as it would be in the case of a serviceman returning from over-Seas. There is no doubt at all that the whole rent restriction legislation causes hardship to landlords who seek to regain their houses, and in cases where the courts grant them possession again ex hypothesi there is a hardship, and I think in future we ought to try to avoid it, even if that kind of hardship has existed previously.
LORD HASTINGS: I seem to have induced the noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary to embark upon a discussion which I thought might be coming on a later clause, Clause 33, and I was hoping that my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne would perhaps intervene on that occasion. The noble Lord talked about the average of seventeen days, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, spoke about the small number of cases which had applied for an urgent procedure. I am aware there was a long discussion on this subject in another place and there were points put from the other side; for instance, that the Protection from Eviction Act had not been running very long and probably a great many people did not know about the possibilities of this extra special procedure. But I do not want to embark on that now. Nevertheless. I do not regard this as a matter of principle but as a matter of convenience, whereas the previous Amendment to us was a matter of principle, whatever the noble Lord opposite

1091
may think about it. However, he has been invited by my noble friend Lord Molson to think again. I am glad that the situation does not seem to arise, or has not hitherto arisen very often, if at all, and that the time of the procedure already in being seems to be greatly shorter than it used to be. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
7.42 p.m.
LORD ST. HELENS LORD ST. HELENS moved, after Clause 14, to insert the following new clause
Recovery of possession of dwelling-house for residence by owner or members of his family
".—(1) Where a person has purchased or become the owner of a dwelling-house with vacant possession and has let the dwelling-house on a regulated tenancy and the conditions mentioned in subsection (2) of this section are satisfied, then if—

(a) apart from the Rent Acts the landlord would be entitled to recover possession of the dwelling-house; and

(b) the court is satisfied that the dwelling-house is required as a residence for that person or any member of his family;

the court shall make an order for the possession of the dwelling-house, whether or not it would have power to do so under section 3 of the Act of 1933, and section 5(2) of the Act of 1920 shall not apply in relation to the order.
(2) The said conditions are—

(a) that not later than the commencement of the tenancy (or if the tenancy was created before the commencement of this Act, not later than six months after the commencement of this Act) the landlord has given notice in writing to the tenant that possession may be recovered under this section; and

(b) that the dwelling-house has not since the commencement of this Act been let by that person on a regulated tenancy with respect to which the condition mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection was not satisfied."

The noble Lord said: The substance of this clause was debated at considerable length in another place on the Report stage, and for that reason I shall be more brief than I otherwise should have been. The whole purpose of this new clause is to enable the owner of a dwelling place or his family to regain possession upon retirement. In another place the Minister, Mr. Crossman, expressed a great deal of sympathy with the clause. He said:
"I have a great deal of sympathy with the aims of this Clause, and if I could find a
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formula for dealing with this problem I would be almost as tempted to deal with it as I would be to deal with the problem of the agricultural cottage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 715 (No. 142), col. 334, June 29, 1965.]
Then he went on to say:
"one of his noble friends in another place may be able to draft a clause which makes sense."
I do not know whether this clause can claim to make sense or not, but at any rate I think it expresses very much what we want to do.
There was a long legal argument in another place on the meaning of the word "retirement". That word was later taken out from the original clause debated in another place. Your Lordships will notice at the beginning of this new clause it says—and this is one of the most emphatic conditions for repossession:
"Where a person has purchased or become the owner of a dwelling-house with vacant possession …"
I set great store on those words "with vacant possession", because there is no question of turning out a long-standing tenant. As the Bill now stands there is no provision whatever for a person to regain possession of his dwelling-house when he retires. That, I think, is a bad thing. It will have one of two effects. Either a person, when he comes near to retirement, will buy or become possessed of a dwelling-house and deliberately leave it vacant, because he wants to be certain of getting in when he retires; or, alternatively, somebody who has such a dwelling-place will suffer very great hardships, and potential buyers will be deterred on the whole from becoming owner-occupiers, which is very much against the public interest.
This clause will operate in two separate circumstances. The first is where both parties know the approximate date of retirement. I should have mentioned that a condition mentioned at the end of the clause is that notice must have been given in writing, so there can be no possible doubt as to the intention of the owner. In many professions nowadays, in the Civil Service and in many businesses, people retire on a regular scheme; they have a regular date of retirement. Provided the owner is in good health and stays his full term, both parties know when he is going to retire, and so they

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have ample time to make arrangements for the dispossession of the tenant. In that case I see no difficulty whatsoever. The other case in which the clause will operate is when the owner retires prematurely. It may be from redundancy, or it may be from sickness—these cases do occur. The owner retires and he wants to come home and get possession of his house. A person in that position, if he cannot gain repossession, is going to suffer immense and, as I think, quite unreasonable hardship. It may be that that person will stay on wherever he may be, in the house he is in; it may be a house belonging to his firm and urgently needed by the firm. Alternatively, he may not have the money to pay the rent, since he is not earning a full wage, and so he may become a quite unnecessary burden on the State—he may even have to apply for National Assistance to pay his rent.
In view of the controversy that took place earlier, I would mention that my interpretation of the word "family" for this clause is the family that the owner could reasonably be expected to look after, whether he dies or does not die. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, mentioned nineteen children. If seventeen of those children were earning good money, were 21 and above, I should not expect them to become part of the family. But I would accept a widow with two small children, or children under 21; I would include them as family, and I consider them in this particular clause in exactly the same way as constituting family. I believe this to be an eminently sensible addition to the Bill, and I have great hopes of this clause, because, as I say, in another place the Minister expressed great sympathy. I hope that the Minister here will be able to accept it. I realise that the wording may not be satisfactory, but I very much hope the Minister will be able to say that if the clause is withdrawn now he will introduce a similar clause, with similar intent, at Report stage. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 14 insert the said new clause.—(Lord St. Helens.)
LORD WOLVERTON: I should like to support my noble friend. I think that this is a very important matter. In local government many men before their retirement, particularly police officers, while continuing to live in county council
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houses, buy their own house for their retirement, in the knowledge that they will need it in a few years' time, and then let it. If they could not get it back it would be a great inconvenience to them. Schoolmasters still living in houses provided by the county council also have to make provision for their retirement. I think this is a very necessary clause, and I hope that the Government will be able to accept it.
LORD HAWKE: I should like to support this Amendment, on similar grounds. There is one type of tied tenant in this country who is rather powerless, namely the clergyman. He retires and has to clear out immediately from his rectory. Knowing that, and if they can scratch up the necessary deposit and they see a small house come on to the market in the place to which they want to retire, many of them will buy a house a few months or a year before they intend to retire, in order to have somewhere to go at the moment they are turned out of their rectory. If this clause is passed, those people will let the houses on short term which is greatly to the benefit of the community. On the other hand, if they cannot get possession without going to the court, I think they will make some arrangement, either keeping the house empty or else installing some relation or friend, because no clergyman would like to go to a court in order to get possession of a house, even if it was to live in himself.
LORD DIGBY: Noble Lords opposite have recommended this Bill always on the ground of fairness, and I am sure that is the criteria by which they would wish it to be judged. Surely this is a fair clause. There is no question of someone who thinks he is going to live forever in this house being turned out. It has to be written into the agreement that, in the circumstances envisaged, the owner will want it back. I ask the Government to consider this as a matter of fairness and, for that reason, to agree to this Amendment.
7.52 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: It is perfectly true that my right honourable friend viewed with sincere sympathy a clause which was introduced in another place to give effect to the intention of this clause. He rejected it on the ground

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that it really did not do what it was intended to do, and he expressed the hope that somebody might be able to find a better clause here. I am being perfectly frank about this. We tried very hard indeed, and we tried on two lines. This clause has been put forward as a clause to deal with cases of retirement. We first of all considered the words "retirement" and "retired". There are serious difficulties about this, as I think we may infer from the fact that a clause intended to deal with cases of retirement—that is to say this clause—never uses the word.
May I explain to your Lordships shortly the kind of difficulty? One does not want, if one can avoid it, to have several kinds of retirement. Are we going to have retirement as defined for National Insurance? What about the cases which I am told exist among the members of the Bar, who, for tax reasons, retire quite frequently and resume again afterwards? There are other similar difficulties. When we tried to found a right on retirement we could not find a formula that would meet it; nor, I think, can those who put this clause forward, or they would have used the word, too. We then tried by a simple reference to age. The difficulty about this is that people retire at quite surprisingly different ages. Policemen retire young: judges, I think, stay on longer. One can think of any number of instances. There, again, there will arise questions of people doing similar things, where the age limit may differ even within the same employing firm, if it is a case of the employer coming into it, as he often does.
Having tried, and tried in all sincerity, we found we could not devise a clause that would meet the case of retirement. This clause is far wider than anything to do with retirement. It is so wide that I am afraid I cannot accept it, and I cannot offer to produce anything in its place, for the simple reason that I have tried and failed. I had hoped that noble Lords opposite might he able to think of something better. As it stands, this clause has remarkably little connection with retirement at all. Not only does it not mention it, but it does not say anything about age. It does not allow one to infer in any way, except from the speeches
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of those who are supporting it, that it is intended to deal with retirement.
I must invite your Lordships to see exactly what it does. You have, first of ail, to take the case of someone who has become an owner, by purchase or otherwise, of a dwelling-house with vacant possession, and who lets it on a regulated tenancy, having given notice before the tenancy that he will need repossession later. There is one slightly consoling thought about this type of case, namely, that one would expect—and here I go largely on the factual findings in the Milner Holland Report—that in the vast majority of cases an arrangement of that sort would be kept to. But if the notice is given and the tenant does not comply, then the court is bound to make an order for possession whether or not it had power to do so under the Rent Acts; and one has to bear in mind that, although there is not so sweeping a power under the Rent Act itself, there is a considerable right for a landlord who purchased before a certain date to get back possession for his own occupation. Therefore, this is not the case of a landlord who has no right whatever on the one hand being given powers under this clause. It is really a question of whether the protection already given by the Rent Acts should be extended in this case.
A substantial point, when one is considering extensions of this kind, is that underlying all orders for possession in Rent Act cases there must be the question of the balance of hardship and whether it is reasonable to make an order. One may criticise that. One may say that it is not perfect and things of that sort. It is, none the less, an important provision, and there is no provision of that kind in this clause. It confers on the landlord in this type of case an absolute right to get the house back.
To give your Lordships a case of what I think everyone would admit was abuse: suppose that the landlord buys a block of houses and requires, or says he requires, one of them for his residence, and various others for members of his family, no doubt living with him (I accept that it is not in the clause, but it could be put there), if that happens he is going to recover quite a number of houses. Let us think, again, of a large number of landlords who do

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this as a practice. It is said, "You are causing them insecurity if you do not allow them to do this". But you are also causing insecurity, and in some cases quite serious insecurity, to the tenants.
Therefore, I would say to the Committee, with respect, that the provision in the 1933 Act—it is paragraph (h) of the First Schedule—has been used for many years in connection with rent control, and I think it meets at any rate the vast majority of cases of hardship. Nobody would ever say that any provision about houses may not entail some hardship somewhere. It has been used for a long time, and it gives the landlord sufficient protection. It was rather significant that not one of the four speakers who urged the adoption of the new clause said anything about the existing provisions in the 1933 Act. I do not think they made out any case for regarding those provisions as insufficient. I have not heard any complaints about them. There has been a certain amount of litigation, but, on the whole, they work reasonably well. I should like to know why those who favour this new clause regard those provisions as insufficient and want this clause instead.
I would repeat that this new clause mentions neither retirement nor any question of age and is therefore bound to cover numbers of cases which have nothing whatever to do with retirement or age. I am afraid that it is too wide a clause, and although I view its object with sincere sympathy I really do not see any way of doing it. The new clause does it only by dealing with a whole number of other cases, and I would submit that that is not the right way of tackling the matter. I suggest to the House that we should be content to leave the landlord with his rights under paragraph (h) in the First Schedule of the 1933 Act.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Would the noble Lord just remind me on this point? He said that there were two remedies, the ordinary provision about hardship in the First Schedule to the 1933 Act and some special provision about someone who bought a house before a certain date. Am I right in thinking that that was a date fixed in time in about 1956 or 1955, or is it a mobile date which moves along as we progress through the years? If it is a date fixed in
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time it becomes of less and less use as the years go by, and if that is the case this may be something which we ought to look at. Perhaps it is something which should be changed by regulations from time to time, if it provides the sort of remedy the noble Lord thinks is necessary.
LORD MITCHISON: It is paragraph (h) in that First Schedule. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to look at it. It refers to purchase before a certain date. I think that the date is in 1956, as I said when referring to it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think there is a mixture here. The First Schedule is in the 1933 Act. The date which was fixed in 1956 must, I think, come in the Rent Act, 1957. I think there are two different provisions.
LORD MITCHISON: May we leave it for the moment? We are not really concerned with amending that at the moment; we are concerned with this Amendment. I think we can agree that the landlord already has a considerable measure of protection; I do not say any more than that. I agree that it is not so in all cases, but he has a considerable measure of protection under existing legislation. That is sufficient for what I have to say. I am afraid that this clause would give him too much; it would be open to abuse, and, if it met the case which it was intended to meet, it would meet a number of others, too, which are very much less deserving.
I think that is sufficient. I hope your Lordships will take it from me that I have faithfully carried out what I was expected to do by my right honourable friend: that is to say, to see whether we could devise something which could cover retirement and which was reasonably practicable—one has to add that kind of qualification. One could hardly legislate separately for whole groups of people as to what was or what was not their retirement. I am sure that those who drafted this Amendment met the same difficulties, or they would have put in the word "retirement". It was in reference to retirement that my right honourable friend expressed his sympathy, and where I used my best efforts in seeking for a clause. I cannot hold out any hope that I can do better. In this connection it is not merely a personal matter: one gets

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the assistance of the Department, which knows a great deal about these things. We all had the same end in view. We failed. This clause fails. It goes too far. I suggest that it ought not to be accepted, and the landlord should be left to his remedy under the 1933 Rent Act.
LORD NEWTON: The principal objections which the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has to this new clause is that it goes too wide and is open to abuse. I listened carefully to what he said, and it appeared to me that the abuse he had in mind was that a landlord could buy a block of houses and then in due course go to the court and say that he wanted to recover possession in order to put a large family in. If the noble Lord says that that is possible, then I have no doubt it is. Would he have any objection to a clause on the lines of this clause which limited the right of the person to become the owner of a dwelling house, and to exercising that right in respect of one house, not a block?
LORD MITCHISON: I gave that as an instance. One can think of others. If I may put my root objection to the new clause, as I put it before, it is this. The Rent Acts provide certain cases in which a landlord can get possession. All those cases are subject to the general question of which will cause the greater hardship, to give him possession or refuse him possession. That is an essential feature in this kind of case. But that is ruled out by this clause because there can be any amount of hardship and he is still entitled to it as of right. I do not think a good way of doing it is by a clause drawn as widely as this. Therefore I am sorry to say that confining it to one landlord, one house, would lead me to considerations of how many landlords might exercise it and matters of that sort.
One has to balance against the possibility—I hope the rare possibility—of hardship to a landlord in a case of this sort and the equal possibility of hardship to a tenant. I do not want to go into the rights of it, and it may be said, "The tenant ought to get out, because he said he would". That is what the clause implies, but there still may be questions of hardship. In these
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rent and housing cases the business of the Legislature is constantly to interfere with bargains that have been made and to keep people where, by the strict law of contract (apart from this legislation) they ought not to be, for the reason that it might be a great hardship if, in the particular circumstances, they were kept to their bargaining. The sanctity of contract everybody will admit, but it is not an infallible guide, and in the nature of the case it is certainly no guide to the Rent Acts.
LORD NEWTON: I am afraid that I find it very hard to envisage real hardships arising to the tenant, who knows exactly what he is taking on under these conditions. The noble Lord says that there may be hardship, but I find that difficult to envisage in the circumstances. This is something we could go on debating all night. I do not know what my noble friend proposes to do about this. It may be a case where between now and the next stage of the Bill we can deal with it by putting down another Amendment. We attach great importance to trying to take care of the case of purchasing for retirement. If my noble friend is content to withdraw the Amendment tonight, we will have another shot later.
LORD MITCHISON: I tried very hard and I could not find another answer. I do not yet believe that I can find the answer. However, if I can help noble Lords opposite on the point by telling them the sort of difficulties we had in mind, perhaps more fully than one can in debate, I will do so. I will do my best to help. It does not follow that I shall accept the clause that they think right, or that they will accept my refusal to put down a clause. But I am perfectly willing to do anything I can to help, because I think this is a matter that we all approach sympathetically.
LORD ST. HELENS: I am naturally disappointed that the new clause has not been accepted, but I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for his kindly approach to us in this particular instance. I had very great hopes that the clause would be accepted, because I read in The Times this morning that this is the birthday of the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and I did not think he would want any uncharitable act to mar the day. But I quite understand that as it stands

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at the moment this clause is too widely drafted. I accept that my noble friend Lord Newton has said, and we will have another try on this point at Report stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 [Recovery of possession of dwelling-house held for occupation by minister of religion]:
On Question, Whether Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD HASTINGS: I should not like to let this clause, which I think is a new clause inserted in the Bill in another place, pass without some comment. It refers to ministers of religion and gives them certain rights which I believe they did not have before. I wonder whether the noble Lord could very briefly outline what this clause does. Apparently it refers to all ministers of religion. I think that they will not be entirely protected, because if the vicarage or the house in which the lay minister or missionary lives is wanted for his successor, then by application to the court he can be turned out. I suppose it is the same for all ministers of all religions in this country. I wonder whether the noble Lord could say how long this procedure is likely to take.
LORD MITCHISON: On the last point, I have no more information than the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave a short time ago. This clause is intended to apply to all ministers of religion, but it does not directly concern a number of ministers of the Church of England because, unless the Opposition succeeds in removing it, they are protected by a section in the Pluralities Act. However, I think it will affect Anglican curates if they have a residence which they occupy to perform the duties of their office. It certainly affects Nonconformist ministers, and presumably, also, the Roman Catholic Church. I think there has been general agreement—I would not say that it is quite universal, because am not sure—among the religious persuasions affected that this is what they require, and I have not received or heard any specific complaints. I am not quite sure that every persuasion or religion is actually covered. I hope that I have said enough to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord
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Hastings. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Silsoe, was here a short time ago and, if he had not been driven away by the call of hunger or other business I think he would have spoken in support of this clause. It has certainly had wide general support.
Clause 15 agreed to.
8.15 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved, after Clause 15, to insert the following new clause:
Recovery of possession of dwelling-house held for occupation by a person employed in agriculture.
".—(1) The following provisions of this section shall apply where a dwelling-house which was at any time occupied by a person under the terms of his employment as a person employed in agriculture has been let on a regulated tenancy to a person other than—

(a) a person who is or at any time was so employed by the landlord; or

(b) the widow of any such person as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection.

(2) If—

(a) not later than the commencement of the tenancy (or, if tenancy was created before the commencement of this Act, not later than six months after the commencement of this Act) the tenant has been given notice in writing that possession may be recovered under this section; and

(b) apart from the Rent Acts the landlord would be entitled to recover possession of the dwelling-house; and

(c) the court is satisfied that the dwelling-house is required for occupation by a person employed or to be employed by the landlord in agriculture;

the court shall make an order for the possession of the dwelling-house, whether or not it would have power to do so under section 3 of the Act of 1933, and section 5(2) of the Act of 1920 shall not apply in relation to the order.
(3) In this section 'employed', 'employment' and 'agriculture' have the same meanings as in the Agricultural Wages Act 1948 or, in Scotland, the Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Act 1949."
The noble Lord said: This new clause gives effect to an undertaking which was given in another place, and by me on the Second Reading of this Bill here. On this matter the National Farmers' Union made representations to the Minister, and these were followed by discussion on Report in the other place, on the position that obtains when a farmer owns a cottage which has come into his possession as a result of one of

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his workers leaving his employment. He is not able immediately to replace that agricultural worker by another employee, but hopes eventually to be able to do so, and in the meantime the house remains idle. An empty house deteriorates fairly rapidly, there is the fact that the farmer loses revenue from his property, and, in addition, there is a waste of accommodation. The new clause is therefore designed to overcome this difficulty.
It applies where the cottage was previously occupied by an agricultural worker under the terms of his employment with the landlord, and it enables the landlord, where he lets the cottage temporarily on a regulated tenancy as defined in Clause 1(4) of the Bill to some other person, to regain possession if he subsequently needs it for occupation by an agricultural worker employed, or subsequently to be employed, by him. As regulated tenancies, the provisions relating to fixing of rents will apply to tenancies covered by this clause. Under subsection (1), the clause applies where occupation is by a person employed in agriculture under the terms of his employment, and where it has been let on a regulated tenancy to a person other than an agricultural worker employed, or previously employed, by the landlord, or the widow of any such worker. By this subsection we have met the reservations expressed by my noble friend Lord Hilton of Upton on Second Reading. The clause does not apply where, at the date when the landlord seeks possession, the cottage is let to a person who is or was at any time in the employment of the landlord.
Subsection (2) sets out the circumstances in which the county court is obliged to grant an order for possession. These are clear, I think, from a reading of the subsection and I need not elaborate. But perhaps I ought to mention that Section 3 of the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions (Amendment) Act, 1933, sets out the limited grounds on which a county court may grant possession to the landlord of a dwelling-house subject to a tenancy to which the Rent Acts apply. The other county court power mentioned in this subsection, under Section 5(2) of the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920, to adjourn an application for possession or postpone the date of possession in respect of dwellings
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controlled under the Rent Acts, is removed in the case of orders for possession granted under this new clause. Perhaps I should add that the court will retain their inherent jurisdiction to give the tenant a period of grace (not normally exceeding four to six weeks), and it would be for the court to decide in a particular case how soon the former tenant should be required to leave.
The definitions in subsection (3) are, I think, reasonably clear. They are in the Acts which are referred to. I shall read them to the Committee if any Member feels that he would like to hear them, but that would take quite a long time and I imagine it would not be particularly desired by the Committee. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 15, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Champion.)
LORD HASTINGS: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for bringing forward this new clause. As he said, I asked him about it on Second Reading, and he gave an undertaking that this would be done. We had, however, drafted an Amendment of our own, but it had not gone to Press by the time the Government Amendment appeared. Our Amendment was almost exactly the same. It did, in fact, protect the agricultural employee of the landlord, who is covered by subsection (1)(a), but we had not included the widow. I can see the reason for including her. So, in general, I welcome this clause, although there are one or two points of some interest which I should like to clear up.
As things stand, of course, if a landlord (whether he is the superior landlord or the farmer) who has the right of occupation of an agricultural cottage has employed a man for a considerable period of time, and that man retires, he will generally try to help him. If he has a spare cottage, he will let him have it; or if that man dies, he will try to help the widow by letting her have a spare cottage at a low rent—possibly even free of rent; who knows?—on a verbal understanding that, if he needs it in due course for another agricultural employee, the man. or his widow, will move; and, on the whole, I think that works pretty well.

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Of course, this clause is designed to protect that situation, but I am not altogether sure it will have that effect, because there is now a legal protection for the employee and/or his widow.
I am afraid that a landlord or a farmer may be a bit more reluctant to allow such people to occupy a vacant agricultural cottage if it is in fact almost certain that he would not be able to remove them and if he had it at the back of his mind that he would need to expand and would require that cottage in two, three or five years' time. In that case, he might be tempted not to allow his own, good employee, especially a short-term one (one who had not been with him for very long), to move into that empty cottage, but would let it in the future only to a non-agricultural employee, against whom he would have the right of eviction, through the courts, under this clause. I think that it is perhaps worth the noble Lord considering the effect that this may have on these people mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b).
This is perhaps talking theoretically as regards the intentions of the clause, but one wonders what is going to happen in practice. In respect to the particular case which I have mentioned, if such people—an ex-employee or a widow of an ex-employee—were in such a cottage, under what procedure would the landlord have to act in order to evict them? Would they then come under Clause 31, which is the clause dealing with the agricultural employee? Would they have to go through that procedure, with the court having to consider the question of the efficient management of the holding; or would they come under the previous clause, Clause 30, which refers to other tied cottages? That is a point for consideration.
But, coming again to subsection (2), it says:
"If … apart from the Rent Acts the landlord would be entitled to recover possession of the dwelling house … ".
Here again, I am not altogether sure that that insertion will not vitiate the whole intention behind this clause; because, if I am not wrong, the Rent Acts do apply to the great majority of agricultural cottages, which are normally under the rateable value of £30. I may be completely wrong and it may be that they do
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not apply, but I think they do. If an agricultural cottage is under the old rateable value of £30, it will come under the Rent Acts, in which case none of this clause would operate.
I can see the necessity of including that subsection, or part of the subsection, in the previous clauses, referring to the recovery of possession of an owner-occupied house or a house held for occupation by a minister of religion, because such cases are not likely to come under the Rent Acts anyway; it would be an exception if they did. But I think that nearly all agricultural cottages are subject to the Rent Acts if they are the matter of a tenancy and not a licence—and in this case it would presumably be a tenancy. Therefore, I do not see that we are helping the position very much by way of enabling a landlord, farmer or otherwise, to let his vacant agricultural cottage if it is going to be subject to the Rent Acts—because that is what subsection (2) says. But it may be that I am wrong about this.
My final point is that I want to ask the noble Lord whether he does not think that there is a case for applying this provision to vacant farmhouses also, because there are an increasing number of such farmhouses in the countryside now, as amalgamations of smallholdings go ahead—a policy of which, I believe, the present Government approve. Farms are now often farmed in co-operation, in partnership or in multiple units, with the result that there are quite a number of farmhouses becoming vacant which are very nice properties, which it would be tempting for a landlord to sell. It would be a great pity if such houses were normally sold. They should be kept available for agriculture in case, as a result of re-organisation in the future, they are once again required as farmhouses.
I should have thought that there was a pretty good case for including farmhouses in these provisions. When you are thinking of multiple units of farming and farming companies, there are obviously going to be such people to consider as farm managers—the new technocrats of the agricultural industry, one might call them—and farmhouses would be very suitable for them. I am not sure whether farm managers are included at all under this clause. I should like the noble Lord to turn his mind to

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that and let me know whether he thinks that something could be added at the Report stage in order to make this provision apply to farmhouses under such limited conditions as the Government might think fit. I do not think they ought to be excluded altogether; and I think that anybody engaged in agriculture should be enabled to be covered by these provisions, whether in an agricultural cottage or a farmhouse. With those remarks in general, however, I welcome the clause, and I hope the noble Lord can answer these three points that I have made.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: May I ask just one other question? Under the existing system you cannot let an agricultural house to anybody and charge a rent for it, and then get him out when you want to. Does this clause mean that, if you do let a house, and it is a house which is now covered by the Rent Acts, you will then be able to get that house back—provided due notice is given and so on—if you want it for agricultural purposes? At the present moment, under subsection (2)(b) it would seem as if there were no change. I should like to know if the noble Lord could say whether this alters the existing law.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: Might I just say a few words on subsection (2)(b) to which the noble Lords opposite seem to be attaching too much importance. As I understand it, this is purely a technical provision and it simply says that in order to be able to get possession under this clause you must be able to say that, apart from the Rent Act, you are entitled to possession at Common Law. This means that the proper notice has been served and that the notice complies with the Common Law rules, and so on. This is all that the clause means. It has no sort of restrictive effect, nor has it the effect of limiting cases within or outside the Rent Act. The whole purpose of the clause is to enable you to get possession where otherwise you would be able to get possession only by virtue of provisions of the Rent Act; but, under this clause, you can now get possession, apart from the Rent Act, providing you comply with the Common Law provisions. It does not alter the substance of the matter at all.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I should like to endorse the last part, particularly,
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of what my noble friend Lord Hastings said about farmhouses. He might have well gone on to remind us that there is now a policy of amalgamating some holdings which want to be combined with other larger farms. That will mean that there will be two farmhouses, neither of which has been a tied cottage, but one of them will obviously have to be used for the benefit of an agricultural worker. I agree with my noble friend that houses in that category ought to come within the scope of this clause. Whether they do, I do not know. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Champion, will look at that. The reason I am referring to my next point is my inability to interpret the interpretation clause. The word "landlord" is used in various places in this new clause; and I should like to know whether that word covers not only the owner-occupier but also the tenant farmer who has his farm let with a farm cottage. I do not myself know enough about the interpretation of the word "landlord" to know. But it is important that someone should know it.
LORD MITCHISON: I will try to answer some of these points. I agree, with great respect, with what was said by my noble friend in his remarks about the phrase in the Bill:
"apart from the Rent Acts the landlord would be entitled to recover possession …".
The Committee will notice that the phrase is not peculiar to this clause. It has occurred in Clause 14; it is going to occur in Clause 15 and I am not sure that it does not occur also in one or two other places. This does not provide a method of interfering with someone's tenancy or of getting someone out where, for instance, the tenancy could not be terminated apart from the Rent Acts. That is really what is behind it. I think it is a proper thing to put in. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, will now believe that there is nothing sinister about it.
This clause is, in fact, the result of considerable discussions both with the National Farmers' Union and with the agricultural workers; and, as I think my noble friend Lord Champion made clear on Second Reading, we recognised that we were unable to carry out the promise we had given to the agricultural workers that they would not be turned

1109
out unless alternative accommodation were available. The reason was the objection of the rural housing authorities particularly to the "queue-jumping" that anything of that sort was bound to produce. Let us say we ought never to have said it; but there was a case both ways. We finally accepted the provision in this form. It was following on that that the discussions with the agricultural workers and with the National Farmers' Union took place. I understand that the National Farmers' Union were finally satisfied with this clause; but I am in no position to be certain. I may be wrong; if I am told that that is not so I accept it.
I was then asked about the position of farmhouses. With respect, this is rather a limited clause. It has nothing to do with farmhouses as such, and I do not know how you would apply it to farmhouses. Let us see clearly what it requires in order to come into operation. In the first place, you have to have an occupation, not necessarily a tenancy, by a person employed in agriculture and who has to occupy the dwelling under the terms of his employment. The most obvious instance I should have thought was a stockman, although I can think of other cases, too. Secondly, when he goes you have to have a let on a regulated tenancy; and there are exceptions to the kind of let which will operate to bring the Clause into effect. A let to a person who is, or was, at any time employed by the landlord—and that refers back to a previous reference—or his widow does not bring the clause into operation. But leaving exceptions out, if there is a let on a regulated tenancy you then come to the point where the clause bites. If the requisite notice has been given and the court is satisfied that the dwelling is required for occupation by another, a second, agricultural labourer employed by the farmer, then the court makes an order.
There are, again, in this case instances of rights to get back accommodation for your employees under the existing Rent Acts, which I will not go into. This deals simply with the case where between two tenancies, if I may use a general word, there is a temporary lease to someone. That is the only thing it deals with. It is therefore a clause of quite small effect; but it prevents the position arising of the stockman's house having been
1110
vacated and the farmer being unable to let it again because he is not sure that he can get out the man who is coming temporarily. It is therefore a considerable protection not only to the farmer but to the second agricultural labourer, the second man, who may equally require to occupy the house by nature of his job. It is not that he necessarily should, as the clause stands, but it is going to be very likely I think.
The provision in paragraph (c) is rather wider, and for this reason. The stockman may go away; the place may be temporarily let; the farmer may then change from, say, keeping stock (or from keeping stock on that scale) to some other form of farming. It seems reasonable that the farmer should be able to get a house back for an employee generally and not be tied, under paragraph (c), to the case of the man who is required to occupy it for the purposes of his job. I hope I have made this point clear. I stress it on purpose because it has been a little misunderstood. I do not know if I have covered the point that the noble Baroness raised.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: Thank you; you have.
LORD MITCHISON: Have I still left something unanswered?
8.40 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, to comment on my general observations on the situation of the retired agricultural employee or his widow, but I did ask a question. If one of the people mentioned in subsection (1) (a) or (b) were to be rented a vacant cottage on the farm of his previous employer, and the employer then wanted to put in another man to work his holding, under what clause would the employer have to apply to the court to get rid of the people occupying the cottage? Would it be under Clause 31, which refers to agricultural cottages, or would he apply under Clause 30, which is the normal court procedure, giving a suspension of up to six weeks?
LORD MITCHISON: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, will not think me discourteous if I suggest that these later clauses might be considered when we come to them. I would just repeat

1111
the very narrow ambit of this clause. There has to be an occupation under the terms of employment by an agricultural worker. The second stage is a regulated tenancy to someone other than an employee of the landlord, or the widow. If those two things have happened, and the landlord wants the house for an agricultural employee (not necessarily a man who is to occupy the premises for the purpose of his employment, but an agricultural employee), the landlord can, subject to the other conditions in the clause, get it back. This is rather a narrow clause. It meets the real difficulty of the farmer who has lost, say, a stockman and is unable to let his cottage pending the arrival of another agricultural employee who may or may not be another stockman. I hope I have made myself clear.
LORD HASTINGS: I am afraid that it is I who failed to make myself clear. I am concerned to know whether, under subsection (1), if the landlord lets this vacant farm cottage to a person who is, or at any time was, employed by him, or to the widow of any such person, it means that the landlord can never get them out. Or, if he wants to get the cottage back—suppose he was trying to help the occupant temporarily out of the kindness of his heart—would he apply to the court under Clause 30 or under Clause 31? We cannot discuss it in relation to those clauses, because it does not arise; or am I right in thinking that he could never get rid of the occupant?
LORD MITCHISON: I do not think that that conclusion should be drawn. I am keeping strictly to this clause which in those circumstances does not bite. There is no doubt about that. That is to say, if there is first an occupation by a stockman—I take that simple case—and secondly a let to a person who is, or at any time was so employed, that is to say the previous type of employment, by the landlord; if that happens, this clause does not bite; that is to say, the remedy is not available in that case. Perhaps we had better take other remedies when we come to them.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I asked the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, a question about the definition of "landlord" to which I do not think that he has replied.
LORD MITCHISON: I am sorry, I am not sure whether I got the question right. Would it help if I put it this way—an owner-occupier is not a landlord, because he has not a tenant? "Landlord" implies the existence of a tenant.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I am sorry, I did not make myself clear to the noble Lord. My point is this. Some farmers farm as owner-occupiers and some as tenant farmers on farms rented by a landlord. Each may have a tied cottage. Does the word "landlord" in this clause apply equally to the owner-occupier's tied cottage and to the tenant farmer's tied cottage?
LORD MITCHISON: Yes, I think clearly it does, provided that he has a tenant, and it is assumed that he has a tenant. The term "landlord" is perhaps more loosely used where there is not a tenancy but a licence. I do not think it matters whether the landlord has fair hair or dark hair, whether he has a bank balance or not, or whether he holds his farm property under this or that tenure. As I understand it, "landlord" means simply, for these purposes, someone who is in the relation of landlord to a tenant. I repeat that it is often loosely used to cover a licensee. It is not really the right word. I am sorry if I have not made the point clear, but I have tried.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: That covers the point I wanted to raise and I thank the noble Lord.
Clause 16 [Provisions as to improvements]:
LORD CHAMPION: I think that it might be convenient if we discussed Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 together. They are very simple Amendments and closely related to the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Mitchison. The purpose of these Amendments is to provide that where a dwelling-house near an aerodrome managed by the British Airports Authority is improved by works of sound insulation which are financed by a scheme made under Section 15 of the Airports Authority Act, 1965, the increased rent which the landlord may obtain, prior to the registration of a fair rent, shall be 12½ per cent. of the amount he has spent on the works but exclusive of any financial assistance he has received

1113
by way of a grant made by the Authority. This means that these rents will be treated in the same way as improvement grants under the Housing Acts and repayments from public funds under Section 12 of the Clean Air Act, 1956 in respect of the installation of smokeless fuel burning appliances. I beg to move
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 14, leave out first ("or").—(Lord Champion.)
LORD CHAMPION: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 15, after ("1959") insert ("or section 15 of the Airports Authority Act 1965").—(Lord Champion.)
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clause 18 [Duty of landlord to supply statement of rent under previous tenancy]:
LORD MITCHISON: This is a comparatively small Amendment by way of compromise. The clause provides that a landlord has fourteen days after receiving a request to supply a statement of rents under a previous tenancy. In another place it was suggested that this period was too short, and an Amendment was moved to extend it to 28 days. The right honourable and learned gentleman the Attorney General undertook, as a compromise, to alter the period to twenty-one days, and that an Amendment to that effect would be moved here. This is that Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 3, leave out ("fourteen") and insert ("twenty-one").—(Lord Mitchison.)
LORD NEWTON: I am much obliged to the noble Lord and the Government for this Amendment. Obviously 14 days was too short a period. This seems to be a reasonable compromise.
LORD MITCHISON: Perhaps 28 days was too long?
LORD NEWTON: I should not necessarily be thought to agree with that.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 19 [Tenancies ending before commencement of Act]:
8.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL moved, in subsection (1)(b), after the second "made", to insert:
"and after hearing such other person or persons as may in the opinion of the court be directly concerned".
The noble Earl said: I beg to move this Amendment. It is designed to prevent an unjust and, I believe, wholly iniquitous situation arising where an innocent party enters into a contractual tenancy and at a later date finds that it becomes null and void due to a court order being made without any reference to him. Under Clause 19, a tenant who would be entitled to claim a regulated tenancy but who has received a notice to quit, following a court order for possession, may, if he is still in possession of his premises when the Bill passes into law, appeal to the courts to rescind the order for possession on the ground that such an order would not have been granted under the provisions of this Bill.
The Amendment is designed to deal with the sort of situation where a landlord, with a court order for possession in his pocket, enters into a new tenancy agreement with a third party and this third party, completely innocent, goes through the usual costly business of moving into the premises, only to find at the last moment that, without reference to him, a court order has cancelled his tenancy. Two questions would immediately arise out of this situation. What compensation would a third party be entitled to; and from whom? Secondly, why is no reference made to the hardship which the third party must suffer? These questions were put to the Government on the Committee stage in another place, and the answers then given were that, first, an innocent third party under this Bill is given no compensation from either court or landlord, and, further, that the landlord would be protected against any subsequent action for breach of contract under the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act, 1943; and secondly, that under this clause a third party would have no right of hearing in court proceedings.
When pressed on the iniquitous situation that might arise, Mr. MacColl admitted that this had arisen under the

1115
Protection from Eviction Act, which he said was a temporary measure, and in the light of this more permanent measure he went on to say:
"There is a good case for looking at this matter very carefully in order to see whether anything more could be done to deal with the rights of third parties and I undertake to do that before Report."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), Vol. 715 (No. 142), col. 392, June 29, 1965.]
I am sorry to say that on looking at the proceedings on Report stage, I find that no mention was made of this matter at all, and Mr. MacColl's undertaking was therefore not fulfilled. I would ask the Government to accept this Amendment. I feel that there is a real issue of principle here. A perfectly genuine and innocent third party is unjustly treated. This Amendment seeks no more than to allow such a person a hearing at the court proceedings. Even if the court decision goes against him, at least he will feel that his case has been heard. I am sure that the courts and any fair-minded person would welcome this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 22, after "made" insert the said words.—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I support what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull has said. I think that the heading of Clause 19 is itself of some importance in showing that the clause is clearly only transitional, and obviously these situations will not continue for long after the Bill becomes an Act. Nevertheless, the case that my noble friend has made out seems to me to be worthy of further consideration, and I hope that the noble Lord will be sympathetic to it.
When I first looked at the Amendment, I wondered whether there might be some difficulty in the court deciding who would be directly concerned as third party in this matter, but I expect that the person who has taken the tenancy, or thinks he has taken the tenancy, of a house, the possession of which the court has given to the landlord, although the order has not been executed, will be very much aware of what is going on, and I do not think that the court would have the slightest difficulty in finding out who was interested in it. As this is a transitional matter and puts right the possibility of any hardship arising out of this Bill, I hope
1116
that the Government will be able to accept this Amendment.
LORD MITCHISON: I am afraid I cannot accept the Amendment. A provision like Clause 19 was included in the Rent Act 1920 (Section 5(3)) and in the Rent Act 1939 (Section 4), but it was not thought necessary to put in either Act a provision on the lines suggested in the Amendment. We have no evidence at all of any hardship having ensued. I should have thought that the fact that restrictions were being imposed on the right of a landlord to obtain possession of premises is tolerably well known, even if people do not know exactly what they are, and it is unlikely that there will he any trouble. But I have a broader objection than that. This Amendment does not give compensation to anybody. It does not add to anybody's rights in any way. The issue before the court remains exactly what it would be, whether or not this Amendment were inserted.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I cannot see how that is so, because the court has power to rescind the possession order or vary it. If it chooses not to rescind it, that presumably means that it decides upon the basis that the house has been let to somebody else; but how can it come to that conclusion if it has not that other person before it to tell the court about that fact?
LORD MITCHISON: I do not think that the noble Viscount could have been listening to what I was saying. This Amendment does not give anybody compensation or alter anybody's rights. How can it? It simply enjoins the court in certain circumstances to hear
"such other person or persons as may in the opinion of the court be directly concerned."
The Amendment does not alter by a jot or tittle, except possibly by giving the right to be heard in certain cases—I will deal with that in a moment—the rights of anybody, and it does not give anybody any compensation for anything. Arguments founded on that are, with great respect, misconceived.
All it does is this: it enjoins on the court to hear such other person or persons as may in the opinion of the court be directly concerned—and that, I imagine, must mean directly concerned

1117
with the issue before the court. Either party can call those persons. If they are not called, what will happen? Is the court to call them? It is a remarkable piece of procedure, if so. I should have thought that in this particular case there was no doubt that if they were relevant witnesses—that is to say, relevant to the issue before the court—somebody would call them and they would be heard.
I am not clear what the purpose of all this is. It appears to me to be an indirect attempt to alter the issue before the court, or to direct the court or the parties as to what evidence should be heard. I see no room for that. I regard it, with respect—not, of course, as an Amendment of first-rate importance; nobody would claim that for it—as an Amendment which is mistaken, in that it is trying to tell the court what evidence the court should or should not hear.
If anybody is going to defend it, I should like to know the answer to two questions. Is the court bound to call these witnesses if neither party does so; and is there any precedent for anything of the sort in this kind of litigation? Secondly, if the court is to know whether the witnesses are directly concerned, how is it going to find out? Thirdly, if, in fact, the witnesses are to be called in some way or another, is it intended that they shall be empowered to give any evidence that they would not otherwise be able to give?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Lord wanted the answer to two questions and asked three. I appreciate that there may be a certain novelty in this; but the mere fact that similar provisions have appeared in other Acts of Parliament in the past without the type of Amendment that we are here suggesting cannot possibly be a reason for our not considering it now. The fact remains that there must be situations under this Bill, as it is now drafted (and I am talking about the clause at the moment), where the court is going to be asked by the person against whom the possession order was made to rescind or vary that order. The court will be asked to do this. I assume, on some sort of grounds of hardship. If that is so, there will have to be an adjudication between hardship on
1118
the tenant, who has not yet had the order executed against him, and hardship on the landlord. In those circumstances, I doubt whether there was necessarily any hardship to be put forward on the landlord's personal behalf, that he had let the house to somebody else. The other person to whom he had let the house, however, might have a distinct case of hardship. I do not see what good it will be for the landlord to call that third party as a witness as to the landlord's hardship, because it will have nothing whatever to do with the landlord's hardship.
What we are suggesting is that the third party himself may have a case of hardship which the court might like to consider when making up its mind whether to rescind or vary the order. The procedure, I agree, probably wants more thinking about, but there is a basic point here, if you are trying to deal in these transitional circumstances with a matter involving hardship between two people—we say three—and something to be said for allowing the third person to appear before the court. I appreciate that there will be some difficulties, and we shall probably have to return to these if the noble Lord is willing to think about it again. I think there is something to be said for allowing the third party to come to the court and tell the court what his position is.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: This is a well-meaning Amendment, but I should have thought that it was unworkable. It appears to impose on the court an impossible burden of in some way broadcasting the existence of these proceedings, and then informing itself of who may or may not be concerned. What this conception of being concerned involves is obscure. For example, is the child of a landlord, or the child of a tenant to whom the premises are re-let, entitled to be heard? Is the court under a duty to advertise the proceedings; and during what period of time? I should have thought that, in relation to a short transitional period of this kind, it would be quite unworkable to try to impose a burden of this kind on the court. Moreover, I should have thought that as these are proceedings between the landlord and the tenant, any matter which arises in relation to some act of the landlord by re-letting the premises, or something

1119
of that kind, is something which the landlord could bring before the court, and it is a matter then for the court to take into account in deciding whether or not to suspend the order. But to open it to a kind of free-for-all, to anybody who might be considered in some remote way to be affected, involves, it seems to me, a quite unworkable conception, and something which certainly ought to be resisted.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Before the noble Lord replies, I have had one thought on this matter while the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, was speaking. Is there any reason why the third party, at the risk of having to pay the costs if he turns out to be so unconcerned in the matter as the noble Lord feels, should not join himself with the respondent to the application under paragraph (b)? I cannot see why he should not become a party. It is entirely up to him. If he joins himself with the landlord in resisting the application which is being made by the tenant, what harm is there in that? And what difficulty does it place the court in?
LORD MITCHISON: I hope that we shall keep somewhat remotely near the Amendment we are discussing. The cat has now come out of the bag! This is a determined effort to turn a witness into a party. You can go too far on those lines. I should like to remind your Lordships, and particularly the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, of Lindley on Partnership, where an attempt to wind up a partnership of highwaymen resulted in severe punishment, not only to the counsel, but to the solicitor engaged. Once you get this confusion between third parties and witnesses, lawyers and their clients, and things of that kind, there is no knowing where you may end. I suggest that if the noble Viscount wants to add additional parties to a county court action, he should put down an Amendment designed to do that. He knows perfectly well the difference between an Amendment for that purpose and an Amendment which is intended to oblige the courts, somehow or another, to hear certain witnesses.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I think we have strayed a little from the Amendment. The main purpose of my Amendment,
1120
as I saw it, was to give an opportunity for the third party to have the right of a hearing in a court. This is all I am asking. What I would perhaps ask the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for is his advice on this matter, because when this matter was raised the Government spokesman in another place clearly said:
"I confirm that the prospective tenant would not have the right of audience."
The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, appeared to say in his reply that this would not be so, and that he would be entitled.
LORD MITCHISON: No.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: Anyway,
am sorry that there has been some doubt about this, and in this instance I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 agreed to.
Clause 20:

PART II

  REGISTRATION OF RENTS
  Operation of Part II
  20.—(1) This part of this Act shall come into operation on such date as the Minister may by order appoint, and different days may be so appointed for different registration areas.
  9.10 p.m.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to subsection (1):
  "Provided that the date so appointed shall not he later than nine months from the date on which this Act is passed; and this Act shall cease to have effect thereafter in any registration area in respect of which no such date has been appointed."
  The noble Viscount said: I hope the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, does not really think that my noble friend Lord Kinnoull and myself are in partnership with highwaymen, or, indeed, that we belong to the same profession. In fact, we do not. We now come on to Part II of the Bill and the registration of rents. It has been quite clear that one of the underlying principles that the Government are determined upon, so far as this Bill is concerned, is that there shall be a nationwide system of regulation. Equally, this will take a certain length of time to set up. In another place, I

  1121
  gather that the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government said in Standing Committee:
  "I should say that the period would be well within twelve months for the completion of England and Wales."
  He said that he thought six months would do for Scotland. On the other hand, there is nothing in the Bill at all to suggest that there is any urgency.
  I know various statements have been made by noble Lords opposite, and by the Government in another place, that they are getting on with this, but I have put down this Amendment really in order to see how far the matter has gone. I know that when we were dealing with the Law Commissioners the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had done a great deal of sounding out of the ground while the legislation was in process, and in fact selected, as it proved, those whom my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne rightly thought he had selected. In fact, my noble and learned friend was quite right in the names he mentioned in your Lordships' House. Similarly, I imagine in this case that the noble and learned Lord is cooperating with the Minister, and that in setting up the machinery under this Bill he has done quite a bit of spade work in order to get the right people selected and the committees more or less formed, ready to go into action. Patently, the places that would be tackled first are London and the conurbations. On the other hand, there will be a large number of country districts where, quite honestly, at the moment there is no problem in this respect at all, and little incentive to get on at any speed with the setting up of the committees, the rent officers, and all the other things required under this Bill, but where, all the same, all rents are going to be frozen until such time as this machinery is put into operation.
  The right honourable gentleman the Minister said that he does not want more than twelve months, so it seemed to me that as a display of the earnestness of the Government's resolution in this matter they would be very happy indeed to accept this Amendment, because quite clearly if they are right and they will be able to do it as quickly as that, then they have nothing to fear from it. On the other hand, if they accept the Amend
  1122
  ment and do not get on with the job as they promised they will, and as I am sure they will, they will be in a situation that in the area concerned the Bill will not apply. I have not worked out what the consequences will be, but I am sure they will be severe so far as the Government are concerned, and that they would not wish this to happen. Accepting for the moment that this regulation must be countrywide, there must be some guarantee that the speed will be up to the promises of the Government.
  I hope that we can have a progress report towards the end of July this year or towards the end of the time when Parliament has this Bill before it, which will show us how the Government are getting on, and how soon they are going to deal, not with the important areas which I know will be tackled at once, but with the less populated areas, the agricultural areas, where quite a lot of people live, and where I think there will be a great deal of dismay if they find that for a long period of time their rents are frozen; they do not know where they are; they have no rent officer and nobody to appeal to—the whole matter will be in a state of confusion. I hope, therefore, that as I have moved this Amendment in this spirit, noble Lords opposite will be able to respond and tell us how they are getting on. I beg to move
  Amendment moved—
  Page 13, line 43, at end insert the said proviso.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
  LORD MITCHISON: I welcome wholeheartedly the enthusiasm of the Opposition to get this Bill working quickly. I had my doubts about it during some of the earlier discussions in Committee, but they were, of course, purely personal doubts, a matter of personal impression. I am now entirely reassured by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. We have it from him that he is really anxious that the Bill should be brought into operation as soon as possible. He is not alone. After all, there was no opposition to it on Second Reading, either below or here, and we were congratulated on bringing in such a courageous Bill. I remember that that adjective was used several times. No doubt great minds think alike on those occasions. We welcome this. It is entirely our own point of view about it, and our reason for it is a simple one:

  1123
  we want to get this Bill working as rapidly as possible because we think there is some urgency in the problem with which it seeks to deal, which is, broadly speaking, in a great part of the country the effects of the Rent Act, 1957 and the shortage of houses and accommodation. It is quite true that it does not apply to the same extent in the country districts, but that is our reason for wishing to have this Bill.
  There is one other point. I do not think any Amendment has been moved in this House suggesting that the Bill should be limited to certain areas. There has been a suggestion that the rateable values should be limited, and that was approved by the House, but there has been no suggestion that it should not apply to all parts of the country. I think this is a matter which should be of general application. The system which is being set up will no doubt have different effects in different parts of the country, but it should be applied everywhere. That being so, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, can take it from me that it is in the highest degree impossible that when we have got this Bill into its final form we shall be slow in putting it into operation. Rent officers cannot be appointed under a Bill which is not yet in force; we cannot appoint rent assessment committees or start to make the Bill function until we know the final form. Your Lordships have not finished with it yet, and it by no means follows that another place will necessarily accept all the Amendments which will appeal to your Lordships. Therefore it is obviously premature to start making the arrangements under the Bill, and no such official start of any kind has been, or can be, made.
  It is perfectly true that my right honourable friend has made a number of inquiries about the framework of this Bill from local authorities. That is the usual course for any Minister of Housing and Local Government to take, certainly in a Bill which directly affects local authorities, and also I think in Bills of this kind. But those discussions have been purely informal, and we cannot undertake that we shall proceed with any given speed through all the consultations which will have to be considered when the Bill becomes law. I would remind your Lordships that outside the Greater London
  1124
  area there are 45 county councils and 78 county boroughs, so that there are 123 sets of negotiations to be carried through on the question of rent officers, rent assessment committees, and the other machinery which has to be set up with the collaboration of local authorities. Sometimes the negotiations with local authorities are a trifle difficult. Suppose Rutland, for instance, wanted to make joint arrangements with some other county, as it does over a bewildering variety of matters. It might take a little time to do this, and it is simply impossible to fix a time for it.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has got a great deal of good sense in these matters. Does he really think it likely that we are going to be slow? This is a major Bill designed to remedy a major grievance and to alleviate great hardship in a number of cases. The noble Viscount can be assured that we do not need a timetable in order to proceed with speed; but, equally in a case of this sort, where this large number of consultations is involved, one cannot expect any Minister to accept a timetable, whether it is nine months, as now suggested here, or six months, as was suggested by the noble Lord's friends in another place—six, seven, eight or nine months, whatever it is. He really must take it, I suggest, that the Minister in a Government introducing a major Bill, which we, at any rate, believe to be remedying a major mischief, is not going to be slow in bringing it into operation. If there is going to be any slowness it may occur in other ways; it will not be our fault; we shall do our best to operate it.
  For these reasons, I cannot accept this Amendment. I do not think the noble Viscount really expected me to: he did not move it in that sense, but he asked for a timetable of some sort. I can only say that it is too soon to give any promise of that sort, because a great deal of this work can be done only when the Bill has assumed its final form. What has happened previously has been an informal matter, as always occurs in this kind of case. That is the position. May I suggest, with great respect, that if anybody wants to know how things are going on, the best way to find out is to put down a Question later on, when we have

  1125
  had time to get started properly on this business.
  THE EARL OF KINNOULL: May I ask the noble Lord one question? I believe that many people are worried that under this Bill, in order to enforce rentals they have to be registered. The question that many people ask is this: where a landlord and tenant agree amicably on a rent and then the tenant goes back on his word, is the landlord able to recover the rent he originally agreed by contract or has he to wait for that rent to be registered?
  LORD MITCHISON: I am not quite sure that I have the point correctly, but I will try to answer it, and the noble Earl will tell me if I have not understood him. First of all, there is nothing in this Bill to prevent a landlord and tenant from agreeing a rent, and there is no need for them to register that rent when it is agreed. But either of them may protest against a rent, even a rent which has previously been agreed, and seek the conciliatory services of the rent officer and, finally, a determination of the rent assessment committee. That, I suggest, is only right; because, after all, a rent agreed at one time may not necessarily be a fair rent a year or two later, and there must be some rights of that sort. I think the suggestion was that once the parties had agreed a rent the sanctity of contract obliged them to keep to it. My short answer to that is, "Not in these short tenancies". No doubt the matter is different where you are considering a long lease and the rent has been agreed; and you may find that a ground rent under a long lease has become something which under modern conditions does not represent the bargain but goes back in history. But in the cases which we are dealing with here, surely sanctity of contract does not oblige the parties to turn into a perpetual contract what was intended to be only a short-term matter.
  LORD NEWTON: I think everyone accepts that the preparation of the machinery is going to take some time. We are not asking the Government to do any more than they say they can do themselves. We suggested a period of nine months because, having read very carefully what the Minister said in another place, this seemed to be what the
  1126
  Minister thought he could do comparatively easily. We thought it advisable to write into the Bill the Minister's intentions as we understood them to be. The noble Lord shakes his head, but that is the reason why my noble friend and I put this Amendment down.
  As regards the sting in the tail, that is to say the second part of the Amendment, the reason for that was simply this: that when a somewhat similar Amendment was moved in another place, although making the time limit shorter, one of the reasons why it was resisted by the Parliamentary Secretary was that it left somewhat uncertain what would happen afterwards in a registration area if the machinery had not been set up. That is a fair point, and I should have thought we had met that point pretty effectively in this Amendment.
  I have not the slightest doubt, nor do I think anyone has, that the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, and other spokesmen for the Government meant exactly what they said, and they have said many times that they want to get the machinery of this Bill in operation as soon as possible. The point is this: that Acts of Parliament are timeless until such time as they are repealed or amended, and Ministers are not; nor are Governments. This is one reason why we thought it ought to be written into the Bill.
  The other one is simply this: that the rent freeze which is inevitable until the machinery for the registration of rents comes into operation may cause equal hardship to tenants in the one case and to landlords in the other. Everybody will want the machinery for the fixing of fair rents and the registration thereof set up and found to be working as quickly as possible in areas where rents are too high—of course they will. But because the scope of this Bill covers the whole country, inevitably it covers, and will cover, areas in which there is no great shortage of houses to let and therefore where there is no great hardship.
  Will there not perhaps be pressure put upon the Government not to bring Part II of the Act into operation in areas where there is no scarcity and where rents are not too high? There is the subtle point of Clauses 11 and 12. As we know, Clause 12 provides the machinery by

  1127
  which properties can be taken out of control altogether. We also know that this particular clause was strongly opposed by the noble Lord's own Party in another place. But the subtlety is this: that you cannot take the present controlled rents (that is to say, rents controlled under the 1957 Act) out of control except by passing, first of all, through the stage of regulation; and you cannot have regulated rents until the machinery has been set up for fixing fair rents and for registering the rents. If the Government could be persuaded to delay the setting-up of the machinery in certain areas where rents are not high, that would be a fairly effective way of stopping the decontrol of those properties which are at present controlled under the 1957 Act. Those are the sort of things we had in mind in putting down this Amendment.
  LORD MITCHISON: I think the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has made out quite a strong case for something of this sort if we had had a Tory Government, but that is all.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am bound to confess that the noble Lord does not miss his chances. I hope that there is no thought in the minds of noble Lords opposite that the forecast that was made by the right honourable gentleman in another place is in any way likely to prove inaccurate. I do not remember the noble Lord saying anything on this particular point. Is there any indication at the moment that this time limit is not going to be practically possible? I shall be glad to hear.
  LORD MITCHISON: I do not know what the noble Viscount thinks he heard. I am much obliged to him for giving way. I said nothing about it because it did not seem to me to be relevant to this Amendment, and nobody appears to wish to dispute it. I really must ask him to accept that my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, with all the resources of his Department, knows a great deal more about this than I do, and possibly even more than does the noble Viscount.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think that is more than probable. On the other hand, I should have assumed that somebody from the right honourable
  1128
  gentleman's Department might have spoken to the noble Lord before he came to your Lordships' House this evening.
  LORD MITCHISON: Not on this matter.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am sorry to hear that. I think that the noble Lord has given us the hint. We will have an arrangement by which each county is represented upon your Lordships' Order Paper, with questions right the way through in October, November, December, January, and February next year to see how, in each county, county borough, in Scotland, in Wales, and in England the rent control regulations are getting on. I hope the noble Lord will be able to give us a very satisfactory answer to each of them. I beg leave to withdrawn my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 20 agreed to.
  Clause 21:
  Registration areas and rent officers in England and Wales
  21.—
  (3) A scheme under this section—

  (a) shall provide for the payment by the local authority to rent officers and deputy rent officers of remuneration and allowances in accordance with scales approved by the Treasury:

  9.32 p.m.
  LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved, in subsection (3), to insert as a new paragraph:
  "() shall require that persons appointed as rent officers or deputy rent officers shall have experience of property management or of property valuation;"
  The noble Lord said: In his Second Reading speech the Minister described the functions which he hoped would be discharged by the rent officers. He referred to them as being a very important part of the machinery. He obviously hoped that very frequently the advice which they gave when acting as conciliators would avoid the matter being taken to the Tribunals. He said:
  "That is why I want to emphasise that rent officers need not be qualified surveyors or qualified lawyers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), Vol. 710 (No. 92). col. 49; April 5, 1965.]

  1129
  That I wholly accept. But when he was pressed as to what kind of people he wanted to appoint, he said that he would be discussing with the clerks of the county councils and towns how to select them. He said that the kind of people that he had in mind were [col. 50]:
  "People who had been housing managers, for example, or public health inspectors. There are, fortunately, a great many people to-day with a wide knowledge and understanding of these things."
  What we are anxious about is that these rent officers shall not be partial people. Let us be frank about it. In another place the Minister was much criticised by some of his Left-Wing friends who considered that his proposals for increased rent, and so on, which he said were necessary to cope with increasing costs of repairs, went too far. When he was dealing with the clause about increases and fair rents, and providing for steps of only 15 per cent. per annum, there were those on his side who said that 15 per cent. was quite enough for all—in other words, not 15 per cent. per annum, but 15 per cent., once and for all.
  It is of the utmost importance that we should have some assurance from the Government that the rent officers are not going to be people with a strong prejudice against landlords, that they will not be people who do not recognise that a fair rent involves taking into consideration the cost of building new houses and of repairing old ones. It is because we feel it important that we should have some assurance of that kind that I have put down this Amendment that these officers should have some experience of property management or of property valuation. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 14, line 15, at end insert the said paragraph. —(Lord Molson.)
  LORD HAWKE: I heartily support this Amendment, but in so doing I suggest to Her Majesty's Government that they may have to alter the usual attitude of the Civil Service towards the employment of part-time people in this business. The attitude of the whole-time Civil Service is, on the whole, against the employment in Government service of part-time employees, but in order to obtain people with the necessary qualifications and ex
  1130
  perience I think it will almost be certain that Her Majesty's Government will have to go to people who are semi-retired. There are a great many people who are semi-retired, and who are perfectly capable of doing light work in a skill of which they have considerable experience, but who are not really capable of a full-time slogging job of the 9 to 5 character. From the point of view of national resources, I think it is a great pity that in this country so little use is made of people of that nature, largely stemming from the prejudice of the professional civil servant against using part-time employees. With that proviso, I give the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Molson my hearty support.
  LORD CHAMPION: The Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, is of course one of very great importance. We do want to be fair to the landlords, which is the point he made, but of course we also have to be fair to the tenants. Both of them are entitled to our consideration in this connection. We recognise that it is vital that the rent officer, whose job it will be to assess the rent of a particular property, shall be a man of standing and a man who can really do the job in such a way as to meet the necessity for fairness as between landlord and tenant. As paragraph 8 of Schedule 3 says, he is required to determine a fair rent for a dwelling that in some cases does not yet even exist.
  The noble Lord has to some extent argued—and this has certainly been argued by others—that the less rigid the fair rent formula is under Clause 26 of this Bill, the more necessary it is that the rent officer should be an expert in this field of property valuation. It has also been argued—I think it was argued by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on Second Reading—and I regard this as being of some importance, that inexpert valuations may cause the system to break down under appeal. It was also argued (and I hope your Lordships do not mind if I answer some of these points at this stage) that if the rent officer is not really expert in this field, he will be "easy meat" for the lawyers and other experts who will want to argue cases before him.
  Before I go on to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, I should like to assure the noble Lord, Lord Hawke,

  1131
  that it is the Minister's intention to use part-time people in some of these matters. The Minister has said it, and I am sure that he will do it. I am also sure he recognises that there are a number of people with the necessary knowledge who have, perhaps, left local government employment, but could give only part-time service to the job. I am fairly sure that he will want to use those people in this scheme, and that he will have this point ever in mind in discussing schemes with the local government authorities, which of course he has to do.
  The noble Lord, Lord Molson, has of course given to the Committee some weighty arguments. I recognise that he is knowledgeable in this field of valuation, local government, et cetera. But, on the other hand, of course, we have the very weighty and knowledgeable testimony of the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Brighton, who on Second Reading said:
  "But I believe—and I say that the tribunals for furnished house rentals show—that if you get sensible people who know the neighbourhood, who know something of the value of properties, you get just as good valuation as would be obtained if you took up the impossible position of asking for experts who are not available because there is too much demand for them at the moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 267 (No. 99), col. 1499, July 8, 1965.]
  I think my noble friend Lord Cohen of Brighton was on two sound points there. The first is that the furnished houses rent tribunals set up under the Act of 1946 have, for all the years that have passed since then, been doing a similar job without much complaint, or with very little complaint. Indeed, I must admit that I have heard of very few. Few of the members of those tribunals were in fact valuers. The lawyers who presided were not expected necessarily to have a special knowledge of valuation, and they were given no complicated formula to which to work. They just had to fix reasonable rents. My noble friend also said that experts were in very short supply. If they are in fact in very short supply, the effect of this Amendment, if it were incorporated into the Bill, might well be to delay, perhaps for a long time, the bringing into operation of Part II of the Bill. For, without the rent officers, upon which so much depends, how is the Minister in fact going to give us the early operation, or the operation
  1132
  at all, of that part of the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Molson, himself described as "courageous"?
  This is important. Unless the Minister can get these schemes working, it is going to do precisely what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and others talked about on the last Amendment; it is going to delay it for a long time. We do not want this. We want this scheme to be working as quickly as possible, first of all to deal with the rents that will now be controlled under this Bill but which were decontrolled under the 1957 Act; and, secondly, in fairness to the landlords, we want the scheme to be ready to work for those houses that are still controlled because they remained controlled after the 1957 Act. If we cannot find the people to do this job—sensible people, such as the Minister talked about on Committee stage and on Second Reading in the other place—then this scheme will be delayed. And if we are going to say that they must have a professional qualification, this is going to make it very much more difficult.
  LORD MOLSON: If the noble Lord will allow me to interrupt him, I was careful not to say "a professional qualification" when I moved this Amendment. I did not want to ask the Minister to go back on exactly what he had said. I said "of some experience"; and, of course, what I had in mind was the kind of housing manager to whom he referred as the kind of person he would like to appoint. But I did want to make it certain that there would not be any partisans (if I may use that expression), without any knowledge of valuation or of house management.
  LORD CHAMPION: I am sure that the Minister will be with the noble Lord in so far as it is possible to obtain those people, in so far as they are available to him. He will not want people who are partisan. I am sure of this, because he has introduced this. If we had wanted to be very partisan about this, we should have stuck rigidly to the conditions which applied before the 1957 Act and we should have stuck rigidly to the old system of rent control. I should have thought that wrong in the circumstances, because I agree with the noble Lord that something had to be done—and this, we think, is the way to do it.

  1133
  But then, of course, there is the other point that, against the decisions of the rent officers, there is always the right of appeal to the assessment committees, and the assessment committees will normally consist of a lawyer, a valuer and a lay member. From the results of such appeals and rulings I should think that the rent officer would be able to build up quite quickly a code of everyday practice upon which to base his further advice and his determinations. The Minister of Housing and Local Government has throughout emphasised that he wants to get people of the highest quality to do this work, and that there are many people in local government who know a great deal about housing and its problems, although having no valuers' qualifications, and perhaps no actual experience of valuation or property management, but that, if they are qualified, so much the better.
  What we are seeking to do by this Bill is to ensure a situation which will be just to the landlord and just to the tenant. I am quite sure that my right honourable friend will not deliberately go out of his way, or appear to do so, to select people who would be biased one way or the other. I do not think that he intends to do that. I hope that, with this virtual undertaking that I am giving the Committee, the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
  LORD WOLVERTON: I am rather disappointed at the answers of the noble Lord, Lord Champion. Getting experienced rent officers is the key to the successful working of the Bill. Ascertaining a fair rent is no easy job. I think that some rent officers will have to be part-time, because there is a great shortage of suitable staff in local government departments—in planning, roads, health and so on. Surely the part-time men chosen for this work would be retired housing officers or retired rating officers. They would be experienced. I can see nothing but good in writing into the Bill what the Minister intends; because Ministers come and go, but Acts of Parliament remain on the Statute Book for a number of years. These men should have experience in property management and valuation. One of the most important features of the Bill is that men of high calibre are appointed. I am sure that it is the intention of the Minister to do that, and I see
  1134
  no reason why it should not go into the Bill.
  LORD ILFORD: May I put one point to the noble Lord? The noble Lord spoke more than once of the appeal from the rent officer to the rent assessment committee. May I ask whether it is intended that there should be any further appeal from the rent assessment committees? I cannot find provision for such an appeal, but the Bill is not very straightforward and such a provision may be there and I may have overlooked it. Is it the intention of the Government that there should be some further appeal from the rent assessment committees?
  LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: Perhaps I might venture to deal with the point which has just been raised, although maybe a reply from the Front Bench is required. As I understand it, it was never the intention of this Bill to have an appeal from the rent assessment committee. The appeal referred to was from the rent officer. It is a two-tier structure; not a three-tier one.
  The other point I wish to make is this. I find some difficulty in understanding this point about impartiality. One does not ensure impartiality by insisting on experience as a housing manager or valuer. I should have thought that a retired bank manager, for instance, or a retired sanitary inspector or health inspector, would be just as capable and likely to be as impartial as a man experienced in housing. Surely insistence on experience as a valuer or house manager is also open to objection. It means narrowing the number of people from whom personnel can be drawn to provide the rent officers and man the assessment committees, which I should have thought very undesirable and contrary to the principle put forward by the noble Lord who purported to support the noble Lord, Lord Molson. He was anxious that part-time people of all sorts of occupations should be available, provided they had a suitable background, if not technical qualifications.
  Surely it is most desirable that the Minister should be able to draw his personnel, especially rent officers, from as wide a field as possible. Not only are we liable to make the legislation quite unworkable if it is limited to valuers, who are in short supply, but surely it

  1135
  would be better to use valuers on the assessment committees rather than as rent officers and so put them on a higher rung of the hierarchy. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, I suggest that the object of this Bill would be much better assured by leaving the Minister as wide a latitude as possible in the performance of a task which, from any view, would be a difficult one. If we narrow the field too much, the Minister will be in great difficulty, and it may lead to the very delays which I understand that noble Lords opposite are anxious to avoid.
  LORD ILFORD: As I have been mentioned, may I say that I fully understood the noble Lord to be referring to the appeal from the rent officer to the rent assessment committee. I was asking whether the Government contemplated that there should be any further appeal.
  9.53 p.m.
  LORD CHAMPION: I am grateful to my noble friend for coming to my assistance on this point of who should do this job, which was rightly described by the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, as "quite a job". I also agree with my noble friend that if we write these proposed words into the Bill, it will limit the Minister in the exercise of his discretion. I have tried to give the sincere opinion of the Minister on this matter, and to indicate his desire to be fair and to appoint people with sound common sense. I believe that what is required for the job of fixing a reasonable rent is common sense. There is always the opportunity to appeal to the rent assessment committee.
  I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, was not referring to an appeal from the rent officer to the assessment committee, but was asking whether there would be the right of a further appeal from the assessment committee to another body. The answer is, "No; except on a point of law." If a point of law arose, there would be the possibility of an appeal from the decision of the assessment committee, but not on the decision taken by the committee on the facts and the fixing of the rent. The committee will be the final tribunal. The intention ' is that people will not be able to set off a long trail of appeals to higher courts, until eventually they come to this House or
  1136
  somewhere else. The intention is that people should exercise their common sense about this sort of thing, in the same way as I tried to do when on a National Assistance Tribunal and appeals came to me from officers who used to work in the noble Lord's former Department. We used good common sense, and I hope that the rent assessment committees will do precisely that.
  LORD MOLSON: When I put down this Amendment, I had three points in mind. First, I was not asking the Government to go back upon what the Minister had said in another place, that he did not propose to restrict these appointments to professionals. Secondly, I wanted an assurance that it was the Government's intention that these rent officers should be fair and impartial, and should hold the balance evenly between the landlord and tenant. And, thirdly, I wanted to draw attention to the difficulty that a mere layman has in arriving at a fair rent.
  There are a number of different considerations that have to be taken into account, and a person who has had no experience in that role will find it extremely difficult to do it. That is my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, with most of whose speech I entirely agree. I think that there is a great deal to be said for not binding the hands of the Minister, provided that we have an assurance from the Government that it is intended that these rent officers shall be impartial. We have had it in words explicitly from the noble Lord, Lord Champion, which I think go somewhat further than anything that was said in another place. I am glad to know also that it is the intention, when there are people otherwise suitable, to appoint persons with experience of local government and so on, who have some knowledge of valuation. In view of the assurance that has been given by the Government, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD CHAMPION: It seems to me that this might be a convenient moment to break off this Committee stage. I think that 10 o'clock was fixed. We shall have to sit again in Committee on Thursday, when I am afraid, if necessary, we shall

  1137
  have to continue fairly late. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
  Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Lord Champion.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.

REDUNDANCY PAYMENTS BILL
9.58 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time. It is a Bill which I take great satisfaction in moving. I think it is a measure which is generally supported. It should help to improve the climate of our industrial relations and will, I believe, make an important contribution towards the solution of some pressing economic problems with which we are faced at this time of scarce manpower and rapid technological change.
The Bill gives employees a legal right to compensation when they become redundant. This is the heart of it. And the compensation payable reflects the worker's earnings, age, and service with his employer. These basic principles have now come to be accepted as right by a wide section of opinion—in industry, in the Press and in Parliament. The main scheme of the Bill is acceptable to both the Trades Union Congress and the British Employers' Confederation. The provisions it contains are the outcome of long and careful consultations, which were in fact begun, through the Minister of Labour's National Joint Advisory Council, by the previous Government. But this consensus of opinion has come about, on the historical scale, very quickly indeed. Ten years ago it was only the exceptional employer who made financial provision for redundancy, at any rate in the case of his manual workers. It has, of course, been common practice for rather longer, in the form of the "golden handshake", for redundancies among managerial and executive staff. In this respect the Bill achieves a form of "levelling up" and helps to remove some of the disparity of treatment which still exists in industry to-day as between staff employees and the shop floor.
1138
I suggest this change of opinion has come about because though we have been able to achieve full employment, the problem of redundancy has remained with us and is likely to remain with us for the future. Since the war, large and important sectors of industry have undergone drastic reorganisation or have contracted overall as others have expanded and grown. It has happened in new industries as well as old—in aircraft as well as in cotton textiles, railways and the coal mines—and large-scale redundancy has been the result. We cannot expect that this will be a temporary phenomenon, because our economy—in these days of rapid advance in science and technology, and their application to industry—can only prosper by ready acceptance of change.
We have long ago laid the foundations on which we provide for the hardships of unemployment. But redundancy is a hazard that remains with us whether or not national unemployment is high. Hence, I think, the very proper focusing of attention on it. I think that we in this country are entitled to take some credit for having recognised this problem as one that is specially pressing to-day. This scheme is the first comprehensive statutory arrangement of its kind in a major industrial country. In voluntary provision for redundancy we are still some way behind many of our overseas competitors. Less than one quarter of the working population is covered. But this Bill will bring us abreast—and indeed put us ahead—of practice elsewhere.
The Bill recognises the fact that a worker's need for security in his job increases with his years of service. It also provides proportionately greater compensation for the older worker, whose problems, as confirmed by all recent experience of redundancy, are greater than those of his younger colleagues. It is thus a scheme which, taken by and large, provides the biggest benefits for those who are likely to suffer the biggest disruption of their working lives from redundancy and who will regard the prospect of it with the greatest anxiety. I suggest that this is in every way right. First, it is fair and just, in that those individuals who would otherwise be bearing far more than their share of the cost of economic and industrial change will receive compensation adequate by the more

1139
enlightened standards of to-day. Second, it is good sense and practical economics. These are the people who will feel most resentment and will be most likely to resist the sort of changes in industry which we have to carry through if we are to be competitive. These changes will demand more efficient deployment and use of manpower throughout industry, and the abandonment of restrictive working practices which have outlived their usefulness. This is a big challenge to industry which poses substantial human problems. We think it is one which the Bill can help us to meet.
My Lords, while we regard this Bill as important in itself, I would emphasise that it has always been conceived as one element in a wider programme. The Government have never believed that the problems of redundancy and change can be solved by one measure alone. Many others are in hand. We are carrying out a large-scale review of the National Insurance Scheme, including the problem of earnings-related unemployment benefit. This, too, will have an important part to play in influencing attitudes to redundancy. The object would be to mitigate the drastic fall in income which most workers now face if they become unemployed. But changes in unemployment benefit are not enough in themselves. In the Government's view, compensation for redundancy is an essential complement which is justified on its own merits. Changes in unemployment benefit, for instance, will not affect the position of redundant workers who go straight into another job without intervening unemployment. But such workers may still suffer substantial loss of security—reduced rights to fringe benefits, loss of seniority and perhaps future earnings, i and the knowledge that they may be first in the queue for the next redundancy.
We think action is needed both on un-employment benefit and on redundancy compensation. We have, however, not felt it right to delay the latter until we have completed our examination of the complex problems of unemployment benefit—which cannot be considered in isolation from other elements in the National Insurance Scheme. Our measures to improve and extend industrial training, the substantial increases announced in grants and allowances for
1140
workers moving to other areas, and the better and more up-to-date employment services we plan to provide are further elements of our programme. I would suggest to your Lordships that, seen in this setting, the redundancy scheme of this Bill is a sensible and necessary part of the whole plan. I hope employers and unions will not regard this Bill as doing all that is wanted to cope with redundancy. There will still be as much need as ever for intelligent and humane handling of redundancy which can be just as important—if not more so—than financial compensation. We still need improvements on such matters as consultation in advance with workers and their representatives giving long advance warning and establishing clear principles governing the order of dismissals. These have always been cardinal points of a good redundancy policy.
My Lords, I had prepared a detailed journey of explanation through the major clauses of the Bill. However, in view of the time, I do not propose to use this unless pressed to do so. I have my notes here, and should there be any particular point any of your Lordships wish to raise, I shall be only too happy to deal with it. This is a complex and important measure, and one to which the Government have given the high priority they feel it deserves. Although there is a considerable administrative machine to be set up, and a substantial amount of subordinate legislation to be passed after it is enacted, we hope that the scheme can be operating before the end of the year. We accept the need to see that before then it is properly publicised and that industry is given proper guidance on the interpretation of the many detailed provisions of the Bill. But we believe that the scheme is in general well-conceived and will be favourably received. I commend the Bill to your Lordships as a major addition to the body of our social and industrial legislation. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Lindgren.)
10.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT FALKLAND: My Lords, although the hour is late, I should like to take up a very few minutes of your Lordships' time. I cannot declare any vested interest in this Bill, but I live on the edge of an important industrial neighbourhood, important particularly from

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the export point of view. I have heard this Bill discussed outside this House by so many people that, in spite of my inexperience, I have decided to risk saying a few words on it, and as this is only the second time that I have spoken in your Lordships' House I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, will be lenient with me in his reply if I make heavy weather of what I want to say.
I am sure we all agree that the principle behind redundancy payments, to minimise the hardships owing to loss of employment, is just and fair, and I find it disappointing that I cannot entirely support the Bill because of what I think are certain defects in detail. There seem to be three aspects to these redundancy payments: first, compensatory payments in respect of long service and the expectations that arise from it; secondly, payments for the immediate financial loss that may arise from a period of unemployment, and, finally, possible expense incurred through a residential change to a district with improved employment prospects. Surely, taking the last two points, these could be compensatory and strictly related to the loss involved, since remaining in an area of less opportunity would be likely to incur a longer period of unemployment, whereas moving to an area of higher labour demand would incur the cost of disturbance but early re-employment. If I am right here, compensation on redundancy requires calculation, not only on the basis of length of service, but additionally on a payment for loss of employment after the required service period, irrespective of the total length of service.
Having, I hope, established this point, I would go further and suggest that the payment for loss of employment and the immediate expenses arising therefrom should be withheld if in fact no financial loss is involved. It does not follow that a worker who is made redundant is necessarily in an area of low employment, or that to obtain employment he must move to another area—and if part of the redundancy payment is to cover these specific factors it must surely be restricted to the cases where these factors apply. We are told that one of the main purposes for which this Bill is designed is to increase the mobility of labour and so increase the utilisation of the limited manpower at our disposal. I cannot see
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that payment of a sum designed to encourage movement of labour will do so if it is paid whether or not movement takes place. Indeed, I strongly suspect that, with the unrestricted payment of a lump sum, it is human nature to extract the greatest immediate personal benefit by avoiding the expense of movement, in which case mobility of labour is discouraged by this Bill rather than encouraged. Therefore I feel strongly, in the circumstances which I have briefly outlined, that there is every justification for partial exclusion from the redundancy payment, whereas Clause 2 of the Bill as it now stands admits total exclusions only.
Another aspect of the Bill—and to me the most worrying feature—is what can be termed the legalisation of strikes of any kind by Amendment of the Contracts of Employment Act 1963. I use the word "legalisation" intentionally, because the only interpretation that the public can place on Clause 37 of the Bill is that the Government endorse, and indeed support, strikes. The Minister of Labour has suggested in justification of Clause 37 that the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations will include the question of strikes in their investigations, and that he would hesitate to lay before the House any proposals for fresh legislation to deal with any aspect of the problem of strikes in advance of the Royal Commission's Report. Surely, therefore, the Amendment to the Contracts of Employment Act 1963 should also be deferred until the Royal Commission's Report, which will at least help to discourage irresponsible action during this interim period.
I have personal knowledge of strike action in the industry centred near my home, where only last year it appeared obvious to me that a minority of workers ignored the advice of their trade union and employer and took unofficial strike action, in direct breach of their contracts and with complete indifference to the financial loss to their employers, colleagues and, indeed, the national economy. Yet, under this Bill they would receive almost equal compensation with others in industry who remained loyal to their employer and trade union, had redundancy resulted from their irresponsible attitude. Indeed, the distinction is so slight as to be virtually non-existent. It

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is a strange paradox that proposed legislation designed to improve the industrial relations position in industry in this country as a whole should include within its provisions encouraging features to those few who have anything but the improvement of such relations at heart, and I can only hope that as the Bill passes through the Committee stage of this House the fullest possible regard will be paid to this point.
10.15 p.m.
LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, I wonder if I might intervene, even at this late hour, to make just one or two remarks about this Bill. First of all, we employers are grateful to the Government for the very great care with which the Minister of Labour has discussed the details of this measure with the representatives of the employers and the trade unions, and from that point of view I think the Bill is to be welcomed, although there are a number of things in it I would rather have altered. Having said that, I still have strong objection to the way this Bill has come ahead of the other Bill about which the Minister spoke.
The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, referred to the unemployment insurance reorganisation, and I am one who regards that as of much more importance than redundancy. I believe that to improve unemployment pay in the first few months of unemployment, to introduce some form of earnings rate of unemployment pay, is of much more value to the man who loses his job and is unfortunate enough not to fall into another one straight away. The loss of earnings, week after week, is not really covered in cases of this sort by a £100 or £200 redundancy payment. I believe that it would be much more valuable to the man if the order of precedence of bringing in these Bills had been changed, and we had had first the National Insurance Bill. If we had first dealt with this
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unemployment benefit problem we could have had, I believe, a very much simpler and less complicated, and possibly less expensive, redundancy Bill.
I would make one other point which I believe is of great importance. The operation of this Bill is to start on the appointed day. But as soon as the Bill becomes law, and even in advance of the Bill becoming law, those who may become redundant will naturally wish to claim their redundancy monies. They will not understand why they are not legally entitled to redundancy money as soon as the Bill has received the Royal Assent; and much industrial unrest will ensue if they cannot get it and there is long delay. The employer, however, cannot be expected to pay out the redundancy money stipulated in this Bill until he is able to claim back his dues from the levy and the fund, partly to recompense him for the monies paid out.
So I would strongly urge, in the cause of industrial peace, that the appointed day should be at the first opportunity, within a very few weeks of the passing of the Bill. The noble Lord mentioned that he hoped it would be by the end of the year. I hope that he manages that, and improves on it, because I believe that much of the good will that this Bill is designed to engender may disappear if we have some increase in unemployment in the autumn, more redundancy than we have seen in the past, and yet these men cannot claim the redundancy pay which would otherwise be due to them because the appointed day had not been fixed. I am glad to see that in Clause 35 powers are being taken to borrow money to set up the fund in advance of the collection of the 5d. stamp. Really nothing stands in the way except the setting up of the machinery before this Bill, when it becomes an Act, can get into operation. I hope, therefore, that there will be no delay in setting the appointed day and getting the whole scheme started.
10.20 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, before I deal with the Bill I should like to say this. Last Wednesday, during a debate on industrial disputes, I made an intervention when the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was speaking, and I stated that Maurice Edelman was not a trade unionist. I have known Maurice Edelman for years. When I made this statement I did not know that he had been a member of the National Union of Journalists for over twenty years. In fairness to Mr. Edelman, I should like to take this first opportunity of unreservedly withdrawing my statement.
I support this Bill, because it gives employees the legal right to compensation when they become redundant, and the compensation reflects the worker's earnings, age and service with his employers. This is a great step forward, because in my time I have seen men who have served their employers for over fifty years thrown on the scrapheap with nothing but their unemployment pay to live on. There was no reward for service then. This was after they had given many years of service to their employer. I think it is fair to say that redundancy payments have now become accepted as a right by a substantial part of the community, and this policy is accepted by the T.U.C. and the employers. A few years ago it was only the exceptional employer who gave any financial assistance for redundancy to the manual worker; and I believe it was only the fact that in recent years there have been golden handshakes for redundancy among managerial and executive staffs that has created the climate for bringing in this Bill. At least this Bill achieves a recognition for the redundant worker and helps to remove the disparity of treatment which still exists in industries to-day between staff and employer.
Redundancy has been with us, and is likely to remain with us in the foreseeable future. My own industry, mining, since 1950 has contracted, and this is likely to continue. The same applies to railways and also to the cotton industry. Long ago the nation laid down the foundations upon which we provide for the hardships of unemployment. But redundancy is a problem that always remains with us, whether unemployment is high or is low.
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The country and the Government are therefore entitled to take great credit for having recognised the problem as one that is specially pressing. This Bill, to my knowledge, is the first comprehensive statutory arrangement of its kind in a major industrial country. In our voluntary schemes less than one-quarter of our working population is covered, and this Bill will bring us abreast, if not ahead, of many countries in the world.
A pleasing feature of the Bill recognises that a worker's security in his job increases with his years of service. As the Minister has said, it provides greater compensation for the older worker whose problems, especially if he is over 55 years of age, are greater than those of a younger man. The scheme embodied in the Bill is one which provides the biggest benefits for those who are likely to suffer the biggest disruption in their lives from redundancy, and who regard the prospect of redundancy with great worry. It is also right that those workers who will bear more than their share of the cost of economic and industrial changes will receive compensation for their loss of employment. It will help to take away the great anger that men feel, the men who would be most likely to resist the sort of changes which are needed in these days of automation if something is not done.
I hope that we can regard this Bill as one part of a greater programme. I believe that a large-scale review of the National Insurance Scheme is now in process, including the problem of unemployment benefit related to earnings. This would also play an important part in improving the attitude of men to redundancy. The great objective at which the Government should aim is to mitigate the large fall in income which workers face if they become unemployed. Again, changes in unemployment benefit will not affect the position of redundant workers who go straight to another job without any intervening unemployment, but even these workers can suffer substantial loss of security, reduced rights as to their fringe benefits and loss of seniority in earnings, with the possible knowledge that they will be the first in the queue in the next redundancy, because in many industries it is "Last come, first go". Whilst the Government know that action is needed on both unemployment benefit and redundancy compensation, I think

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that they are entirely right to bring forward this Bill rather than to wait for the completion of the complex problem of unemployment benefit, which cannot be considered in isolation from the other elements in our National Insurance Scheme.
I should like to deal with only one clause in the Bill before I conclude. Clause 11 of the Bill allows the Minister to exempt employers and trade unions who conclude agreements which provide for an alternative system of payments. There is a redundancy scheme in the mining industry and in other industries as well. It will be possible that some industries can pay more than that embodied in the Bill, and it is right that this flexibility should exist. I cannot see a Minister agreeing to any scheme which provides less than that which is contained in the Bill.
I note also that disputes are to be referred to tribunals consisting of a legally qualified chairman with employers and workers represented, and that they will also adjudicate on appeals against assessment to levy under the Industrial Training Act. These tribunals are like the Court of Referees under the Insurance Acts. Could I be told if the applicants to the tribunal under this Bill will have leave to appeal to an umpire, such as exists in the other tribunals under the Insurance Acts? It will be recognised that considerable experience will have to be gained, as this is an entirely new field and we ought to watch it with great interest.
I also hope that the Government will see that the scheme is widely publicised and that industry is given proper guidance on the interpretation of many of the detailed provisions of the Bill. I support the Bill as a measure long overdue to those who serve our industries and who, when redundancy becomes their lot, are not, as in the past, to be thrown on the scrap heap with no recognition at all.
10.30 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, for the graceful way in which he introduced this Bill. I am sure that we all excuse him for not having gone into the detail, clause by clause; the more so as on this occasion
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the Explanatory Memorandum is pretty full and noble Lords will have read that in detail, even if they have not been able to study what the noble Lord rightly described as a complex measure with the complete attention that is required to understand it. The noble Lord also described this as an important measure, and I noted that in another place the Minister described it as "a landmark of first importance in our industrial policy." May I make a somewhat carping observation to start with, and say that this is perhaps an odd time of night to discuss landmarks, and I do not think that it is the choice of any of us in this House that we should have to discuss this matter for the first time now.
The subject of redundancy payments has been under consideration for some time, and there has undoubtedly been growing acceptance over a period of time of the principle. Undoubtedly, everyone will agree that if, in the interests of economic progress, a man has to lose a job, which he may have held for many years, he should receive special consideration. But the acceptance of that principle does not absolve us from examining this scheme and the application of that principle. It has been argued, and it can be argued, that the question of what financial arrangements should be made in such circumstances can best be left to negotiation. This is a matter that has been pioneered by negotiation, both in private enterprise and in the public corporations, and, as so often happens, that has led to a national scheme. We accept the principle of a national scheme, and we believe that it could, and we hope that it will, improve industrial relations and help to change attitudes for the better in the course of time.
So, too, of course, would other reforms, and the first thing to consider is a point that has been referred to by several of your Lordships: which has the higher priority, in terms of social and economic betterment? I accept entirely that this Bill is part of a general plan and will fit into the developing social and economic programme, but we have to consider which should come first. We have to consider the question: will hardship be reduced more by redundancy payments or by the introduction of wage-related unemployment and sickness benefit? Will the need for mobility and

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economy in the use of manpower be accepted more readily by employees, when they have been in the service of the same employer for years or for weeks, if they are assured of unemployment benefit related to their current wage for so long as they remain unemployed, or if they receive a lump sum indemnity related to their length of service and their current wage?
We think that wage-related unemployment and sickness benefits are more important than redundancy payments, both to relieve hardship during the transition between one job and another, and to promote acceptance of the need for economy in the use of manpower. We should therefore have preferred to see wage-related benefits introduced before redundancy payments. That is not to say that we oppose redundancy payments—far from it. My noble friend Lord Blakenham worked very hard for their introduction, and he and my right honourable friend Mr. Godber deserve much of the credit for the whole conception of a national scheme for redundancy payments, the application of which it has fallen to the present Government to work out.
But, my Lords, it is not enough just to approve the idea of redundancy payments. Here a new statutory right is being created, and Parliament has a duty to consider what kind of scheme would be the fairest between one redundant employee and another; what kind of scheme would contribute most to social and economic betterment; and what would be the best way to pay for it. In another place, the Minister said that the purpose was to compensate the worker for loss of a job—and, of course, in some measure this is true: to compensate a worker for loss of a job through no act or omission of his own. But some of your Lordships have already questioned whether this is really compensation. As my noble friend Lord Falkland said, compensation is related to loss or damage actually sustained. The noble Lord, Lord Blyton, in, if I may say so, an extremely delightful speech, made it clear that loss and damage are involved, especially to those who have been employed for a very long time—loss of security; loss of seniority, as the noble Lord said; loss of pension rights; and the possibility that, having lost his job
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this time, he will lose it again because he has not been in the next one very long.
All the same, this is a scheme especially for a payment to be made in the event of redundancy, or what might be called constructive redundancy; a payment of the nature of insurance. This payment is not related in any way to the actual loss or damage sustained, in the sense that where there are two men in identical jobs who lose their jobs at the same time they may not have the same experience. One may get a new job right away; the other may be unemployed for a long time. One may have to move to another town, or even another country, whereas the other may get a job in his own town. One may get a job in his own trade, while the other may have to submit to a period of re-training. There is a strong contrast here which I think illustrates that this is not compensation, in the true sense of being related strictly to loss or damage suffered. It seems to me that, in essence, it is a mutual insurance policy, coupled with an element of deferred wages payable in the event of redundancy; payment of benefit on the occurrence of the event insured against—that is, redundancy—being supplemented by a smaller payment on the part of the employer. In fact, of course, the employer pays the lot and the mutual fund reimburses him in part, if I understand the situation correctly.
My Lords, is it right—and this is another point which I think my noble friend Lord Falkland put—that the employer should in all circumstances have to pay part? In some cases he can afford it: where, for example, greater production is to be achieved by fewer employees and at less cost. In others, he manifestly cannot: for instance, where, because of loss of demand or markets, he is forced to close down a part or the whole of his enterprise. He is asked to find the whole of these payments in the first place. He is reimbursed in part later, but he is asked to find the whole of these payments in the first place, at a time, it may be, of great financial stringency himself, and possibly at a time when he is verging on bankruptcy.
Ought not a distinction to be made between planned or voluntary dismissals and those which are forced on an

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employer? If the noble Lord says that it is impossible to make such a distinction, I would ask: why should the redundancy payments not fall wholly on the fund? I agree that there is something to be said, from the point of view of employer/employee relations, for the employer's making the payment. I think it can help in employer/employee relations. I also agree that it is probably more convenient and practical for him to make it at the same time as he pays off his employee. But surely it would not be impossible for the fund to pay direct, especially now that, under the Contracts of Employment Act, the period of notice is longer, which would give the fund more time to "get set to pay."
I turn from that to another aspect. It has been said that redundancy payments will reduce opposition to change and facilitate mobility of labour. That, of course, should benefit the community as a whole. That being so, why should not the community pay part, at least, of the premiums? Under the Bill there is not even to be the statutory contribution of one-quarter of the joint employer/employee contributions which the Exchequer pays to the National Insurance Fund; although, in fact, the contribution is being added to the National Insurance stamp.
These are all matters which we shall not be able to debate on Committee because, by giving the Bill a Second Reading, we shall have decided the broad framework of the Bill; but these are important matters and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to answer—
LORD LINDGREN: Not at this hour!
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is an important Bill. It is described as a landmark. Surely we ought to have answers on matters of this importance.
LORD LINDGREN: You will not get them tonight.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord says we will not get them. We have had a long debate today; but, all the same, the noble Lord and I have debated matters far into the night on past occasions, and I do not see—
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, with respect, I must point out that the noble Lord's colleagues hardly attach the same importance to this great issue as he does himself.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sure that the country attaches importance to it, and I think it wise that we should do so, too. There are important matters which we shall have to raise on Committee. I am just going to refer briefly to these to give the noble Lord some warning about them. For example, there is Clause 2 which seems to me to make it impossible for an employer to sack a man for misconduct, except on the spot. If he gives him notice, he is liable in every case to have to prove to the tribunal that the man's dismissal was not on account of redundancy. Then, secondly there is the point of whether a strike in breach of contract should or should not be treated as a break in the continuity of employment for the purposes of both this Bill and the Contracts of Employment Act. There is a third point which the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, mentioned, the question of the appeal from the tribunals.
While we fully support the principle of a national scheme for redundancy payments, and, indeed, we ourselves started the preparatory work and carried it a long way, we regret that the Government have given it priority over wage-related benefits. Landmarks of the first importance should be set with care and circumspection so that they may withstand the ravages of time and tempest. We are sorry that this one is being rushed through your Lordships' House so late in the Session, as well as so late at night, and with so little consideration of how a good principle should be applied in practice. I hope that I have said enough to make it quite clear that we fully support this principle, although we have some doubts about its application, and we have some points to raise on Committee.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I must thank all noble Lords who have spoken this evening, for the support they have given to the Bill. I think most of your Lordships will agree that the points that have been raised are really Committee

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stage points. We can have a full discussion of them in Committee rather than at this late hour tonight. The only substantial point is whether wage-related benefits or the Redundancy Payments Bill should have come first. The noble Lord who has just spoken knows well that one cannot deal in any national insurance scheme with unemployment benefits alone. They are part of a series of benefits which are all related. He also knows that so far as an unemployment insurance scheme is concerned, there is a relationship between the payment of contributions and the benefit received. This scheme will include all workers, and is an additional scheme.
Is the worker who gets the sack the only one who is not to benefit? I have never heard noble Lords opposite say that a director who loses his directorship, or a managing director whose contract is cut short, should not take a "golden handshake". I think that we can deal with all these points during the Committee stage discussions, and I shall be happy to do so at that time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.