Lords Sitting of 4 March 1965

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The Lord CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark

THE LATE SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, K.G.
3.5 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I have to inform the House that I have received, through the Foreign Office, a bound presentation copy of a Resolution adopted by the Greek Parliament on January 25 in tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, together with the text of a speech made by the Speaker in introducing the Resolution.
I propose, with your Lordships' approval, to express on your behalf our warmest thanks to the Speaker of the Greek Parliament for his generous words and for his kind consideration in sending the text of the Resolution, which, with permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
LORD REA: My Lords, it is a little unusual to take notice of this sort of statement. I am sure that the House will very much appreciate having it. I should like to add to it what I am sure we all feel: our great pleasure that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is back with us.
Following is the text of the Resolution referred to:
"The Parliament of the Hellenes, having learned with the deepest sorrow of the death of Winston Churchill, a statesman of genius who in the hour of direst peril led the fight for free institutions and who emerged as the chief contributor to the victory of the free peoples, thus saving those human values which had endured for centuries, on a motion of its Speaker,
Resolves:

1. To express to Sir Winston's family and to the Houses of Parliament its whole-hearted participation in their grievous sorrow,

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2. To fly the flag of Parliament at half-mast to-day and on Saturday, January 30, the day of the Funeral,

3. To adjourn the House in respectful tribute to his glorious memory, and

4. To send the present Resolution to Sir Winston's family and to the British Houses of Parliament.

CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL OPERATING THEATRES
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: 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 consider that the present conditions in the operating theatres at the Charing Cross Hospital are satisfactory.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD TAYLOR): My Lords, there are five operating theatres in this hospital. Two of these form the main theatre suite, which is about sixty years old; there are relatively modern theatres for ear, nose and throat work and minor orthopædic surgery, and an old casualty theatre.
The main theatre suite is now undergoing limited reconstruction, to enable it to be used for as long as the hospital remains on its present site. This work is being done in two phases, and it had been hoped to keep one theatre in full use while the other was being dealt with. Bacteriological tests have shown that it was wiser to close both theatres, so far as major surgery was concerned, and this has been done.
It is hoped that the reconstruction will be completed in about nine weeks. The alterations will provide a new five-bedded recovery room, improved surgeons' and nurses' changing rooms and improved sterilising facilities.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord very much for his full reply, may I ask whether he is aware of the deep concern felt over the lack of progress in the building of the new hospital at

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Fulham? Will the noble Lord undertake to urge the Ministry to complete this project with the utmost energy and zeal.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the delay in building the new hospital at Fulham is, I believe, about eight years—seven and three-quarters of which were not our responsibility but a responsibility of the late Government. It is hoped that the preliminary site works for the main development at Fulham will start in the summer of next year, and to begin phase one proper in 1967; but these works depend on the completion of successful planning.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, is it not true that the delay in the reconstruction of some hospitals was due to the heavy expenditure of both finance and labour on the building of offices?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, it is, of course, perfectly true that many offices were rebuilt during the past eight years when many hospitals needed to be reconstructed and that if labour and material were used for one they could not be used for the other.
LORD BRECON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord when he thinks they will open the first hospital which was initiated by the present Government?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give an answer to that question, for the simple reason that planning a hospital takes at least from eighteen months to two years.
LORD WADE: My Lords, in view of the widespread concern that has been expressed regarding several hospitals, are the Government prepared to undertake a survey of hospitals in the London area which come under the National Health Service, with particular reference to conditions in operating theatres? May I ask whether such a survey could also cover fire hazards, because I understand that there is a serious fire hazard in the pathology department of the Royal Free Hospital?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am sorry, but I feel that it would be wrong for me to answer questions about other hospitals than the one mentioned on the Order Paper. With regard to a
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general survey, conditions in all the operating theatres throughout the London area are well known to the Regional Hospital Boards and the boards of governors of teaching hospitals. Many of them are old theatres. They are the legacy of many years of neglect before the introduction of the National Health Service, due to impoverishment and, I fear, a failure to reconstruct during the past twelve years.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the large building round the corner in Marsham Street, with the great board up, saying that it is being constructed on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, is to be offices or a hospital?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am afraid that I must have notice of that question.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the noble Lord does not seem to require notice when he answers the noble Lord Lord Henderson, about offices. Cannot he answer the question put by my noble friend?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am perfectly prepared to try to answer a general question, but if I am asked a specific question about a specific site, I really must have notice if I am to give an adequate answer.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the alterations which have been and are being carried out at Charing Cross Hospital operating suite have been designed and approved by the Medical Committee, on which, I am told, surgeons are represented?
LORD TAYLOR: Yes, my Lords; they have.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Charing Cross Hospital is only one of many hospitals about which similar complaints have been made recently; that during recent years hospital management committees have had their estimates trimmed, with the result that many essential works of maintenance have been neglected; and will he have a further look at this aspect of the matter in future?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Health is, in fact, considering this very problem at the present time.
LORD BRECON: My Lords, the noble Lord said that it would take from eighteen months to two years to prepare a plan for a new hospital. Are we to understand that this Government will start opening new hospitals in some two years from now?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the opening of phases of new hospitals will occur as they are completed. Some are now under construction, and the process is a continuing one. With regard to the time of from eighteen months to two years, may I say that that is an optimistic assessment, even if one has experience in dealing with quantity surveyors and architects.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, in view of some of the earlier remarks of the noble Lord, can he say how many hospitals are now under construction?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am afraid that I must have notice of that point. I cannot deal with every general question that is asked.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord; but he raised this question in a general way.

EXPENDITURE ON PICASSO PAINTING
3.13 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they justify, in the present state of the national economy, the spending of £60,000 on the fabrication of Picasso called "The Three Dancers".]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BOWDEN): My Lords, the Trustees of the Tate Gallery have entire discretion concerning the purchase of works of art from the money allocated to them.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that the
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Treasury make a large contribution to these Galleries, should they not keep a more watchful eye on the one or two individuals who, guided solely by their own idiosyncrasies, choose these pictures?
LORD BOWDEN: My Lords, this is obviously a matter that will excite great interest and controversy, but I believe that when the Government have appointed, as they have, eminent and distinguished artists to advise them about the methods of disposing of the funds allocated to them, they can do no other than trust their judgment. The last thing that the Government should attempt is an analysis of the state of the market in works of art. The budget of the Tate Gallery is about £110,000. So far as I am concerned, we can only leave the Trustees to spend it to the best of their discretion, and we shall have to be content with the results they achieve.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he has any knowledge to date as to how many friends of the Tate Gallery have now ceased to be friends?
LORD BOWDEN: My Lords, I should like notice of that question.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend one more question. Would he not agree that if to-day Picasso "doodled", and put his name to the "doodle", it would command a large sum from some pseudo-intellectual snob?
LORD BOWDEN: My Lords, certainly I agree. I have forgotten who it was who described a highbrow as a man who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932
3.15 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, this is one of the usual Orders made under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Order made under the Act by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for extending section one of the Act to the Urban District of Heanor be approved.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROBATION OFFICERS AND CLERKS (SUPERANNUATION) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 1965
3.16 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, I beg to move that the Probation Officers and Clerks (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations, 1965, a draft of which was laid before the House on February 2, be approved. These Regulations are needed because of changes in the organisation of the Probation Service resulting from the Administration of Justice Act, 1964, and other changes brought about by the London Government Act, 1963. Under the existing Regulations of 1954 and 1959, certain probation staff participate in the local government superannuation scheme. Whole-time staff in the county of London are subject to the special local Act superannuation scheme of the London County Council, and as that scheme will not be available after March 31, 1965, it will be necessary to use the scheme which operates for local authority employees and probation staffs generally.
The Regulations therefore provide that from April 1, 1965, whole-time probation staff employed by the new Probation Committee for the Inner London Area shall be subject to the general local government superannuation scheme and participate in the fund of the Greater London Council. This is done by revoking Part III of the 1954 Regulations and the 1959 Regulations, which applied the special scheme of the London County Council, and by amending Part II of the 1954 Regulations to fit the particular circumstances of the Inner London Area. These circumstances are that the expenses of the Probation Committee are met, not by a local authority as is the case elsewhere, but by the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District; and that part-time probation officers in Inner London have never been superannuable. The regulations also provide that probation staff who become employed on April 1, 1965, by the new Outer London Probation Committee shall partici-
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pate in the fund of the Greater London Council.
The Regulations do not seek to protect the individual superannuation rights of staff in post on March 31, 1965, who will be transferred to the Inner and Outer London Committees. This will be done in an Order under Section 35 of the Administration of Justice Act, 1964, to be made by my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary; it will be subject to the Negative Resolution procedure.
The opportunity has been taken to make two minor changes for probation committees generally. Any appeal against a discretionary decision in the superannuation field of a probation committee by the local authority which is defraying the expenses of that committee will in future be determined by my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary instead of my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. This brings the Regulations into line with similar regulations for justices' clerks and places the duty on the Minister who is best placed to discharge it. The other change is an alteration in the formula for calculating the length of service of a whole-time officer who has previously worked part-time.
The Regulations have been drafted in consultation with my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary, the associations representing the local authorities, the Greater London Council, the London County Council, the Central Council of Probation Committees, the National Association of Probation Officers and the National and Local Government Officers' Association. They represent an agreed measure. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Probation Officers and Clerks (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations 1965, laid before the House on February 2 be approved.—(Lord Mitchison.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, these Regulations are clearly necessary, and I am glad to hear that both the employers and the staff have agreed to them.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (MARINERS) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS, 1965
3.20 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, the purpose of these Regulations is to take account of the increase in contribution rates and benefit rates made by the National Insurance Act, 1964. We call these Regulations Mariners Regulations, because "mariner" is the word used in the relevant section of the National Insurance Act, 1964. But the word "mariner" in that section covers many people who are working on board a ship but who are not members of the crew, as for example, ship repair workers and Post Office sorters. The Merchant Shipping Acts use the word "seaman", and this word occurs in the name of the National Union of Seamen. But I understand that the men like to be known as seafarers, and this is the word I shall use to-day to cover masters and members of the crew of a ship.
When a seafarer who is domiciled, or has a place of residence, in this country is employed on board a foreign-going ship, his employer pays the employer's share of the National Insurance contribution at a slightly reduced rate. The justification for this rebate is that the employer has a statutory liability under the Merchant Shipping Acts to continue paying full wages to seafarers who fall ill while they are at sea or meet with any accident which makes them unfit for work. In view of this liability on the employer, the seafarer does not receive sickness benefit until he is put ashore, either in this country or abroad, and his articles of agreement are terminated. Thus, there is a saving to the National Insurance Fund. The rebate from the employer's contribution is at present 10d. a week. These Regulations will increase the rebate to 1s. 1d. a week as from March 29, when contribution rates will be increased under the 1964 Act.
The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance is making these Regulations under her Power to modify the National Insurance Acts in relation to mariners. She does not need to submit the Regulations to the National Insurance Advisory Committee, because she is making them
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under the 1964 Act. But the Regulations have to be laid before Parliament and approved by Resolution of each House. The Regulations follow the pattern of several previous sets of Regulations which have increased the rebate from time to time to take account of increases in contribution rates and benefit rates.
The Regulations apply only to foreign-going ships. It would be inappropriate to apply them to home-trade ships, for if a seafarer falls ill in a home-trade ship he can generally be put ashore for medical treatment within a day or two. If he fell ill in a foreign-going ship, he might receive full wages for a period of several weeks during which he was being carried back as an invalid by the ship in which he had signed articles. Under the old scheme of National Health Insurance, there was a similar rebate, applying only to foreign-going ships. 'Shipowners have never asked for a rebate in respect of home-trade ships.
The regulations apply to radio officers serving on board ships, whether they are employed directly by the shipowner or by a wireless company. So far as possible, the various sets of National Insurance (Mariners) Regulations apply to radio officers in the same way as they apply to other seafarers. But a few-modifications are necessary to take account of the fact that many radio officers are not employees of the shipowner. The Minister has consulted the National Maritime Board which represents both sides of the shipping industry, and the Board has assured her that its members agree with the changes made by the Regulations. I beg to move that the Regulations be approved.
Moved, That the Draft National Insurance (Mariners) Amendment Regulations 1965, laid before the House on 9th February, be approved.—(Lord Bowles.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I simply thank the noble Lord for the very clear exposition that he has given to these Regulations, which I think will commend themselves to the House.
LORD BOWLES: I am grateful to the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord

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what is the objection to the use of the word "mariners", considering that it is in the Title of the Regulations?
LORD BOWLES: I did not object to it, my Lords. The position is that the word "mariner" applies to more people than the master and members of the crew of a ship. As I said, it applies to men on board sorting the mail, and also to people doing repairs to the ship. They are "mariners" under the 1964 Act, but these Regulations do not apply to them. They apply only to masters and members of the crews of ships, including radio officers and so on; they do not apply to postal sorters and other people of that kind.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: I thank the noble Lord.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL
3.25 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. The Bill deals with the establishment of an international system governing civil liability for injury or damage arising from the use of nuclear energy. It is necessary, so that we can amend our law, to enable us to ratify three international Conventions in the field of nuclear energy. The United Kingdom played a leading part in the negotiation of the main Conventions, and it is obviously desirable that we should put ourselves in a position to ratify them at an early date.
It is a short but, as your Lordships will doubtless agree, a complicated Bill. But the Conventions are by no means simple documents, and we are amending a rather complicated Act. Moreover the subject is technical in both the legal and the scientific sense. I will, however, do my best to make the main provisions of the Bill clear. As described in the Title, it amends and extends the Nuclear Installations (Licensing and Insurance) Act, 1959, it would therefore perhaps be helpful if I first explained, briefly, the main pro-
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visions of that Act on liability and compensation. As you will be aware the 1959 Act also imposed safety control by licensing, but this Bill does not amend those provisions significantly.
Atomic energy harnessed to peaceful purposes is a novel and exciting development, but naturally it gives rise to fears in the minds of many people. It has a potential for doing damage in a way not known before, since radiation cannot be detected by the senses, and its effects are often long-delayed. Fortunately, the chances of an accident causing injury or damage are remote. The excellent safety and health record of the atomic energy industry puts this beyond doubt, and indeed no claims have been made at all against any licensee since the Act came into force in 1960.
The 1959 Act made special legal provisions to protect those who might be affected in the unlikely event of an accident. Absolute liability was imposed on operators of nuclear installations, because the potentially dangerous nature of their activities, and the type of damage which could be caused, made it unfair to leave on the plaintiff the burden of proving negligence. Because of the long-delayed effects, the limitation period on claims was extended to 30 years. And in order to ensure that funds would be available to meet claims, compulsory insurance in the sum of £5 million was imposed, and provision was made to deal with the remote contingency that this sum might prove insufficient.
But the Act was not confined to protecting those who might be injured or suffer damage. It was also designed to minimise the financial burden on the industry arising from the peculiar nature of the potential hazard. It therefore provided for all liability arising from a nuclear accident to be channelled to the operator responsible. This ensures that the burden on the industry as a whole of providing insurance cover for the liability is kept to a minimum. These are the main provisions of the 1959 Act which it is the Government's intention to preserve in the present Bill, since the international Conventions are based on these same principles. The 1959 Act, however, dealt with our domestic situation as it was then; and now that the Conventions provide the basis for an international regime this Bill is needed so

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that we can extend and amend our present law.
There are three Conventions which have been signed on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. Two are of regional application and one world-wide, and they are all worthy of support since they will facilitate international exchanges in the peaceful use of atomic energy. At present, nuclear material is moving internationally under some disadvantages which increase costs and inhibit the development of atomic energy. The United Kingdom is an exporter in the nuclear field of know-how, hardware, and nuclear fuel, and plays a leadingrô le in international transport. It is therefore very much in our interest to promote the widest acceptance of the Conventions.
The first Convention in this field was prepared by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation and signed by member States in July, 1960, in Paris. This was followed by the preparation, under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, of the Vienna Convention which was adopted at an international conference in May, 1963. As a result, in Paris, the countries concerned agreed an additional Protocol to the Paris Convention which had the effect of amending it to make it compatible with the Vienna Convention, and identical with it in most respects. This Protocol was signed in January, 1964, and its completion was a very outstanding piece of European co-operation since the amendment of the first Convention in the field, before it was in force, could not be lightly contemplated and could not have been so quickly and successfully completed without the utmost good will of all the parties concerned.
The third Convention is supplementary to the Paris Convention and was signed at Brussels in January, 1963. It provides for burden-sharing between the parties to it in the unlikely event of a nuclear accident of disastrous proportions. As a consequence of the Protocol added to the Paris Convention, a Protocol to the Supplementary was also necessary, and this was signed in Paris in January, 1964. All three Conventions are therefore fully compatible, and, as I have said, the object of the Bill is to put us in a position to ratify them.
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The Conventions have the following four main objects: first, to channel all liability to the operator of the nuclear installation in which the incident happened, or from which or to which nuclear material is sent; secondly, to impose on the operator absolute liability; thirdly, to limit that liability to a prescribed amount which should not be less than £1¾ million per incident; and, fourthly, to ensure that adequate funds are made available to meet this liability, and that they are used exclusively for that purpose. A few exceptions to these principles to cover special cases, mainly in relation to transport, are provided for. The 1959 Act already establishes in our domestic law these main principles, but its scope is not wide enough in three important ways. First, it covers only some transport incidents involving irradiated nuclear fuel in transit between places in the United Kingdom. The Conventions cover other nuclear materials, such as enriched uranium and plutonium, extend to all transport incidents within their territorial scope, and ensure that an operator is always liable. The Bill, therefore, extends the law to cover nuclear material other than irradiated fuel, and to cover all relevant transport cases including the liability of foreign operators within our jurisdiction. Secondly, the Act deals only with damage due to ionising radiations, whereas the Conventions cover the other hazardous properties of nuclear material.
A your Lordships are aware, the 1959 Act dealt only with damage due to ionising radiations, that is, due to the radioactive properties of nuclear matter, since the other hazards which may arise, for example, from the chemical toxicity of such matter, do not have the special characteristics of the radioactive hazard. But in negotiations on the Conventions it was thought necessary to cover all the damage due to an incident causing radioactive damage. This led to difficulties of interpretation and gave rise to the provision on separability of damage on which Clause 4 (2) of the Bill is based. The position under the Bill is therefore more complex than under the 1959 Act which ignores the other hazardous properties of nuclear matter and involves no test of separability. Moreover, the liability imposed by the Conventions is on a per incident basis, whereas the Act deals with damage caused during period covered by insurance.

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Insurance for nuclear liability is available only on a per installation per cover period basis; so far as we are aware this is so throughout the world. But, in order to give full protection to the public, the Conventions call for cover for the liability to be on a per incident basis. In common with other countries wishing to ratify the Conventions, we must therefore provide backing from public funds for any difference there might be between the per cover period and per incident basis. Such a difference could arise only if two incidents engaging the responsibility of the operator of one installation occurred simultaneously or in very quick succession and together caused damage exceeding £5 million. The position under the Act is that, in this respect, liability and insurance cover correspond; under the Bill, provision is made in Clause 8 (1) and (4) to cover any gap there might be. Within our jurisdiction the matter is not significant, because of our system of meeting all established claims in full. But for a United Kingdom operator abroad (outside the coverage of the Supplementary Convention), had the system of the Act been preserved, insurance cover alone would have provided the full cover required by the Conventions.
Thirdly, the Bill necessarily contains a number of rather complicated provisions dealing with liability, rights to compensation, and cover for liability, in order that our law should comply with the three Conventions. It also makes rules concerning jurisdiction, shared liability, and foreign judgements required by the Conventions.
A notable feature of the Bill is the wide jurisdiction taken, which is necessary under the rules of the Conventions which ensure a single jurisdiction. In addition to covering incidents occurring in the United Kingdom, when a United Kingdom operator is concerned, the Bill imposes liability world-wide except for, first, incidents occurring in other contracting States (that is because it will be for such States to impose liability by their own law); and, secondly, for damage suffered in non-contracting States,with an exception in relation to United Kingdom ships and aircraft. These provision reflect the general arrangement under the Conventions that the State of the operator has jurisdiction, except
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where the incident occurs within another contracting State.
The Bill also makes provisions which are not required under the Conventions. The first and most important set of these deals with international cases not covered by the Conventions. The international system will in time, we hope, become world-wide, but it is bound to take some years to achieve this. Forty-three nations voted in favour of the Vienna Convention, and none against, but it must be recognised that it is a compromise less acceptable to some countries than others. For some time there will be many countries, including a number in the forefront of atomic energy development, which are unlikely to ratify it. We hope, however, that when they have seen it in force they will agree that it provides at least a very good start to regulating liability for damage due to nuclear incidents in the interests of public assurance and protection, and the promotion of the development of nuclear energy for the benefit of the world. I should emphasise that the Conventions do not deal with safety: other international arrangements provide for this.
Under the Conventions, as we are applying them, damage suffered in a non-contracting State is not covered. But, if we left it at that, a claimant in a non-contracting State could be placed in a more favourable position than one in a contracting State. This would happen if the laws of the non-contracting State imposed liability on a United Kingdom operator in excess of that permitted by the Conventions, since the judgment of its courts could normally be enforced here. Moreover, one of the main aims of the Conventions and of our legislation—the channelling of liability to the operator—would be defeated if these laws imposed liability on persons other than the operator, who might be held responsible for causing or contributing to an incident. Clause 7 (5) of the Bill therefore bars enforcement of judgments in such cases.
Another problem arises because the Conventions will not be universally applied at once. We will be able to ensure that nuclear material entering this country from abroad normally engages the liability of a Convention operator; but there may well be traffic between non-contracting States which crosses our

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territorial waters, and in an emergency the docking or landing of ships or aircraft in the United Kingdom may take place in circumstances where liability ought to rest on persons other than Convention operators. Clause 3 of the Bill therefore imposes absolute liability in such cases. The liability of course is unlimited because there is just no basis or reason for setting a limit. The persons affected by the clause will normally be operators from non-contracting States.
There is a third international case for which the Bill makes provision outside the requirements of the Conventions. It is considered necessary, particularly for the protection of crews, to impose liability on a United Kingdom operator responsible for damage suffered to or on British ships or aircraft in the territories of non-contracting States. This is effected by Clause 5 (2) and will also protect carriers and is particularly desirable in view of the bar to enforcement of foreign judgments under Clause 7 to which I have referred.
The second set of provisions, not required under the Conventions, preserve and extend to the wider scope of the Bill a number of the features of the 1959 Act. The Paris and Vienna Conventions establish minimum standards so that countries with small resources, and involved so far in atomic energy only on the research side, can reasonably be expected to ratify. However, in common with other industrial Powers, the United Kingdom intend to go further. The supplementary Conventon greatly increases the financial protection to be made available, but in addition Clause 6 (3) of the Bill provides that all established claims within our jurisdiction will, subject to Parliamentary sanction, be met in full. Similarly, the period of limitation for claims remains at 30 years, although the Conventions require only 10 years.
Finally, we have taken the opportunity to make a number of minor amendments to the licensing provisions of the 1959 Act. Since it came into force in April, 1960, this Act has proved itself to be a very practical piece of legislation. But in this hitherto uncharted and developing field, it is not surprising that a number of improvements have been found to be desirable; and these are
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effected by Clause 11 of the Bill. It may be helpful therefore if I say a few words in amplification of my earlier reference to the supplementary Convention. Both the Paris and Vienna Conventions are intended to set minimum standards which can be reasonably met by countries having small resources and which are not at an advanced stage in the development of atomic energy. But richer and more advanced countries will wish to provide greater availability of moneys should they ever be needed, and the Supplementary Convention provides for this and for a useful sharing of the burden among the parties to it in the case of a very severe incident. The Paris Convention, like the Vienna Convention, provides for a minimum liability of £1¾ million per operator per incident, but the Supplementary Convention requires each country to make available from its own individual public funds sufficient money to ensure that compensation up to £25 million would be available, if needed, for claims arising out of an incident for which one of its own operators was liable. On top of this, the partners would make available collectively sufficient money to bring the total to 120 million dollars or £43 million. We have, therefore, first the £5 million to be covered by insurance; the second tranche raises this to £25 million to be provided by the operators country; and the third tranche of £18 million to be provided collectively by the countries in the "club". These arrangements would be used, of course, only to benefit members of the "club". I hope it will be agreed that this useful partnership between the Six and certain other countries of the Organisation for European Co-operation and Development and ourselves will provide reassurance to the public, and to suppliers and carriers, without imposing an unacceptable burden on us. The rather complicated provisions of Clause 8 of the Bill will put us in a position to ratify these provisions of the Supplementary Convention.
I have tried, perhaps without complete success, to deal with the main points arising on the Bill and the Conventions, without getting lost in complicated detail. With the subject so complex, and having regard to the structure of the Bi thought it best to deal with its ma effects without constant reference to individual

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clauses. I hope that by this means I have convinced your Lordships that the Conventions fully merit our support; that the manner in which we propose to implement their provisions is the right one; and that matters arising outside the Conventions should be dealt with in the way I have described. In the course of my speech I have mentioned some rather large sums of money, but would reiterate that, with the high standard of safety measures in force, we are confident that the chances of a nuclear incident causing damage on a large scale are remote. It is most unlikely that the £5 million provided by insurance will ever be fully required, much less prove insufficient. Nevertheless, the inclusion in the Supplementary Convention and national legislation of a figure of £43 million per incident gives valuable assurance that no victim of a nuclear incident will go uncompensated because the resources of the operator responsible are insufficient. The Bill and the Conventions giving rise to it inevitably contain technical and legal detail of daunting complexity, but I trust that the explanation of the main issues is clear. In this matter of universal public concern, I am sure that your Lordships will approve the Government's determination to safeguard the interests of the public against all foreseeable hazards by fully supporting the Conventions; by dealing with certain international cases not covered by the Conventions, and by preserving special features of the 1959 Act as proposed in the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stonham.)
3.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sure that we on this side of the House are most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his clear exposition of what is in fact a highly complicated Bill—indeed, in another place it was described as a most horrible measure, a nightmare for anyone who was not a practising lawyer. I might add that I think even practising lawyers have had some nightmares over it. But we on this side must be grateful to the noble Lord, because it is substantially our Bill, and we therefore welcome it warmly. It was considered in great detail in another place throughout its various stages. It was given a useful Second
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Reading, a Committee stage which itself ran into some 168 columns in Hansard, as well as debates, which is not always the case, on Report stage and on Third Reading. We are therefore most grateful to the Government, and to Ministers in another place, too, for dealing courteously and in detail with the many points which were raised by the Opposition, and indeed largely meeting them.
I fear that this was in contrast to the Science and Technology Bill which, as I said the other day, was certainly rushed through another place, perhaps with somewhat undue haste. The Committee stage was curtailed and there was no proper Report stage or Third Reading. In this case, however, I think we should express gratitude to the Government for having adopted what is our Bill; and I think that we in this House should repeat our congratulations to all those who were concerned with the preparation of it, officials and Members on both sides of the House, and also to those who put so much work in on the three international Conventions which the Bill seeks to ratify.
As we have heard from the noble Lord, the Bill amends and extends the Nuclear Installations Act, 1959. The three main objects of that Act were briefly these: to provide for licences for those who wanted to operate nuclear installations; to impose on licensees absolute liability, or at any rate a wide measure of liability, for damage to third parties; and also to ensure that licensees should have adequate funds at their disposal to meet what could well be extremely heavy claims. The present Bill, as I think your Lordships will have gathered, extends the 1959 Act in four respects. It extends absolute liability to nuclear materials other than only irradiated nuclear fuel in transit; secondly, the occurrences covered are no longer restricted to those which take place only on the licensed site or in the course of carriage within the United Kingdom; thirdly, liability is extended, as the noble Lord said, to foreign operators for incidents in the United Kingdom; and, fourthly, the Bill limits licensees' liability to £5 million for each occurrence. I think it was made clear that any amount by which the insurance cover falls short of £5 million is to be

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found out of moneys provided by Parliament, or out of funds provided by whatever means Parliament may determine.
This is a non-political Bill and, as I say, my honourable friends in another place who were the spokesmen on these matters now seem reasonably happy about it. It is true that during both the Committee stage and the Report stage in another place there were long discussions on the words, which resulted, rightly, in the substitution of the word "injury" for the word "hurt". The Minister without Portfolio and the Parliamentary Secretary met this point satisfactorily, and so, I think, has the noble Lord, and I doubt whether anyone on this side of the House will wish to put forward any further Amendments during our Committee stage. I think, too, that the problems of unborn children and the extension of the time within which a claim can be made were also fully dealt with in another place.
There was some considerable discussion on one particular suggestion—namely, that one Minister, and only one, probably the Minister of Power, whom the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, represents, should be the sole authority in relation to claims. If I may perhaps be permitted a touch of irony, I do not think that we can really expect the present Government to have only one Minister responsible for anything. But I do not propose to pursue that matter this afternoon, apart from saying that I am sorry that, for reasons with which we are familiar, the Minister of Technology was not able to take part in the debates in another place. I see, incidentally, that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power said that when the Bill came to your Lordships' House the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology would of course be able to deal with matters here—that is in column 45 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of Standing Committee "A". While I am very glad indeed that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham has dealt effectively with the provisions of this Bill, I am sorry that, contrary to the promise given in another place, the noble Lord, Lord Snow, is not here, because the Minister of Technology, under whom the Atomic Energy Authority now comes, has quite definite responsibilities under this Bill, especially,
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as I say, in regard to claims under Clause 6 (3) (i).
I think it decidedly unfortunate that neither Minister of Technology, whether in your Lordships' House or in another place, should have been, or should be, taking part in our discussions, for the Bill, especially on questions of claim with which the Minister of Technology is so closely concerned, is indeed most important. I am sorry, therefore, that the noble Lord, Lord Snow, is not here to-day, although I did see him earlier. If the Ministry of Technology is to accept responsibilities under this Bill, I think that one at least of its Ministers should take part in the preparation and discussion of it. I leave that point for your Lordships to judge.
I accept what has been said in another place, and particularly in regard to the liability of operators of nuclear ships: and I agree that, above all, we should get this Bill through as fast as possible. I think mainly in order to stimulate other countries also to ratify these three Conventions. I hope that consultations with the Commonwealth and Colonial Governments concerned, as well as certain other countries, will proceed as rapidly as possible.
There was, it is true, one matter which was discussed in another place on which it was thought that your Lordships might have something further to say—I refer particularly to Clause 13 and the problems of interpretation. Under this clause, at the bottom of page 17 of the Bill, it will be seen that it has been agreed that the word "injury" means personal injury and includes loss of life. But there may still perhaps be a little doubt about the position of a corporate rather than an individual plaintiff. The noble Lord will recognise that this matter was discussed in great detail in another place, and an example was given there of circumstances in which a factory operated by a company was put out of action by a nuclear incident, and loss was suffered which could not be described as damage to property—which is, of course, covered—but was purely monetary loss with claims made upon the company for breach of contract which nevertheless were attributable to the nuclear incident.
It was agreed, I think, by the Government—I hope the noble Lord agrees with

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me on this—that this sort of loss is certainly intended to be covered by the Bill and to be comprised within the absolute liability imposed upon licensees. Yet a corporate plaintiff is not, I think, precisely mentioned in the words of the Bill. I think, however, that the Minister Without Portfolio made a good point in another place when he said that it was the proper function of the Judiciary to arrive at a conclusion on this kind of matter. Since the Minister said that personal injury included loss of profit both to individuals who trade and to a corporation, that can be considered a reasonably satisfactory answer. I hope the noble Lord will be able to confirm that point. This was a question which was left open to some extent for debate in your Lordships' House, so that an assurance might be given that a corporate plaintiff would in law be in the same position under this Bill as he would be at Common Law. It was expected that this matter would be further ventilated here, and I shall be grateful to the Government if they have been able to look at the point again.
All in all, therefore, we on this side of the House are happy to give the Bill, which was in a sense conceived by us, the fullest possible support. Sometimes when I visited atomic energy establishments as Parliamentary Secretary for Science, I got the impression that the kind of dangers and risks which are contemplated under the 1959 Act and in this Bill were no longer so serious as perhaps they were considered to be in the earlier days of atomic power. It is true that great progress has been made in safety precautions, and that was implied to some extent in the noble Lord's remarks. None the less, from time to time incidents, perhaps relatively minor in so far as life and limb are concerned, but often costly, have taken place, and this Bill is therefore a most useful and indeed essential measure. I certainly think it right that we should give an example to other countries by ratifying the three Conventions without too much delay.
4.3 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl, first of all for a most lucid speech in which he displayed the extent to which he has studied this subject. I am also grateful for his very warm welcome to the Bill, which he quite rightly said was sub-
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stantially his Party's Bill. That being so, one might wonder why it took 168 columns of Hansard, and a very great deal of time in another place, to discuss it. I think the answer to that is that it is substantially the Bill of the previous Government with major improvements added to it by the present Government. Therefore, it is a co-operative effort on which we can both congratulate ourselves.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Not major improvements.
LORD STONHAM: Again, there is a question of definition, which does not arise in this Bill which is quite complicated enough.
The noble Earl was somewhat worried by the fact that only one Minister, my right honourable friend the Minister of Power, was responsible for this Bill. I am therefore puzzled as to why in 1959 he did not get up and protest then that only one Minister, his right honourable friend the Minister of Power, was responsible for the 1959 Act.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, if noble Lords will excuse my interrupting, there was not a Minister of Technology then. I am speaking only of him.
LORD STONHAM: That is another example of a successful and valuable amendment which this Government have made to the procedure of the previous Government. The noble Earl was worried, however, by the fact that this Bill was introduced by my right honourable friend the Minister of Power. Therefore we have followed in that respect the precedent set by the previous Government, quite rightly, and have placed responsibility with the Minister who is mainly responsible. Indeed, the electricity generating boards are the most important licensees under this Act, and they come under the Minister of Power.
The noble Earl was a little troubled, as I understood him, that the Minister of Technology who is responsible for the Atomic Energy Authority, and therefore has an important interest in this Bill, did not take part in the proceedings in the Commons. But, of course, that would have been a task even beyond the very great powers of my right honourable friend Mr. Frank Cousins, because at that time he was not even a

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Member of another place. Therefore, it would seem to me that these objections which the noble Earl has raised are of no more moment than the majority of objections and points which we listen to, with the greatest respect, from the other side.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I feel I should repeat that it was stated in another place, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the. Ministry of Power, that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology in this place would be dealing with this matter, and he is not in fact with us to-day.
LORD STONHAM: If that be so, I must accept what the noble Earl says and speak to my noble friend about this in due course; because, however unworthy, I have the honour to be the representative of the Minister of Power in your Lordships' House, and would think it wholly wrong if another Minister were asked to deal with a Bill which belonged to the Minister of Power.
The noble Earl raised a point of substance with which I did not deal in my speech, and that was because of the happy prescience of my advisers who thought it wise to leave me something to say when I came to speak a second time: I refer to the point of the definition of damage and the particular position of a corporation. As the noble Earl quite rightly said, this matter caused considerable discussion in another place, and since then Her Majesty's Government have given further consideration to the need for including in the Bill a definition of "damage to property". The Government's view remains unchanged. We are confident that a plaintiff, including a corporate plaintiff, in an action under the Bill as drafted would be in the same position as he would be in an action for negligence at Common Law in which liability was admitted or proved. This is our intention, and the Bill as drafted leaves it to the court to decide, as at Common Law, the extent and quantum of damages and, in particular, any question as to remoteness of damage.
The inclusion of a definition on the lines proposed by the Opposition in another place, and to which the noble Earl has again referred to-day, would make the operator liable to pay for any loss of profits or other earnings, whether
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or not at Common Law they would have been held by the court to have been too remote. A great deal of thought has been given to the point, and I feel that the Government's decision is the right one. I hope that the assurance which I have now given will remove any doubt on this point and will be regarded as of some value. I am most grateful to the noble Earl for all he has said, and to your Lordships for the reception which has been given to the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PREPARATION FOR RETIREMENT
4.10 p.m.
LORD CROOK LORD CROOK rose to call attention to various activities now proceeding, and envisaged, to prepare men and women for retirement from their career occupations, so that they secure the maximum enjoyment of their future years; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, there have been many debates in your Lordships' House in which the problems of old age, geriatrics, the shortage of hospital beds, and the like have been discussed. This afternoon I am inviting your Lordships to look at all those problems in a different way and from a different angle. But first of all, in accordance with the Rules of the House I should declare an interest, as I am President of the Pre-Retirement Association.
In these matters which your Lordships have discussed you have been looking at a set of new and growing problems which have arisen by reason of the population trend in recent years and the older average age of the people of this country. We all know, without discussing it, that babies who, had they been borne 20, 30 or 40 years ago, would have died, now live by reason of improved medical science. They live to go on to school with better chances of survival and with better opportunities. They have their school milk and their meals, and so they thrive instead of dying. Equally, at the other end of the age cycle the improved conditions, the Welfare State and, of course, the progress of medicine in the control of killing diseases, are allowing people to go on living to a riper old age. So the percentage of the population which is aged is larger than ever before, and it goes on growing.
On the latest available figures, there were in 1964 over 8½ million persons of what is called pensionable age, and all the statistics show that about 500,000 will be added to that figure each year. The proportion of the population of this country of that kind of age is now more than double what it was fifty years ago, and those who have been dealing with these subjects forecast that the trend will continue for at least the next fifteen and probably the next twenty years. So before long every fifth person that we meet in the street will be one of this age group, because we understand that the 8½ million will be growing to 9 million or 10 million or more in the next ten years.
To put it another way, we see how serious the problem of the aged population is if we say that every day a thousand men and women reach the retirement age of 60 in the case of women and 65 in the case of men. They can expect a further 12 to 20 years of good and active life, on present trends. It is to that large, growing number of people that this Motion refers, for their retirement years should be golden years in their lives, not years full of difficulty and boredom and worry, as they are to many of them. The retirement period ought to be put in its true perspective in this changing world. Life is known by all of us to start in happy childhood and to go on to what in most cases is a happy school age and a happy teen age, then on to happy parentage and, finally, to the stage when one possesses delightful grandchildren. So when grandma and grandpa are later on left on their own, they ought to be faced with a new period of life which they understand fully and which they can appreciate to the full.
If I may say so with all respect to all of your Lordships, we who inhabit this House are, indeed, very fortunate persons, when we think of the interest that we have in life and will continue to have in life so long as we come to your Lordships' House. But the position is very different when we look into the lives of repetitive workers in office and factory. They have gone into employment at an early age. Often it was not employment which they wanted to go into; it was not congenial at all. Had their chances been different, they might have had a job far removed from the one they had to take. But, over the years, because of the necessities
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of life, for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, they have travelled in the same bus with the people they know, they have had their meals in the canteen with the people they know, with the mates with whom they joked.
My Lords, it is salutary to remind ourselves that it is often said that one-third of our lives is spent in bed. But it is also as well to remember that one-third of working people's lives, at the very least, is spent either at their work or in getting to and from work; and, regrettably, when they come to retirement many of them are faced with the unknown. A man who has been only something like a lodger in his own house, sometimes finds himself 24 hours a day with the "missus". He finds the bit of gardening that he did at the week-ends and in the odd evening, suddenly becoming, in many cases, the only job of work he has to do all the week. Regrettably, too, because of financial stringency, many of them find that their odd pint of beer at the institute, which got them out at night and which took them among their fellow people, has to be rather restricted or given up. It is no wonder, if you move about among working people as I have done in the trade union movement over very many years, that you find that retirement is one of the things which is something that many people fear, and was feared even before this longevity problem arose.
What I want to suggest to your Lordships is that we can, if we try, influence the lives of people about to face retirement, to make them happier. Some want occupations and jobs within their scope; others, who do not want to take paid employment, want opportunities for social service in the community in which they live. An increasing number of persons, organisations and firms have been studying this matter and working at the problems over a long period of time. Great work has been done by local community councils, by old people's welfare committees, by the W.V.S.—I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Swan-borough, has left; I hoped she would still be here—and so on. There are retirement councils and preparation for retirement committees in many cities and towns.
I should like to pay a tribute to the considerable number of firms who have

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needed no prodding or guidance from anybody, but have seen a responsibility and got on with the job. They felt that they had a responsibility to people who had worked with them for years. The traditional gold watch at 50 and, "Goodbye, Bill" was not enough. There was something that they could do in respect of those years afterwards. Also, they realised that they might be able to use the services of those persons in such a way that the production effort of the firm and of the country, and the export opportunity, could be made greater, because it is possible to re-employ people after retirement if you create the right situation. Thus a worker need not be left without interest; he need not be left with his income cut so suddenly and so drastically.
The name of the firm of Rubery Owen occurs to me immediately as one of the pioneers in this regard, and I know of firms—there are members of these firms who sit on your Lordships' Benches—like Tate and Lyle, Hoover and the Electrical Research Association, who are numbered among the many who have tried to do something to meet this kind of problem. But I will not bore your Lordships by giving you a long list of firms of that kind. Nor will I give you a long list of the many large firms who go out of their way to send representatives to conferences run regularly by the Industrial Welfare Society on Preparation for Retirement. Other huge firms, again represented by some noble Lords sitting on these Benches—such as Cadbury, Dunlop, Lucas, Pilkington, Unilever and Stewart and Lloyds—have gone out of their way to try to do things. Indeed, altogether about 140 firms are known to have been active in spending money on this praiseworthy objective. But we know, from other debates in this House, that the majority of people are not working in large factories and establishments; they are working in the very large number of small organisations of which this country is made up.
My Lords, as long ago as 1955 the National Old People's Welfare Council, believing that much of the distress and loneliness of old age could be prevented by forethought and proper planning, set up a study group, which study group, within 3½ years, presented a report—a
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report which recommended further exploration with the co-operation of industry, of religious bodies and of voluntary organisations, and, if possible, of statutory bodies as well. With the financial backing for an initial period, which in the end was five years, of the National Corporation for the Care of Old People, the Preparation for Retirement Committee was established. At the end of 1963 a national conference on the subject, organised with the assistance of the British Institute of Management, the Industrial Welfare Society, the Institute of Directors and the Institute of Personnel Management, was held, attended by some 200 high-level representatives of industry and firms, of medical and voluntary organisations and of educational organisations. It was also well covered by our friends of the Press, some 47 journalists and representatives of the B.B.C. being present.
Last year, out of this beginning, the organisation to which I have referred, the Pre-Retirement Association, was established as a legal charity, its aim being to enable people to prepare for this completely new pattern of their lives, to prevent the sudden limitation of interests for them, and to try to secure plans to remove the sense of uselessness which engulfs too many of them in their later years—and does so, if I may add this, at great cost to the Welfare State as well as to the lives of the people themselves.
This Association is sponsored by 48 organisations having a concern in the field to which I have referred. Eleven of them are from industry and commerce, and they include the British Employers' Confederation, with which a number of your Lordships are connected; the Institute of Directors, again with many of your Lordships among them; and representatives of the Trades Union Congress—and I am glad to see at least two of my T.U.C. colleagues in the House with me this afternoon. Then, there are seven from medical organisations, including the Association of Industrial Medical Officers, the College of General Practitioners and the Royal Society of Health.
There are also others from educational organisations, voluntary organisations and local regional committees that have been established in places such as Birmingham

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and Glasgow; while a number of Government Departments, the B.B.C. and other educational people hold a watching brief on the Committee. There are, in addition, a further 121 associate organisations. I have been honoured in that in recent months I have been asked to become President of the organisation; and since I have come so late into that movement, it becomes easy for me to pay a tribute to all those connected with industry, education, medicine and the voluntary services who have done so much in the years since 1955.
The function of the Association is to get together the large and growing amount of information that is accumulating, and to try to bring things into a common place to help everybody on the problem in general. To that end, among others, a medical panel has been established. It is made up of well-known medical practitioners, giving voluntary service happily in the belief that they have something to do—and I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, in his place. They proceeded with three main ideas in mind: first, that the general practitioners should be encouraged to counsel individual people; secondly, that an attempt should be made to secure the help of individual doctors; and, thirdly—and I say this advisedly—that the doctors themselves should be given a certain amount of advice and study on these matters.
Fortunately, the reaction of the larger medical organisations has been excellent. Apart from the help already given, the College of General Practitioners are to have a symposium later this year, the British Medical Association are to make the subject their study subject for 1966, the Central Council for Health Education will have this as a discussion subject at a summer school next year, and so on and so forth. There is, of course, a valuable medical field here, to which a number of our medical colleagues in this House have addressed themselves again and again over recent years: for, my Lords, one-third of all the hospital beds in this country are used by people over these retiring ages, although that is still a very small proportion—less than 5 per cent.—of the people of those ages who live in this country. But the point is worth making, if only for the fact that the most expensive social service that we have in this country, as we know again from our debates, is the hospital service.
On the educational side, the organisation has been equally fortunate. It has an excellent educational panel. They have recommended a number of items, which include a programme of planning preparation for retirement courses inside industry, and with the help of industry, and the appointment of development officers who would both train tutors and themselves embark on courses. So industry is joined by these two, medicine and education; and, as the lady who is the efficient secretary of the organisation said to me only last week, "This is a kind of preventive medicine by way of education."
My Lords, whatever the good intentions of industry, of medicine, of education and of all the voluntary people, the limiting feature here, of course, is that, so long as this is not in any way an adopted service that can have anything in terms of money from the Government, it lives on borrowed money, on other people's money; on money that is given voluntarily by such firms as feel disposed to give it. Here again, as one who has been in the trade union movement and has known the harder side of some big industrialists, I think it only right to say how good many big industrial firms have been. Not only are they running their own schemes, but they have been ready to put their hands into their pockets in order to help this organisation, believing that this would be a justifiable social service. That, I believe, is the conclusion to which Her Majesty's Government should come; and I hope that, somehow or other, they will arrange for a grant to be made. A social service of this kind would be of tremendous value. It would relieve the future costs of the hospital service; it could help the Ministry of Labour in its manpower problems; and it could help, in a related way, the Board of Trade by assisting exports through the increased productivity which, by the employment of these people, might be made available to us in this country.
My Lords, what we need, in short, is a social service to try to secure that those who are shortly to retire shall understand the life which is in front of them. That will involve work for some, with industrial experiment and the organisation of the far-thinking firms extended to small firms who cannot manage to do anything for themselves. And it

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will involve showing those who do not want paid employment what they can do to live their lives usefully and where the opportunities of social service in the community lie open to them. It must be a voluntary social service, an organisation using the services of many valuable volunteers who have not yet reached the age of retirement; essentially a social service the acceptance of which will be voluntary on the part of the people, with no dragooning of anybody into anything.
I had hoped that we might have a longer discussion than we are apparently to have. I was hoping to have the ideas of some other noble Lords with whom I have talked over the tea-table on this subject during recent months. But I will sum up by saying that all who have pioneered in this matter lead us to believe that in this changing world we have got to adjust our sights and realise that we must study the need and try to plan to help this very large and growing section of our population. I beg to move for Papers.
4.31 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, to make a maiden speech at my age is something of an occasion. I have been looking forward to it, and I am relying on the customary kindness and courtesy which I know your Lordships always extend to newcomers. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, for his Motion and for giving me the opportunity of speaking on a subject which I have had in my mind for a very long time—before even I acquired a vested interest, such as a great many people share with me here this afternoon.
I was struck by this subject some 35 years ago when, unexpectedly, I was made Chairman of the 2,000-bed Hackney Hospital. This was at the time when the L.C.C. took over the hospitals from the guardians, and I happened to be one of the Members for Hackney, North. I went down to see my new responsibility and, having visited the sick side of this large hospital, I went over to the institution side, what was generally called in those days "The House". The women's side was tolerable, up to a point, because they had some work to do. They had their ordinary household chores, laundry,
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mending, sewing and, inevitably, knitting; there was a certain companionship in their work, and a good deal of gossiping. But the men's side really wrung my heart.
There were the "dads" and the "granddads", sitting in a concrete courtyard when it was fine, looking at brick walls; and sitting in the corridors and rooms when it was wet—just sitting and waiting. I said to myself: "This really isn't life; it's just waiting for death". I shall never forget that picture, and to this day I can see them in my mind's eye: just sitting and waiting.
I thought that this subject should have arisen in our minds sooner than it has done. I was fortunate when, in 1959, in another place a colleague was lucky in the ballot for Motions and asked me to second him in a Motion for the Re-employment of the Elderly. We had a most interesting debate; it was a very well-attended debate—much better so than here this afternoon—but nothing happened. I am sorry to see that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, is not in the Chamber at the moment, because I want to quote from his little booklet in which he says:
"Much research has taken place on this subject, much has been said, but little really has been done."
And I think that is the point we are at this afternoon.
It is true that at the turn of the century the conscience of the nation was stirred over the question of what should be done for the older generation; and perhaps I may briefly give the dates of the progress of this awakening of social conscience. The year 1908 saw the first old-age pensions; the years 1911, 1920, 1925, 1928, and 1937 each saw progressive improvements in the situation of the elderly; 1940 gave us, for the first time, widows' pensions and old-age pensions for all; 1946 produced the National Insurance Scheme; and 1948 saw the National Assistance, National Health and Hospital Service. Since the war, the development of home nursing, home helps and houses for the elderly has been progressively increasing year by year; and Governments (I say this with a certain reluctance) have vied with each other in improving pension rates and National Assistance in order to keep ahead of the cost of living.

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My Lords, I should like to see this matter taken right out of Party politics; I do not think we can be happy about this particular approach to old age. I think we need an entirely new look at the whole problem, first of all from the point of view of the elderly themselves, before they become old. As the noble Lord, Lord Crook, said, there must be a preparation for old age. Then we must look at the age-spread of the population and take into account the needs of the whole nation at the moment. Increasing pensions from time to time, just paying people for being old, is not good enough. I think that men and women are as old as they feel; and they certainly do not start to go downhill until they realise that they are no longer wanted. That is when disability creeps in and they go down.
If one were to be rather cynical one would say that at the present time people are waking up to the idea of a new look at the problem just because we are short of labour: if there had been no shortage of labour there would not be quite such an interest in this subject. Our country is a small one, of only 52 million people, and we have to compete industrially with giants like the U.S.A. and, now, the Community of Six; and we need the contribution of every able-bodied man and woman who can give something to the general pool. So, in a way, the needs of the elderly now coincide with the needs of the nation; and that makes me hopeful that something may be done. It was not, after all, until there was a shortage of women teachers that married women were encouraged to come back to the teaching profession or, indeed, to remain in it. I must tell your Lordships that many years ago in the late 1920's when I was in the L.C.C. I voted against my Party in the very good company of Lady Norman and Mrs. Cazalet Keir because my Party at that time would not employ married women. Well, the wheel has turned; we were forgiven our rebellion, and became known as the "three fallen angels". And, of course, angels are always on the right side.
My Lords, there are, generally speaking, roughly the same number of people of under-work age as there are of what we generally consider over-work age; and I wonder whether we have not perhaps leaned too much towards the young and not enough towards the elderly
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population. For the debate yesterday on Youth, the Chamber was full. To-day, we are discussing what should really interest us more; yet the Chamber is not full. For the time being, we must leave the sick and the lonely to the local authorities, who have quite considerable power to deal with them, and to the volunteer societies, because their care is not the main purpose of the Motion to-day—though I could not help thinking, as I came here through the snowy streets to-day, that there must be many old people who have been suffering acutely from the cold of the last few days.
The noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley (then Sir Walter Monckton) set up a Committee in 1952, under the right honourable Harold Watkinson (as he then was) to inquire into the employ-ability of the elderly. That Committee reported in 1953, and I should like to quote from page 20 of their Report, where they say:
"All men and women employed in industry, commerce or the professions, who can give effective service, either in the normal way or in any alternative way which their employers can make available, should be given the opportunity, without regard to age, to continue to work if they wish to do so."
I think all of us can agree with that sentiment. I think that the idea of new careers in middle life, a change of status instead of retirement, a completely new lease of life, such as we enjoy in your Lordships' House when we come from another place—this sort of thing should be a matter of course for everybody who wishes to take advantage of it. The noble Lord, Lord Crook, has given a sketch of how much is being done, in one way or another, but we need some help from the Government to come to some practical issue.
I should like to make three suggestions. I always feel that if one has an audience good enough to listen, one ought to leave in their minds some practical point which can be followed up. First of all, the earnings rule is, I think, a disincentive and should be abolished. It produces a wrong outlook. I would rather see the pensionable age go up by a year or two, especially in the case of women, and have no earnings rule. I believe that everybody would benefit by this. I am certain that as time goes on it will be better to have a full retiring age a year or two higher and have no earnings rule. The second essential thing is to

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have a system of transferable pensions and a system whereby part-time people can be adjusted to the pension system.
Thirdly, there must be a change of attitude on the part of the middle-aged people themselves. I know that it is difficult, when you have reached a certain eminence, to make up your mind that you have to give way to the younger generation and perhaps take a less important job. But it is important that the older generation should not stand in the way of promotion for the young. We have to get back to the spirit that inspired us during the war. A friend of mine, a great Admiral, after going to sea in command of some of the convoys to Russia, had pneumonia twice running while coming home, and was told by the Admiralty that the time had come when they could no longer send him to sea in command. So he joined up as an able seaman on the M.T.B.s on shore patrol. He did not mind not being an Admiral any more, so long as he was of some use. I am sure that we can all remember how, during the war local, retired Colonels and Generals joined the Home Guard—achieving, perhaps, the exalted rank of corporal! That is the sort of spirit we need to get back in our middle-aged population.
I know from my own experience that there are many jobs in local government and national Government offices which are not very tiring or active, and which might well be re-graded for the more sedentary type of middle-aged. As the noble Lord, Lord Crook, has said, many firms already have this matter well in mind and have reorganised their internal domestic arrangements, so that they can move on employees as they get older to less active jobs. A great deal more of that should go on, right through the nation. Above all, we need to get Government encouragement for it, and a certain amount of publicity; because until we realise that handing out pensions and paying people just for being old does not cure the ills of old age, we shall not have begun to touch what is a tremendous human problem. Lastly, I would suggest that an advisory committee be set up to carry on from the point where the Watkinson Committee left off. The recommendations are there, but one would like to see a Government Com-
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mittee which will set out what can be done in a practical way.
4.46 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, on this cold, cheerless day, I am sure that the hearts of many of us were gladdened when we knew that the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, was going to make her maiden speech this afternoon. It is unfortunate that it is such a bad day, because I am sure that one of the reasons why the House is somewhat thin is because of the traffic complications, both coming to and leaving the House. However, those of us who have had the good fortune to be here this afternoon have been delighted to have had the privilege of hearing her. As we know, she comes to your Lordships' House with a long experience of public life, both in another place and elsewhere, and she will have much to contribute to our debates. She has, indeed, been true to the terms of the Motion—preparing people for retirement from their career occupations—as the noble Lady has come from another place; and we hope that she will find your Lordships' House a place for vigorous retirement. As for the second part of the Motion, the securing of maximum enjoyment in retirement, we hope that the noble Lady will secure maximum enjoyment here. I am sure that if she speaks to us as she has spoken to us this afternoon, we are going to derive the maximum enjoyment from having her in our midst.
I am glad that this subject is being debated this afternoon, as it is one which is of growing interest to the Church. The discussion concerns what might well be now a quarter of the perid of a man's life, which is rather a frightening thought. To these years we must try to give significance and meaning. A parish priest is frequently dealing with people who are approaching retirement. On the horizon, the freedom from routine seems attractive, but as the day comes nearer there are many misgivings. What a man particularly fears is the loneliness which results from the breaking of relationships and the sadness that comes from the realisation that one is no longer a member of a community the existence of which has been taken for granted for many years. He moves from a nexus of relationships in which he has been known for what he has, what he does and what he is, into a

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situation which to some extent is strange and problematical.
I appreciate that a man's ability to cope with this changing situation depends partly upon his temperament, and it certainly demands an adequate philosophy of life. The contentment of spirit that is the consequence of beliefs, priorities and values is essentially a personal matter, about which Governments can do little, except—and this is important—to provide the conditions that will encourage contentment and to make these conditions known. Among these conditions I would include the following. First, economic security. I have No 1ntention of using this debate as an occasion for discussing the complex problem of old-age pensions. I want to make one point only. No matter what this Government or future Governments may or may not do about increasing pensions, our countrymen should be encouraged while they are still young to join some scheme which will provide additional income after retirement. With many this already happens; but with many it does not. I know it is difficult for a young man in his twenties or thirties—and some of us may say, even in his forties—to picture the day when he will be 60. But the effort should be made, especially because it may well be that he is going to live into his eighties.
Fifteen years, twenty years, or possibly more, on inadequate retirement pay, especially with inflation, is a soul destroying experience. It means a sudden reduction in one's standard of living; the end of little luxuries and comforts; the counting of pennies for necessities; and sometimes it means the ending of one's days in a dreary bed-sitting room. I am aware that many commercial, industrial and professional organisations know these things and understand the position, and they provide supplementary pension schemes. But what I hope is that the Government, until they have an adequate old-age pension scheme of their own, will encourage self-effort on the part of everybody.
The second thing is that if a man is to achieve contentment he needs to feel that he is of use to the community. For some, perhaps for many, in the early days of retirement a part-time job is the answer. In my own profession I know
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the happiness that comes to a priest on retirement from his parish when he is asked to take temporary charge of a vacant benefice, to act as chaplain of a small hospital or to give occasional assistance to an overworked incumbent. Although he is now free from routine responsibilities, he is still proving his worth, and, what is more, is adding to his modest pension.
Then there is the question posed by the noble Baroness a moment or two ago, that as we get older we should be allowed to take humbler positions. I know that in my profession this happens. The late Primate, having given up his Primacy, is now, with great happiness and contentment, looking after a little parish in the West of England. I will give your Lordships another example. Some months ago I attended a work centre for elderly people. They had come from backgrounds and experience of all kinds, but now they were engaged two days a week in basket making and woodwork. It was a happy community, made especially happy that day because two of them, well on in their seventies, had just announced their intention to get married.
My contention is that if these ventures were better known, and it were appreciated that further work does not involve crippling financial penalties, the response would be greater. Perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government will tell us whether literature giving suggestions of part-time employment is provided, and whether steps can be taken to ensure that the right information gets into the right hands at the right time. I should also like to know whether businesses are encouraged to keep some places for partly retired personnel. I know something of what is done for the disabled, and I am wondering whether in these days of shortage of labour there can be a more imaginative scheme for the elderly who want to work and retain their vigour.
The next item on the agenda for contentment is training for leisure. This training must, of course, begin years before retirement—indeed, in our early days at school. The trouble with many of us who are now in the second part of life is that we have not been so trained and we are ill-equipped to deal constructively with long periods of leisure. That is

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why the Government and the local authorities should help. Yesterday in this House we were discussing young people, and speaker after speaker insisted on the wisdom of encouraging young people to accept responsibilities and to use some of their leisure in the service of the community. But the same is true for every generation, including the elderly. For instance, in many parts of South London we have clubs and canteens for old people, and we train some of them to run their own clubs and canteens. Again, we find that old people often are the best visitors of other old people because of their reliability, experience, patience and tolerance. There is a variety of openings in the fields of schools, hospitals and social welfare for elderly people to make a valuable and positive contribution.
What I should like to see is a well advertised drive on the part of local authorities to make known to retired people the opportunities that exist in their locality for voluntary service. But leisure must include opportunities for amusement and recreation, and this is why I should like the Government to consider ways and means of extending facilities for older people to go to theatres, concerts and exhibitions, and to travel at reduced prices. Perhaps grant aid to local authorities might be given by the Government.
The other item on the agenda for contentment is appropriate housing—and I underline the word "appropriate". Too often elderly people are in houses that are too large for them; or else, when they have to give them up, perhaps for financial reasons or because they no longer have the physical capacity to run them, they are compelled to live in restricted and gloomy quarters. The difficulties are real. A married couple is accustomed to the house in which their family has grown up and have come to love the house over a period of years, and although several rooms are now vacant, they are disinclined to move. This is a pity because the house could be put to better use, I should have thought that a little wise propaganda on the part of the local authority might help. If the couple could be told of sensible alternative accommodation and—I think this is so important—if they were prepared to consider the alternative accommodation, they could be relieved of the
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practical anxieties associated with moving, and then they might be more ready for a change, especially if the change were to take them into a mixed community rather than into one consisting entirely of elderly people.
My Lords, in making this short speech from this Bench I hope I have indicated the desire of the Church—and in this matter I am sure one can speak for more than just one's own Church—to cooperate with both voluntary and statutory bodies in their concern for the older members of the community. Much is already being done to give significance to old age and to banish the fears that spring from loneliness and enforced idleness. What I ask the Government and all parties concerned is, not only to increase the amenities, but to make them known so that old people and those approaching retirement will have some of the fears removed by the knowledge of what is available to them.
4.58 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I had not intended intervening in this debate, but I should very much like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, from these Benches on a most remarkable speech. As one of her neighbours in a very beautiful country to which many people have retired, I am especially happy to pay tribute to the great work that she has done in the cause which we all have so much at heart and which we are discussing this afternoon. I hope this will be considered in a non-Party manner, and that the noble Baroness will frequently address us in the future. I cannot quite accept her as a "fallen angel", but I do congratulate her none the less. She made three most interesting suggestions to which I hope the Government will give close attention: first, on the earnings rule; secondly, on the transferability of pensions; and, thirdly, on the attitude of the middle aged. In offering my felicitations, I hope that the Government will pay due attention to the remarks made by the noble Baroness.
5.00 p.m.
LORD CITRINE: My Lords, when I entered the House this afternoon I did not contemplate that I should be taking any part in this debate; but the list of speakers is rather shorter than usual, and as this is a highly important social

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and economic subject I feel that it is incumbent upon any of us who has any experience of this subject to make his contribution. I should like to follow the noble Earl who has just spoken in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady-Emmet of Amberley, on the delightfully constructive speech which she made this afternoon, and, like all your Lordships, I hope we shall hear from her on many occasions. I am sorry the House is not better attended for this subject, but I think we all understand that the very severe weather must have kept many Members away this afternoon. I hesitate to call it "wretched weather", because in my old age I find that every day is a good day; every day, and every kind of weather has its charm, has its advantage, and has my deep appreciation. I hope I am going to have it for a long time to come.
I have referred to this as a social and economic subject. We are all aware of the tragedy of men and women being forced into compulsory retirement at a time when their capacities are demonstrably, perhaps not at their maximum, but certainly sufficiently great to enable them to continue to make a useful contribution to the industry or occupation in which they have been engaged. The noble Lord, Lord Crook, in bringing forward this Motion has drawn attention to the many agencies which are being set up, or which have been in existence for some time, to deal with the problem of leisure in retirement. That is a useful and desirable form of social provision, and one which I, too, should like to see considerably developed. My remarks have reference to a different phase of the subject. It is demonstrable that longevity is increasing—not merely that it has increased, but that it is increasing. It seems to follow logically that, if people are able to retain their mental and physical capacities for years after what, perhaps, two generations ago would have been regarded as their maximum, something ought to be done to utilise those faculties.
How do people live in retirement? Those who are fortunate enough to be qualified for pensions, and those who are able, under the scheme of social insurance, to participate in the national retirement pension scheme, and even old age pensions, are provided for, but
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usually, as the noble Lord, Lord Crook, said, on a somewhat lower standard of life than that to which they have been accustomed. That in itself provides a problem, and those of us who have not felt the brunt of it are very grateful because we have been able to escape it. The pension system, when I first came into industry and trade unionism, was a rarity in private employment—I am now speaking particularly of industrial employment, and not so much of commerce. That system has been a welcome development over my lifetime. But I think the brutal fact is that those who live in retirement are making no material contribution to the wealth of the community in which they have lived and are living.
It would seem to follow, therefore, looking at it from a broad point of view, that the whole community is being deprived of the service of people, some of whom have exceptional maturity, exceptional wisdom, and exceptional experience. Those people are very often turned off against their will and have to retire, as it were, in the absence of adequate provision by social means or their own intelligent occupation, into a period when they make no contribution in the material sense. Like, perhaps, a few of your Lordships, I have long passed what is regarded as the retirement age. I am approaching 78 years of age, and while I know perfectly well that I must long ago have passed my physical and intellectual zenith, if I ever had one—something which your Lordships have probably detected long ago—I have no complaint whatever to make in regard to myself. Had I remained the Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, I should have been compelled to terminate my work at the age of 65. The Congress has a rigid rule, which was applied, perhaps for a good cause, back in 1923. It can be that people hang on to their jobs too long, and that may cause a reaction which, in present circumstances, seems to have gone to an extreme—that is to say, that people, irrespective of capacity, irrespective of fitness, are compelled to retire, in some cases at the age of 60 (I believe that applies to the Civil Service and in some trade unions) and at 65 in general industry and commerce.
I was retained as the Chairman of the British Electricity Authority until the

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age of 70, and I retired from that post at my own suggestion—I have no doubt that it was a welcome one. But I continued in part-time employment in that industry and also in the Atomic Energy Authority. So far as I am concerned, I am making no complaint whatever, and I am speaking, I hope, in a completely objective sense. I recall a body called the Carr Committee, which was referred to by the noble Baroness in her speech. I studied that Report, not because of its personal application but because of the general policy that was embodied in it. Mr. Carr, whom I met once or twice, seemed to me to be one of the more progressive Conservatives—a phenomenon which we on the Labour Benches have observed with some interest.
LORD ST. OSWALD: But without emulation.
LORD CITRINE: And who quite evidently had breadth of mind which, to say the least, is commendable. What was the doctrine they laid down? Note age, but fitness, should be the test as to whether a man or a woman should or should not be retired from his or her employment. I recognise, as everybody does, the difficulties of applying a test of that kind. I recognise how easy it is to create jealousies by retaining certain people whose fitness, both mental and physical, commend themselves to management, and discharging others because of what management considers is the absence of those qualities.
All that, of course, is something which has to be faced; but the question which we must answer, I am sure, whether it is in the near or the remote future, is whether compulsory retirement at 65 is not far too early and, as time goes on, will prove to be even more so, and whether retirement should not be made voluntary, so that those who feel they cannot, or do not wish to, carry on may retire. This will become an economic problem. In this country there has been a dearth of work people of every kind, almost through the whole of the postwar period. We have welcomed people coming into this country to take on work for which there were insufficient British workers of all kinds—administrative, managerial perhaps, and certainly manual workers. There were not the British
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workers to be found for these jobs because they were already in other employment.
The time will come when we shall be compelled to recognise that it is bad business, as well as socially undesirable, for people to be compelled to leave an employment which physically and mentally they are perfectly capable of carrying on; we shall be forced to recognise that compulsory retirement in those cases is not only something which is detrimental to the individual but, I believe, fundamentally bad for the community as a whole.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I am quite sure that we have enjoyed the debate this afternoon. It has been informative and, on all sides, very sensitive to the problem which confronts us. We are particularly obliged, I am sure, to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, for having introduced the matter for our consideration, but, in addition, I share with others the feeling of deep appreciation of the maiden speech of one who was—I will not say my former colleague, because that sounds as if she is no longer my colleague, but certainly a colleague in another place. Her contribution to our discussion is very characteristic of her. We all know her to be one who has always had the care of elderly people and others at heart; and what she has said to-day, including her very cogent proposals, we have taken into our minds, and certainly for my part I will see that they are transmitted to the appropriate Ministry. May I again congratulate her very warmly indeed on the contribution she has made?
It is appropriate that this discussion should take place to-day on the subject of the elderly, for it stands in contrast to the debate we had yesterday on youth, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge. It is appropriate in another way because the constituency I had the honour to represent for many years had among its electors nearly 25 per cent. who were old age pensioners, and naturally that brought me into contact with their needs very intimately indeed. There were many difficulties one saw in meeting with those who had retired from their usual vocations or avocations, and some of the remarks made to-day were relevant to that fact.

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Some 16,000 or 17,000 people in the Borough of Leyton are elderly people—I will not say aged persons, but elderly people—whom I got to know as well as, I am sure, other Members of this House have got to know similar categories in their own district.
There is perhaps a third appropriateness in so far as some noble Lords in this House are fortunate or prudent enough to become Members of it for retirement from their career occupations, to quote the actual words used by the noble Lord, Lord Crook. Lest I be misunderstood, I am not suggesting that this indicates a senile retirement, but rather a transference of responsibility from one area to another. We here, many of us elderly persons, find in and through this place ample opportunity to continue our service to the whole of the community, and we bring to it, I hope, the advantage of much experience and a certain measure of wisdom. That, of course, means we are setting an example to the rest of our community of a comparatively similar age to find ways and means by which they can enjoy what has often been called the evening of their years.
But retirement to-day is very different from what it was in former years. Perhaps some of us recall the words of Shakespeare when he says:
"The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side."
I must confess I do not feel that applies to me in any respect, excepting in regard to my spectacles, and I am sure it does not apply to any other Member of this House. In these days many more than formerly are retiring from what have been described as career occupations, because in former days so many people retired straight to the graveyard, as indeed so many of the old records indicate.
As a Free Church minister of religion, and therefore able to counter-balance in some measure the impressive episcopal phalanx so brilliantly represented here, in this capacity I once attended a cremation service, and as the cortege was half-an-hour late in arriving I spent that half hour looking through the registers of deaths and found that in fact the average age of those cremated was well over 72
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years of age. That is confirmed by national statistics. We know to-day that round about that age is the expectancy of life at birth. It is more so for women than for men, therefore giving a certain advantage to all little girls born rather than to boys. So we may generally anticipate that, from now onward, far more will live beyond the threescore-years-and-ten than was the case when the scythe took away so many at an early age, wasting their lives, both personally and socially.
The noble Lord, Lord Crook, reminded us that proportionally twice as many persons of over pensionable age exist to-day as compared with 1915. I am not sure of his figures. I believe he actually quoted the figure of 5½ million. My own figures indicate that in Great Britain in 1963 there were nearly 6 million—in fact 5.99 million—in receipt of pensions, and that in 1964 those of pensionable age in the United Kingdom, as distinct from those receiving pensions, amounted to 8-1 million; and it is estimated that this figure will increase to 10.1 million by 1990. Those figures are very significant indeed. It means that from now onward we shall have a large section of our British human community who will retire from their usual functions as workers in one way or the other, and have to spend many years in retirement. Whatever we may think of birth control, certainly we have been highly successful in death control. The mortality rates have steadily declined, and I think will go on declining; but it is interesting to note that so far as those of 85 years or over are concerned the decline is much less substantial. We still have to deal with that particular problem.
This claim of a large section of elderly citizens that they should secure the maximum enjoyment in the evening of their years poses a heavy problem, because old age is no joy for, to quote the Psalmist, it is full of labour and sorrow. Fortunately, this is less so now than it was in distant days, for we now have a Welfare State and a system of State retirement pensions steadily being amplified, stage by stage, payment of which was originally, I would remind noble Lords, bitterly resented by some of our own predecessors. But the community now accepts responsibility for elderly persons, and that is why the noble Lord, Lord Crook, when he referred to our responsibility was

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merely emphasising what indeed we now accept.
But I would suggest there are four categories into which we can place those members of the community whom we have been discussing this afternoon. First of all, there are the affluent, including some noble Lords in this House. For them there is no statutory limitation on the amount they earn or receive. Their income can ensure them whatever enjoyment they desire, and therefore we are not concerned with that section of the community.
Then there are the educated. I would submit that their cultural interests provide, or should provide, ample satisfaction for them in their later years of life, whether in literature, music, art or otherwise. Of course, it does not follow that the affluent and the educated are necessarily synonymous. You can have one or the other; you can have both. On the other hand, I remember an elderly french polisher who lived a very straightforward, honest life of service to his community. He became deputy mayor of a certain town, and then had to retire on a very miserable pension; but he counted himself a millionaire because then, for the first time, he felt that there was ample opportunity to draw on the riches of his little library, and other books, to his heart's and mind's content. In that respect, though poor, he was indeed a wealthy man. But we need not bother very much about such people, because they find their own satisfaction in the way I have suggested.
There is the third category of those who are chronically sick or infirm. Many, of course, do suffer from mental or physical collapse, sometimes due to the strain of their lives in one way or another. Large numbers of those are in hospitals or institutions, and undoubtedly the improvement of their lot in those institutions is very necessary. Much attention is being given to geriatrics but much more attention should be given, and I have great sympathy with the noble Baroness when she referred to those elderly men who are facing brick walls with apparently nothing to do. I, too, have seen that, as many of us have done. It reminds us that in the institutional field much has still to be done to assist those in such great psychological and emotional need.
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But there is a fourth category, and this is the category to which we are giving our attention this afternoon: the category of the relatively fit and well, who are dwelling in their own homes or in the homes of their children. Undoubtedly the initial need of all in this category, whatever may be their other interest or hobbies, is an adequate pension, or National Assistance, to enable them at least to secure the basic requirements of their physical lives. For even though some in this category may devour books, they are not a very nourishing substitute for the food they require.
Much is being done in this direction. Pensions have been increased, not merely relatively but absolutely, and in the days to come we hope that we shall see a still further increase in them. I share the expressions of sympathy that many have made to-day with those who have to bear the alleged harshness of the earnings rule. But here again we can rejoice in the fact that this is being made much more moderate than it was formerly, and large numbers of people will be able to earn far more without having their pension curtailed than was the case until comparatively recently. Nevertheless, it is true that, unless ways and means can be found by which the sheer basic economic needs of people are met, they cannot enjoy their lives to the full in a way that would otherwise be possible.
Reference has been made to the necessity of providing work for those who still want to continue beyond the statutory time when they can draw their pension. Something has now been done along those lines, for it is, I understand, within the powers of local authorities to establish workshops and some have done precisely that. Voluntary organisations also have done this—not many I agree. But here is a field of enterprise on the part of both voluntary organisations and local authorities which should attract those who wish to serve elderly people in this way. It is recognised, of course, that very often those who would go to such workshops are not as 100 per cent. fit as they once were. The noble Lord, Lord Citrine, admits that possibility—though it certainly does not apply in his case. But the fact of that lower fitness is taken into consideration: work in these places proceeds at a slower pace. The jobs given to these people are within their

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capacity, and I know many who have been employed in that way, working at a lower tempo, for perhaps four or five hours a day, instead of seven or eight, who have certainly found that a very fine means of fulfilling themselves.
On the other hand, while there are many who on retirement feel their world has come to an end, that they are not wanted and that therefore the rest of their lives are just to be lives of drift, I would say there are quite a number who anticipate with great joy the end of the period of compulsory labour. I agree that it is not always an unmixed blessing for an elderly man at last to find more time with his wife at home, for there are wives who, though they may rejoice at the greater period of time they share with their spouses, soon begin to wish they were back at work. In saying this, I do not, of course, speak out of my own bitter experience, for my wife is also a very busy woman, even though she is approximately the same age as myself.
But we have to accept the fact that there are a number of people who, having borne the strain for many years, look forward with great anticipation to being relieved of the compulsory work and employment they have had to pursue for many years. Imagine, on a day like this, the strain imposed on so many elderly people who have not yet reached retirement age, when they have to travel by bus, often standing on one leg, with others, or in the Tube; who have to start work when, at last, they reach their particular factory or shop or office, and who when they return home in the evening, once more have to bear the severe strain of congested travel. Such people are only too glad when they reach the stage when they can feel that the added strain on their daily lives of congested travel need be no more. Those people are in our minds at the present time.
What can they do? First of all, let us realise that things are not quite so bad as they sometimes appear. Quite a proportion of elderly people feel that at last they can get added leisure for their hobbies and interests. There are old-age penisoners' associations in many parts of the country. There are "Darby and Joan" clubs; there is church guild and club life; there are mild sports which many pursue. Nothing is more delightful in summer time than to see the pleasant scene of many venerable gentlemen and
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ladies pondering, almost prayerfully, over large black balls gently curving on a green sward. And there are those who are quite satisfied with the humble satisfaction of a game of dominoes in the local pub, or those who potter around their gardens or allotments, where available, or go in for painting or carving, or even for plying needles.
From time to time in the Borough of Leyton we have had an exhibition of arts and crafts by elderly people. It is amazing to see among the exhibits some wonderful pieces of work performed by people of 85 or 90, including men who can show their prowess in embroidery and in knitting. I am not suggesting that all elderly men should take up embroidery or knitting. I am saying merely that here is a sphere which needs greater encouragement. For, after all, if those have shown what they can do in the world of simple arts and crafts so satisfactorily as I have described, why should not others be encouraged to prepare for their old age in exactly the same way? We used locally, I am sure, to foster this interest in hobbies and interests, as alternatives or supplementary to the television hypnosis; for although there is a certain attraction and satisfaction in the fact that elderly people are now able to see the world revealed before them on the phantom screen, there is a certain seduction about it. I see no reason why, long before retirement, men and women should not be encouraged to take an interest in other things than their own work; why should they not go about a variety of things so as to prepare for the day when they can sit down to concentrate on them more fully?
I have already said that it is within the power of local authorities to establish workshops if they so desire. It is also within the power of local authorities to establish centres for the aged; and many have done precisely this. I believe that there are 7,000 social clubs which have been initiated by local authorities in the country, and some 200 day centres, where not merely recreation and entertainment but also facilities for the hobbies that I have mentioned are provided. Certainly, there is much scope here for material to fill up what otherwise might seem to be a vacuum.
I would go further, and suggest that undoubtedly there is scope for much social service in sending out to a large number

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of elderly people who are living lonely lives, so bringing them good cheer and human contact. I am afraid that few people appreciate how many of these lonely folk shrink back like hermits into a little hut; and there, with their meagre pension, live their solitary lives from week to week with hardly any human contact. Here is a sphere where churches, charitable bodies and all those filled with a sense of social service, can certainly bring comfort and human feeling to those who otherwise might feel that they are entirely forgotten.
In the sphere of education much can be done. Unfortunately, the figures indicate that the number of elderly people attending one or other of the classes run by the Workers' Educational Association and similar bodies is very small indeed. It is true, I am afraid, that, except to those who in their early years have a love of education, education seems so often to end when at last they have finished with their merely technical school career. Why cannot we in middle age stir up greater interest in education for its own sake, with the realisation that education is never ended; that it goes on perpetually? If, therefore, there could be greater encouragement to men and women in their middle age to join classes, where together they could ponder on worthwhile things, I am quite sure that some, at least, when their old age was reached would look forward with pleasure and joy to the opportunity to explore still further the vast world of the mind.
I think some reference has been made this afternoon to housing. The interesting thing about this is that theoretically there is ample accommodation for all people in this country, including the elderly people. Again, if I may quote my own ex-constituency, although there are more housing units in the Borough of Leyton now than there were years ago, there is still a long housing waiting list. Why? One reason is that larger numbers of elderly people, in couples, or alone when their spouse has died, go on living in a home, often with two or three rooms quite unused. On the other hand, it is equally true that local authorities have in many cases been able to arrange an exchange between the home in which the elderly people are living, on the one hand, and smaller accommodation with more amenities. Much more could be
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done in this way, and preparation for it could be made before retiring age.
Then one must realise that local authorities all over the country are providing an increasing number of small flats and bungalows appropriate for the precise needs of elderly people. Some 35,000 to 40,000 are now so housed. Beyond that, other accommodation is provided by voluntary bodies. There are miners homes, there are so-called almshouses, which again to some extent meet the need; though here again it is interesting to note that, in some cases, again so far as my ex-constituency is concerned, at one time in order to secure accommodation in one of these almshouses the applicant had to write a sheaf of letters and had to wait two or three or more years before at last being admitted. Now the tendency is reversed and many of these so-called almshouses are empty because people to place in them cannot be found. This is a passing observation which may have no particular relevance, but certainly this housing problem is bound up with the general housing problem. I would say again that I am glad to note that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has from time to time sent guidance to local authorities on how they can meet this particular need to provide accommodation for the aged.
One knows there are other means by which the aged are being assisted. There are the invaluable services of home helps all over the country. This has brought in incalculable relief and been a blessing to thousands of elderly people, supplemented often by "meals on wheels" and other services run by local authorities or voluntary organisations. There are many other services which are coming to be used by local authorities for the benefit of their elderly citizens. There is one illustration of this in Leyton. There a laundry service is run by the local authority. Every week representatives of that borough go round collecting soiled linen from elderly women who canot easily wash it themselves. I understand that last month well over 3,000 pieces of soiled linen were collected in this way from elderly people, and returned to them in the course of a few days ready for them to use. These are little services which nevertheless can relieve substantially the burden of elderly people.

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I would remind the House of the fact that now the Government have decided to enable local authorities to reduce fares on their own transport systems for the benefit of elderly people and old-age pensioners. So far as health is concerned—another matter of which some brief mention was made—obviously this is bound up largely with the question of the health of the community. After all, health in old age is partly dependent on what life was like in earlier years for the health of a tree is determined partly by its roots; and therefore we look forward to increasing good health in this country from which, of course, the elderly people, as well as the rest, will benefit. In one or two parts of the country—in Middlesex, for example; and I believe, in Rutherglen, in Glasgow—health clinics provide advice and assistance for those about to retire. This might be considered as a desirable service by more local authorities.
No doubt the Pre-Retirement Association has in mind, as highly desirable, services of the kind I have described, and a desire to foster and encourage them. I am therefore grateful, as I am sure we all are, that Lord Crook, who is the President of that body, has brought to our attention this afternoon what the Pre-Retirement Association desire to encourage in our midst. The Government will take note of this. I will pass on all the observations and proposals that have been made. I am sure that they will be considered very carefully.
I am also sure that every one of us feels that this debate has been valuable in relation to making our later years more worth while. I say "our" later years collectively, because I and other noble Lords here in our riper years do not want to detach ourselves from the rest of the community. We belong to the rest of the same age group as ourselves; we are members one of another. Therefore, as I say, the debate has been useful in contributing to the making of our lives not for plaintive vegetation and for lonely hardship or melancholic senility, but for an autumn of mellow fulfilment. I therefore express my appreciation of what my noble friend Lord Crook has done to-day, and I am sure that his words will bear fruit.
5.41 p.m.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I rise to thank those who have taken part in this debate, and first of all to say to the noble Baroness how glad I am that she did so. It was the first time I have heard the noble Lady speak in this House. I have, however, had other opportunities of listening to her, either in the other place or in New York in the United Nations; and I join with everybody else in hoping that we shall hear her on many other occasions. She brought back many old memories to me when she spoke about Hackney. I started my life in the employment of the Poor Law Guardians, and was to go on to work for many years in connection with the reform of the Poor Law. I well remember the handing over to which she referred, when I was a co-opted member of the L.C.C. Public Health Committee. May I say, too, how much I appreciated the words of the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Southwark in his intervention.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will not think me unpleasant in interrupting him, but I understand he has no right of reply.
LORD CROOK: This is a Motion and I have always replied in the past. I am moving for Papers, and under the Standing Orders I have a right of reply.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am entirely wrong. I apologise to my noble friend.
LORD CROOK: My noble friend Lord Citrine's intervention I did not expect until he come and spoke to me. I do not know that we need worry about Lord Citrine finding any difficulties in his life, because I have known him for many years and at his quite advanced age he finds no difficulty in coming and addressing us to-day. He reminded me that I had read in a newspaper on Tuesday that it was my birthday, and it is apparently only one year off before I myself shall be numbered among those in the retirement group. It is a chastening thought. May I thank the noble Lord who replied for the Government? I have known him for many years and know how much the old people, and indeed people in Leyton in

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general, love him, and how much they missed him when he decided to put off retirement to come here and work instead. I thank noble Lords for their contributions, and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE POTATO MARKETING BOARD
5.46 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the Potato Marketing Board has carried out its duties in the best interests of its members during recent months. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the reason why I put down this Unstarred Question to-night is that I believe there are many disappointed potato growers throughout the country who feel that the poor market price for last season's crop stems from the present inadequate arrangements between the Government and the Potato Marketing Board. I should like to say at the outset that I appreciate that to control the potato market to secure both a steady flow of potatoes and a fair price for them is no easy matter. My few remarks are intended not so much to criticise the efforts of the Board as to criticise the existing working arrangements between the Government and the Board and the Government's adamant refusal to go to the Board's support last December.
There are approximately 60,000 registered potato growers throughout the country, producing a total of some 660,000 acres. Each registered grower pays to the Board a levy of £3 per acre to safeguard his interests. Thus, the total annual revenue the Board receives is approximately £2 million, £1 million of which is earmarked for the Market Support Fund. As I understand it, the Government support the potato industry by two methods. The first is by fixing at the February Price Review a guaranteed price for the following season; and the second is to contribute £2 for every £1 the Board puts towards the Market Support Fund. This at present runs to £3 million per annum.
The guaranteed price for potatoes, which was first set out in principle under
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the 1947 Agriculture Act, stands this year at £14 per ton. It is, in fact, no guarantee whatsoever to the individual producer but it is a certain safeguard to the industry as a whole. The guarantee would operate only if the average market price throughout the whole season dropped below £14 per ton. This average market price to many producers is thoroughly confusing, as it still allows the market price to fall to £9 to £10 per ton without apparently bringing the guarantee into operation.
Perhaps the more important form of Government support is through the Market Support Fund. This fund, jointly financed and controlled by the Government and the Potato Marketing Board, has the principal rôle of acting as a supporting influence on the market price. The Board may, with the consent of the Government, step in as buyers of potatoes with the resources of the fund when it is felt that the market price may be in danger of dropping below the guaranteed level. But last December the market for potatoes was on the floor, and the result showed up a serious weakness between the Government and the Board. The Ministry refused to co-operate in buying potatoes at that time and the Board felt it was forced to act on its own in the interests of the growers with its own limited resources and for only a limited period.
This open friction made many growers suspect the Government's future intentions, and indeed such fears seemed to be endorsed only a few weeks ago. It was then announced that the Ministry would not support the market, although again the Board expressed its concern. It then transpired that the Ministry woke up to the fact of its obligation to the guaranteed price and the nasty possibility of a deficiency payment having to be made. Suddenly, last week, it not only reversed its recent decision but decided to recoup in part the Board's expenses of last December. It now supports the Board as buyers of potatoes.
While welcoming this move, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that the present relationship between the Ministry and the Potato Board is not satisfactory. Potato growers invest large sums of money, I understand about £100 per acre, in growing main potatoes. I

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submit that they are entitled, in the words of the 1947 Agriculture Act
"to receive an adequate return on the capital invested in the industry".
Such an "off and on" support policy by the Ministry has a damaging effect on the market and drives the poor grower into accepting uneconomical prices for his crop. If the growers are prepared to raise £2 million per year to safeguard their market, surely the Ministry could show equal determination and not dillydally on the touchline. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government to give a more positive support to potato growers and the Board, and not leave them out on a limb as they have done this year.
5.50 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I have little to add to what my noble friend has already said. I am, of course, able to sympathise to some extent with the Minister and his colleagues, who have taxpayers' money and the consumer to consider as well as farmers' returns. He is, all the same, aware, and my noble friend has just reminded us, that the call upon the taxpayer may be a good deal greater, through an eventual deficiency payment, if the timing of the intervention—that is, support buying—is delayed unwisely.
It seems to me possible that this may, in fact, prove to be the case here. Quite certainly, a number of perfectly sensible, prudent farmers had the heart taken out of them by the brusqueness of the Minister's reply on February 10 to a Parliamentary Question in another place, following his Statement on February 9. There was nothing in either the Answer or the Statement to give them much hope. They therefore sold at the bottom of the market and are now pretty angry. The bottom of the market was very low indeed, as my noble friend has just said. From immediate personal experience, I can tell him that I sold two loads at £9 10s. a ton, and I have been told about Yorkshire neighbours who sold as low as £8 a ton. I am not declaring an interest, because it is, in fact, too late for the noble Lord opposite to do anything for my interests in this matter, however much I might wring his heart. The majority of farmers did not foresee at that time the volte-face of a fortnight later; that is to say, on February 25. Those who hung on to their potatoes not-
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withstanding are, of course, less incensed, but it would, I think, in all objectivity, be most unreasonable to blame the others. During 13 years of calm and considered government, farmers had not come to expect this kind of volte-face.
The words used in the Minister's initial answer were anything but encouraging to a rational ear. He said:
"When I met the Board and representatives of the unions concerned, I carefully considered their case and came to the conclusion that there was no need to panic at this stage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons. Vol. 706 (No. 54), col. 357, February 10, 1965.]
The whole conception of a "need to panic" is a curious one in itself to most minds; but now, of course, we know, we have seen, that the present Government considers and employs panic as a political weapon. What has also become evident is that it is a double-edged and expensive weapon. and that this present experience may on a smaller scale prove the same.
My noble friend's Question refers to the way in which the Potato Marketing Board has carried out its duties, but it is, of course, as he has said, the Government who enable the Board to carry out its duties when it comes to intervention on this scale. What I think the noble Lord, Lord Champion, will have to do, in answering my noble friend, is to satisfy the House, if he can, that his right honourable friend was justified in rejecting the advice of the Board when it was given, only to change his mind later when events had taken a perfectly foreseeable course but after considerable and undeserved financial harm had been done to some individuals.
5.53 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, I have been asked some questions to which, of course, I must endeavour to make a reply. The noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, was particularly forceful. I am bound to say that I think he blossoms in Opposition. I sincerely hope that he will have a long time in which not only to blossom, but to bear fruit. But I doubt whether his attack to-day will be one which will help him in the future, because it really was very badly founded. This attack upon the Government in relation to its actions on the potato position is one which requires examination, and of

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course it is my job to try to justify what I have said.
I am grateful to the noble Earl for having put his question, as he always does, in a very thoughtful and, I would say, telling way, because he got down to the facts of the difficulties which potato producers have felt over the past few months. If I were called upon to answer in the manner of another place the Question which is on the Order Paper, "Are we satisfied that the Potato Marketing Board has carried out its duties in the best interests of its members during recent months?", I might be tempted to use the words, "Yes, my Lords" and sit down. But because we are not used to such brevity in this House, I should probably add the words, "We are satisfied, so far as it is possible to be satisfied with a human institution which has to deal with the complex problems of marketing a product the yields of which are notoriously variable and dependent upon the vagaries of our weather." But, my Lords, I cannot get away even with that, because an Unstarred Question here is, of course, a debate and I cannot answer in quite the manner that I should have done in another place.
The Government says, and my right honourable friend says, that we think that the Potato Marketing Board is doing a first-class job under the chairmanship of Mr. Rennie—a hard-headed Scot known to many of your Lordships, and I am sure to the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, as a man who is capable of acting as chairman of a Board of this sort, and to do it in the interests of the potato producers of this country. I wonder, sometimes, what would be the problems of this part of our agricultural industry if we did not have such a Board as the Marketing Board which was set up in 1934 under the Act of 1931.
What would happen? I am fairly sure that this would happen. Following a year of very high yield and consequent surplus, leading to a disastrous fall in potato prices, acreages would be severely cut by the farmers, and if such a cut were accompanied by a bad potato year prices would soar and producers would, in the following year, plant acreages perhaps exceeding those of the high surplus year. It would be the old trouble
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of the pig industry. I remember in the inter-war years when I kept a few pigs, that pigs were either copper or gold. That is the phrase we used to use about them. When pigs were gold, everybody rushed in, and the result was copper very soon; and when it was copper, of course, the people got out, shortages occurred, pigs again became gold, and so this silly sort of circle continued.
I cannot pretend, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, with his experience in this industry and in the Ministry cannot pretend, that any marketing board for this type of produce can hope to adjust acreages to produce yields which will exactly match demands. In the nature of things, this simply is not possible. This is regrettable perhaps, but it is very true, and it is one of the facts of life of the Potato Marketing Board and the Government. But a prosperous potato industry would be quite inconceivable without a marketing board to stabilise acreages and to help to solve the problems of surplus. Without it, we should be back in the anarchy of the old days, bringing disaster to the people engaged in the industry.
But I am asked by both noble Lords opposite to look at the circumstances of last year, as they have led up to the decision by the Minister to engage in support buying announced in February. What were the circumstances of last year? In July, the market was overloaded and prices were correspondingly depressed. What happened? The Board—wisely, rightly, and in the interests of the potato producers—immediately committed the funds at their disposal to a buying programme. The result was that producers' prices improved, but at a cost of some £200,000 to the Board's accumulated funds. The Board, of course, seeing that this happened last July, in their report of November last, wisely and properly called attention to this fact, and warned producers for subsequent years—that is, this year and subsequent years—against overloading the July market for earlies. It is a warning which they repeated only last week, and it is rather hoped that this will have some effect, because we do not want to see this situation arising again in July of this year.
The next thing that happened was that in December, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, mentioned, there were signs

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that the market was weakening, and the Board then committed up to £l½ million of its own funds. Here, I would say to the noble Earl that I think he has his facts wrong. The Government were not at that time asked by the Board to engage in a joint buying programme. They were not asked at that time to do that, but only to permit the Board to commit its own funds—funds that in fact it could use without reference to the Government, except in so far as the Government give a general approval.
What has happened since then? In January, when prices began to fall, the Board urged the Government to authorise a further buying programme, financed, as to two-thirds, by the Government, and, as to one-third, by the Board. This was in January of this year. Now the noble Lord asked, as, of course, he was quite entitled to do: why did the Government not immediately respond to that request? That is a fair question, and I am not going to try to shrug it off.
The Government considered the whole question, and they told the Board on February 3, and confirmed it on February 8, that the Government at that time did not feel that the situation justified a joint buying programme—that is, a joint buying programme with the Government meeting two-thirds and the Board meeting one-third of the cost. They took the view at that time that it was not right to assume that the unduly low prices which were then operating would continue between January and the end of the season. And it must be remembered that the average weekly price at that time was still above the guaranteed price of £14 a ton—and, of course, the noble Earl was quite right in saying that the guaranteed price stands at £14 per ton. In fact, the average market price for the week ended January 30 was estimated at £14 11s., and the cumulative price for the previous six months had moved up to about £13 9s.
As the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, knows perfectly well, as a potato producer himself, prices normally move up towards the end of the season, so that that tends to raise the average for the whole of the period. In connection with the possibility of surplus, and the rest of it, there is a further consideration. If the weather in late January and February
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had produced a succession of heavy frosts, any possibility of a surplus might well have disappeared. Indeed, the sort of weather that we are getting now may well have an effect—and I hope the noble Lord has not too many of his potatoes still remaining in the clamps.
LORD ST. OSWALD: They have all gone.
LORD CHAMPION: If the noble Lord had kept them a little longer, he might have got the advantage of the better price; but he might also have suffered from the fact that he would have lost his "spuds" because they had been affected by frost. But this is always a factor in this business of calculating the size of the surplus, and it is one which the Government have always to take into consideration. The market prices continued to fall, and in the second week in February, for the first time since October, the average price fell below the guaranteed price.
Now what the Government had to consider here was what caused this. What caused this fall in the price to this figure? My right honourable friend believes that the fall was caused by exaggerated rumours about the size of the surplus. This is a market of which it is said (and I believe it to be true) that it can be affected more by rumours than by the facts. This is what was happening in this case—or, at least, so we think. Nevertheless, despite this, the low prices prevailing suggested that the average market price for the season might not reach that of the guarantee, and so my right honourable friend decided to authorise a joint buying programme, which was announced, as the House knows, on February 22.
My Lords, it has been said (I do not remember if anybody actually mentioned it here, but it has been said in certain quarters) that my right honourable friend blamed the Board for "talking down price". But it is not true that my right honourable friend blamed the Board for depressing prices. It is the normal practice of the Board to disclose the results of their end-December stock census. What appears to have happened is that some people drew the wrong conclusions from the Board's statement of January 26. What they failed to do was to make proper allowances for the effect of the

1327
higher riddle, greater demands for human consumption, wastage and the Board's buying programme. Consequently, there were exaggerated rumours about the possibility of the surplus towards the end of the season.
So far as the Government are concerned, the Minister—and I support him in this—emphatically repudiates any suggestion of vacillation or undue delay. After all, to authorise the use of taxpayers' money to support the market to the extent of between, perhaps, £1 million and £2 million is not a decision to be taken lightly. This is taxpayers' money and must not be committed lightly to any section of our community, although we want to secure a reasonable standard of living for the noble Lord or for anyone else who engages in the job of producing potatoes.
LORD ST. OSWALD: That is extremely good of the noble Lord—I am sure he is sincere—but would he agree with me (and I think he can do it without any loss of face) in considering how the taxpayers' money must be used here and guarded? The end result could be that, because of a very high deficiency payment at the end of the year, a delayed intervention could cost the taxpayers more than in fact an intervention at the right moment.
LORD CHAMPION: Yes. The noble Lord's experience would teach him that this is always a balance of consideration. It is always a Minister's job to try to get his balance of consideration absolutely right. Despite the words which the noble Lord used about us, I believe that this Government is the kind that will do pre-
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cisely that. I am glad to say that the announcement of a joint buying programme has already improved the tone of the market. I think we shall be able to look forward to a steady improvement in prices in the next few weeks. I do not know if I have completely satisfied noble Lords; but I am satisfied that what I have said is the truth of the situation, and that the Government could not very well have acted in any way different from the action which my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture took upon this extremely difficult matter.

OXFORD NORTHERN BY-PASS DISCUSSIONS
THE EARL OF MACCLESFIELD THE EARL OF MACCLESFIELD asked Her Majesty's Government:
On what dates the discussions took place concerning the Oxford Northern By-pass between the Divisional Road Engineer of the Ministry of Transport and the Oxfordshire County Council, which were referred to in this House on the 18th February, 1965. [Hansard, Cols. 611 and 612.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN)THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): The Divisional Road Engineer and members of his staff are in close touch with the County Surveyor about proposals for the improvement of this road. The most recent discussion was on February 25.
House adjourned at eleven minutes past six o'clock.