Lords Sitting of 18 May 1965

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

THE CASE OF TIMOTHY JOHN EVANS
2.35 p.m.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now appoint a committee of inquiry to determine the guilt or innocence of Timothy John Evans of the conviction for which he suffered the death penalty on March 9, 1950.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary has given this suggestion most careful consideration, but he has no grounds for thinking that a further inquiry at this stage—more than fifteen years after the event—could discover any new material of substance beyond what is already known about this case. On the material at present available it is impossible, in his view, to reach a definite conclusion on whether Evans committed the offence of which he was convicted, and my right honourable and learned friend has concluded that no useful purpose would now be served by asking a committee of inquiry to determine this question.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for answering this Question, may I ask him whether he is aware that in the last Parliament the present Home Secretary and many Labour Members pleaded most strenuously with the Government to reopen this matter in order to clear Timothy Evans's name? Will he say why there has been a change of attitude, since at
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that time it was agreed by the Labour Party that there was a great deal to investigate and a great deal of written material which could well be scrutinised again?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have no knowledge that the Labour Party as such ever expressed a view, or indeed could have expressed a view, on this case.
LORD BYERS: I said "Members of the Labour Party."
LORD STONHAM: It is within my knowledge that my right honourable and learned friend spoke in a manner as is suggested by the noble Lord some three and a half years ago. If I am asked why he has now reached a different conclusion, I submit that there had been a lapse of some three and a half years and that Mr. Scott Henderson, Q.C., who examined Christie in the course of his private inquiry in 1953, and whom no doubt one would wish to question in any new inquiry, himself died in November of last year. I would add that my right honourable friend since then, and since taking office, has himself reviewed all the material available and has reached the conclusion that it would be impossible to reach any definite conclusion on whether or not Evans murdered his child. I understand that many authorities, including the late Lord Birkett, share that view.
LORD REA: My Lords, I think the noble Lord in his original Answer said that there was some doubt about it and that it would be very difficult to clear up. In that case, is a man who is convicted and about whom there is doubt as to his conviction not to be presumed innocent? It has happened in other, recent cases in regard to a dead defendant that his name cannot be cleared of a charge which has not been proved. In this case the charge has been "proved", but there is some doubt about it.
LORD STONHAM: If, in my previous Answer, I implied that Evans was certainly guilty, then of course I withdraw that. The facts, as I understand them, are that on the available evidence it is possible to take the view that Evans was probably innocent, and it is possible

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to take the view that he was probably guilty. That is the position we are in. On the point posed by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, the only occasions when a free pardon can be given are when there is a certainty of the innocence of the accused.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I make a very earnest appeal to the Government to reconsider this decision? It is not only a matter of evidence; it is a matter of justice. In view of the great interest which is now being taken in the whole subject of capital punishment, and the fact that not only the Home Secretary—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
LORD BROCKWAY: I want to keep within the Rules of the House, but I feel very deeply about this matter. May I ask the Minister whether it was not only the Home Secretary but also the present Foreign Secretary who urged a reconsideration of this question, and whether the Government cannot think again about it? It would be deplorable if any man has been hanged when there is a great deal of evidence to show that he was innocent.
LORD STONHAM: I appreciate that my noble friend has very deep feelings in this matter, and those very deep feelings are shared by many other people. My noble friend mentioned the question of justice. That is precisely our difficulty in this particular case. My right honourable friend is not certain, and does not believe that after a lapse of sixteen years a further inquiry can make anybody certain, of the guilt or innocence of Evans. That is why he feels that the further inquiry asked for in the Question would serve no useful purpose. I will certainly bring to the attention of my right honourable friend the views that have been expressed.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that is a very weak answer, indeed? What he is really saying is that in the last three and a half years the writing on the evidence has faded. Are the Government really satisfied with the Scott Henderson Report? They were not satisfied up to the time when they came into office, and none of us is satisfied with it. If we are not to appeal to a
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Labour Government, where do we get this sort of justice done?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his implied commendation. The noble Lord mentioned the previous inquiry by the late Mr. Scott Henderson. One of our particular difficulties is that Mr. Scott Henderson is no longer here to be questioned.
LORD BYERS: The report is here.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in other words, what the noble Lord is saying is that he expects to obtain a new opinion from the old evidence which has been gone over before. That may well be possible, but I submit to your Lordships that it would not and could not produce certainty of this man's innocence. That is the difficulty which confronts us.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that in the view of, at any rate, some of us in this House, in all the circumstances his answers on this very difficult matter this afternoon have been very reasonable?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, for his comment. But, if he will allow me to say so, I appreciate the very deep feelings of many noble Lords on this issue. It is a matter of regret to my right honourable and learned friend that he has felt obliged, after the most careful study and deep thought on this subject, to give the answer that I have just given.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, the intervention of the Opposition makes me put another further question. Is the Minister aware that there was very heavy criticism of the Scott Henderson inquiry from this side of the House; that it was a private inquiry; that there was no cross-examination; and that the evidence before it has never been made known to the public? In view of the very deep concern about the whole question of capital punishment, will the Minister ask the Secretary of State for Home Affairs to look at this matter again?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have already given an assurance on that subject, and I am aware, of course, of the

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criticisms which were made of Mr. Scott Henderson's report. I have also read Mr. Ludovic Kennedy's book and am, perhaps, as reasonably well-informed as one can be on this subject. I shall certainly bring these observations to my right honourable friend's notice, but I would again express the view that, despite all that has been said, I do not think that a further inquiry would bring certainty of the innocence of this man. It is merely one more example of the tragedy that in a case of this kind we cannot produce the man concerned.

THE M.4 MOTORWAY
2.46 p.m.
LORD HURD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask her Majesty's Government whether the technical grounds advanced by the consulting engineers, for discarding the alternative routes for the M.4 Motorway previously projected by the Ministry of Transport through Berkshire and proposing yet another route, can now be published to satisfy local opinion that there are good reasons for the Minister of Transport's current proposals.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, my right honourable friend has explained in another place that a re-examination became necessary because of certain important developments arising in particular from the South-East England Study and the Channel Tunnel project. I cannot at present add to my right honourable friend's statement, but when his proposals are published they will as usual be accompanied by an explanatory statement.
LORD HURD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether, as there have been no fewer than five different routes projected by the Ministry of Transport for the M.4 motorway through Berkshire, we may now have the pros and cons set out clearly, for the County Council and the public generally to be able to weigh the
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advantages and disadvantages of one route as against another? Failing that, must we expect that there will be still further projections and further alternatives, and that we shall go on for ever like that without getting the route settled?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, this is one of the most beautiful parts of the country, and any route is going to be open to objection from an æsthetic point of view. The noble Lord has mentioned five routes, but in actual fact six routes have already been suggested. Discussions have been going on since 1950, so no one can accuse us or previous Administrations of being hasty. Discussions are now taking place with the Berkshire County Council, and when those are finalised the proposed route will be published. There will be an opportunity for objections, and if those objections are weighty there will be a public inquiry.
LORD HURD: My Lords, may I take it that the reasons why the Minister has chosen a particular route will be given?
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, my Lords. One has to take into account the fact that there is this new development in the South-East. One has also to take into account the fact that the new route, or any route, should at least give service to Reading, to Newbury, to Hungerford, to Didcot and to Swindon, and that is another of the problems.
LORD HURD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, is the Minister aware—I am sure that he is—that it is the towns in the South of England from, say, Plymouth to Southampton and eastwards which will benefit most from this motorway and not the towns to the North which are served by the M.5 or the Ross Spur? Therefore, the farther South this road is, the more beneficial it will be to the people for whom it is intended. In view of the fact that the decision is still open, would the Minister still consider a route which is South of the one he is contemplating at present?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, this, again, is one of the difficulties. The proposed route which has already been announced in the Press, but not by the

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Minister, does go South of Reading. If, in fact, it went farther South it would not serve the purpose which the Minister feels it should of serving Newbury, Hungerford and Swindon.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, will the Minister please confirm that the route is in any case going to Bath, so that however far South of Reading it goes it will not very much help Plymouth?

THE BRITISH EGG MARKETING BOARD
2.50 p.m.
LORD HURD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the report of the committee appointed by the Minister of Agriculture to inquire into complaints raised against the British Egg Marketing Board has been received, and whether it will be published.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord refers to the report of the committee of investigation, who have been considering the report submitted by the Consumers' Committee last June on certain complaints against the British Egg Marketing Board. The report has now been received, and an announcement giving the Committee's conclusions will be made this week. My right honourable friends have decided to publish the report in full by making it available on request.
LORD HURD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. May we take it that the extraordinarily long time that this inquiry took means that there were some rather exceptional circumstances? Because, surely, in an ordinary case, it must be the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture to try to clear up any doubts about the working of a marketing scheme as quickly as possible, rather than leave it six to eight months.
LORD CHAMPION: Yes, my Lords, that is certainly the intention and the
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desire of the Minister; but, as the noble Lord knows, this case had certain complex issues, and the Minister does not think that, in the circumstances, the report was unduly delayed.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord say why the report will be made available only on request? Is it not possible to have it put in the Printed Paper Office?
LORD CHAMPION: No, my Lords. We think this is a report which will have a limited appeal, and we think that the request could be made quite easily by noble Lords. The noble Earl will receive a copy if he makes such a request.

NORTH-EAST ASIA DEFENCE
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what conversations, if any, they have had with friendly Governments about the setting up of a possible North-East Asia Treaty Organisation.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, there have been no such conversations.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, are the Government aware that the Press and radio services of East Asia are full of speculations about the possible development of a defence arrangement between the United States, Japan and South Korea which, whether or not it had the title, "North-East Asia Treaty Organisation'', would in fact be something rather parallel with SEATO, CENTO, and NATO in the world?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am well aware of such speculations in certain parts of the world; but, as is so often the case with many speculations on the part of the Press, there is, so far as I know, no foundation for them.
LORD KENNET: I thank the noble Lord for his courteous and almost definitive answer. If ever it should happen that Her Majesty's Government are called upon to have an opinion about the

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desirability of the formation of such a defence arrangement, in carrying out their extremely popular and just policy of seeking a détente and a pacification of that miserable part of the world, will they bear in mind the necessity of not lightly setting up further military organisations which might, indeed, exacerbate the situation there?
LORD WALSTON: I hope that it will set the noble Lord's mind at rest if I assure him that at the present time, at any rate, Her Majesty's Government see no need whatsoever for any such organisation.

PLOUGHING GRANTS SCHEME 1965
2.54 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I beg to move that the Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on April 8. be approved. I trust that it will be convenient if, at the same time, we take the Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme, 1965. May I say at the outset that these Schemes are basically similar to those which were approved last year. The Part I, or £5 per acre, grant is in fact unchanged in any way—except, of course, that the qualifying date has been advanced by one year. Noble Lords may recall that the procedures for this grant were streamlined last year to cut down the paper work. I am glad to say that these procedures have operated very smoothly and, indeed, have reduced substantially the number of pieces of paper which the farmers have had to complete.
The minor changes which we are making this year affect the Part II, or £12 per acre, grant. Noble Lords will remember that this grant is intended to assist towards the cost of ploughing old grassland where the expenses are significantly greater than in normal ploughing. We propose that the qualifying age for this higher rate of grant, which has fluctuated in the past, should remain constant at twelve years. We also propose that land which has already bene-
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fited from this grant should not be eligible for a further assistance under Part II of the Scheme, although it will, of course, be eligible for the normal £5 per acre grant under the normal conditions. We are introducing this restriction this year because it is twelve years since this grant was introduced and as the qualifying age of grassland is also twelve years it is just possible that land which was ploughed up with the aid of the grant in 1953 and immediately resown to grass could, if it had been sufficiently neglected, qualify again for this assistance. I am sure, however, that noble Lords will agree that we do not want to subsidise neglect of this sort.
My Lords, I think it is generally agreed that these grants have for many years fulfilled a useful purpose in encouraging farmers to maintain the quality of their grassland, and that we should continue to offer this encouragement. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme 1965, laid before the House on 8th April, be approved.—(Lord Champion.)
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will be very grateful for the clear way in which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has explained these Orders. As he rightly said, these are annual Orders, which come up for approval each year, and we on this side welcome them. The noble Lord referred to the tidying-up brought about by the Ploughing Grants Order last year, and, of course, quite an amount of tidying-up of paper work was incorporated in those Orders. I am glad that at least that legacy which the noble Lord's Government found on attaining office met with their approval, and that they have continued it. These grants have clearly helped enormously in assisting agriculture to keep modern, in helping it to keep a system of ley farming, and in keeping the fertility of the land up. In that respect, they have been extremely helpful to the agricultural community, and we welcome them.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PLOUGHING GRANTS (SCOTLAND) SCHEME 1965
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, having regard to what my noble friend Lord Champion has said, I beg formally to move approval of this Order.
Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme 1965, laid before the House on 8th April, be approved.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FERTILISERS (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME 1965
2.58 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1965, a copy of which was laid before this House on April 14, be approved. This Scheme does not involve any radical changes from the schemes which have been approved by the House in recent years. The rates of subsidy have been reduced in accordance with the cut of £2 million announced at the Annual Review. Apart from this, there are relatively minor changes in the drafting of the Order itself.
The cut in the subsidy is equivalent to a reduction of a little over 6 per cent. in the present subsidy, and in this Order we have to apply this reduction to the rates of subsidy paid for nitrogen, soluble phosphoric acid, insoluble phosphoric acid and insoluble phosphoric acid in basic slag. The method by which this is done is to reduce the individual rates of subsidy for these nutrients by this average amount, allowing for the fact that, since we cannot work to fractions of a penny, we cannot make a completely even percentage reduction in all the rates. In detail, these cuts show a reduction of 5d. per unit for nitrogen, 4d. per unit for soluble phosphoric acid and 2d. per unit for insoluble phosphoric acid. The reduction on grades of basic slag of over 14 per cent. is 3d. per unit. For lower grades of basic slag the reductions are somewhat higher, so that we can balance the sum without making bigger cuts on the higher grades and on the other nutrients, which represent by far the greatest part of all nutrients used.
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The new rates mean that the amount of subsidy will be equivalent to some 30 per cent, of the cost of the principal straight fertilisers. For compound fertilisers the amount of subsidy is in the range between 22 per cent. and 28 per cent. of the cost, according to the proportions of the different nutrients from which they are composed. For all fertilisers taken together the average subsidy represents some 25 per cent. of the cost at the prices for the 1964–65 fertiliser year.
To turn to the Order itself, there are no major changes. The changes which we have made are designed to clarify the wording of the Order in a number of respects and to deal with a number of minor points that have arisen in the administration of the Scheme during the past year. I will run through these changes briefly, dealing with them in the order in which they occur. The definition of "delivered" in paragraph 2 has been amplified, but this does not represent a change in policy. In paragraph 3 of the Order the position regarding the eligibility of fertilisers containing nitrogen or phosphoric acid not wholly derived from organic materials was found to be slightly ambiguous. We have now clarified the position and made it clear that where either the nitrogen or the phosphoric acid contains an inorganic element the fertiliser will qualify for subsidy. Paragraph 5(2) has also been re-worded, but this is purely a drafting alteration.
The next amendment occurs in paragraph 6(3). Here we have made it clear that, in accordance with our practice in administering the Scheme, when calculating whether the subsidy represents 50 per cent. of the cost of a fertiliser, discounts allowed or offered shall be deducted from that cost. The last amendment to the text of the Order is that we have added a new paragraph—paragraph 8—to provide for a new declaration on the application form which is signed by the applicant. This is to safeguard the Minister in reclaiming subsidy where fertilisers are not used in accordance with the terms of the application. What we have in mind in particular here, is that an applicant may order too much fertiliser and may return some of it to his supplier.
I am sure that the House will agree that these amendments to the Order are, as I have said, relatively minor changes

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in the Scheme which is in all essential respects exactly the same as Schemes approved in earlier years. The important feature is that the fertiliser subsidy is continuing and that the valuable contribution which it has made to increasing agricultural production will also continue. In 1952–53, which was the first year in which the fertiliser subsidy applied to nitrogen and to phosphates, as it does at present, the subsidy amounted to £12·7 million. For the fertiliser year 1964–65 we estimate that the subsidy will amount to £31·4 million. I think that this demonstrates clearly the expansion in the use of fertilisers which has been facilitated by the existence of this subsidy, and I ask the House to approve this Order to enable the subsidy to be continued for a further year.
Moved, That the Draft Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme 1965, laid before the House on April 14, be approved.—(Lord Champion.)
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, this again is an Order which we on this side of the House wholeheartedly welcome. Fertilisers have been of inestimable benefit to the agricultural community, and this subsidy has increased their use enormously. It is comforting to see that the Minister of Agriculture is ever mindful of the ways in which some people may possibly avoid or evade the restrictions imposed by these Orders, and I am glad to see that they have been altered in some form so as to make them more watertight. I was sorry to hear that the subsidy is to be reduced by £2 million, but I do not propose to pursue that point, because I believe it is not exactly without precedent. But I think the noble Lord did himself less than justice, because one of the anomalies of the agricultural subsidy system is that, whereas a subsidy on a commodity may be reduced, the Exchequer's liability may not be reduced. In this case I believe that although the subsidy is being reduced by £2 million, Her Majesty's Government will in fact in the forthcoming year be expecting to pay out just about the same amount as, if not more than, that paid for fertilisers last year. But we are grateful to the noble Lord for his Order.
LORD CHAMPION: Yes, my Lords, it is the case that although there appears to be a reduction of £2 million we rather
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expect that the amount to be found by the taxpayer for the forthcoming year will be up by £600,000. I know that that sounds rather odd after my talking of the cut of £2 million; but fortunately the farmers recognise the benefits of using fertiliser and the use graph is continuing the upward tendency that has been showing for a long time. So, actually, we rather expect to be spending a little more this year than in the last year.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister will be able to tell us what the net effect of this reduction of £2 million may be to the farmer. We have heard that it may mean that more will be paid out by the Exchequer; but in the past the fertiliser manufacturers, by means of increased efficiency, have been able to absorb sometimes all the reduction in subsidy and have reduced their prices to the farmer so that the farmer has not had to pay more. Now, if the reduction of £2 million in Exchequer grant is made and if it is not possible for the fertiliser manufacturers to reduce their prices, the farmers will have to pay more for their fertilisers. I wonder whether the Minister has any estimate of what those increased costs to the farmer are likely to be, on the assumption that the prices of fertilisers will not be reduced.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I have the figures here, but they will take rather a lot of "digging out". I should be happy to convey these figures to the noble Earl. We are not sure about this, because we do not know quite what the fertiliser manufacturers are going to do. There have been various suggestions. I saw one of them in the Financial Times on the 13th of this month to the effect that it is likely that the manufacturers will manage to maintain their fertiliser prices at the prices existing last year, despite the increased costs to them. Of course, we are glad to see that they might do this. But, inevitably, if they maintain their prices at the present level, it will mean that the farmers will have to pay slightly more for their fertilisers than they did last year. But if the noble Earl wishes it, I can give him the figures and set them out in tabulated form. In fact, I will do that.
VISCOUNT STONHAVEN: My Lords, can the noble Lord help me a little on

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the solubility of phosphates or phosphoric acid? Can he tell me, for example, how he assesses the solubility of basic slag? It is a little confusing as there are two rates of subsidy and there are very great differences in the solubility of some of these phosphates.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am afraid that my chemistry never arrived at that stage; but, as in my previous answer, I shall be happy to get this information, which I am sure is available, from the Ministry so that the noble Viscount will get his answer to this very highly technical question. I had rather hoped that no noble Lord would fling such a question at me on this particularly difficult matter.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I did not raise this question in a frivolous manner. It has a point behind it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMPULSORY PURCHASE BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.
MINISTERIAL SALARIES CONSOLIDATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.
NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

TEACHING COUNCIL (SCOTLAND) BILL
3.13 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, in speaking to this Bill I should like first of all to pay tribute to the work of Lord Wheatley and his Committee in preparing the comprehensive Report upon which the Bill is largely based. As Lord Wheatley said, the Committee was in some respects an unusual one in that,
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apart from the three independent members, the membership was made up of representatives of the interests most closely involved. The Committee as a body was therefore able to consider the matters before it in the light of a very wide collective experience and also of direct knowledge of the viewpoint of the educational bodies concerned. In some ways even more remarkable was the substantial degree of unanimity which emerged.
We are concerned in this Bill with a major change which I believe will mean a great deal for the future of education in Scotland. Before dealing with the provisions of the Bill itself, however, I propose to say something about the context in which the Wheatley Committee was appointed and about the role of the teaching profession in helping to shape educational policy. Some of your Lordships may recall the situation of disquiet and discontent in which teachers found themselves in the early months of 1961. Underlying this was a widespread feeling that the views of teachers as a body did not get the degree of attention which they deserved, that teaching was not everywhere regarded as a worthwhile profession and that something must be done to secure for it the recognition that it merits in our society.
It was in this situation that the Secretary of State of the day, now the noble Viscount, Lord Muirshiel, said that he was prepared to have a review of those matters which were causing the teachers such concern. A series of working parties were subsequently appointed to look into particular aspects, but the central feature of the review was the appointment of the Wheatley Committee which was asked to examine, in the light of the practice in other professions, the existing arrangements for awarding teachers' certificates. On the face of things, this may have seemed a somewhat narrow and technical remit but what the Wheatley Committee was essentially being asked to do was to consider the whole problem of control of entry to teaching and the extent to which the profession itself could properly be given specific responsibilities in that regard.
As I have already acknowledged, the Wheatley Committee did a remarkable job. They also did a very thorough job since, as their Report shows, they devoted

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a great deal of thought to the balance between what may broadly be called the professional interest and the public interest. This assessment of legitimate professional interests and of the responsibilities of the education authorities and of the Secretary of State for the education service underlies the carefully calculated balance in the composition of the Teaching Council which the Committee recommended. In the Government's view, the Committee's Report, resting as it does on an informed and balanced view of the realities of the situation, offers a sound and practicable basis on which to build a new system for control of entry into teaching. The Wheatley Committee said:
"We think that the time has now come when a further advance should be made in the process which has been taking place in recent years of giving the teaching profession an increased measure of responsibility in matters which are of prime concern to it."
We believe this to be right, and this is why we are proceeding to set up a Teaching Council.
As is indicated in the brief quotation which I have just given from the Wheatley Report, there has in recent times been in train a process of gradual change under which the teachers as a body have come to play a greater part than they once did in the shaping of educational policy and in its administration. The teachers have, for example, taken a valuable part in the work of the Advisory Council and in more recent times in a great many committees and working parties dealing with specific problems. Teachers have been more widely brought into consultation, not only on educational policy but in the administration of education, and the large majority of education authorities have in the past year agreed to bring representatives of their teachers on to education committees. In addition, teachers directly elected by their colleagues to the governing bodies of colleges of education play an important part in teacher training.
I am confident that when the Teaching Council is set up the policy of cooperation will bear good fruit. With the new Council in being, the teachers in Scotland will have what can fairly be called a unique measure of self-government. This, as the profession itself acknowledges, involves new responsibilities,
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as well as new status and privileges. There may be those who will say that the setting up of the Teaching Council is merely a device to try to give the teachers status, but in my opinion such a view is utterly misplaced. I believe that Scottish teachers will welcome the new responsibilities which will come their way, and that they will act responsibly and with a full realisation of the needs of the education service and of our country.
I should like now to say one or two things about the Bill itself. An important task of the Council will be to establish a register of teachers to take the place of the existing arrangements under which teachers are certificated by the Secretary of State. Even more important, in some ways, will be the Council's functions in relation to entry to teaching. It will be seen that Clause 2 imposes on the Council the duty of keeping under review the standards of education, training and fitness to teach of persons entering the teaching profession. They are also given the duty of making recommendations to the Secretary of State about the provisions to be included in regulations under Clause 7 for the education and training of teachers, and about such other matters in this field as they think fit or as may be referred to them. Clause 3 gives the Council a duty of making recommendations on the supply of teachers.
Clause 5 deals with the relationship between the Council and the colleges of education. As the Wheatley Committee pointed out, it would not be right to empower the Council to lay down anything like a compulsory curriculum for the colleges of education: the colleges are rightly jealous of the substantial measure of independence in academic matters with which they have been entrusted in recent years, and they must be free to develop. It is for this reason that, although the Council will have a concern with the general content and arrangement of courses in the colleges, we shall all look to them to use judgment and good sense in exercising their power of visitation and of making recommendations to the colleges.
Hitherto, the Scottish Council for the Training of Teachers has carried out coordinating duties on matters of common

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interest to the various colleges of education and their governing bodies. The Wheatley Committee recommended that, with the setting up of the new Council, the present Scottish Council should go out of existence since there would scarcely be room for it as well as for the Teaching Council. The intention is that the advisory and co-ordinating functions now exercised by the Scottish Council should be reallocated; those functions of an educational kind would go to the new Council, while those of a "business" nature would be assigned either to the Secretary of State or to the proposed Joint Committee of the colleges, according to what may be most appropriate. It may be thought that the disciplinary provisions in Clauses 9 to 11 bulk largely in the Bill as a whole. This is not because they are going to be invoked at all frequently, but because disciplinary control is one of the hallmarks of professional self-government.
To all intents and purposes, the Bill gives effect to the recommendations of the Wheatley Committee. Thus the composition of the Council for which the Bill provides is largely that recommended by the Committee—not a Council wholly composed of teachers, or, indeed, with a majority of practising teachers, but one that is more broadly based. The teachers themselves will, rightly, have a substantial number of places, but the Council will also be representative of the various education interests, including the education authorities, the universities, the central institutions, the colleges of education, and, although this was not specifically recommended by the Committee, the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church.
The Wheatley Committee recognised that, at the end of the day, the Secretary of State must, subject to Parliament, retain final control over such matters as standards of entry to the teaching profession. At the same time, they were clearly anxious to see that the Council should be a body of standing whose views would not lightly be set aside. This, I think, the Bill secures, not least by the provisions in Clause 7 under which, should there ever be any disagreement between the Secretary of State and the Council, a clear statement will be published of the Council's recommendations and the
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Government's reasons for not acting upon them.
The Committee made a number of specific recommendations on the Parliamentary procedure that should be followed in the event of disagreement between the Secretary of State and the Council. They suggested that, in such an event, the Affirmative Resolution procedure should be applied to regulations made by the Secretary of State—and, indeed, that in some circumstances the matter at issue should be dealt with in fresh legislation. This is all very much a matter for Parliament itself, but we have thought it better not to give effect in the Bill to these particular procedural recommendations, but instead to proceed by way of Clause 7, as I have said.
It may be that there will be points on the Bill on which noble Lords will wish to have clarification, and I shall endeavour to deal with these in replying to the debate. I hope that I have said enough to indicate the context in which we have come forward with this Bill and to commend it to your Lordships. The Government certainly do not regard the establishment of the Council as a panacea for all the difficulties which education in Scotland faces to-day: in particular, for the central issue presented by the shortage of teachers. The problem of recruiting adequate numbers of teachers and of ensuring that they get the right sort of training for the immense educational tasks that confront us will be a continuing one. It is a problem that will be solved only by collaboration between the teachers, the education authorities and the Government. I am convinced, however, that with the establishment of the General Teaching Council an important step forward will have been taken in securing not only the collaboration but also the good will of the teaching profession. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hughes.)
3.24 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his usual clear explanation of this Bill. As he told your Lordships, it is really the culmination of a process that began

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in earnest with the setting up of Lord Wheatley's Committee, and I should like to add my tribute to that of the noble Lord to the work of that Committee. The late Government accepted most of the recommendations contained in their Report and began to draw up the broad lines for legislation. It has now fallen to the present Government to introduce this Bill. I have no hesitation in commending it to your Lordships for Second Reading.
Perhaps this is not the moment to go into the history of teaching in Scotland, but this Bill, I am sure, is something of a landmark in Scottish education, for from now on the teaching profession will have a dominant influence in matters such as the supply of teachers, the standards of entry into the teaching profession and courses of training. This goes a long way to putting the teachers on the same footing as most other professions. This is something which they have long sought and which, in my view, they have earned. I feel certain that they will carry out their new responsibilities with thoroughness and with skill.
Since the new Council will be faced at once with the problems attendant on raising the school leaving age in 1970, this is bound to produce some temptation to lower teaching standards in order to get the extra number of teachers required. I hope—indeed, I am sure—that the Council will resist this temptation, but it is not going to be an easy problem.
I am glad that the Council will be responsible for the registration of teachers and that a registration fee will be charged. I think that this should give enhanced status to the register and also make its administration easier. I understand that, by charging a fee, it is hoped that the Council will become more or less self-supporting financially. I believe that when the Wheatley Report came out, some three years ago. a suggestion was made that the fee should be initially in the region of 10s. 6d. I know that this is a matter for the Council to decide, but I wonder whether the noble Lord could give the House any indication at all whether the Government have any views as to what this fee should be.
I should also like to be made a little clearer on one point. Am I right to
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understand that, under Clause 6(2)(c), it will be possible now for a teacher with no Scottish qualifications to be registered as satisfactory to the Council? I must say that I hope this will be the case, because often one hears of English-trained teachers marrying Scots and for domestic or other reasons preferring to go North of the Border to teach and the same thing sometimes applies to teachers from the Commonwealth.
I think that it is right, as the noble Lord has said, that the Secretary of State should retain final power to act on the recommendations and make regulations, for he is responsible to Parliament for education in Scotland and also for the large sums of public money spent on it. In any case, it is obvious that he will have to work closely with the Council.
I was wondering a little, having regard to the principles of the Bill in this respect, whether Clause 4 was not superfluous. At any rate, it seems to me to be somewhat inconsistent with Clause 5(3), which deals with the procedures to be followed when differences upon the Council's course of instructions occur between the Council and the colleges of education. If these differences cannot be resolved, the Bill states, the Council may report the case to the Secretary of State. But what happens then? There is no indication in the Bill at the moment whether the Secretary of State has to pay any attention to the matter or what he has to do. Presumably he will, but I feel that this should have been made more explicit in the Bill.
May I now turn briefly to the disciplinary provisions in the Bill? I welcome the setting up of the Investigating Committee and of the Disciplinary Committee. I think it is quite right that the personnel of these two Committees should be quite different. For this reason, I am not altogether happy that even the chairman should be the exception to this, as is stated in the Bill. To my mind, it creates the danger that he might become something of a judge in his own case. I feel that this would be unfair, not only to him, but to all concerned in the matter. I hope that perhaps the noble Lord will reconsider this. I think, also, that it might be wise to give the Council some guidance as to the numerical membership of these two committees. I realize

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that one wants the Council to have as free a hand as possible in these matters, but committees have a tendency to become too big, and I should have thought that a statutory limit of five or six would have been desirable.
I have one other small point that I should like to raise with the noble Lord, and if he cannot answer it now I shall understand, because I have not warned him about it. It comes in Schedule 1, paragraph 2(1), at line 33, where it says:
"and the elected members … shall be elected by certificated teachers, being teachers employed in educational establishments and in approved schools …".
There are quite a number of certificated teachers employed in what one might call educational administration; and I am thinking of such people as directors of education and some of their staffs. Are they to be disfranchised; or have I missed something in the Bill? I should be grateful if the noble Lord would look into this matter.
We in Scotland are proud that our educational system has always been held in high regard. I think that the setting up of this Teaching Council will add even more to its stature and reputation. There are bound to be teething troubles. The precise work to be carried out between the Secretary of State and the Council will be established only by trial and error over a period of time. But I am quite certain that it is going to be of great benefit to the teachers, and, equally important, to the children and the young people who are their pupils. I hope, therefore, that the Bill will make progress through this House and reach the Statute Book in a very short time.
3.33 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I rise only to say a few words in support of this Bill and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on the simple and straightforward manner in which he introduced it. I do so because I take an active part in the education committee in my county, and I was for some years chairman of that committee. I welcome this setting up of the Teaching Council for Scotland. I am sure it will be much appreciated by the teachers, and also by the authorities. I should like to stress the importance of the contribution which teachers make to education ad-
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ministration. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has drawn the attention of your Lordships to the fact that teachers are now being appointed to education committees. This is quite a new departure in Scotland, but it is working extremely well. On the education committee on which I sit, the new recruits from the teaching profession have been of enormous help and have added a great deal to the status of the education committee, certainly in the eyes of the people, as well as those to do with the authority.
I also welcome the clauses that stress the self-government which is being given to teachers in the Council. I think this is most useful and important. I hope that, among the many reasons for setting up the Council, those of standards and recruitment will be strongly stressed. I have in my hand the current Report, Education in Scotland, 1964, which has just been laid before Parliament. It contains some quite alarming figures of possible shortages of teachers in the future. Already in Scotland children are voluntarily staying at school in the secondary schools, and going on to further education classes, and the shortage of teachers is accumulating. Actually, we recruited 512 more teachers last year than in the year before. But, if the school leaving age is to be raised in 1970, according to this Report we shall need 4,000 more teachers. I hope that the Council will take a keen interest in, and do everything they can to help, the recruitment of teachers. I am sure that I do not need to stress to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that the worst and blackest spot at the moment is the City of Glasgow, where the shortage is so great that 2,000 pupils are receiving only part-time education. It is absolutely vital that we should recruit more teachers to the profession, and I hope that this Council will take this as one of the first things they ought to do.
This is an important Council, and it will have a most important job. I am glad it is going to be so representative, and that it will contain representatives from a wide section of the public in Scotland, as well as from the teaching profession. I hope, as my noble friend Lord Lothian said, that the recruitment will include other branches of the authority and of the profession, administrators as well as teachers, because I think this also

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makes for a good Council. I hope that we shall soon have this Bill, setting up this excellent Council, on the Statute Book. It cannot come too soon. I wish the noble Lord and the Council every possible good wish for the success of what I believe to be the extremely important venture that is now being undertaken.
3.36 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I should like quite briefly to welcome this Bill and to join with my noble friends in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on the way in which he introduced it. My noble friend Lord Lothian referred to this Bill as the culmination of a process which started with the setting up of the Wheatley Committee. In a sense, of course, that is true; but in reality this process started a long time ago. It started with the setting up of the Advisory Council on Education during the war. I remember—and this is one of my reasons for speaking to-day—that when I had to defend the 1958 Regulations in another place I said that the keynote of their Report might be in these words:
"There should be an all-round process of delegation of powers and duties."
The 1959 Regulations were the last great step that was taken in the course of this process. That was six years ago, and it is remarkable, when one considers that it was nearly forty years prior to that that the previous great step had been taken in the training of teachers, that we are able to take this further step after just over six years.
The arrangements that were made at that time were made in order to change a system under which there was a National Committee for the Training of Teachers, elected entirely from education authorities. This is a very long step from the position to-day. The 1958 Regulations altered that position of 1920. It established a Council for the Training of Teachers to take the place of the old Committee and the Central Executive, the provincial committees and so on. It strengthened the independence of the governing bodies of the training colleges, and gave teachers more representation on the training authorities; that is to say, both on the Scottish Council for the Training of Teachers and on the govern-
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ing bodies of the training colleges. That was a long step forward and that, together with the other arrangements that were made at the time, has been referred to in the Wheatley Report in these words in paragraph 54:
"We do not think that the case for such a transfer of functions can be argued on the ground that the existing arrangements, including essentially the certification of teachers by the Secretary of State, are defective or inefficient. On the contrary we have received a considerable volume of evidence to the effect that these arrangments work well; and we are not in doubt about the quality of the teachers produced under the present system."
But the Report goes on to say, in the next paragraph:
"… one of the characteristics of a profession—and we think that this would be generally acknowledged—is that it should have a reasonable degree of control over its own affairs."
This is the long step forward that is being taken in this Bill. It is a step to reform the system in such a way as to be sensitive to the ever-changing needs and outlook of the nation and, at the same time, acceptable to what is rightly described in the Wheatley Report as
"… the largest single group of well-qualified, highly educated professional people in the country."
The Bill seeks to endow the profession with a single body to represent the whole profession and control of its own membership, subject to the ultimate power of the Secretary of State to make regulations once the profession itself has considered the issues involved, and in particular the issues of admission to training and the admission for provisional registration and registration.
This Bill is based on unanimous recommendations of what was one of the most distinguished Committees ever to consider educational matters in Scotland, under the outstanding chairmanship of Lord Wheatley. As the noble Lord has said, it was a very great achievement on the part of Lord Wheatley that he was able to bring such a broadly based (to use his own words) Committee to a unanimous conclusion on extremely thorny issues. The Committee was set up by my noble friend Lord Muirshiel. It reported to my right honourable friend, Mr. Michael Noble, and its recommendations have been substantially incorporated in

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this Bill by the present Secretary of State, and introduced into this House by the noble Lord. We all rejoice at this happy issue, and hope that it will strengthen the profession and help it to overcome the very difficult problems that it will have to face in the next few years, not least the raising of the school age and the recruitment of the requisite numbers of staff with the right qualifications for the new task. We wish this Bill well, and we also wish the new Council well when it comes to be formed.
3.44 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for the very friendly way in which they have welcomed this Bill this afternoon. I think it is completely appropriate that this should be so, because we know that in recent years there has been an almost alarming increase in the number of Siamese twins to be born. But if ever there was such a psychological freak as "Siamese Bills", then we would all figure in that category; because, as the noble Marquess has said, the Bill was in course of preparation when events changed the Secretary of State.
The measure, I think, can speedily pass through your Lordships' House. The points which have been raised by the noble Marquess are all perfectly legitimate points seeking information, and one of the advantages of having unannounced speakers, such as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, is that it gives my colleagues time to pass me all the answers. On the subject of registration fees, the figure of 10s. 6d. mentioned by the Wheatley Committee was illustrative only, and was not intended to be a final suggestion of what the fee would in fact be. The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, indicated that he expected the answer to be that it would be a matter for the Council itself to fix the fees, and that, in fact, is the position.
The second point was whether the qualifications of a teacher who did not have the necessary Scottish qualifications
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could be registered. I am happy to say that the answer is, Yes. In terms of Clause 8, the Council will prepare and publish a statement of principles to which they will have regard in considering whether, for the purpose of Clause 6(2)(c) a person's education, training and fitness to teach warrant his registration. That, I think, is a decided step forward.
Under Clause 5, the point raised by the noble Lord was canvassed fully in another place. It was not thought necessary to deal with default provisions in the Bill, simply because they are filly set out in a measure for which the previous Government was responsible, the Education (Scotland) Act, 1962, and this Act continues to apply. The fourth point which the noble Marquess raised was whether teachers who are in educational administration are covered. Yes, my Lords, they are. The reference to the Association of Directors of Education on page 11, line 15, covers the sort of person to whom the noble Marquess referred.
In conclusion, I should like to refer to what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said about the progress of events. He took us back to the period during the last war, when the Advisory Council was set up. I think it is correct to say that each of these was a necessary step on the way. What was done in 1959 would not have been possible but for what happened earlier on in the 1940's, and what we are proposing in 1965 could not have been accomplished in 1959. But each step has led quite happily, and in this stage has been emphasised, to the almost miraculous degree of unanimity which makes the Bill possible. In this context, therefore, it is quite appropriate that the degree of unanimity which was reached by the Wheatley Committee should have been echoed in your Lordships' House by the welcome which has been given to the Bill from the Benches opposite, and on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I am most grateful.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CRIMINAL EVIDENCE BILL
3.49 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, this is a short Bill dealing with a limited aspect of the law of evidence. It is none the less one of considerable importance to the administration of criminal justice. Its purpose is to permit the use in evidence in criminal proceedings of certain trade or business records, which were found to be inadmissible under the present law by the decision of your Lordships' House last year in the case of Myers v. Director of Public Prosecutions. Before that decision, it had been common practice for the courts to receive such evidence, in the belief that it was admissible. This Bill will give statutory authority for the resumption of the previous practice.
I think it may assist the House if I recall briefly the facts of the case of Myers, who was convicted on a number of counts involving stolen cars. He was an ingenious thief who worked most industriously at his trade. His method of operation was first to buy a wrecked car, thereby acquiring its log book. He would then steal another car, in good condition but otherwise as nearly as possible identical with the wrecked car, and proceed to disguise the stolen car so that it corresponded in all obvious respects with the particulars recorded in the log book of the wrecked car. The stolen car was then sold under its disguised identity of number plates, and so on. He thought he had got away with it, but what he could not disguise was the block number, which was indelibly stamped on the engine of the car at the time of its manufacture, and at his trial evidence was given from the records of the manufacturer to prove the identity of the stolen cars.
The chain of evidence involved was this. When the car was on the assembly line a workman recorded on a card the block number stamped on the engine. The card was first microfilmed and then destroyed, and the film was then stored with other similar records of the company. At the trial evidence of the block numbers was given by the person who kept the records, by the production of the microfilm, together with a transcript of the particulars contained in it. On appeal
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to Your Lordships' House it was argued that this evidence was inadmissible because its cogency depended on hearsay. All the witness could say was that a record made by somebody else contained certain statements: he could not prove that those statements were true. This argument prevailed. The noble and learned Lords who considered the appeal decided, by a majority of three to two, that the evidence of the microfilms was hearsay, and that it was not within any of the recognised exceptions permitting the admission of hearsay evidence.
Their Lordships reached this decision with understandable reluctance. They disapproved the admission of the evidence in question, not because they thought it to be undesirable but because they were unable to find any sanction for it in the existing law. Those who have read their Lordship's Opinions in the case will know that they fully recognised the desirability of continuing the previous practice, and the practical difficulties which would be created by the decision that it could not be continued under the law as it at present stands.
These difficulties arise not only in cases of car stealing but also in numbers of other cases, particularly those involving fraud. As was pointed out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, in a dissenting Opinion, the consequence of the ruling, as applied to other criminal cases, is to make the conviction of offenders more difficult, and sometimes impossible. I believe that your Lordships will agree that this is an impediment to the administration of justice which ought to be removed. Of course there are good reasons for excluding hearsay evidence so far as possible. But there are circumstances in which hearsay evidence is the best, perhaps even the only, practicable evidence of the facts, and there are already a number of established categories in existing law in which hearsay evidence may be admitted in criminal proceedings. Evidence from public records is one example; evidence of statements made by persons who have since died is another. Her Majesty's Government therefore consider that, subject to certain safeguards, routine commercial records should be similarly admissible. This will be secured by the

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Bill. And here I ought to say—and I am very glad to do so—that its preparation was originally put in hand by the previous Government.
As your Lordships will see, the Bill is limited to the admission of that class of records which was covered by the Myers case; namely, records relating to a trade or business. We are only too well aware that there are various other aspects of the law of evidence in criminal cases which need examination. These are now being looked at by the Criminal Law Revision Committee, which has recently begun a comprehensive review of the law of criminal evidence, in parallel with a similar review by the Law Reform Committee of evidence in civil proceedings. For the present, therefore, we do not invite the House to make any change in the law of evidence beyond this limited one, for which there is an immediate need of action, to remove the difficulties created by the Myers judgment.
There is already provision in the Evidence Act, 1938, for the admission in civil proceedings of certain documentary evidence which would otherwise be excluded as hearsay. The Bill is broadly based on the provisions in that Act, but with the adaptations necessary to meet the special requirements of criminal proceedings and to take account of modern methods of keeping business records.
The essence of the Bill is contained in subsection (1) of Clause 1. This provides that a statement contained in a document shall, on production of the document, be admissible in any criminal proceedings as evidence of a fact, provided that certain conditions are satisfied. The first—and obvious—condition is that direct oral evidence of the fact would be admissible. The second condition, which appears in paragraph (a) of the subsection, relates to the nature of the document. It must be, or form part of, a record relating to a trade or business, and must have been compiled in the course of that trade or business, from information supplied by persons, who had personal knowledge of the facts, or who may reasonably be supposed to have had such knowledge. It is this which permits the document to be put in evidence notwithstanding that it is strictly hearsay.
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The third condition (paragraph (b) of subsection (1)) is that the person who supplied the information—the assembly line worker in the Myers case—is physically unable to give evidence, or cannot be identified or found, or could not reasonably be expected to remember the facts—for example, the block number on a particular engine. This last alternative has no parallel in the equivalent provisions of the Evidence Act, 1938, relating to civil proceedings, or in the criminal law. But it is, we believe, a departure which is reasonable and desirable. It recognises the fact that where detailed records are made as a matter of routine the record itself will usually be more reliable evidence of the fact recorded than the imperfect recollection of the person who originally witnessed and recorded it. It is surely unrealistic to expect, for example, that an employee engaged in repetitive work on the factory floor will be able to recall with any certainty, particularly after a lapse of time, perhaps years, the precise details of one of many repeated operations. You might just as easily ask a worker in a sweet factory to identify a particular Pontefract cake he had stamped out. For the purposes of establishing the truth it is better in these circumstances to rely on the record of the fact compiled from the report which he made of it at the time.
Subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 1 contain ancillary provisions relating to the admission of evidence under subsection (1), and follow similar provisions in the Evidence Act, 1938. The definitions in subsection (4) take account of modern techniques for the keeping and storage of information by microfilm, computer, or tape recording. The statement of fact need not be recorded in words but may, for example, be by symbols; and the document which contains the statement need not be a conventional routine record, but may be any device by means of which information is recorded or stored. I hope I have convinced your Lordships that this is a necessary measure and that, although certain aspects of it are novel, there are adequate safeguards to prevent possible injustice. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stonham.)
4.2 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Lord the Under-Secretary for the clear and succinct way in which he has explained the purposes and detail of this Bill. As he told your Lordships, the preparatory work on it was done by the last Government, and I would imagine that a Bill of this nature would at this time have been introduced by any Government. In doing so I would think that the Government are inviting Parliament to do what this House, sitting in its judicial capacity, thought that the Legislature ought to do. So I should just like to express, on behalf of my noble friends, our complete support for this Bill, and also the hope that your Lordships will pass it speedily.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to say a word or two about this Bill. It is of particular interest to all of us who, in our humble capacity at quarter sessions, are concerned with administering the criminal law. On our behalf, I should like to give it my support and to welcome it. The noble Lord has explained how from time to time the hearsay rule works injustice. It was established because in going round the country dealing with criminal cases it was found that juries at that time were to a large extent illiterate. It was, and no doubt up to a point still is, a quite sensible rule. It had no sooner been established of course, than the judges found that it was necessary to open up all sorts of exceptions to it, and, as the noble Lord has explained, it was thought for a number of years that the kind of evidence which was given in this motor theft case, which has been used without any objection in many similar cases for many years, was within one of the exceptions, in a decision which some of us have felt was a little technical. By a majority, the Law Lords came to the conclusion that that was wrong, and I am sure that we should all agree that it is right that this should be done.
This whole business illustrates the slowness in catching up with these problems. It is as long ago as the passing of the Bankers' Books Evidence Act, right back in the 1880s, that the first step was taken to make evidence taken from ledgers kept in banks available in cases
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in court, and it was something like fifty years later that the 1938 Act, for which I think we owe a great deal to the late Lord Maugham, who at that time sat on the Woolsack, was introduced, to widen exceptions established in the Bankers' Books Evidence Act. The 1938 Act was in many ways limited, as indeed appears from the Bill before us to-day because this Bill brings into the criminal law a rather wider extension of the hearsay rule than appeared in the 1938 Act. The 1938 Act has not always been administered by the courts with the liberality which one would have hoped for, and it is greatly to be hoped that this Bill, when it becomes law, will receive a rather more liberal interpretation than the 1938 Act has sometimes received at the hands of the courts. The 1938 Act, on the whole, has certainly worked well, and I have no doubt at all myself that this Bill, within its limited scope, will work well, too.
Your Lordships will all be glad to hear that the whole law of evidence, and particularly the hearsay rule, is under consideration at the present time. The hearsay rule is a peculiarity of the Common Law, and if one were to go into a court in Germany or France, or in almost any other continental country, one would not find the hearsay rule being used. Of course, the answer is that cases there are, on the whole, dealt with by professional lawyers and not by juries of ordinary people brought in to deal with the administration of justice. But jurors are much more educated than they were 200 years ago, when the hearsay rule was established, and I think most practical lawyers would now take the view that, under the wise and experienced direction of a judge, it is perfectly possible for the jury to make use of hearsay evidence in the sort of way that a man or woman of common sense does every day in the ordinary affairs of life. I am sure it will be better for everybody, and I hope that the noble Lord will convey everybody's support to the Committee which is dealing with this problem at the present time, in the hope that they will soon be able to bring forward a Report which can rapidly be put into the form of a Bill and become the law of the land so that these difficulties may no longer clog the administration of the law.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask a question of the Minister before we

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proceed with this stage? I assume that this Bill has no retrospective effect? Secondly, has it any application to any cases that are sub judice at the present time?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the Bill has no retrospective effect. So far as cases which are sub judice are concerned, presumably its application will depend on when it starts to operate. I really cannot give him an "off the cuff" answer on that one. When those concerned come to trial, they will presumably be tried in accordance with the law at the time of the trial. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Newton, and my noble friend Lord Chorley—
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, those cases would almost certainly be decided before this Bill becomes law.
LORD STONHAM:—for their welcome of the Bill, and for the remarks that have been made. I would also thank my noble friend Lord Chorley for reminding us that, although the law catches up somewhat slowly, it does catch up. I hope that this Bill will reach the Statute Book in a few weeks from now, and that nobody else will be able to do what Myers successfully did.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MUSEUM OF LONDON BILL [H.L.]
4.9 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendments.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered. On this Motion I should like to speak to all the Amendments on the Marshalled List. They all arise from the decision that ministerial responsibility for the Arts should be transferred from the Treasury to the Department of Education and Science. In relation to other national museums and galleries governed by Statute, the decision has been reflected in the Transfer of Functions (Cultural Institutions) Order, 1965, which came into operation on April 1, and which will by to-morrow have been
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before Parliament for the required forty days without being annulled.
As regards the Museum of London, the Department of Education and Science will undertake all the functions which under the Bill as drafted would be undertaken by the Treasury. The Amendments, therefore, substitute "Secretary of State" for "Treasury" throughout the Bill, except in Clause 7(1) where it is more convenient to rephrase the reference to the National Gallery and Tate Gallery Act, 1954. In accordance with usual practice, no particular Secretary of State is specified, because constitutionally the office of Secretary of State is indivisible and each Secretary of State can perform the functions of any other; but it will certainly be the Secretary of State for Education and Science who is concerned here. No Amendment is proposed under Clause 1, which provides for six of the Governors of the new Museum to be appointed by the Prime Minister. These appointments will remain with the Prime Minister, as in the case of the national museums and galleries.
I should like here to ask leave of the House to move the Amendments en bloc. If no noble Lord dissents from that course, I will follow it after the Motion "That the Commons Amendments be now considered" has been agreed to.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Champion.)
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I certainly would have no objection to the noble Lord moving his Amendments en bloc, and I do not imagine that any of your Lordships would object to it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
Clause 2, page 2, line 3, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State ")
Clause 7, page 4, line 26, leave out from ("which") to first ("that") in line 27 and insert ("it may be directed, under section 3(1) of that Act,")
Clause 9, page 5, line 22, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 9, page 5, line 25, leave out ("Treasury ") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 9, page 5, line 41, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 9, page 6, line 9, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 13, page 8, line 28, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 14, page 8, line 40, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State ")
Clause 14, Page 9, line 5, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 15, page 9, line 17, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 15, page 9, line 28, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 15, page 9, line 38, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State")
Clause 15, page 9, line 42, leave out ("Treasury") and insert ("Secretary of State").
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons Amendments, Nos. 1 to 13, en bloc.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Champion.)
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, it seems to me that the noble Lord is here proposing a very good change in the provisions of the original Bill. Naturally, as a former Minister in the Department of Education and Science, I welcome the fact that this change is proposed. Indeed, one of my pleasanter duties was to pay official visits to those museums for which the Department was at that time responsible. It seems eminently sensible that the Department of Education and Science should have these additional responsibilities added to those which it already has for other museums in London.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like to comment on the explanation given by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, with reference to Secretaries of State. In the old days one put into a Bill the phrase "Secretary of State" because it was assumed that there was only one Secretary of State concerned. It came from the time when there was a Secretary of State for the North and a Secretary of State for the South, and therefore one did not have to put in a Bill which particular Secretary of State was referred to. In recent years it would appear that the late Conservative Administration and the present Government have rather derogated from that position. We now have a First Secretary of State. This undermines both in practice and in theory the old principle that there was only one Secretary of State. If there is only one Secretary of State, how can one have a "First" Secretary of State? Does it mean now that while all Secretaries of State are equal, the First Secretary of State is more equal than any
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body else? The noble Lord ought to clear the matter up because possibly in future Acts of Parliament we cannot rely on the old theory and philosophy that there was just one Secretary of State.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, for his welcome to this Amendment. I must say that I am personally glad to find that the House looks like agreeing to the amendment. This happens to be the first Bill I piloted through this House. I am glad to say that the other House has not found it necessary to submit any considerable Amendments to the Bill, which was so carefully examined in this House.
In regard to the point made by Lord Ogmore, I must admit that I have had difficulty on this matter in the past. On one Bill I tried to move that the Secretary of State should be named, and I found myself being met by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn (then from this side), pointing out the fact that the Secretaries of State were equal and capable of undertaking the duties of other Secretaries of State. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has a point: it is time something was done about naming Secretaries of State by their Departments in the various Bills, but I should be straying outside my function if I said that I will attempt to do this by some subsequent Bill. Certainly it is a point deserving of consideration.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES ACT 1923 (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
4.17 p.m
Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
Clause 1 [Replacement of s. 9 of Act of 1923]:
LORD EGREMONT: My Lords, this Amendment makes a minor correction to Clause 1. The relevant authority to grant permission in the Isle of Wight area is the Isle of Wight River and Water Authority. I am afraid that we had forgotten this fact, and the Amendment puts the matter right. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 19, after ("authority") insert ("(including the Isle of Wight River and Water Authority)").—(Lord Egremont.)
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I support this Amendment, which as the noble Lord indicated, is purely drafting.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD EGREMONT: My Lords, this also is a drafting Amendment. It makes somewhat more precise the present terms of Clause 1(4) of the Bill, which provides that persons convicted of fishing by poisoning and other things may be ordered by the court to forfeit the fish and any instrument used. It is a purely clarifying Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 24, leave out from ("section") to end of line 30 and insert—
("(a) in the case of a contravention of subsection (1) or (2) of this section, may order the forfeiture of any fish illegally taken by the person convicted or in his possession at the time of the offence, and of any instrument or thing used in the commission of the offence not being, except, where the conviction is on indictment, a vessel or vehicle; or
(b) in the case of an offence of unlawful possession of any substance or device, may order the forfeiture of that substance or device and, where the conviction is on indictment, of any vessel or vehicle in which the substance or device was contained at the time of the offence;
and may order any object so forfeited to be disposed of as the court thinks fit.")—(Lord Egremont.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

SOLICITORS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
4.18 P.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading Read.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I find it very easy to rejoice with the noble Lord, Lord Champion, that he has succeeded in piloting his Bill through Parliament. Sometimes I have more success in this line than others, but I hope that on the Bill I am about to introduce to your Lordships I shall have less difficulty than on other occasions. it is in fact a "little brother" to the English Solicitors Bill, with which the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, dealt
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earlier this Session, but I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that it is nothing like so complicated.
Clause 1 deals with a situation which so far has not been properly covered by the law. It extends the provisions in the existing Acts concerning the situation of a solicitor who becomes bankrupt to the solicitor who has a judicial factor appointed on his estate. The judicial factor, I should perhaps explain, is an officer of the court who I think could best be described as a sort of official company doctor. He is there to try to help the solicitor to put his affairs in order, although that solicitor has not yet come to such a state that he has to go bankrupt. At the moment, even when a solicitor has a judicial factor appointed he is allowed to continue to practise. I think it is probably undesirable that a solicitor whose business has got to such an embarrassing state that it has become necessary for this judicial factor to be appointed should be able to continue in practice. Therefore, with the agreement of the legal authorities in Scotland, the opportunity is now taken to prevent him from being able to do so.
The second clause of the Bill is designed to deal with a situation which I can describe only as one of pure farce. At the present moment the registrar keeps the roll of solicitors in Scotland, and he is authorised to remove from that roll the name of any solicitor who has died. But he can also send to any solicitor who has discontinued paying his retention fee a notice inquiring whether or not that solicitor wants his name to remain on the roll. If no reply is received within six months, then the registrar can take that solicitor's name off the roll; but if, as obviously quite often happens, the solicitor writes back and says that he would like his name taken off the roll, then, because of the law as it at present stands, the registrar cannot do it. This is such a strange situation, that it seems a good opportunity to put right what is an obvious nonsense.
Clause 3 is for practical purposes the same as Clause 14 of the English Bill, which was dealt with earlier on. It is designed to avoid the difficulties for clients which arise when a solicitor who practises on his own dies, and when there is in the account, which he himself has

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run, money which belongs to a client. Obviously, if the money is tied up, as it were, at the present moment in the solicitor's bank then until Grant of Administration of the account has been taken out, which may take several weeks, the whole business of selling a house, or doing any other business on behalf of the client, comes to grief. What will happen under the clause is that the Law Society of Scotland will be able to take over that client account and deal with the matter straight away.
Clause 4, however, is the main clause of the Bill, and its object is to resolve the problems which were created by the decision in Brown v. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue. Your Lordships will probably remember that this case affirmed that there was a fiduciary relationship between a solicitor and a client, and that, as a result, a solicitor could not, without the full knowledge and free assent of his client, obtain from him any pecuniary advantage other than proper charges and disbursements. The particular point of the case was that it applied that principle to clients' money in the hands of the solicitor when the solicitor had put it on deposit in his own name, but on behalf of his clients generally, and when as a result it earned interest. It was held that the solicitors must account for the interest on all the money, irrespective of the difficulties of apportionment, and that each client's money must be given its exact due amount of interest.
It is most important to emphasise that the solicitors in Scotland are not attempting to get round this decision. On the contrary, Clause 4 really strengthens and stiffens up the powers contained in the liability to safeguard the client. What is attempted in this clause is to establish a practical way of applying the principles of the case to our day-to-day life. The position to-day is that a solicitor who receives client's monies is under an obligation to put them in a separate bank account, apart from his own money, but there is no obligation on him to put them on deposit or in any account which will earn interest. If he does this, then he must account for the interest. The difficulty in practice relates to sums which are themselves too small to be put on deposit or are held for too short a period
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to justify their being, put on deposit. Of course, a solicitor will have in his client account a large number of small sums in respect of rents or small debts, or something like that, and these would hardly be capable of being accounted for individually. At the present moment he tends to lump them together and put them in the account. On the other hand, there is the case where there are large sums which could justifiably be put on deposit, if they were to be held for a long time, but which in fact are held for only a very short time. That happens in conveyancing, in the buying and selling of houses, when the money is in for only a few weeks.
Therefore, the difficulties of working out a practical solution of this problem are, first, the size of the monies belonging to the client; and, secondly, the time for which those monies stay in the solicitor's hands. As I said, my Lords, at the moment what he usually does is to say that it will be safe to put, say, a third or a quarter of the total monies he has on account; and then Brown's case makes him account for each individual amount of interest to each individual client. The only thing that he would be able to do, following the decision in Brown's case, if this Bill were not to become law, would be not to put any of the money on deposit at all. And in that event the only person who would gain would be the bank, who would pay no interest on this money. The client would not gain; the solicitor would not gain.
The remedy proposed is that, where it is fair to the client, money shall be put on deposit in the name of that client, or on his behalf, and there will be a legal obligation to put the money on deposit in this way in the right and proper case where it is fair. It is also proposed that if the solicitor does not put the money on deposit in a case where he should have done, then he will still be bound to account to the client for the amount of interest that would have been earned if the money had been put on deposit.
I have made reference to these two factors—the amount of the sum, and the length of time it is held. The means which are proposed to deal with this are Clause 4, coupled with rules which will be made—in fact, they have already been made in draft—which will make it mandatory upon the Law Society to put into

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effect a scheme contained in those rules. These rules will be brought into effect simultaneously with the coming into force of the Bill on January 1, 1966. These rules have to be approved by the Lord President of the Court of Session. In fact, I think I am allowed to say that the Lord President has seen them and approved them. The rules provide that if the two limits of £500 or two months are exceeded—that is to say, if the sum is £500 or more, or if money is held for two months or more—then there should be an absolute liability to put the money on deposit and pay interest to the client. It, on the other hand, it is reasonable and fair to the client, even with sums below those limits, that the money should be put on deposit, there is equally an obligation.
There are three sanctions in this matter. The first and obvious one is that the court has the last word on the matter, if it comes to that. Secondly, there is a new sanction that is to be included in the rule, that the Law Society may be asked by the client to give a certificate as to whether the solicitor was right or wrong in not accounting for interest or in not putting the money on deposit. Lastly, there is the accountant's certificate which the solicitor has to produce before he can get a practising certificate, and that accountant's report must certify that the accounts rules have been complied with.
There are only two differences in this scheme from that which is being introduced under the English Bill and the rules under that. The first is this. The clause in the English Bill dealing with client's money makes special reference to money subject to a trust. This is required in England because such monies are dealt with under separate trust accounts rules and these are distinct from the accounts rules. In Scotland all such monies are covered by the accounts rules.
The second difference between this clause and the English one is that this clause extends the solicitor's liability for interest not merely to the amount of any sum received on behalf of a client, but also to any balance held for the client. This has the result of making even more stringent the liability of the solicitor to place a client's money on deposit receipt, to make good to the client a sum
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equivalent to the interest which would have been secured if the money had been so placed on deposit receipt. The slight difference has been introduced because in fact the Scottish solicitor acts to a somewhat greater degree than his English colleague as a man of business in relation to his client's affairs, and he has these balances, made up of small sums resulting from different transactions, belonging to the same client at any one time. Clause 5 is machinery. I hope I have succeeded in explaining the Bill to your Lordships, with clarity. I also hope your Lordships will agree that it is a good Bill, and should be given a Second Reading. I therefore beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has explained this Bill with his usual admirable clarity, and that makes my task a very easy one indeed. As he said, the principal provision is in Clause 4, which is essentially the same as the corresponding clause in the Solicitors Bill which your Lordships examined and approved earlier this year. The other provisions—and one of the examples he gave was a singularly apt one—merely plug up some gaps in previous legislation.
I think it would be correct to say that the Bill clarifies the law. As your Lordships know, this is one of the prime objects of Government policy, and we can therefore treat it as an admirable purpose. I wish I could go further than that and predict a safe passage for the Bill, not merely in this House but in another place, but there is perhaps something even more involved under examination there at the moment. I hope that the Bill will go steadily on its course but, of course, I can make no promises beyond the fullest co-operation in your Lordships' House.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I know he will do everything he can to help, and it gives me great encouragement to hear what he says. I am very much obliged to him.
On Question. Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CONTROL OF OFFICE AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT BILL
4.32 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rhodes.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair]
Clause 10 [Power to require information as to building contracts]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN had given notice of an Amendment in subsection (2) to insert "reasonable" after "such" where that word first occurs. The noble Lord said: As the next Amendment defines the term "reasonable time" in terms which themselves seem reasonable, I shall not move this Amendment.
LORD RHODES LORD RHODES moved to add to subsection (2):
"Provided that the time specified in such a notice for furnishing any information or producing any document shall not be earlier than the end of the period of twenty-eight days after the service of the notice."
The noble Lord said: As Amendment No. 14 was not moved, I presume it is making way for mine, and I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper. Clause 10 empowers the Board of Trade to serve a notice requiring evidence of the existence of a building contract, or information on who is the owner of the land, in the case of office development in Greater London in accordance with a planning permission granted before November 5. The notice may specify the time within which the information is to be supplied, and this Amendment establishes that it shall not be less than 28 days.
In the Committee stage in another place the Opposition drew attention to the absence of a time-limit, and suggested a maximum of 28 days. We accepted the idea of a time-limit, and introduced at Report stage a new subsection (2) giving the Board of Trade power to specify the time-limit in each case, and also the time and place where documents must be produced. However, in response to an Opposition suggestion that the wording of the subsection
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should require the Board to fix a "reasonable" time, the Government agreed to look at it again, and the present Amendment is in response to that undertaking. I think the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will agree that his Amendment was to the same effect. I consider that the terms of the Amendment, in allowing a minimum of 28 days, are generous, when in many cases the information could probably be supplied much more quickly. The Board of Trade will use its discretion to fix a longer period where it appears necessary. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 16, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Rhodes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: We are obliged to the noble Lord for having carried out the undertaking given in another place, and we are grateful to him for making the position so clear.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 11 and 12 agreed to.
LORD RHODES LORD RHODES moved, after Clause 12, to insert the following new clause:
Service of notices
". Section 214 of the Act of 1962 (service of notices) shall have effect in relation to the service on any person of a notice which (not being authorised or required to be served on him under that Act) is authorised or required to be served on him by virtue of this Part of this Act, as that section has effect in relation to notices authorised or required to be served under that Act."
The noble Lord said: This new clause is consequential on the last Amendment, which provides that the time specifies by the Board of Trade within which information or documents relating to the existence of a building contract must be provided
"shall not be earlier than the end of the period of twenty-eight days after the service of the notice".
We have therefore to say now what we mean by "service of the notice", and this clause provides that Section 214 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, shall apply to notices served under Part I of this Bill. These comprise not only notices under Clause 10, but enforcement notices served under Clause 9 in circumstances in which the provisions of the 1962 Act do not apply.
Under Section 214 of the 1962 Act a notice may be served on a person in any of the following ways: (1) by delivering it to him; (2) by leaving it at his usual or last-known address; (3) by sending it by prepaid registered letter or recorded delivery to that address; and (4), in the case of a company, by delivering it or sending it by prepaid registered letter or recorded delivery to the clerk or secretary of the company at their registered or principal office. This, as noble Lords will readily understand, is purely consequential, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 12, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Rhodes.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This, of course, is a standard form which is well recognised, and I think that it is obviously right that it should be inserted in the Bill. I am glad that the noble Lord has proposed it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, after Clause 12, to insert the following new clause:
Special provisions with respect to purchase notices
".—(1) Where any purchase notice to which the last foregoing section applies is served any conditions subject to which a planning permission has, solely by virtue of the provisions of subsection (4) or (5) of section 6 of this Act, been granted or is deemed to have been granted shall for the purposes of paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section 129 of the Act of 1962 be disregarded.
(2) In the exercise of his powers, in respect of any purchase notice to which the last foregoing section applies, under subsection (2) of section 132 of the Act of 1962 the Minister shall not revoke or amend any conditions subject to which a planning permission has, solely by virtue of the provisions of subsection (4) or (5) of section 6 of this Act, been granted, or is deemed to have been granted.
(3) In the exercise of his powers, in respect of any purchase notice to which the last foregoing section applies, under subsection (3) of section 132 of the Act of 1962 the Minister shall not direct that planning permission shall be granted for any development to which this Part of this Act applies unless the Board of Trade shall have issued, upon the application of the Minister or of any person interested in the land, an office development permit in respect of that development."
The noble Viscount said: The subject of purchase notices under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, is a very
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involved one: indeed it perhaps ranks second in mystery after the concept of the certificate of appropriate alternative development, so far as sophistication is concerned. I wonder whether, as a background to this Amendment, I could lay a little foundation, so that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison (as perhaps it will be on this occasion; I do not know), can see whether I have got the Bill right.
It is necessary to look at Clause 6 of the Bill, whereby there may be attached to office development permits certain conditions, and under subsections (4) and (5) of the clause the conditions which are attached to an office development permit either, in fact, get attached to the subsequent planning permission or, if they do not because of some mishap in the local planning authority's office, are deemed to have become attached to the planning permission. It does not matter whether or not they would be the sort of thing that could normally be attached by way of condition to a planning consent under the 1962 Act, because subsection (3) specifically allows any sort of condition that the Board of Trade thinks fit to be attached to the planning permission and to be intra vires. So we may have conditions of a sort hitherto unknown attached to planning consent, and certainly things with which the Ministry of Housing and Local Government will not be familiar.
Now, we come to the purchase notice procedure. Some of it is dealt with in Clause 12. The clause was put in because, as I understand it, there appeared to be a gap at the Report stage in another place, but it seems to deal only with about one-third of the problem. To start with, I think it deals only with cases where planning permission for offices was granted before November 5 last year. Whether I am right or not about that does not matter, because the main point about the clause is in subsection (2), which gives the Minister of Housing and Local Government, when he is entertaining an appeal to decide whether or not he will confirm a purchase notice, the power to do nothing. That is the new subsection (4)(a) which has been inserted. If he does nothing, then, when this Bill comes to an end in seven years' time, or after a shorter period, you can go back as if nothing had happened and go on with the purchase notice previously served.
I do not think this really deals with all the problems that are likely to arise. There are three particular fields here where I think there may be confusion. They are dealt with in the three subsections of the clause which I propose to insert. The first of them is concerned with the case of the local authority which is served with a purchase notice. The Committee will recall that under Section 129 of the Act of 1962 the main point of serving a purchase notice is because a permission has been refused or has been granted subject to conditions. Then, because the land has become incapable of reasonably beneficial use in its existing state, the owner of it can require the countcil to buy it off him. One of the things which can be taken into account to decide whether or not the land is capable of being of reasonably beneficial use is any conditions that were attached to a planning consent that may have been granted to it. It is not only a planning refusal but a planning consent subject to impossible conditions which will give rise to a purchase notice.
Here we have, under Clause 6 of the Bill, certain conditions which may be attached to planning permissions and which may produce a situation where, although there is an office development permit and, indeed, a planning consent, there is no reasonably beneficial use of the land because of conditions imposed by virtue of the office development permit. In those circumstances, as I understand it and as I think the law is at the moment, the local authority could still accept the purchase notice, not because of anything to do with planning, but because the Board of Trade had under the Bill made it impossible for the owner to make reasonably beneficial use of his land.
If there is going to be consistency in this matter, I would suggest to noble Lords opposite that the local authority ought not to be faced with this situation if the only reason for the purchase notice is the conditions imposed under the office development permit which has nothing to do with planning but has something to do with the Board of Trade over which they have no control. I am therefore suggesting in the first subsection of my clause that, in considering whether
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or not there is a reasonably beneficial use of land, any conditions imposed solely by virtue of this Bill under subsections (4) or (5) of Clause 6 shall be ignored. I am afraid it is very difficult to explain; but I hope I have made that part clear.
Then we come on to two further loopholes which I think still exist. If the local authority decide they do not wish to purchase the land in respect of which a purchase notice has been served, the person serving the notice may appeal to the Minister. There are a variety of things that the Minister may do. They are set out in Section 132 of the Act of 1962. I have already said that under Clause 12 the Minister has been given an extra power in certain cases to do nothing. There will be quite a number of cases which are not covered by Clause 12 at all. The particular permission sought (and the refusal of which has led to the purchase notice) may have nothing to do with offices and there may be other cases which fall outside the special cases dealt with under Clause 12.
The Minister can do several things. He can confirm the purchase notice; he can, in lieu of confirming the purchase notice (if it is one of the cases where it was the conditions attached to the planning consent that made the whole thing impossible) revoke or modify those conditions; or he can grant consent for something else. In the second case, it seems there is again a logical gap in the restrictions imposed by this Bill. If it is the conditions which are attached to the planning consent by virtue only of the office development permit which made the land incapable of reasonably beneficial use, the Minister ought not to have the power to strike them out. When an appellant goes to him and says: "If only I could get rid of these conditions, I should have a good piece of land which I could use", the Minister ought not to be able to say that, despite the Board of Trade insistence on these under the O.D.P., he will strike them out. Under Section 132(2) he will be able to do that, because they will, under this Bill, be conditions attached to the planning permission itself. I have suggested in subsection 2 of my new clause that he would not be able to strike out conditions of that sort or to modify or revoke them.
Then there is the third point where, instead of confirming the purchase note, he decides it would be suitable instead to grant consent for something else, or for the thing that had been originally refused by the planning authorities. The point that really concerns me is that the Minister should not be allowed to deal with a case where somebody has sought to put up, say, a warehouse and has been refused, has served a purchase note, has gone to the Minister and has asked the Minister to do various things. I am concerned that the Minister should not then be able, as he can without any Amendment in this Bill, to give permission for an office building. There will be no application for the office building; therefore there will be no occasion for the office development permit to be required before any application was effective. The Minister has power to grant this permission directly under Section 132(3) of the Act. I should have thought that, at any rate before he did that, he ought to have been required either on his own account or through the person with whom he is dealing and who has an interest in the land, to go to the Board of Trade and ask for an O.D.P.
There is only one other matter. I hope these have been constructive suggestions; they are intended to be so. The reason why I am concerned is not so much because I think the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is going to be silly and do something contrary to the spirit of the Bill; but because it will be the duty of the appellant, in any case that goes to the Minister on an appeal against the refusal to confirm a purchase note, to try to get the Minister to do some of these things. The loopholes will not have been stopped up. The appellant will say, "I have these obnoxious conditions. You, Minister, have power to remove them. I ask you to do so", and a great deal of time and argument may be spent over something which the Minister will have no intention at all of doing in the end; but as long as it is open to him in law to do it, he will be asked to do it.
What better way could there be of getting an office building by the back door without an office development permit than to succeed in getting oneself into a situation where one has a purchase permit based on something quite different, and then, when it comes to the point,
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saying, "What we think would be suitable for this site would be an office building "? Those are three loopholes. I hope I have explained them adequately, because I know it is a complicated matter, but I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord has to say.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 7, at the end insert the said Clause.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): The Committee will be much indebted to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for the lucidity with which he explained this matter. The first of his loopholes does not, in fact, exist, and subsection (1) is unnecessary. If he will look at Clause 8(6) of the Bill he will see that for the purposes of Section 129(1)(b) of the 1962 Act, no account shall be taken of any condition to which this clause applies, and this clause applies by subsection (1) to conditions granted in accordance with the provisions of Clause 6 or Clause 7 of this Act. Those are the conditions which the noble Viscount has in mind, and I rather gather that he agrees with me that subsection (1), if we were to take it by itself, would be otiose.
As regards the other two subsections, these really raise in another, and perhaps rather more complicated, form the kind of point which we had in another Amendment yesterday. If the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Board of Trade are to be treated as separate and as having different functions, and as engaging in a minimum of consultation with one another during the progress of any of these cases, then I see the noble Viscount's point; but what he is in fact doing is to remove from the Minister of Housing and Local Government powers under Section 132 of the 1962 Act which were given quite generally and which in the kind of case he has in mind could obviously only be exercised by consultation and agreement with the Board of Trade.
I said yesterday that just as I stand here or sit here, side by side with my noble friend, Lord Rhodes, in perfect concord and agreement, and just as the two Offices have, of course, consulted closely about the terms of this Bill, so it is absolutely necessary for the proper

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functioning of the Act, if and when it becomes law, that the two Departments shall keep closely in touch with one another. I think that is right. To attempt what is proposed here, to say that these are Board of Trade matters and the Ministry of Housing must not deal with them—because that is really what this amounts to—is the wrong approach.
Planning is a complex business—perhaps too complex a business—and in this case the effect would be to restrict the powers of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. His powers in other cases are those which the noble Viscount so tellingly stated, the ones set out in Section 132 of the 1962 Act, and there is just as much need for them in this type of case as there is in the other types of case. It is only because the noble Viscount anticipates the possibility of a clash of some sort between the functions of the two Departments in relation to these cases that he puts forward these two subsections as being necessary. It is always a good thing, of course, to avoid a possible clash, but not to try to avoid a possible clash and in so doing restrict the powers of one of the parties, when the point could, in fact, be met by cooperation, which I repeat is absolutely essential to properly carrying out the provisions of this Act.
It arises, quite obviously, from the nature of what is being done. What is being done here is that office premises are being controlled. That control has to be exercised, on the one hand, in relation to the business of office employment and the need for offices—matters which concern the Board of Trade—and, on the other hand, in relation to the general planning requirements (to put the matter very summarily): to the need for other buildings on the land in question, and the need for its use in some other way—matters which concern the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I hope I shall not take up too much of your Lordships' time if I say that we have considered this matter carefully, we think these powers ought to be maintained in their full Section 132 form in these cases, and we think it is preferable to have the powers unrestricted and to rely on the necessary understanding and partnership between the two Departments.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I begin by confessing straight away that I missed the provision in Clause 8 which covers the first subsection of my Amendment, and of course this is entirely dealt with. I think I ought to say that I am not really basing the Amendment upon what I anticipate as being a clash between the two partners. Far from it. I was not supposing that was the case at all. I am interested in something which I suppose I might describe as consumer protection. These highly complicated and technical Bills have to be dealt with by landowners and people interested in development, and indeed their advisers, both legal and otherwise, and the situation I envisage is the one I described at the end of my introductory speech—and I am glad to know that the powers will be maintained in their full flexibility—that people will ask the Minister to do something which, for all I know, the Board of Trade and the Minister in consultation will think is something quite dreadful and they will not be prepared to do it. I am certain that this attempt will be made unless we have some idea of the circumstances. Again, I come back to the idea of an explanatory circular which will accompany or follow this Bill and will explain the attitude of the Minister of Housing and Local Government towards purchase notices where people are trying to get an office development permit in lieu.
There is one other practical difficulty. In the ordinary case, where one wanted to get a permit for office building, the first thing one would do would be to write to the Board of Trade and ask for an O.D.P. However, if one is asking the Minister, in appealing against a purchase notice, to modify the conditions that have been attached to an O.D.P. and hence to the planning consent, or if one is dealing with a purchase notice and it comes up in the course of the inquiry that perhaps the local planning authority would be prepared to have an office building there in lieu, what is going to be the machinery either to make the necessary relaxations to the original conditions imposed on the O.D.P. or to grant a new one in its place? What machinery would be available to deal with this, so that it would not be held up interminably, until it goes to the Board of Trade and the

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inquiry, resumed at a later date? These are practical difficulties and I hope that, with the great thought the noble Lord has put into this, a little further search might be done and perhaps a guarantee given as to what will be the outcome.
LORD MITCHISON: Before the noble Viscount withdraws his Amendment, as I earnestly hope he is going to do, I would say to him that the best consumer protection here is to leave the Minister of Housing with the powers in these cases that he has in others. I forget exactly how the noble Viscount put it, but if someone comes along to ask about these matters of the Minister of Housing, and the Board of Trade is involved by reason of these office development permits, then the Minister of Housing's immediate reply is that they must ask the Board of Trade about it. No doubt it may have been a matter of correspondence before the suppliant makes the application.
The whole point about this is: are we going to try to fix in the Bill limitations on the Minister of Housing's powers in order to secure an arrangement which might fit in some cases and might not fit in others? Is it not better to rely on the co-operation which will be absolutely necessary between the two Departments? We all have a liking for suppliants in planning matters but in some respects they lead a miserable life. I trust and hope that I shall not be led by the persuasive advocacy of the noble Viscount to make any promises about the time anything takes in planning matters nowadays.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am not going to press this Amendment. I do not think he quite has the point I was putting over. It is this. Sometimes these things come out in the middle of an inquiry. It is not a question of being able to write beforehand. It may suddenly emerge in the middle of an inquiry by the local planning authority saying that an applicant wanted a warehouse but they would have been perfectly happy to have an office. This is a problem that wants a little administrative collaboration and a little guidance in administrative form later on. I think that a circular on this Bill, dealing with this point and with a multitude of others, is quite essential.
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However, I am grateful to the noble Lord and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.5 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after Clause 12, to insert a new clause on quarterly statement of permits issued. The noble Lord said: Before I move this new clause, may I draw your Lordships' attention to two misprints, which I have no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, has already detected. I am afraid that both are due to my bad writing. First, in the third line, "land" should be "local" and, four lines from the end of the first paragraph, "referred" should be "rejected"
The purpose of this Amendment is to call for a quarterly return to Parliament of applications for office development permits and of the space involved for which office development permits have been granted in the previous quarter and since office development permits in general began to be granted. I see three main reasons for requiring this information quarterly. The first is that local authorities in the metropolitan region and elsewhere, if this Part of the Bill is applied, will want to know what other local authorities are doing in order that they may avoid wasting time and resources in planning for more offices than are likely to be allowed. The second reason is that firms thinking of moving out of the Greater London area to the outer metropolitan area will want to know what is going on and where premises are to be allocated in the next year or so. The third reason is that Parliament will want to know how the control is operating, how the initial accumulation of applicants is being disposed of, how smoothly and efficiently the machine is running, and altogether where office development permits are being granted and where they are being refused.
It may be said that this should be a monthly return. Perhaps that might put too great a strain on the Board of Trade, although I would say that the Board of Trade have to have complete information along these lines month by month in order to be able to do their job properly under this Bill. They must have this information and the new clause asks that they should divulge it to Parliament, to local authorities and to the

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general public. But it might be that to ask for monthly returns is to ask for rather more than is required. On the other hand, an annual return by itself will not do, because it cannot possibly give sufficiently up-to-date information and more frequent statements are needed.
A return at quarterly intervals seems to be about the right compromise. I do not believe that it is possible for the Board of Trade to claim that this cannot be done because, after all, housing returns are made by the Housing Ministers at quarterly intervals—indeed, an overall statement is made monthly—in considerable detail, with an appendix which gives information for every single city, county borough, borough, U.D.C. and R.D.C. in the country. So, if that can be done by the Housing Ministries, this is a challenge to the Board of Trade to do likewise. I think that it is reasonable to ask for this information. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 12, insert the following new clause:
Quarterly statement of permits issued
(". The Board of Trade shall, within twenty-one days of the end of each quarter lay a statement before Parliament showing in total and in respect of each local planning authority area to which section 1(2) of this Act applies

(a) the number of applications for office development permits for the erection or extension of a building (other than an industrial building) containing office premises which have been received but not disposed of by the Board of Trade before the first day of that quarter, the number of such applications which have been received, approved without modifications as regards the amount of office space, approved with such modifications, and rejected respectively by the Board of Trade during that quarter, and the number of such applications which remain to be disposed of on the last day of that quarter, and

(b) the total amount of office floor space for which office development permits for the erection or extension of buildings (other than factories) containing office premises have been granted in the previous quarter, and

(c) the total amount of office floor space for which office development permits for the erection or extension of buildings (other than industrial buildings) containing office premises have been granted since the commencement of this Act.").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)

LORD RHODES: The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, drew attention to two misprints and I notice that the second should read "rejected". I think that is the operative word. The noble Lord is suggesting that because housing returns are on a quarterly basis, these returns should also be on a quarterly basis. But he will know from his experience at the Board of Trade and his study of this Bill that this is really a far more complicated business than the housing returns. Personally, I have quite a lot of sympathy with the object here, because I think Parliament should be given quite a lot of information about this. But, with the best will in the world, I cannot see how we can possibly agree, because this Amendment lays down the requirements in considerable detail: for example, excluding offices which are part of industrial buildings, indicating separately outright and modified approvals, and giving a breakdown for individual planning authorities. It is quite a sizable order.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I say that these qualifications are really introduced—at any rate, the one excluding industrial premises—to make it easier, and partly because the industrial premises are generally purpose built and, therefore, are of no interest to the local authorities and to possible users moving out of London from the point of view of occupying them or for the building of office premises.
LORD RHODES: I do not think that makes much difference, because all this has to be done within 21 days of the end of the quarter, according to how this is drawn. I have said that I think Parliament should be informed of the operation of this control to the greatest possible extent, but the clause, as drafted, is undesirable, because it would impose a detailed obligation to provide statistics in a particular form, and no one at this stage can say what is the best form for the purpose. We do not know; and it is only by experience that we can find out. Again, we might not be able to carry out the obligation to provide all the details laid down in a period of 21 days, because the applicant may not have provided them. Thirdly, information about planning authorities

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might lead to disclosure of confidential information which we should not like to disclose.
I have told your Lordships the difficulties. May I appease the (shall I say?) enthusiasm of the noble Lord by saying that I will give an undertaking that the Board of Trade will provide any reasonable information about operation of the control in reply to Parliamentary Questions, and will also publish regular figures, as in the case of the industrial development control statistics, as soon as the best form can be worked out in the light of experience. In view of the next Amendment about the annual return, and the explanation I have given, I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I wonder whether I may add a word in support of my noble friend's Amendment. Of course, I can understand the difficulty of the noble Lord's Department in not knowing exactly in what form information is likely to be required with the passage of months, and not wishing to be tied down in enactment to a particular form. My noble friend and I both appreciate the assurance which the noble Lord has just given—namely, that there will be a regular publication of information; but we should very much like to be assured that there will be quarterly publication of information in a standardised form, so that comparisons can be made between one quarter and another.
I think it is important for the noble Lord to appreciate that there will be great interest in the way the Board of Trade operate the Bill when it becomes an Act. Neighbouring local authorities will be watching each other to see how they are getting on with their O.D.P.s, as will individual applicants for office space. I suggest that it will be worth the while of the officials in the noble Lord's Department to consider at this stage the most suitable form of future—what I hope will prove to be, quarterly—returns. It will save a lot of time in the long run if thought is given to this now. Otherwise, there will be a series of what I might call ragged Parliamentary Questions in this House and in another place as individual Members of your Lordships' House and of another place seek to put
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forward requests for isolated pieces of information. If the Minister can refer to regular quarterly returns, such ragged requests could be more readily dealt with.
For example, Reading sees a big office block in Kingston, but has not been able to get the go ahead for an office block in Reading, and the Member for Reading is asked to table a Question. A good deal of trouble is taken to provide an ad hoc Answer. Chertsey is disappointed because Kingston is going ahead, and the Member for Kingston tables a Question a month later. This may entail a great deal of work by the Department. I suggest that it would be well worth while for the Minister to give careful consideration now to the form in which this return to Parliament, or in any other way, should be made. I hope that if we table a more general Amendment on the Report stage the noble Lord will be able to be more forthcoming than he was able to be just now.
LORD RHODES: May I say that we will give further consideration to this matter if the noble Lord will withdraw the Amendment?
LORD DRUMALBYN: In view of the way the noble Lord has received this Amendment and explained the point of view of the Government, I certainly do not want to detain the Committee on this. I am grateful to him for what he has said. I think he sees the difficulty I was in. I wanted to give a general indication—without which a vague Amendment would have been of very little use—of the sort of information that I wanted and the sort of period in which I thought the information would be required. The noble Lord may well be right in saying that 21 days is impossible. But I am not quite certain that I agree with him, from my experience at the Board of Trade, that in a case like this it would be all that difficult. However, the noble Lord has said that he will look at this again, and I agree that it would be a mistake to write into the Bill all the detail before there has been experience of what is required. I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying he will look at this matter further, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after Clause 12, to insert the following new clause:
Annual report
". As soon as may be after the end of March 1966 and after the end of March in each subsequent year the Board of Trade shall prepare a report on the performance of their functions under this Part of this Act, and shall lay the report before Parliament."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment calls for an annual report. This is a common requirement when provisions of this kind are written into Bills, and it seems to me that the functions which the Board of Trade are called upon to exercise in this part of the Bill are eminently of a kind on which annual regular reports would normally be required. I hope that with this short explanation (it seems to me that the Amendment is fairly self-explanatory) the noble Lord will be able to be forthcoming in regard to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 12, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD RHODES: This new clause, as drafted, meets with the Government's approval, and we welcome it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am also obliged to him for his help and co-operation in this matter.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13 [Meaning of "office premises"]:
5.20 p.m.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE LORD ERROLL OF HALE moved to add to subsection (4):
"; but in this section 'office premises' shall not include rooms used principally by supervisors, foremen. charge-hands, and other persons, together with their clerical and other assistants, whose sole or principal function is the direct supervision of production or the repair and maintenance of plant or machinery ".
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment, and in doing so I should like to say how pleased we are on this side of the Committee at the noble Lord's ready acceptance of the previous Amendment, which shows that persistence usually pays off. I am hopeful that his new mood of co-operation will persist as far as this Amendment.
I should at this moment like to thank the noble Lord for the help which he gave me in understanding Clause 13, which deals with the meaning of "office premises". It may help noble Lords if I explain what was explained to me—namely, that this definition clause really falls into two parts. It deals with new office premises in subsections (1) to (3), inclusive, and then subsection (4) deals with change of use to office premises. I was desirous that my Amendment should cover both new office premises and change of use. Unfortunately, I originally tabled it to cover only change of use. I have now put it in at page 16, line 16, to insert the words on the Order Paper, as I thought that in that way it would cover both new office premises and change of use. If I am still not right—and it is only a short while ago that I received from the noble Lord a note on the subject—I hope that he will accept the placing of the Amendment in the spirit in which it is made.
During the Second Reading debate, several noble Lords and I myself referred to the growing amount of office work in this country—and, indeed, in other industrialised countries—associated with the production processes within a factory. Whereas in the old days there were more manual workers on the shop floor, there tend now to be fewer manual workers and more clerks and operatives in offices adjacent, associated with the work of improving the free flow of production of components, parts and assemblies to the assembly lines. There is also a growing tendency to accommodate supervisory staff in offices adjacent to the factory lines, often screened off from the factory noise, and to put them contiguously along one wall of the factory so that they can bob into each other for quick conferences and so on, and also to put their secretaries and clerical assistants in similar glass cubicles alongside, so that they form a kind of office unit which is an essential part of the production process.
Noble Lords who have been round factories will doubtless have seen this gradual evolution for themselves. In earlier times there would be one or two odd desks dotted along the factory floor, and the foreman would be unable to hear himself on the telephone because of the noise of the machinery. If one goes round a modern, up-to-date factory

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to-day, one will find manual workers in clean overalls operating the machines, and the supervisory staff, the clerical staff and the progress chasers accommodated in an office either on one side of a factory or across one end of it. As this progress continues—as I hope it will—a number of factory owners will find it necessary to provide themselves with an increasing amount of office space.
There are several examples which I should like to give. The first comes from the creation of new office buildings. They will perhaps be reorganising the flow of production in the factory building, and they will want to build alongside, perhaps as an additional bay, an extension to the factory building solely for office purposes. As I understand the Bill, it will be necessary to apply for an office development permit for that purpose. The second case would be where it was decided to bring clerical and supervisory staff into a new building erected adjacent to the existing factory, but within the existing works perimeter. In both these cases they are new offices of about 3,000 square feet and accordingly would require an office development permit.
There is also the difficult question of change of use. As a layman, I understand that one would require an office development permit in respect of an existing factory building only if there were a substantial change of use. In certain circumstances that can undoubtedly arise. There may well be two adjacent buildings, and in the course of the reorganisation of production, planning and control the management may well decide to concentrate on production in the larger of two existing buildings and take over the smaller building entirely for the office staff supervising the production processes. In that case, the smaller building would be unchanged externally, and although no more people would necessarily be employed, an office development permit would be required before the change of use could legally proceed.
The purpose of my Amendment is to make it unnecessary, in the cases which I have outlined, for an office development permit to be applied for. I feel sure that in all cases such permits would have to be granted, and therefore there is surely no need to make it necessary
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for managements to apply for a permit—a process which is inevitably bound to cause some delay—and to explain in great detail why they want to reorganise the office staff assisting with the production processes. It would be much better, therefore, not to have what would seem to them to be a bureaucratic delay, but to allow them to get on with the job without further interference. I hope that the noble Lord will see his way to accept this Amendment. It is my own somewhat amateur drafting. I will gladly withdraw it if he accepts the principle of it, but prefers to table on Report stage his own version of what I ask him to concede. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 16, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Erroll of Hale.)
LORD MITCHISON: More than a page of the printed Bill is occupied with Clause 13, and that clause is concerned only with the meaning of "office premises"—covering existing premises, premises which are to be put up, and also the meaning of "office premise" in relation to any change of use. I am afraid that this Amendment would add nothing to what is already there. It would, indeed, slightly obscure the clarity of the existing clause. The test is whether the sole or principal use of the premises is, or is to be, use as an office or for office purposes. I find it very hard to see how "office premises" can include the activities which are described here, the use by supervisors, foremen and so on,
" whose sole or principal function is the direct supervision of production or the repair and maintenance of plant or machinery."
"Office purposes" are, in fact, to include a number of matters set out in subsection (5) of the clause. But I think it is sufficient, when one looks at the Amendment, to see what the functions of the occupants are, and then to consider whether they are, in fact, such as to make the place "office premises".
I am supported in this by the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963, which defines "office premises" in much the same way as they are here defined. It is not exactly the same, because that Act is considering offices now in existence, and this Bill has to consider offices that have yet to come into existence. But

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substantially it is the same. "Office premises" mean, for the purposes of that Act;
"a building or part of a building, being a building or part the sole or principal use of which is an office for office purposes."
Then there is in the next paragraph a very short definition of "office purposes". I am quoting from subsection (2) of Section 1 of the 1963 Act. We do not want to have different definitions when the intention is to cover the same sort of buildings, and there is already a sufficient definition.
There is a further point. If, when you already have a pretty full definition, you say that office premises are not to include certain rooms used by certain people for certain purposes, that inevitably raises a little difficulty as to whether there is something else that ought to have been excluded in the same way. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, will see, when he looks at his speech to-morrow, that he referred almost entirely to factories all the time. But there will also be questions of what are offices or office premises in relation to places like shops and warehouses. And there different considerations would arise from those arising in relation to a factory.
The short answer, then, is that this Amendment is unnecessary. It is quite clear, when one looks at the definition, that these particular rooms would not be included as offices or office premises, and it is inadvisable to lengthen an already long definition by excluding some particular things and so raising the possibility that other things are, by implication, included because they have not been expressly excluded. For those two reasons I would suggest that the noble Lord might on reconsideration think fit to withdraw the Amendment. It is not a very important point, and I feel inclined to reply to him that I noticed a little phrase about bureaucratic delay, and I feel that words of this sort might add to it rather than remove it.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for the interesting explanation of this difficult Clause 13. Is he saying that the four cases I mentioned would not require office development permits?—because that is how I interpreted his remarks.
LORD MITCHISON: No. My recollection, and it is pretty distinct, of the four cases the noble Lord gave was that they were all office premises and would require office development permits. But for the moment I am speaking only to this Amendment and to the words sought to be added here. For the reasons I have given, I have suggested that they are unnecessary and mildly—not acutely—dangerous.
LORD HAWKE: I can confirm my noble friend's understanding. I understood, somewhat to my surprise, that the noble Lord did say that the office premises as described in the noble Lord's Amendment would not require development permits, in which case I thought my noble friend's Amendment was unnecessary.
LORD MITCHISON: I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding. I was answering the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale. He was referring to sundry instances he gave in his speech and it was to those that I directed my reply. I said when I was speaking, and I repeat, that what is described in the language of this Amendment obviously is not office premises.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I only hope that some noble Lords understand the gist of the noble Lord's remarks. I must confess that, in my simple way, I do not. I have given examples of what are quite clearly offices which will be occupied by people who sit and write at desks and occasionally go out into the factory or shop. There will be filing cabinets and large piles of papers connected with the production process. In the usual parlance of the factory they will be known as the foreman's office or the supervisor's office, and probably certain rude names—if things have not changed since I was in a factory. If they are offices, according to what the noble Lord has said, then new ones will require office development permits before they can be proceeded with. If that is so, I suggest that this is a quite unnecessary interference with normal factory premises and has nothing to do with the control of office development. This is seeking to extend control far beyond what was originally intended. I do hope the noble Lord will clarify the matter a little further before we proceed.
LORD MITCHISON: I can only repeat what I said before, but in deference to the noble Lord I will gladly look again at what he has said. It seems to me that when you are dealing with
" rooms used principally by persons whose sole or principal function is the direct supervision of production or the repair and maintenance of plant or machinery "
you can hardly be dealing with office premises. But I see the noble Lord's point, and I will gladly look at it again, in the light of what he has said. If he puts his Amendment down again, or in any other version that he prefers, I will let him have a definite reply on Report stage. There seems to be some confusion about it, because the advice I have been given has been at times a trifle confusing.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I can only say that when I was at the Board of Trade the advice was never confused, though in those days officials did not have to deal with Bills of this sort. I thank the noble Lord for his undertaking. I think there is a very important point at issue here, and it ought to be clarified in some way or other so that all those concerned may know how they stand. If I can be of any help to the noble Lord I shall be glad to make myself available. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.38 p.m.
LORD ERROLL OF HALEmoved, in subsection (5), to leave out "and the operation of computers". The noble Lord said: I was very surprised, on reading this Bill, to find that computers in a building make that building into an office. With the present Administration's enthusiasm for computers and their desire to see computers installed everywhere, it seems to me rather odd, to say the least, that because computers are in a building that building shall be an office or shall be a building which is used for office purposes. You are not doing anything to speed up the use of computers by industry and business if you tell them that they must get yet one more permit from the Government to set up the relatively small building which may be required to install their computers. I suggest, therefore, in the terms of my Amendment, that the phrase "and the operation of computers" should be deleted from subsection (5). I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 18, leave out ("and the operation of computers").—(Lord Erroll of Hale.)
LORD RHODES: I was obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, for his thanks for our conciliatory attitude. We are a very reasonable Government and we are only following our principles in this matter. I cannot follow the conciliatory attitude now because I must resist this Amendment. The Amendment seeks to exclude the operation of computers in the definition of office purposes. We know that this Amendment was moved in another place and debated at length. We know, too, that the use of computers is growing and that they are performing many functions that used to be performed in other ways by hand, and that the proportion of office space which they occupy is a steadily increasing one. It is only one of the many aspects of productivity. I have always given my definition of productivity as "Better machines doing more work with less labour on the same floor space, or less". This is doing precisely that. But in this case it will be in an office, and the control will be used to strengthen the present policy of persuading firms to decentralise part of their organisation if it is impractical for them to move their organisation in its entirety outside London.
The Location of Offices Bureau has found that firms consider their accounts and records departments to be most suitable for dispersal, and it is in these departments that computers are likely to be used extensively. We think it is important that this policy should not be weakened by putting the siting of computers outside the control. I think it is reasonable to make the point that the computers would not be installed were it not for the fact that they increased the productivity. It could be said that less office space would be required as the result of putting in computers. I must confess that the staff working on computers in the ordinary way is not large, but a computer tends to be a focal point for the employment of labour in outside firms and institutions who can make use of it on an occasional basis.
The inclusion of computer operation is the only way in which the definition of "office purposes" in the Bill differs from that in Section 1(2)(b) of the Offices,

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Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963. It is only a question of emphasis, and not really of difference in substance at all. That Act was concerned only with working conditions in individual office premises and the evils of overcrowding, and so on. We are concerned with office employment as a whole, the pattern of which can be significantly affected by computer installations; and we therefore thought it best, for the avoidance of doubt, to make it explicit that computer operation is an office purpose.
The noble Lord will not feel that I am, so to sneak, easing up on this matter altogether if I say that it may be possible—I can only say that—after we have had some experience of the operation of the control, to make an order under Clause 13(6) excluding premises which are designed to house a computer for industrial use only? For offices we wish to retain the control as it is; but when it comes to the question of industrial premises it may be possible to do something there. That is the best I can say in reply to the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I wonder whether the noble Lord can explain one point. We, or the people who are concerned under this Bill, may be involved in the prescribed exemption limit of office floor space, and I think that the definition in Clause 13 of "office purposes" would have an effect upon that. Can the noble Lord tell me who is doing the operation for this purpose? Is it the computer itself which is operating? Is that the office? Or is it the people who are making the computer work and are feeding things into it? In other words, can the noble Lord tell me whether the actual office floor space is that which is covered by the structure of the computer, with all its wires and notable gadgets inside, or is it just the area where you feed tapes into it? It may make quite a difference when it comes to exempted floor space.
LORD RHODES: Yes, I can quite see that tremendous importance attaches to that. It strikes me that it is in the same category as the question: which came first, the hen or the egg? I am afraid I cannot give the answer to it, except to say that a computer does have attendants and, to that extent, it is an office premises.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Could the noble Lord make this quite clear? It may require an Amendment of the Bill, and I think it deserves a little attention. Is the actual computer area to be office space, or is it to be only the area occupied by the people who attend to it? Some of these computers are large, and some of them, I have no doubt, are quite small. It may be that the area which is required for people to use the computer, to extract information from it or to feed it, is quite small. It may therefore be, if that is the area and that alone is office space under the Bill, that it will be below the exempted limit of 3,000 square feet; whereas if it is the whole computer which is an office, then, of course, it would be above that limit. This must be made clear, but as I understand the drafting of this particular part of Clause 13 of the Bill it is far from clear at the moment.
LORD RHODES: Subject to correction, I would say that the computer is office space.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Well, that is not clear.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is the core of the matter, because, if that is so, what it means is that as soon as you have a computer the place becomes an office and you automatically have a change of use. But that may not be so at all. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, shakes his head, but I am afraid that it is involved here. Perhaps I may be allowed to say this. I went to the Electronics Exhibition, and from one of the first remarks I made at a stand I had the rejoinder, "Oh, but you must not think that computers have to do only with offices and banks and so forth." This is precisely the point. Computerisation involves factory space as well as office space, and to say that if you take factory space and put a computer there then that part of the factory space becomes office space, with all respect, is absolute nonsense. This is really what we are talking about. I ask the noble Lord to look at this point again, because unless we have a purely circular definition that a computer in an office is office space, but if the computer is elsewhere it is not office space, I do not think it makes

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any sense at all. This is what we have to establish.
There are two arguments here. First of all, there is the argument that it is a mistake to require office development permits for computers in offices, because you are thereby restricting progress towards efficiency—that is one of the arguments that my noble friend put forward—and therefore computers should be excluded, even where they are used for office purposes. But there is also the argument that where computers are used for factory purposes alone, or purposes akin to factory purposes, they should be excluded. With all respect, I should have thought that was obvious.
LORD RHODES: I should not like to reduce this to nonsense, but this question of computers was debated thoroughly elsewhere, and we are quite prepared to debate it thoroughly here. We recognise that some computers are used for, industrial purposes—of course everybody knows that—or for a combination of office and industrial purposes. We cannot on those grounds alone exclude computers from the scope of the control, since in many cases they are used solely or mainly for office purposes. Where the computer is used mainly for industrial purposes in a new industral project we shall assess the case as a whole on industrial development grounds, which puts the emphasis on to the I.D.C. In the case of the office development permits which will be required for the computer premises, they will be considered at the same time as the industrial development certificate applications. I can only repeat that it may be possible, after we have had some experience of the operation of the control, to make an order under paragraph (c) excluding premises which are designed to house a computer for industrial purposes only.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Is the noble Lord saying that, because he has power under subsection (6) to make that order, therefore the computer is itself an office? This is the only way in which I can see that the particular concession which the noble Lord has just given makes any sense. The noble Lord has not answered my question whether or not the computer itself is an office. I do not want to make
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a fuss about this at this stage, but sooner or later the question is going to be answered. The noble Lord has not answered it, and perhaps he would like to do so at Report stage. Will he give the Committee an undertaking to find out what is the Government's intention on this point? If it is the intention that the computer itself should be an office as well as the place in which one works the computer, then the Bill should be clear. If he does not, then we must certainly return to this again.
LORD RHODES: I think that I have made myself quite clear. If the computer is in an office it is occupying office space—so is a desk, so is a safe, or anything else. I think it is quite clear.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I must press the noble Lord on this. If a computer is in a laboratory, does it cease to be a laboratory and become an office? Would the noble Lord be kind enough to explain. This is a practical matter. We want to have more laboratories put up. Are they all going to become offices if there are computers in them?
LORD RHODES: That is in a different category altogether. Where a computer is used in an office for office purposes, the control is highly desirable.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I hope that the noble Lord will not drive himself into the last ditch on this matter at this stage, and we on this side of the House will not try to drive him into it. Enough has been said to show that the matter is far from clear and that it requires further investigation. If the noble Lord would give an undertaking to look at the matter further, and sympathetically, I shall be glad to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD MITCHISON: Can I help the noble Lord before he withdraws the Amendment? If his version of the matter is correct, then handling money would in any circumstances turn the place into an office. It appears to follow, because the handling of money is one of the things which is included with computers here. There is, of course, no doubt about a railway booking-office, but what about a shop which is selling candle ends?
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I do not wish to delay the Committee with a purely theoretical argument. I shall be glad to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE LORD ERROLL OF HALE moved, in subsection (5), to leave out "drawing". The noble Lord said: The word "drawing", I take it, refers to drawing offices, which is an implied term of art because they can be offices in which artistic drawing is carried out or the editorial preparation of matter for publication. This would suggest that the drawing offices which are intended to be caught by this are those connected with the preparation of illustrations and the like for publications. But if one uses the phrase "drawing", it can also mean engineering drawing. In many parts of the country where there are engineering drawing offices they are referred to as "drawing offices". It is not normally necessary to describe an engineering drawing office as an "engineering drawing office", but just as "the drawing office".
I have tabled this Amendment to leave out "drawing" so as to ensure that we can have a discussion as to whether engineering drawing offices are meant to be caught by this Bill; and whether the drawing office used for the preparation of artistic and illustrative matter is also meant to be included. The word "drawing" has a number of meanings in the English dictionary, and I should be grateful for the elucidation of the noble Lord. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 21, leave out ("drawing").—(Lord Erroll of Hale.)
LORD RHODES: This Amendment, like the one about computers, is designed to narrow the definition of "office premises" for the purpose of the control in general, and, in particular, for the purpose of the exemption in Clause 2. The same Amendment was moved, and negatived, during Committee stage in the House of Commons. The effect of Clause 1(1) is to apply the provisions of Part I of the Bill to development which creates office premises, and Clause 13(1) makes it clear that "office premises"—that is a building or part of a building—means premises whose sole or principal
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use is "as an office", or premises whose sole or principal use is "for office purposes", or premises "occupied together with" the above premises and occupied wholly or mainly for the purposes of the activities in the above premises—ancillary premises.
The effect of deleting "drawing" from the kinds of "clerical work" specified in subsection (5) would be to make it doubtful whether the kinds of drawing which are undertaken for the office purpose of "clerical work" in, for example, advertising offices or offices preparing publications, were covered by the definition of "office premises". We clearly want to include drawing of this nature and in this we are following the precedent established in the definition of "office premises" in the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963. This Act specifies "drawing" as a form of "clerical work" in exactly the same way as subsection (5) of this Bill. We have taken care on this point to follow the Precedent established in the 1963 Act in that we have not included "drawing" as one of the "offices purposes" specified in subsection (5), but have included it merely as a form of "clerical work". If we had included "drawing" as one of the "office purposes", we might have caught the artist's studio. We certainly had no intention of doing that.
The Amendment is probably designed to exclude drawing offices from the definition of "office premises", which includes the drawing offices mentioned by Lord Erroll of Hale, but in fact it would not succeed in doing this. Drawing offices come within the definition, not because "drawing" is one of the types of "clerical work" specified in subsection (5), but because drawing offices clearly are premises used as an office under subsection (1). It may be argued that drawing offices should not in principle be regarded as office premises, but we prefer not to depart in this matter from the definition of office premises in the 1963 Act. This covers drawing offices in its reference to premises used "as an office" and "drawing" in other types of office under the sub-heading of "clerical work". We are as much concerned with the distribution of employment in drawing offices as the Ministry of Labour are concerned with the safety, health and welfare of employees in them.

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We can, however, give the assurance that where the drawing office is needed mainly for an industrial purpose in an industrial project for which an I.D.C. is needed—which in the main answers the noble Lord's query—we shall assess the case as a whole on I.D.C. grounds. The fact that under this Bill an office development permit is needed for the premises housing the drawing office will not mean that the case for the office development permit for the drawing office (or for any other office premises required) need be considered separately from the case for the industrial development certificate. The fact that the drawing office is an essential component of industrial projects will be an important factor which we shall take into account in considering the case for a permit. With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his full explanation of the purposes behind the Bill in this regard. I think he is drawing the net far too widely in trying to rope in every single engineering office, which may be quite a small extension to an existing industrial plant. But then the nature of the Bill is that it is drawing the net far more widely than is required, and it is going to create a great deal of unnecessary permissive paper work. I should like, however, to study what the noble Lord has said and to consider whether an Amendment should be put down on Report stage. I am quite sure that the members of the Engineering Draughtsmen's Union will intensely dislike the fact that their work is described as purely clerical. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Interpretation of Part I]:
6.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to acid to the clause:
"() Where any appeal is brought against an enforcement notice on the ground mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of section 46 of the Act of 1962, and the development to which the notice relates is development to which this Part of this Act applies, the Minister
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shall not give any direction under subsection (5) of section 46 of that Act for the granting of permission for that development unless the Board of Trade shall have issued, upon the application of the Minister or of any person interested in the land, an office development permit in respect of that development."
The noble Viscount said: This is a very small point. It has always been a mystery to me why, when you appeal to the Minister against an enforcement notice, you are entitled under paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of Section 46 of the 1962 Act to ask that he should grant permission; and also why, whether you ask for that or not, under Section 64(2) he has to behave as if you had asked for it. This is something that we have had for a long time, but the Bill at the present moment deals only with the situation under Section 64(2). The Minister cannot grant a retrospective permission when an enforcement notice comes before him upon a deemed application for it, which is written into every enforcement notice by virtue of Section 64, because this is dealt with somewhere in the Bill and he can grant such a consent only if an O.D.P. has been forthcoming.
Nothing is said in the Bill about what he may do if you actually ask him to grant consent for the development concerned under paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of Section 46. If you do that, there is no question of a deemed application. You are actually asking him to grant consent, and he may direct under subsection (5) of Section 46 that planning permission should be granted. He can do that, apparently, without an office development permit, and the purpose of my Amendment is to ensure that that particular part of his jurisdiction is covered as well as the part under Section 64(2). I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 36, at end insert the said subsection.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD MITCHISON: I feel inclined to begin by saying that at this point the cat caught its own tail, but I think that the noble Viscount's point is already covered in the Bill in, I agree, a rather complicated way. What one has in mind here is an enforcement notice, and an appeal from that enforcement notice to the Minister on the ground that planning permission ought to be granted for the

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development in question. Clause 14(7) of the Bill provides that
"Any reference in this Part of this Act to an application made as mentioned in section 20(1) of the Act of 1962"
includes a reference to a deemed application, and an office development permit is by Clause 11 required to support an application under Section 20. Accordingly, if the Minister wished to grant permission for offices on a deemed application arising from an enforcement notice, the appellant would have to obtain an office development permit before the decision could be issued.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: That is precisely what I thought. But what happens if the appellant makes an actual application? As I understand it, the Minister acts under Section 64(2) only if there is a deemed application. In some cases it is actually asked for under paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of Section 46. In those cases the Minister can direct that it should be granted. As I understand, he does not have to deal under Section 64(2); he merely directs that planning consent be granted, in which case Clause 14(7) does not bite. This is precisely the point that my Amendment was put down to cope with.
LORD MITCHISON: With respect to the noble Viscount, I do not think that is so. Clause 11 provides for an office development permit to support an application to retain buildings or to continue the use of land. What are we considering here but that?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think, in fact, that we are reconsidering the direction by the Minister which, as I understand it, is not the same as the one under Section 64(2). That is how I have always understood it. If it is a separate direction under Section 46(5), which has nothing at all to do with Section 64(2), then it is not caught by the Bill. I only put this forward for the noble Lord's attention. If it is covered, then I am entirely satisfied. But there have always seemed to me to be two possible methods of dealing with the granting of consent on an enforcement notice; the one is covered under Clause 14(7) of the Bill, and the other is not. I put the Amendment down only to make certain that there there was no loophole.
LORD MITCHISON: I see the noble Lord's point, but it seems to me that both of these points are covered in the Bill as it stands. I shall gladly reassure myself again, but that is how I understand the position, and I do not really think there is any doubt about it. It is a very complicated business.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The whole reason for the complication is, of course, the grafting of this new system on to the old, and I wanted to make quite certain that there were no holes. I am glad that the noble Lord has been so good as to say that he will look at the matter again. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clauses 15 and 16 agreed to.
Clause 17:
Power to vary exemption limit as to industrial floor space
17.—(1) The Board of Trade may by order direct that subsection (1) of section 39 of the Act of 1962 (whereby an exemption from the requirement of an industrial development certificate is conferred by reference to the creation of industrial floor space within a limit of 5,000 square feet) shall be amended by substituting, for the number of square feet specified in that subsection as originally enacted or as previously amended under this subsection, such number of square feet as may be specified in the order.
6.9 p.m.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE LORD ERROLL OF HALE moved to add to subsection (1) "being not less than 2,000 square feet". The noble Lord said: Although this Amendment looks very similar to Amendment No. 25, it raises a substantially different point, and I think it would be for the convenience of noble Lords if I were to deal only with Amendment No. 24. As noble Lords will have seen from Clause 17, the Government are proposing to take powers to lower the exemption limit to a figure below 5,000 square feet in relation to the need to obtain industrial development certificates before planning permission can be obtained for the erection of a factory or industrial premises. Although no lower limit has been specified in the Bill, the noble Lord said on Second Reading, I think,

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and certainly Ministers in another place have indicated, that they would propose to lower the exemption limit to 1,000 square feet in the congested areas. The purpose of my Amendment is to raise that lower limit to 2,000 square feet, because in my opinion, and in that of those of my noble friends who have considered this matter, to go down to 1,000 square feet is to go far too low.
The object of this part of the Bill, we have been told, is to secure the proper distribution of industry and to encourage—indeed, persuade—manufacturers to move to areas of the country which are not so heavily over-employed. That is a worthy objective; but, of course, it is not attainable in regard to these very small factory premises or factory extensions. In my own experience, it was hard enough to get anybody to move on the basis of a 5,000 square feet factory, which is a very small one; and it is certainly going to be quite impossible to get anybody to move when there is a matter of only 1,500 square feet of factory space at stake. I invite noble Lords to consider the applicant for an I.D.C. for, say, 1,500 square feet. It would be quite impossible for him to move this small extension to another location 200 or 300 miles away. Are the Board of Trade therefore going to grant the application for the industrial development certificate? In all probability they will have to, or else stultify a desirable and useful development. In other words, in such cases there is no need for the application to be made: it is only a matter of increasing the amount of paper work.
Or are the Board of Trade going to pursue a very tough policy? We have heard a lot about "tough policies" in the last six months. Are the Board of Trade going to refuse the majority of these small applications? If so, I can assure the noble Lord that he and his Department will find that they are in for a number of battles in the months ahead, because it is often the small application that is fought most tenaciously by the applicant. It is the small applicant who enlists the help of his Member of Parliament, because the small extension often means so very much to him. If things are still arranged in the same way at the Board of Trade, the noble Lord will find a great deal of his time taken up by receiving deputations led by individual M.P.s on
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behalf of constituents aggrieved at the refusal of some of these very small applications. I submit to the Committee that this is carrying detailed control from Whitehall far too far, and that, in any case, whatever policy as to the granting or refusal of these applications is pursued, it will not have the larger effect which the Government have stated to be the intention behind this Bill—namely, that of persuading industry to move.
There is a far worse effect, in my view, of imposing Whitehall control, as distinct from local authority control, over these very small applications, and that is that the small men will in all probability not apply. For many of them it will be their first direct contact with a Whitehall Government Department. In earlier cases they will have had to apply only to the local authority for planning permission, but now they will suddenly find that they have to put up a case to a great Government Department. They will have to go into great detail about the number of staff they employ, and about the machines; they will have to say what they propose to put into the factory premises if the application is granted; they will be asked about their contribution to the export effort. There will be many other questions of a detailed character which they are not in the habit of answering, and, as a result, they will be suspicious as to the real purpose which lies behind the questionnaire. So the small man will probably say, "No, thank you very much; I will not apply", which means that in many cases small but desirable development will not proceed; or, alternatively, that the small men will seek out unsuitable premises, under railway arches, in disused garages and such like, in order to get their way without having to go through the Whitehall mill. Indeed, the temptations to evade the provisions of this Bill will become very real to many otherwise honest businessmen.
The noble Lord may say in reply that it is necessary to have this control, but I would urge him to examine the fact that local authorities already have very full control over the erection of these small factory extensions, or new factories; because, of course, development cannot proceed unless planning permission is given. So it is not a case of the Minister's control or no control at all: it is only a matter of putting in an additional

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control because, presumably, Whitehall does not trust the judgment of local authorities in the matter of these small applications. I submit to the Committee that the local authority is in a far better position to estimate the desirability or otherwise of these very small factory extensions which will be taking place within the boundaries of the local authorities themselves, and that to carry the exemption limit below 5,000 square feet is to institute an excessively detailed control by Whitehall over small but desirable and important industrial development. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will accept this Amendment in the spirit in which it is moved this afternoon. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 44, at end insert ("being not less than 2,000 square feet").—(Lord Erroll of Hale.)
LORD RHODES: The noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, has introduced this Amendment in a very genial way, but I am afraid I cannot accept it; and I will explain why. Until we have had some experience of operating a lower exemption limit than the existing limit of 5,000 square feet, we shall not be able to establish an appropriate level for the congested areas. But past experience suggests that it needs to be lower than the 3,000 square feet proposed by the Opposition at the Committee stage in another place, and that it would be prudent to have the power to go below the 2,000 square feet suggested in the first of the noble Lord's two Amendments. I think I explained on Second Reading the evidence that had come to the notice of the Board of Trade about the leakage that had taken place in development, and particularly in London and the South-East.
As ancillary floor space is excluded from the industrial development control, as the noble Lord knows, an exemption limit of 2,000 square feet would permit of the uncontrolled erection of 2,000 square feet of manufacturing space, plus 3,000 square feet of office space, and, say, 2,000 square feet of storage space—sufficient to start up a small concern. The position is not quite as the noble Lord said it was. Large estates made up of small developments of this kind have grown up in some of the most congested
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parts of the Midlands and in the South-East, and it is precisely this kind of development that we are seeking to bring under control. With that explanation, I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: Before considering whether to withdraw the Amendment, I would say that it seems a pity that so much of the case which the noble Lord has made should refer to examples which can no longer occur, because they are taken care of by the Local Employment Act, 1960, and to the small number of other cases where, by the exercise of some ingenuity, some very desirable premises have been erected to serve an extremely pressing need. Furthermore, it is not only London and the South-East, but also small towns on the edge of the Birmingham conurbation, in Shropshire, and round about, which are very seriously concerned that this very severe control will prevent them from developing small trading estates and factory premises in towns which are at present mainly agricultural in character, and which would like to have reasonable diversification. I hope that there is some chance of the Minister's reconsidering this matter.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
6.20 p.m.
LORD ERROLL OF HALEmoved to add to subsection (1): "being not less than 1,000 square feet". The noble Lord said: It is becoming clear, as noble Lords appreciate, that the Board of Trade in their hurry to draft this Bill have decided to draw the net wide and work out the implications afterwards, inserting an occasional saving clause, so that if they find it unnecessary to have such wide control they can always ease up afterwards. It is an unsatisfactory way of drafting a Bill. One should be much more precise.
We have tried with a number of Amendments to tighten up the prevailing looseness and spread of the net. We have had from the noble Lord in discussing the previous Amendment an assurance, such as it is (I say, "such as it is" because he admits it depends on the way that things work out in the future), that it may not be necessary when they have had more experience to continue control down to 1,000 ft. in congested areas. But experience may work the opposite way. If a

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large number of people, as he appeared to indicate, are in a sense prepared to try to evade the controls then, of course, he is sure to find going up a number of factory premises having an area of 950 square feet.
It will clearly be the case that, where a local authority are sympathetic to the smaller businessman or industrialist who wants merely to replace two or three old sheds by a new building, or to remove an eyesore, they will say: "Provided it is kept under 1,000 feet, we will give permission. We want the area cleared up; and you will not need the permission of the Board of Trade." So the noble Lord will come along with an amending order (or whatever it is he will bring along), saying, "There has been a great evasion of control taking place at 1,000 feet. We had not realised the mendacity factor of the modern small businessman and, therefore, in the light of experience, in the interests of proper distribution of industry we must reduce the exemption limit to 500 square feet."—or to 250 square feet or even to nought feet, so that every single industrial development will require an I.D.C. It is because I fear this further spread of largely unnecessary detailed control that I have tabled this Amendment, so as to put a floor on to the exemption limit, so that the noble Lord and his colleagues cannot at any time in the future carry the exemption limit below 1,000 feet. I hope he will be able to accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 44, at end insert ("being not less than 1,000 square feet")—(Lord Erroll of Hale.)
LORD RHODES: After that skilful example of setting up Aunt Sallies to be knocked down, I must say that I am greatly moved, and that I accept the noble Lord's Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 18 [Amendment of secton 39 of Act of 1962]:
On Question, Whether Clause 18 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I have never been fond of Section 39 of the 1962 Act. My heart bleeds for the practitioner in Scotland who still has to cope with Section 19 of the Local Employment Act, 1960. In both cases he has a very hard row to hoe. The noble Lord's Bill does not make it any easier. I know that what is being done is the clearing up of a certain number of difficulties; but when the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, spoke of the abundant clarity of Clause 13, which certainly seems to involve a great deal of obscurity, it is as nothing to the obscurity involved in having this Amendment by means of Clause 18 grafted on to Section 39 of the 1962 Act. The same applies in Clause 19 to the Scottish equivalent measure.
Could not the noble Lord undertake that by the next stage, Section 39 will be re-written in full, as the noble Lord now wants it to read, with the proviso in Clause 18(2), so that it does not go too far back in its effect, and so that we can read the whole thing in one place? If the noble Lord speaks to the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack he will find that this is exactly what that noble and learned Lord would like to do to the law in general. This is a good case in point where we are dealing with a difficult concept. I am sure that the noble Lord would like to have the Board of Trade in the vanguard of the current trend to clarity in the law. Would the noble Lord look at it?
LORD MITCHISON: This is not an objection to the clause on its merits. It is a thirst for the ideal which is afflicting the noble Viscount, at perhaps the last moment in the progress of the Bill. One always sympathises with one who seeks the unattainable; and those who look for perfect simplicity and clarification in planning legislation may be included in those good wishes. I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Viscount the undertaking he seeks. I would say to him that, speaking for myself, I have an unholy respect for Parliamentary draftsmen. When they do it this way in a new Bill, I say to myself that there must be some good reason for it, some reason better than any that occur to me. For those reasons I do not feel inclined to interfere with their handiwork, even in chase of the ideals which the noble Viscount so clearly put.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Since the noble Lord has clearly not asked the Parliamentary draftsmen whether there is a reason, would he do so? The noble Lord assumed that there was a reason. It was quite patent that he would not know whether there was or not. Would he ask the Parliamentary draftsmen?
LORD MITCHISON: I am afraid I cannot give the noble Viscount the undertaking on this point in the sense he desires.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: Is the noble Lord not prepared to ask the Parliamentary draftsmen? I yield to no one in my respect for the Parliamentary draftsmen, but they would be the first to agree that they are human and can make mistakes or that, on reflection, they can see an improved way to do a thing. One of the purposes of passing a Bill through both Houses of Parliament is to make improvements. Would the noble Lord at least not consult the draftsmen?
LORD MITCHISON: If either noble Lord likes to put down a redraft in clear language, and will communicate it to us, we will then treat it with the respect and attention it will no doubt deserve. Until that is done I prefer this version.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: This is really not fair. The last Government were always anxious at least to enlist the services of the Parliamentary draftsmen to put the revised clause in best Parliamentary form rather than that the Opposition should have to draft wording which may not be quite right and which leaves very little time for it to be put right.
LORD MITCHISON: I disagree with the noble Lord, not only on that point but on some others. If he had never done anything better or worse during thirteen years of Tory opposition than that, it would not have mattered much.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: Is the noble Lord not conceding the point?
LORD MITCHISON: No.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 agreed to.
6.30 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after Clause 19, to insert the following new clause:
Amendments relating to Building Grants
". Section 3 of the Local Employment Act 1960 shall have effect as if after the word 'carry on' there were inserted the words or to persons proposing to provide industrial accommodation for other purposes carrying on or proposing to 'carry on'; and if there were added at the end of that section the following sub-section.
'(5) No grant shall be payable under subsection 1 of this section to any person proposing to provide industrial accommodation for other persons unless that person shall have entered into an agreement with the Board of Trade to sell or let the premises only to such person or persons and on such terms and conditions as shall have been approved by the Board of Trade; and in the event of the premises being sold or let to any person or persons otherwise that in accordance with such terms and conditions the Board of Trade may recover the amount of the grant paid as a civil debt.' "
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment which I admit straight away the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, thought would be out of order, the reason being that in another place it would require a Financial Resolution, and even in your Lordships' House it will ultimately, if carried, require the amendment of the Long Title. Nevertheless, I think it is a matter which is worth putting forward at this moment.
I think I can explain it best in this way. The Local Employment Act, 1960, in Section 3(1) authorises the Board of Trade in the following manner:
"For the purposes of this Part of this Act the Board may with the consent of the Treasury, and after consultation with an advisory committee appointed by the Board (hereinafter referred to as the advisory committee '), make grants to persons carrying on, or proposing to carry on, undertakings in any development district towards the cost of providing in the district buildings or extensions of buildings to be occupied by the undertakings."
The first part of the Amendment would introduce after the words
"make grants to persons carrying on or proposing to carry on"
the words
"or to persons proposing to provide industrial accommodation for other persons carrying on or proposing to carry on"
and so forth.
The 1963 Act fixed the grants at 25 per cent. of the expenditure reasonably necessary having regard to the purposes for which the building or the extension is required. The Board of Trade, of course, can itself build factories under Section 2 of the 1960 Act, as well as give building grants to people who build factories for themselves, and the Board of Trade can build them either made to measure for a particular tenant or speculatively for any tenants who may come along; and the Board of Trade will let the factory at an economic rent for the district, not necessarily a rent related to building cost. In contrast to that, a private person who builds a factory for a tenant to occupy will not be able to let the factory at less than the economic rent: that is, the rent based on the building cost in the development district. The point here is that it is not always easy for the Board of Trade to get the Treasury to agree to allow it to build when and where it wants to build. There are, after all, limits to public investment, and I wonder whether the time has not come to extend the building grant, under proper safeguards, of course, to firms which are willing to build factories either to let or to sell to manufacturers. I think there are respectable arguments for doing so, quite apart from the profit motive which, after all, can operate in the public interest and very often does.
Private enterprise may be able to sense the right moment and the right place to provide advance factories, and to get on with the job without having to spend time on convincing the Treasury that it is the right moment and the right place. This may be a decided advantage, because anyone who has been at the Board of Trade and considered advance factories knows that the moments to catch the expansion that will come along are relatively fleeting, and one may well miss them if one has to get Treasury consent, convince colleagues, and all the rest of it, before the advance factories can be started.
So far private enterprise has been restricted to factories below the limit of 5,000 square feet. Not unnaturally this has been so really as a matter of practice. They have not been restricted by law, but not unnaturally they have confined their activities largely to areas where
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the demand for factory space has been greatest, and indeed this is one of the reasons why the noble Lord has indicated the intention of the Government to reduce the limits from 5,000 square feet to 1,000 square feet in the Midlands and the South East. What is going to be the effect of that? It is going to cause these concerns that are engaged on building factories and which have great expertise in building factories below the 5,000 square feet limit to move to other areas. They may, of course, transfer their activities to building factories of more than 5,000 square feet, but all the same their expertise is in setting out industrial estates and building factories of less than 5,000 square feet.
Might it not be wise to encourage them positively to go to development districts and set up this kind of enterprise in those development districts? Otherwise, they will go again where the demand for factory space is greatest, and the Board of Trade will be taking them from the marginal areas all the time. This is what is bound to happen. They will go where the demand for factory space is greatest and will build there, unless some encouragement is given to them to build in the development districts, which is what the Amendment seeks to give.
I quite agree that there is no particular point in consultation with the advisory committee on this matter, because this a matter where the advisory committee would not have to lay out grants directly. The question of laying out grants would arise when the tenants came along and applied for assistance in order to occupy these factories. That would be a totally different matter, which will happen in any case of course, but there is no harm in consulting the advisory committee in matters such as this. In any case I should not have thought it was a fatal objection to the Amendment, if noble Lords opposite thought it better to exclude the consultation in such a case, and the drafting of an Amendment to that effect would be relatively easy.
Also the safeguards which I have proposed in subsection (5) may not be quite right. Again, one drafts safeguards as best one can, and I think the general purpose of them is to ensure that the intention of the Board of Trade in making

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the 25 per cent. grant is carried out—namely, that it should be possible to let the factory at less than the economic cost based on the cost of building, and to ensure that that is carried on for the future. It looks as if it is in perpetuity, but of course that is not so because the Local Employment Act itself has a seven-year term and that could always be altered again when the matter comes to be reviewed.
I suggest to noble Lords that this matter is worth considering. Here one has a productivity capacity which it is worth employing on what it knows how to do, and I think one could get the benefit of this particular skill for the development districts. I commend the Amendment to noble Lords opposite. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 19. insert the said new clause.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD RHODES: I have been very impressed by the powerful arguments adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, but I should have been much more impressed if they had had anything at all to do with this Bill.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It has something to do with the Bill because, as I pointed out, the provisions of the Bill are going to prevent these people from doing what they have to do in places where they have to do it. What I am suggesting is that they should be sent to places where they can carry on their activities to the national advantage.
LORD RHODES: It has nothing to do with the Bill to the extent that it is quite outside the scope and intention of the Bill and the Money Resolution, and I think that the noble Lord realises this as well as anybody else. But his arguments were good, and so far as they were put forward in a general way I will reply to them. The Government are at present reviewing the distribution of industry policy in view of the need to replace the powers to give financial inducement under the Local Employment Acts when they expire in 1967. I spent a lot of time on the Estimates Committee going into the question of the Local Employment Acts. For many weeks and many months
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I ploughed through this. And I know that the Board of Trade has
"to have regard to the relationship between the expenditure involved and the employment likely to be provided."
We cannot tell what employment is likely to be provided when we do not know the purpose of the factory. That is perfectly reasonable. The noble Lord was talking about wasting time going to see the Treasury. I am more concerned about not wasting public money. Unless we can tell what employment is likely to be provided, the whole principle of this is set aside. We also want to know whether the occupying firm is going to be sound enough to provide continuing employment. I could go on for a long time dealing with all the factors in this. It would not be easy to enforce these provisions after the money had been paid out and the factory occupied.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am not sure that the noble Lord is right about this. Surely the point is that potential tenants may or may not want a grant to go into the building. If they do not want a grant, the probability is that they are economically viable and know what they are about. On the other hand, if they apply for a grant, it may mean they are not economically viable and, if they do not get a grant, they probably will not go into the premises. The likelihood is that the premises will serve their purpose and the money will be well spent.
LORD RHODES: The noble Lord is talking about premises he presumes will be there. I am talking about premises that will not be there, because we are not going to allow them. The noble Lord is jumping the gun. These difficulties are not necessarily insuperable and, if a way should be found of overcoming them, a provision allowing grants to be given to developers would have to be carefully drafted in the context of a Bill dealing with loans and grants generally. That is my serious answer to the noble Lord and I hope that he will accept it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am perfectly willing to accept that answer. What I was anxious to do was to bring this problem to the attention of the Government and I hope that the effect of putting

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down this Amendment will be to put this in their minds when they are examining the Local Employment Acts, as they are bound to do on their expiry in a short time. Perhaps I should not be so grateful for the noble Lord's explanation on this matter as on some other matters he has explained to-day. Nevertheless, I think the purpose of my putting down the Amendment has been served. I realised that, because a Money Resolution would be necessary and because of the actual drafting, it would not be possible for the Government to accept it. I am a little disappointed that the noble Lord has held out no hope of being able to follow this up and put something down on Report stage. Of course, there is always the possibility that in the meantime he may have a change of mind and see the advantages of my argument. I hope that that may be so, and on that rather flimsy
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hope I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Remaining clauses and Schedules agreed to.
House resumed. Bill reported with Amendments.

MERSEY TUNNEL (LIVERPOOL/ WALLASEY), ETC. BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

SAINT MARK, CAMBERWELL, BILL
Reported, with an Amendment.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before seven o'clock.