Lords Sitting of 16 February 1966

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

BARONESS STOCKS
Mary Danvers Stocks, widow of John Leofric Stocks, Esquire, having been created Baroness Stocks, of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, for life—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

FORESTRY COMMISSION'S HORSE- RIDING CHARGES
2.15 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much money the Forestry Commission expect to receive each year from the £4 charge per horse per annum from organised commercial riding establishments and from the £2 charge per annum from regular riders; what is the cost of collecting the above charges; and whether to their knowledge any private individuals or bodies have imposed such charges.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, in 1966 the Forestry Commission expect to receive about £700 from the £4 charge, and about £300 from the £2 charge. Receipts are expected to remain at this level for the next year or two. The cost of collection is negligible because permits to riders in the forests have to be issued in any case so as to retain control of access, and most of them are issued to riding schools. I have no knowledge about the practices of private landowners.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, do Her Majesty's Government really think
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it worth while that the Forestry Commission should incur a certain amount of odium, and act as a bad precedent to private landlords, by imposing a charge that brings in what is, comparatively speaking, a negligible amount of money? Further, do the Government not agree that, on the whole, the damage is done by the unorganised riders (if that is the right description) and not by the organised riders, who always have leaders well versed in the countryside code?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, we considered this matter in reply to a Question from the noble Duke on July 22, and I believe these points were raised then. I am afraid that I have nothing to add to what was said then. I think that in the circumstances this is a reasonable charge. It is made not for casual riding but, as regards the larger charge, to people who are making a quite proper commercial use of forest facilities, and, as regards the smaller charge, to those who frequent the forests regularly for riding during a year.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell me why the Forestry Commissioners have suddenly, as I understand, decided to put this charge on the riding schools.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I regret that I am not acquainted with the reasons for any change of policy about this matter— indeed, I did not know there had been one. All I can say is that, as matters now stand, it seems to me a reasonable charge to make for these uses of the forests, and a proper one for a public authority to make.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the Government whether any people have refused to pay these charges; and, if so, whether interdicts have been applied for against them, and what has been the cost of the interdicts?
LORD MITCHISON: Not to my knowledge, my Lords. All I can say is that, having regard to what the noble Lord said on the last occasion this matter arose, I made the most careful inquiries about the law of Scotland (of which I am wholly ignorant) and was unable to discover that anybody was breaking it in this respect.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, does the noble Lord realise that one

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pony-trekking operator would have to pay something like 80 landlords if all private landlords emulated the Forestry Commission in this respect? Does he really think this is the way to encourage people to make recreational use of public facilities?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I can only repeat that these matters were raised before, and that I have nothing to add to the answers I then made. I think the charge is a reasonable and proper one in all the circumstances. I am sorry that the noble Duke thinks the charge is too small, but I do not think he wishes me to suggest that it should be increased.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, would the noble Lord make inquiries about my question as to whether anybody has refused to pay, and whether any interdicts have been applied for against them? If he would let me know afterwards, that would be quite sufficient, but I should like to know.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I will certainly check and let the noble Lord know, but I did make inquiries about the law and I am sure that, if there had been a case on the matter, I should have been told about it.
LORD REA: My Lords, the noble Lord said that he had nothing to add on this matter. Can he hold out any hopes of a subtraction?
LORD MITCHISON: No, my Lords.

DEFENCE SECRETARY'S VISITS TO THE UNITED STATES
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty's Government the Question of which I have given Private Notice—namely:
Why is it necessary for the Secretary of State for Defence to visit the United States twice within three weeks, presumably to take decisions as to the purchase of the F 111 aircraft without Parliament being advised of the matter?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, I am afraid that the Government must decline to answer this as a Private Notice Question because in our view, it does not qualify as a Private
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Notice Question on the grounds of urgency.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I must say I am rather surprised by that answer. Are the Government really deciding what should qualify and what should not qualify as a Private Notice Question? Is that not something quite novel? The Government can always refuse, if they wish, to answer any Question. I must say I am astonished to hear it said by the Leader of the House, not in his capacity as Leader of the House but on behalf of the Government, that the Government do not think the Question should qualify as a Private Notice Question.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I can only say to the noble and learned Viscount, with great deference, that when he has been a Member of this House a little longer he will not be so easily astonished.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: Of course, the noble Earl owes me an apology for his rebuke yesterday. In fact, he if looks he will see that the points I made then were questions. His complaint was that the questions were perhaps a little long; but he really ought not to regulate the length of speeches. I took great care to find out what the position was; and, unless I was misled, the Government as such have no responsibility for deciding whether or not a Private Notice Question qualifies as such.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask if Her Majesty's Government are going to proceed to change the Rules of the House or if this is done without consulting the House at all?—because, as I understand it, any Peer may ask a Private Notice Question if he thinks the matter sufficiently urgent. The Government can refuse to answer it. One occasionally brings forward a Private Notice Question about, for example, something one may hear on the 8 o'clock News. I will remind the noble Earl that I myself did that when the British Government said they were going to destroy the German war memorials. I asked a Private Notice Question then and got an Answer. Every Peer has the right to ask a Private Notice Question.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I entirely agree, of course, that

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every Peer has the right to ask a Private Notice Question; but the Leader of the House, speaking on behalf of the Government, has the right to decide whether or not he will answer it. In this case I have given reasons for not answering it. I could have simply said that I decline to answer the Question; but I thought that what I did say was slightly more courteous.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, if this had been a Starred Question, would the Government have answered it? Seeing that we have had only one Starred Question this afternoon, can this Question be regarded as a Starred Question and answered?
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, arising out of the negative reply of the noble Earl, would he not agree that Her Majesty's Government are causing widespread unrest and despondency in Her Majesty's Navy owing to rumours and leakages to the Press?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am surprised at the particular observation from the noble Lord. I do not feel that it requires an answer.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether I should be in order in putting the Question which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, with whom I have not communicated?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am afraid that, for quite different reasons, that also would be inadmissable.

MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD (SEAFORTH WORKS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 2, and committed to a Select Committee.
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY BILL [H.L.]
Read 2 and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
TEES AND HARTLEPOOLS PORT AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
Read 2, and committed to a Select Committee.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (PRO- HIBITED EXPORTS AND IM- PORTS) ORDER 1966
2.26 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move the Order standing in my name. Perhaps I should first of all apologise to the House and, in particular, to the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, for bringing this matter before your Lordships on a day which we normally keep for Motions. In these circumstances, I hope the House will think it right if I confine my remarks to the terms of the Order and do not go into the broad issues of Rhodesia.
The House will know that, as a consequence of U.D.I., the United Kingdom has prohibited imports and exports to and from Rhodesia. The Government are very heartened and gratified at reports received from our various friends. The United States has asked importers to fall in line and the large importers, particularly of tobacco, have prohibited imports of that commodity. I think the House will agree that, if sanctions are to be imposed, it is essential that they should be effective and, above all, that there should be nobody to profit from sanctions. This Order strengthens the existing sanctions and is a clear warning to any form of speculator who may wish to seek profit in the circumstances that he does so at his peril.
The Order arises from Section 2 of the Southern Rhodesia Act 1965. Article I provides that, except so far as may be authorised by the Secretary of State, it will be a criminal offence, first, to export or import specified commodities from or to Rhodesia; and, secondly, to make or carry out a contract for such imports or exports, even though it may be through a third party; thirdly, to promote such a contract. The penalties for contravention are contained in Article 2 of the Order. I think I should stress that this Order is now in force and is now the law within the United Kingdom and within Rhodesia, and that it applies to all persons who are mentioned in Article 1(4).
It might be well that I should remind the House that it applies to a person who:
" is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or a British protected person and is

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ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom; or…is a citizen of Southern Rhodesia; or…is a body incorporated or constituted under the law of the United Kingdom or the law of Southern Rhodesia "
I would make it clear that these persons would be committing a criminal offence if they were to conduct any of the actions specified in Article I anywhere in the world: it does not matter where it is. The procedure for dealing with the commodities to be involved is outlined in Article 3(2), which provides that by an Order made by the Secretary of State a commodity may be defined. Article 3 deals with the Parliamentary procedure for those Orders; and in this particular case it is the Negative Resolution procedure; in other words, the Orders can be annulled by a Resolution of either House. The House may be interested to know that two Orders specifying commodities—namely, chrome and tobacco— have been made. So far, I do not think that there is any legal point involved.
I now turn to one part which may give concern to the House because it involves a degree of retrospectiveness, but I hope that the House will understand the reasons for this when I give them in a moment. Article 1(5) renders void any contract made in regard to the goods that may be specified, entered into before or since the passing of the Order. It also renders void any transfer of property rights carried out after the Order is made. It clearly specifies that any money that has been paid under a transfer of property or under a contract after the making of the Order would not be recoverable in any court of law.
The reasons for these sweeping powers are twofold. First, in regard to foreign importers, as I have mentioned, many countries have helped us in this matter, but the Government appreciate the position of foreign importers who may have outstanding contracts within Rhodesia and may have difficulties in their minds about whether they will follow the advice or instructions of their Governments or carry out their contracts in Rhodesia. This Order relieves them of any obligation about fulfilling contracts. I think that this is right.
The second reason, which I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, is in regard to speculation. We believe that we must take into account justice to other
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merchants who are loyally carrying out the orders and requests of their Governments in not trading with Rhodesia, and also the position of Rhodesia when it returns to constitutional government. In the case of tobacco, this is a commodity for which there is now no market, and there is no doubt that where the tobacco is sold the price is a depressed one. It may well be that some individuals think that this is an opportunity to buy tobacco at low prices, to store it either in Rhodesia or in some other country, and when the Smith regime falls and the normal trade in tobacco starts again, then a very substantial profit would be made by the speculator. The Government do not believe that this is right and have taken power in this Order to ensure that contracts will be void and that there should be no lawful transfer of property rights after the making of this Order.
I think I should stress that the Government will see that any speculator buying any of these commodities will do so at his peril. He will not be able to achieve a profit out of this unhappy state of affairs in Rhodesia. The Government recognise the dilemma of loyal United Kingdom citizens in Rhodesia and of Rhodesia as a whole. They may find themselves contravening orders of the illegal régime in carrying out the law of Rhodesia—as provided in this Order now before the House. I can only say that civil servants and the military forces are in a similar position, as is the Press in Rhodesia, which I am sure will receive our undying admiration in their stand for the freedom of the Press in that country. But, as sanctions are necessary to return Rhodesia to constitutional government, it is vital that they be effective, and this Order strengthens the sanctions already imposed. It also clearly gives warning that there will be no profiteering or speculation in any of the commodities the Government may specify. With these few words, I hope that your Lordships will give approval to this Order.
Moved, That the Southern Rhodesia (Prohibited Exports and Imports) Order 1966 be approved.—(Lord Shepherd.)
2.36 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the Fifth Report of the Select Orders Committee rightly reported that this Order raises an important question of policy and

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principle and that it cannot be passed by this House without special attention. We have now had a series of Orders which we have been asked to approve, all of which have been in fulfilment of the Government's sanctions policy in relation to Southern Rhodesia. On November 11, immediately upon the U.D.I., the Prime Minister announced the various measures the Government proposed to take, and among them was the banning of tobacco. That step, of course, did not have to be considered by either House, as it was taken under existing legislation. Now we have to consider, and are asked to approve, a further turn of the screw, to give the Secretary of State power to specify any product he may choose. Once he has done so, it will be a criminal offence, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has said, to deal in the import or export of that product to or from Southern Rhodesia in relation to anywhere in the world—a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment or a fine of any amount, or both.
One of the two products specified is tobacco, and the first question I would ask the Government—and I hope that we shall have a reply to it—is this. Why, if this Order is necessary, has there been such a delay in making it? The Prime Minister repeatedly stressed last November the importance of the ban on tobacco then imposed. He repeated that it was perhaps the most important measure taken for the purpose of bringing Southern Rhodesia back to constitutional and lawful government. Yet until February 7 and the making of this Order there appears to have been this loophole. A person has been free to contract to export tobacco from Rhodesia. I must say that I feel that this delay in stopping this loophole requires considerable explanation.
On November 12, the Prime Minister said, with regard to the measures he had announced (and I quote his words):
" It is our view that these measures will be effective and we have no other measures in contemplation."
He also said then:
" it is better for the action to be effective quickly than for it to be lingering and involve great and prolonged hardship."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 672, col. 634.]
On November 16, no fewer than seven Orders were made. On December 1 the
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Prime Minister announced that an embargo had been placed on the export from Rhodesia of various commodities, including chromium, and on January 20, chrome was declared to be a specified product, which it was made a criminal offence to export from Southern Rhodesia. Again I ask why, if there was this gap in the embargo which required to be stopped, there was such delay in stopping it?
Two days later we had the Reserve Bank of Rhodesia Order to secure that the assets of that Bank were safeguarded. Then, on December 10, the Prime Minister said, with regard to the economic measures taken (again I quote his words):
" These measures are harsh. They will involve hardship. But the Government consider that quick and effective measures will involve less suffering than a long-drawn-out agony."
To complete the history, we had the oil embargo imposed by the Southern Rhodesia Petroleum Order on December 17. Now we have this very far-reaching Order of January 20 making it a criminal offence to do anything with regard to the import or export of a specified product.
The delay in making this Order, although it calls for explanation, is not, I think, a valid ground for refusing to approve it. Twice, at least, the Prime Minister has stressed the desirability of quick and effective action. The stronger the case for this Order—and a strong case does require to be made out for it— the less excusable the delay from November to January. Many Orders have been made since the Prime Minister said that the Government had no other measures in contemplation. Is this to be the last of the Orders that we shall be asked to approve in this field, or are there likely to be more? It will be interesting to know.
" Every measure ",
the Prime Minister said on November 12,
"has been judged, and must be judged, against its ability to restore the rule of law and the functioning of a democratic constitution in Rhodesia."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol 720 (No. 4), col. 632; 12/11/65.]
So we should apply that test to this Order. We have the Prime Minister's authority for that. This Order must then be judged against its ability to restore the rule of law. I myself do not think, despite what the Prime Minister has said,

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that it is possible to judge this Order in isolation. The case for it, if I understood it correctly, is that it fills a gap, which the Government should admit, with the emphasis placed so repeatedly on quick and effective action, should have been filled long ago.
At some time—and I think it may be fairly soon—we should review and consider the effect of the consequences of the Government's sanctions policy. I hope that nothing that I say will be taken to imply any approval of the Smith regime or of its actions. But this policy of sanctions was intended to induce the people of Rhodesia to return to constitutional rule. Is it having that effect, or is it being counter-productive? Is it consolidating support for the illegal regime? I must say that I find it difficult to assess the situation. The accounts that one gets from those who have visited the country recently differ so widely that one may almost suppose that they had not been to the same country. According to some, sanctions are only solidifying support for Mr. Smith and are not hurting him. According to others, they are really beginning to bite. Are there any signs of people emerging who wish to return to constitutional government? "Quick and effective action", were the Prime Minister's words. Is the action being effective? It does not seem to me to be so very quick. Is it going, to use the Prime Minister's words again, to involve a "long-drawn-out agony"?
I have mentioned these matters because they are matters on which we, and I believe the country, would like to know more. I hope that when my right honourable friend Mr. Selwyn Lloyd returns we shall obtain some valuable information. But I do not think it would be right, or indeed useful, to discuss to-day the effectiveness of the sanctions policy. I think that we should do so soon, and that we should have a full report from the Government as to the way in which matters are developing; and that we should consider whether there are any further steps, not involving the use of force, which could usefully be taken to secure a settlement.
It is difficult for us to learn what is happening in Southern Rhodesia. How difficult must it be for the people in Rhodesia to know what is happening here and of the laws which we make here!
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There is the censorship, which would appear to indicate that Mr. Smith dare not let the people of Rhodesia know the truth. But how are the people in Rhodesia to learn of the terms of this Order? Every United Kingdom citizen; every British-protected person ordinarily resident in this country; every citizen in South Rhodesia; every United Kingdom and Rhodesian company, is made liable to conviction of a crime if he makes or carries out one of these prohibited contracts. It is often said that ignorance of the law is no excuse: we are all familiar with that statement. But ignorance of the law, when there is no means of knowing what the law is, would rob the infliction of heavy penalties on business men in Rhodesia of any appearance of justice. It is therefore of the utmost importance, so it seems to me, to know what steps are being taken by the Government to ensure that the terms of this Order are known in Rhodesia, and for us to be satisfied that the steps that are being taken are likely to be effective. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, when he comes to reply, will direct some of his observations to this, as I think, most important question.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred in particular to paragraph (5) of Article 1 of the Order. I must say that, while I listened to his observations with interest, I feel considerable concern about the width of that particular paragraph. It provides that any contract, whether made before or after January 20 of this year, for the import or export of a specified product shall be void. So every contract for the export of tobacco for Rhodesia is made void. It does not matter when the contract was made. Even if it was made long before U.D.I., it is now made void. I can see that it was necessary to make any further performance of a contract for the export or import of any specified product, such as tobacco, illegal and to give some protection for foreign importers. But this provision does not apply only to contracts which have still to be carried out in some degree; it applies to all contracts, whenever made, and whether carried out or not.
Suppose that, three years ago, a contract for the export of tobacco was carried out, and the tobacco was delivered, and

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a dispute arose as to whether the quality of the tobacco was up to that stipulated, and that litigation is pending, the result of which will depend on the terms of the contract. Now, as a result of this Order, that contract is made void. That would seem to me to be its effect. If it is, the parties to the contract will be deprived of their rights. Is that really going to help to restore the rule of law in Rhodesia? Again, suppose that a product is imported into Rhodesia from this country, and after it has been imported into Rhodesia, and before it has been paid for, it becomes a specified product. If that happens, the contract is void. Is not the consequence that the person here is deprived of his right to recover the money for the goods from the importer in Rhodesia? If this is right, is this really going to help to restore the rule of law in Rhodesia?
As I have said, I can see the case for saying that the further performance of any contracts relating to the export or import of specified products shall, in so far as it consists of the delivery of goods to Rhodesia, or their export from there, be illegal. I can see the case, too, for saying that payment shall not be made for such goods to persons in Rhodesia or to anyone for exports from Rhodesia. But, as I have indicated, this Order would appear to me to go much further than that. If this Order were intended to apply to tobacco and chrome alone, there would be no need to take the general power to specify other articles. Suppose a man lawfully contracts for the import or export of something to-day, and next week those products to which the contract relates are specified, then his contract, lawful to-day, is made void, and his rights under it are gone. Therefore, does this Order not mean that from now on there can be no certainty that a lawful contract made to-day will be lawful to-morrow?
My Lords, I know this is fairly technical stuff, and I apologise for spending so much time upon it, but I think it is rather important. I suspect that there is little difference between what the Government desire to achieve and what I think there is a case for doing. I hope there is little difference, but I would ask the Lord Chancellor to say, when he comes to reply, that he will look into the points
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I have raised and consider them carefully. I am, of course, willing to discuss them with him. If he will say that if, on further examination, he comes to the conclusion that this particular provision is drawn too widely, he will not hesitate to replace this provision by another provision less widely drawn and having effect from the same date, January 20, that will satisfy me—perhaps I should add, at least for the time being.
That is all I wish to say on this Order. My advice to my noble friends is not to divide against it, for it appears to be ancillary to the Government's present general sanctions policy. If I may, I should like to repeat again that I think it likely that we shall require an opportunity—and to-day is not a suitable occasion—for considering the effect of the Government's policy since last November, and what further steps might usefully be taken to secure a peaceful settlement of this matter. I should like to conclude by expressing the hope that nothing I have said to-day will be of the slightest comfort or encouragement to the illegal regime, for that is certainly not my desire or my intention.
2.53 p.m.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, my noble and learned friend expressed the hope that his noble friends will not divide the House. I can at once, I think, reassure him, and certainly for my own part I would not seek to divide the House about an Order which seems to me to be unimportant and altogether ineffective. I cannot see that this Order will lead to one pound of tobacco or one ton of chrome being withheld from the market. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, must know as well as I do that Salisbury to-day is swarming with businessmen from Germany, Austria, Italy, France, yes, even from the United States, picking up the threads of the business that we have rejected. They are not going to be affected by this Order.
As for the Rhodesians themselves, what is the effect likely to be? We embark on a policy the purpose of which is to starve them into subjection. They take steps to avoid starvation. We then tell them that in doing so they are guilty of criminal acts, and will be liable to heavy penalties. The only conceivable result of that can be to stiffen their resistance. I am afraid that the real significance of this

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Order is this: it indicates that the Government have learned nothing at all by the experience of the last three months.
Surely there must be some lessons to be learned. Every calculation on which this policy has been based, as my noble and learned friend indicated in his speech just now, has been proved wrong. There has been no immediate solution. Surely, my Lords, the only justification for a policy of economic sanctions is that it should be effective immediately. That is the only way in which you can get a change of heart. If it is long-drawn-out, going over week after week, you do not get a change of heart; you get a hardening of heart. You do not diminish resistance; you stiffen resistance. The only justification for this policy would have been if it had been immediately effective, as it is quite evident the Government last November believed that it would be, but they miscalculated.
The other lesson that I think stands out from the experience of the first three months is this. It is surely a mistake to put everything upon the constitutional issue. What is our objective? Is it really to return Rhodesia to the paths of constitutional Government? Or is it to ensure a future for the inhabitants of Rhodesia, black as well as white? If our purpose is to ensure some kind of future for the people of Rhodesia, of all races, then it is surely clear that this policy, long-drawn-out as it is, ineffective as it has been, can only deny them a future. I suggest that we have now reached the stage in which not only has the policy failed, but it is inconceivable that it can succeed. I do not mean that it is inconceivable that Mr. Smith and his Government may be brought down: that may happen. But surely it is evident now that they can be brought down only at a price that is going to be far too high for us to pay; a price that we shall have to pay with damage to our own economy; a price that we shall have to pay through the collapse of Zambia and the collapse of the Copper Belt mines—the price we shall have to pay ultimately, unless we check this crazy policy, by war. Surely we really ought to pause and look at the stage we have come to; look where we have been led.
I remember years ago listening to my father speaking in the House of Com-
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mons. He was supporting the Irish Treaty. If Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Austen Chamberlain had taken the same view of the sanctity of any given Constitution at any given moment, as the Government take of the sanctity of the 1961 Constitution of Rhodesia, the Irish Treaty would have been impossible and, presumably, the Black and Tans would still have been roaming all over Southern Ireland. Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Austen Chamberlain, and my father realised— my father was not in the Government then—that a Constitution is not something that is absolute; it is relative: relative to times, relative to conditions, relative to the people who are working it, and if you stake your whole policy on the sanctity of a given Constitution you find yourself in an impasse from which you simply cannot escape.
My Lords, I hope very much that we shall have the full debate for which my noble friend asked and, if it is impossible to persuade the Government, I hope we shall be able to persuade the people of this country that the only alternative to ruin for the whole of Southern Africa— probably the only alternative to war—is negotiation with the de facto Government of Southern Rhodesia, to reach a settlement which will ensure the future, not just of the white Rhodesians but of all Rhodesians, whatever their race and whatever their colour.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, I do not propose to discuss to-day the provisions of this Order. Nor do I differ from the advice that has been given to us, both by the noble Viscount who spoke for the Opposition and also by my noble friend who has just spoken, as to not voting on this Order to-day. Nor do I propose now to discuss, even to the extent to which my noble friend Lord Coleraine did, the general Rhodesian position. I only want to say this, that I think it is of extreme importance that at a very early date we should have an opportunity of discussing the Rhodesian question on a wider basis than a particular Order such as the one now before us. In the second place I want to say that I share very many of the apprehensions which have just been expressed by my noble friend.
3.3 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, in common with my two noble friends who have just spoken I do not propose to

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enter into any general discussion on sanctions, on which I have expressed my views in earlier debates. I rise only to underline, and in one respect to take a little further, the questions put on a purely legal matter by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor may be able to enlighten me a little about the terms of paragraph (5) of Article 1 of the Order. It seems to me that in putting the difficulties my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne really understated them, for the reason I shall give.
I think we are all quite familiar with the frustration of a contract by illegality. Illegality frustrates it in so far as it is executory, but as I understand sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph (5) this frustrates the contract ab initio. If I am wrong about that, that may be the complete answer. But I feel that the difficulty arises when we get to sub-paragraph (b), which says:
" any transfer made, after the commencement of this Order…shall be absolutely void".
That I can quite understand. Suppose, however, that it is made before the commencement of this Order and I am right in my supposition (although I hope I am wrong) that sub-paragraph (a) avoids the contract ab initio: the whole matter would then be left in the utmost legal doubt. For this reason, I join in the plea made by my noble and learned friend that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor should consider the matter further, if he has not already fully done so. But it may be that he will be able to enlighten me straight away.
3.6 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, in view of the principle that silence gives consent I feel that perhaps one might be allowed to make a few comments on this Order, because in my case silence would not mean consent. Like noble Lords who have already spoken, I have no wish to divide the House on this question, but I think that perhaps the idea that no Member of the House, except perhaps one or two on the Front Benches, should be allowed to reflect at all upon the background of this Order to-day is not one which is really fair to Back-Bench opinion. I want to say, quite Briefly, that one views with great
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apprehension, and, indeed, acute distaste, the Motion before the House, as exemplifying the unbending attitude of the Government in Rhodesian affairs. Their apparent indifference to the risks involved appals me, and I think this is not an unsuitable occasion to mention this, now that we are laying the coping stone of some of these efforts.
It has been said, and it is repeatedly being understood, that negotiation is the only way to produce a solution to this problem; and negotiation cannot take place unless there is an active desire on both sides to make it possible. To my mind, it is the negation of statesmanship to pursue a vindictive vendetta against a country which would make any negotiation extremely difficult to start. The measures being taken by the Government, if continued to the bitter end, would lead—and, indeed, are already leading, on the road—to unemployment and poverty for those whose interests it is designed to further, and ultimately, if successful, to the breakdown of law and order; to civil war, famine, violence and, incidentally, as has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Coleraine, the collapse of Zambia.
Can the architects of chaos sit complacently on the Government Front Bench and review the results of this work to date with any satisfaction? I think not. I believe that we started with the idea of inducing in the de facto Government of Rhodesia a frame of mind favourable to negotiation. I still believe that negotiations in the right frame of mind would achieve an acceptable compromise—acceptable both to Parliament and to the de facto Government of Rhodesia. I have not recently visited Rhodesia myself, but from most of the accounts of those who have visited it, the right frame of mind is probably present in Rhodesia to-day. But it does not seem to me, and to many others, to be present in the mind of the Prime Minister. The preliminary insistence upon a humiliating surrender, with their fate entirely in the hands of this Government, would make a mockery of the word "negotiation"; nor could the subsequent imposition of terms upon a helpless community be so misnamed.
If sanctions fail to produce the chaos now envisaged, there still emerges the ugly threat of force—an even surer way of

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achieving tragic results. The policy of the Prime Minister is leading us straight down the path which leads to war, and this country should, I feel, be left fully aware of the path we are treading. It may or may not be the right path, but it is very wrong that the people of this country should not have it clearly stated to them where it may all end if we go on as at present. The Motion before the House does not commend itself to me, could not commend itself to me, without some assurance from the Government that they do believe in and are taking steps to initiate negotiation, if necessary—and I think it is necessary—with the de facto Government of Rhodesia; and now.
3.10 p.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I rise to support my noble and learned friend the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and I wish to speak for only a few minutes to underline one or two things which he said. The Order we are discussing to-day is No. 41, which was made on January 20 and laid before Parliament on January 20. The same day Order No. 42 dealing with chrome was made and laid. But, for some reason, Order No. 115, dealing with tobacco, which as my noble friend said is probably the most important sanction, was not made until February 7 and it was laid before Parliament only on February 8. From information I have received, the blunt truth of the matter is that the Board of Trade forgot about it. However, it is a great pity it was not made even earlier than January 20, because the Board of Trade, the Government, should have known that the real crux of the tobacco sanctions was not on the 1965 crop, which we have already dealt with, but the 1966 crop, the markets for which are supposed to open in two or three weeks' time. None of us knows what quantity of tobacco is going to be offered on the 1966 auction or who will buy it. We do not know. No British manufacturer can buy it, clearly; that was fixed way back in November.
But for the last few weeks the merchants, Americans and otherwise, have been pouring through London on their way to Salisbury. What they will do, I do not know. I can tell your Lordships that representatives of the American merchants were summoned before the State Department on January 29 and asked to co-operate with the American Govern-
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ment, who have no powers to forbid them to buy Rhodfisian tobacco if they so feel inclined. The newspapers tell me that there are about sixty of these merchant firms in America. I do not know whether that is right or not, but some newspaper reports said that last year they bought over a quarter of million pounds worth of tobacco. It was really very important that this Order should have come out as early as possible so that these foreign buyers should have known the position of Her Majesty's Government. I think it is now almost too late for them to be informed. As I have said earlier, none of us knows what quantity of tobacco will be offered for auction this year. Before U.D.I, the estimate was 280 million lb. Whether Mr. Smith's Government will arrange auctions and arrange for this to be bought I do not know. What I suspect is that British manufacturers' packing factories will be commandeered by the Smith régime to house and pack the tobacco which they hope to sell, to whom I do not know.
I support this Order. I think it is a necessary part of tobacco sanctions. I do not like sanctions. I think, as I have said before in this House, they are blunt instruments and they can even act as boomerangs, which they have done in this case. Nevertheless, I support this Order, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government's estimate of what it will achieve will come to fruition, because if this sanction is to act it really must act quickly.
3.15 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, none of your Lordships' House seeks to divide the House against this Motion, but a number of questions have been asked as to the construction of the Order and as to its effect and with these I will seek shortly to deal. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, asked first why the Order had been made so late. I do not agree that the Order has been made late. In the first place, so far as chrome is concerned this is really an Order intended to help those who are prepared to help us. We had, of course, first to canvass and find out in what countries normal purchasers of Rhodesian exports were prepared to help us. If one may take for example an American company which normally buys chrome from Rhodesia,

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what of course it did not want was to decline to take this chrome which it had already contracted to buy—though being prepared to do so to help us—and to find that it was then exposed to an action for damages for not having taken delivery of the goods from the Rhodesian manufacturer. The main object of the Order so far as it applies to chrome is to give these normal chrome buyers who were prepared not to take any further deliveries from Rhodesia an answer to claims which might otherwise be made against them.
So far as tobacco is concerned, again I am unable to agree that the Order was made late. It was, of course, far too late in any case for the 1965 crop; but so far as the 1966 crop is concerned, tobacco in Rhodesia, as your Lordships know, is normally sold by auctions, the auctions starting in March and going on to the summer and early autumn. It would be most unusual for anyone to contract to buy until the auctions start, because they want to see the quality of that year's crop, and therefore there would have been little object in making the Order before February.
What one is apprehensive about in relation to tobacco is that, although nearly all those countries which normally purchase Rhodesian tobacco have agreed not to, there may be the German gentlemen or other speculators, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, referred, who may well think that if, taking advantage of the situation, they can contract to buy part of this year's crop for about one-third of what it is worth, which is probably all the Rhodesian farmer in any case could get for it, they then only have to sit tight and store the tobacco and when the country returns to constitutional Government they will be able to sell it at the world market price. And, of course, one of the objects of this Order is to make it quite plain to gentlemen of that kind that if they think they can profit in that way they will find they have got their fingers burned, because they will have purported to buy tobacco when under the law which operates in Rhodesia they will acquire no title to it, and in any case, it may well be that, after return to constitutional Government. Rhodesian export control may be continued in order to make quite certain that profiteers of this kind have not benefited in this way.
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Then the noble and learned Viscount asked what steps were taken to publicise the Order. It is most important that such steps as can be taken should be taken. The steps which are in fact taken are, that the Order is broadcast, I believe many times, at dictation speed, from the Francis-town station, which is now, at last, widely and easily heard throughout Rhodesia; and steps are taken to see that all Rhodesian lawyers have copies of such Orders as are made. That will be done in this case.
As to the points which were raised by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, on the wording of Article 1(5), both noble Lords do not need me to tell them that the ordinary effect in English law and Rhodesian law on this point is the same—that if it becomes impossible to carry out a contract by reason of supervening illegality, the effect is that both parties to the contract are discharged from further performance. There is, further, a right, whether the contract subsists or not, to claim a recovery of money which has been paid for a consideration which has wholly failed, though not at Common Law for one which has partly failed. Noble Lords will remember that because of that anomaly the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act was passed; and that also, I understand, has its Rhodesian counterpart. This, therefore, was not really intended to do more than state the law as it is in any case—I think it is really tautologous—and "shall be absolutely void" does not mean, and was not intended to mean, void ab initio. It is really on that point stating the existing law.
The noble Lords also raised a second point, which I think in substance was whether the provision that certain things should date from the commencement of the Order ought not perhaps to be from the date of the Order specifying the particular commodity. I think there may be something in this point. Of course, if no further commodities are specified the point will not arise at all. But I will certainly look carefully into these points and, if we are satisfied that in any respect the Order is too wide, the Government will be quite prepared to amend it, if it proves necessary. It is a point which may well be left until the time comes

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when orders specifying other commodities are made.
The other noble Lords who have spoken will not, I think and hope, think me in any way discourteous if I say that I do not propose to follow them to-day in discussing the whole question of Rhodesia and the general question of the policy of sanctions. For my part, I should desire respectfully to accept the view put forward by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, that the present occasion is not a suitable one for a general discussion on Rhodesia. If noble Lords require such a discussion, no doubt communications will be made through the usual channels and such a debate will be arranged. I hope that I have satisfied your Lordships as to the specific points raised on the Order. For these reasons, I hope that your Lordships will accept the Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

THE ROADS PROGRAMME AND INDUSTRY
3.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF SHANNON THE EARL OF SHANNON rose to call attention to the motorway, trunk and classified roads programme, its relationship to productivity, exports and access to ports and docks; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I rise to draw your Lordships' attention to the subject of our roads—perhaps slightly less exciting, but no less controversial, than the subject which we have just been discussing. As is the tradition in your Lordships' House, I must declare my own interest as a road user. But I should also like to remind your Lordships of the interest not only of all your Lordships, but of every man, woman, and child in this country who has an interest in the economics of our country.
I am flattered that I am enabled to raise this subject in your Lordships' House, as well as by the number of noble Lords who have signified their intention to speak, either for or against my Motion. We are also especially honoured by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Eskan, who has chosen this subject upon which to make his maiden speech to the House. I wish him luck, and shall listen to it with great interest. I would remind him that, while this may be the first time that he
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has spoken in your Lordships' House, it is also the first time that I have moved a Motion here, so that we are probably both feeling much the same.
When, previously, your Lordships have discussed the roads, the subject has always been, rightly, somewhat overshadowed by concern about road safety and road accidents. Your Lordships will have a chance in the near future to debate fully the new road safety proposals, which I believe are already making their way through another place; so I intend, in moving my Motion, to confine myself entirely to the subject of the roads themselves, although I must agree that the subject of roads and road safety is heavily interdependent. Further, since I am no statistician, I shall not attempt to weary your Lordships with figures. Those may be left to the experts, and I have no doubt that among the speakers this afternoon we shall have some experts who can draw the right conclusions from the figures they give. Obviously, figures are not for amateurs. I am always reminded of the case of a few years ago, when two entirely opposing factions pounced on the same set of statistics, and both announced at the same time that those figures proved them to be conclusively right and their opponents wrong.
I shall base the whole of my speech on one, I think, universally agreed and tragic fact, that our roads are just not up to what we want of them to-day. We are, quite rightly, appalled at the magnitude of the problem, the programme and the immense sums involved. I shall attempt to illustrate the points which I shall make by referring to them in terms of a small manufacturing company, since that will perhaps make them more easily understood. The scale will be vastly different, but I think the principles involved will be exactly the same.
The company which I wish to describe was making products which were selling quite adequately in the market of their kind, and the board of directors of this company, in their prudence and wisdom, created a reserve fund for the maintenance and purchase of production machinery. As the years went by, the production machinery still appeared to be working satisfactorily, but overheads tended to go up; and rather than reduce dividends or raise prices the board of directors tended to remove small portions

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of this reserve fund which did not appear to be used and to apply them to balance the accounts. Finally, a new board of directors arrived and started on a gargantuan spending spree. With the remains of the fund they redecorated the canteen, increased the sick pay, raised the pension fund, increased dividends and gave higher bonuses to the workers—some of them good and worthy causes; but others perhaps slightly less worthy.
Everything appeared to be completely satisfactory, except that, with rising competition in the market, the machinery showed signs of being unable to compete with the volume and tempo of the modern production required of it. When the board of directors heard of this, although they were still exhorting the workers to justify their jobs with increased production, they introduced disciplinary measures against workers who attempted to overload production machinery in seeking to fulfil their targets. The board of directors were also committed to a no doubt necessary and good works welfare programme, and they increased the price of the products and called "Shame!" on the lazy sales force if they were unable to obtain orders at the inflated prices.
Furthermore, not only was the niggardly maintenance budget for the machinery not going to be increased; it was in fact going to be reduced, with the hope that the accrued profits from sales in, say, five years would pay for a further fund which could be used for replacement and maintenance of the machinery. It is quite obvious where that company is going. It is voluntarily driving itself into compulsory liquidation. I would say that senior members of Her Majesty's Government to-day would rightly speak with strong indignation of that board of directors, but that little illustration is exactly what we have done with our roads policy over the last decade.
I have tried unsuccessfully to fit into my little story some small examples of the policy of extortion which we have happily pursued with this vital tool of our export production in order to extract money out of it for other purposes. We are like a jolly little band of vampires gaily sucking the blood from our own necks. I am not much of an expert on the subject, but I doubt whether
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vampires could survive if they carried on that practice for long. Once, this great country of ours pioneered a new form of transport. It was difficult; it cost a great deal of money; there were objections. But through all those difficulties we persevered; we succeeded, and we led the world. Does anybody sensibly think that we could ever have had the railways that we had in the last century if we had tried to run them with a Ministry? How miserably we have failed with the next new form of transport that followed!
I know that nowadays it is fashionable to work into one's speech a reference to "Stop-go". This is quite impossible with the roads, for we have had "Stop", "Full-stop", and, under the last Administration, a short period of "Slightly less Stop". Although at present we are being exhorted, as we were many years ago, to close gaps, to be efficient, to sell hard, to go out and learn somebody else's language, all these wonderful exhortations come from exactly that same quarter in whose hands has rested the stewardship of one of our most vital production tools and in whose hands we were let down. Too long have we followed a policy dictated by the most regrettable fact that our roads produce a disproportionately large quantity of revenue for the vote-catching potential of investment in them.
That was the past; and it is also our miserable present. What can we do for the future? Personally, I must admit that as an amateur I am probably guilty of grave over-simplification, but perhaps that is the failing and the privilege of an amateur. The suggestion that I am going to make will, I am convinced, be the one that will come, whether we like it or not, and I only hope that we shall learn to like it before it is too late and we are forced to learn to "lump it". We have already tried to run our roads in one way. It has been proved wrong. Any other alternative stands a chance of being right. Should we not be foolish to continue backing the horse which we know comes in last? We might even get place money an another one.
Our roads must come right out of politics. We must have a Road Board, Commission, or whatever you like to: all it, staffed by highly paid executives

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—and I mean highly paid. To get the men we want, £25,000 to £30,000 would be nothing: they would be cheap at the price. They would stand or fall on what they did, on their achievements, and they could go to gaol if they "blued" the funds—which is something that I am afraid we do not seem to be able to do with Chancellors of the Exchequer!
How are we going to finance these people? I should like to suggest, as a wonderful pipe-dream, that they could have all the road revenue, but I am sufficient of a realist to understand that the Exchequer would never part with that much of their ill-gotten loot out of our roads. I would raise, without enlarging on it too much, the subject of private capital as is done in some other countries, although it might mean toll roads. Also, I do not think there would be quite so much opposition from road users to an increase in the vehicle tax —even so sharp an increase as was envisaged by, I believe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who mentioned £40. I do not think the road user will strongly object to that if he has some form of guarantee that that money is going into what he considers to be trustworthy, reliable hands; that it will be used on the roads, and will not just be at the beck and call, at the whim, of the Government to put into anything else that takes their fancy, however worthy that other cause may be.
Many noble Lords will perhaps remember—I think it was some fourteen years ago—the announcement over the B.B.C., purporting to have come from an official spokesman, that road users had no more right to expect that road revenue should be used for making roads, than a beer drinker should have the right to expect that the alcohol tax should be used for building more public houses. What a wonderfully slick, smart remark; but how tragic that that could be an official attitude towards this vital tool—I am sorry to go on repeating that, but I do regard it as such—of our export production line! If that is, and has been, the attitude, what right have we to expect anything other than the chaos which we have to-day?
As I see it, the new board would have the task of planning, building and main-
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taining the complete network of major roads in this country, with a known long-term budget in advance. I am sorry, but it would mean that local authorities would be relegated to little more than looking after by-ways. As further advantages, I would see organised continuous research and uniformity over our road network, and here I would just give one small example—lighting changes at the whim of local councillors, quite often from mile to mile, on some of our major roads.
Above all, I see continuity in the road building programme; continuity so that contractors can foresee ahead the use of their investments. This would mean a gain in experience and, eventually, a reduction in the price of roads built. So long as we play around with bits here and there, and quickly stop road building, of course our roads are going to cost a lot to build. Under the board, I would see a planned network of motorways covering the country. I would not see many more, if any, all-purpose roads. Surely, the network we have already is sufficient for most needs, provided that they can be relieved to a greater or lesser extent by the motorways.
I am assured that the difference in cost of a motorway and a large dual carriageway all-purpose road is rather marginal, and with continuous research and a continuous road-building programme it might, we hope, almost disappear altogether. I should like the Minister when he replies, to assure us that careful consideration is given to the balance of expenditure on roads within urban areas and those without. I would also see this board querying—perhaps it has already been done and, again, I should like an assurance on this—the present policy of building motorways parallel with the existing trunk roads. I know it could be argued that a great deal of traffic uses the trunk roads. It does—because they are there. But have we really been into the question of whether those trunk roads are going around two sides of a triangle, when the motorway can go across the other side? Also, these trunk roads are built on the sites of roads which were our lines of communication anything up to a thousand years ago. Are they still right to be parallel with motorways? Further—and this is most important—I

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would see motorways being driven into the development areas.
If I may, I will digress very slightly. If your Lordships take a plant which is not indigenous to the area in which you wish to put it, you have to nourish it, look after it very carefully, and even with the best care that plant will still have a doubtful viability if you keep it in a place where it does not want to be. History has always taught us that communications create trade. They have even created civilisations. When those communications go, very often trade and civilisation collapse. Even two camel tracks in a desert create an interesting potential, vastly greater than the area around, at the place where they cross. Why, therefore, do we now offer large cash bribes to industries to go to places where they do not want to be, and which, like the plant, we shall have to go on bribing to stay in places where they do not want to be? Would it not be better to invest those bribes in good communications in the desired area, creating a productive asset in the road which is put there? Industry would then go there of its own accord and be viable, without continual bribes.
The other end of this motorway, which I have suggested should be sent into a development area, will very probably go to some docks; but—please—to the docks, and not to the diametrically opposite side of a large town, so that a great outflow of traffic from the motorway must try hard to filter its way through the clogged streets of a large town before it can get beside a ship. A very large quantity of the traffic going between the London Docks and the centre of the South of England pounds straight past the front door of your Lordships' House, right in the middle of this Metropolis.
A further advantage of good roads, and one which we should not entirely lose sight of, is the tourist attraction. We have all seen posters saying, "Come to the open roads of France". If we are not to offend against what I think we are at present discussing—our own trade descriptions—our posters in Paris should read, "We advise you not to come to beautifully bunged-up Britain". While the roads are being built, the existing all-purpose roads will have to be rendered
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fit for an increase of speed. In this way they might, with minimum expense, be rendered fit to take an increased volume of traffic. This, of course, is contrary to what most road users believe has been the policy of the Ministry of Transport, which has been to bring traffic nearly to a halt.
In this respect, I think we must also get rid of, if not of a very large number, at least some of what I think are best described as pious hopes, legally known as speed limits. The bulk of these are still for a speed of 30 miles an hour. My Lords, is this still the correct speed for those areas? Many of the limits have remained unchanged since they were first put up, and we must remember that they reflect the mechanical efficiency and pedestrian intelligence of thirty years ago. In some areas they may now be too fast, in others too slow. How much research have we undertaken to find out? We also have very large stretches subject to a 40 miles an hour limit. So far as one can make out, these are put there merely to induce the 80 miles an hour driver to slow down to 55 or 60—and they are highly successful, because that is just about exactly what they do.
The exact proportion of offences recorded to offences committed is anyone's guess, but I would suggest for your Lordships' consideration that it is probably somewhere in the region of one in 10,000—and then it is probably only an instant spot check on the speed of some driver going at 44 miles an hour. I have often heard it said in your Lordships' House that legislation must not be introduced unless it can be enforced, and one in 10,000 (if that be the figure) is not very satisfactory. I do ask that we should give consideration to the right limits in the right places being properly enforced, instead of the wrong limits in the wrong places with very little enforcement even if it means goodbye to over 75 per cent, of the pious hopes.
As part of the process of speeding traffic, I would suggest that our road legislation needs examining. It appears to have been added to but not subtracted from—like our marriage laws, which were so beautifully and charmingly explained to your Lordships recently by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor; except that I would suggest that our road legislation is infinitely more

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damaging, in causing fatal accidents, than our marriage laws. I should like to give two examples from among the many that come to mind of other aspects of road legislation which need looking at. We have these dear, antique roundabouts left over from before the war. Noble Lords who have been to North-West Europe will probably remember the signs that used to be put up there some twenty years ago saying, "Traffic on circle has right of way". This is quite simple, based on the obvious, intelligent fact that if you have a constriction then surely you must let the traffic off the constriction before you give any more the right to pile in. But we, with our Ministry, have
pontifically sat back and announced that, in general, there is no right of way at roundabouts. There has to my certain knowledge been much pressure about this for twelve years, but I think it is over about the last three that we have started to see these "yield" signs sprouting up at roundabouts—and a very good idea it is. Could it not please be made general? And, if we are going to have a "yield" sign there, could we also not have an uncontrolled pedestrian crossing at exactly the same point? It means that the driver almost has to have eyes sticking out of his ears to see everything to which he has to give way.
There are many other topics about which I should have liked to talk on this subject. No doubt other noble Lords will raise them in the speeches that follow, and I shall listen to them with great interest. But in conclusion, my Lords, I should like to say that time is against us. We must take our roads out of politics and give them to a board with long-term research and planning facilities, with a continuity of building and with a budget provision well known in advance. No longer must we ask our manufacturers to enter the ring and fight for world markets hampered by a ball and chain, stamped "Roads by the Ministry of Transport", around their ankles. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.55 p.m.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, as I am sure noble Lords on all sides of the House are, for instigating this debate this afternoon, because it is a subject of vital national im-
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portance to the economic survival of the country, and as such it affects all of us. At the beginning of his speech the noble Earl referred to the efforts of the previous Administration in the road building field as, I think, "slightly less stop "—I think that was the phrase he used. I think this scarcely does justice to what the Government of which I had the honour to be a member did in this particular field, and just for the record I should very briefly like to give a few figures showing how much the last Conservative Government did achieve in this respect.
Expenditure on road construction increased from £6·2 million in 1951–52 to £147 million in 1963–64, while it was planned (o spend £172 million in the year 1964–65. It is against these figures that I read with very great interest that the right honourable Lady the Minister of Transport, in reply to a supplementary question in another place last week, said that it was intended to spend £145 million on roads in England alone in 1966–67. I was struck by this figure because I should be interested to know the total figure for Britain. I do not know how much it is planned to spend in Wales or Scotland—or, indeed, in Northern Ireland—but it may well be that £145 million will not compare very well with the £147 million of two years ago, and certainly very much less well with the £172 million which the Conservative Party planned to spend had they been re-elected. I should be very grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, when replying to the debate, could enlarge on this figure and could tell us why it was that the right honourable Lady the Minister of Transport specified England alone.
To go back to the Conservative record, I think it is well worth remarking that the motorway programme was initiated and that, out of the 1,000 miles originally planned and still being built, over 300 miles of it was completed by October, 1964. Noble Lords may well say that still more is required, and certainly I for one would not dissent; but at least we can justifiably claim that a very substantial start was made and that never once—and this is a point I would emphasise with all the strength at my command—was it found necessary to cut back the road development programme throughout the thirteen years of Tory rule in this country.

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So much for the Conservative Government's record.
I will now turn to the present situation and to the needs for the future, and I will tackle the latter point first. There is overwhelming evidence on all sides that it is essential for the wellbeing of this country that there should be a great expansion in our road-building programme. In the recent past we have had a welter of Reports dealing with road and traffic problems that, owing to the enormous increase in motor vehicles— caused, incidentally, by the thirteen years of prosperity under Conservative rule—so bedevil the problem of travelling about this island. Now one of the things these Reports have in common is that they stress and stress again the need for a vast increase in new roads. The proposal published in 1962 by the County Surveyors' Society estimated the need at a further 1,700 miles of motorway and first-class trunk roads in addition to the existing plan for 1,000 miles of motorway. It is not without interest that the same Society, back in 1939, first put that figure of 1,000 miles of trunk roads as being necessary.
Then, the recently published Study on Roads and Resources by the British Road Federation demands that the present level of road construction should be increased three-fold; and the Morgan Report suggests that the figures put forward by the County Surveyors' Society (2,700 miles in all) are correct. But it makes the additional recommendation that there should be instituted the construction, for all large and medium-sized towns, of ring motorways and expressway networks of primary distributor roads on the lines envisaged by the Buchanan Report while, at the same time, they were emphasising that the existing expenditure on new construction and major improvement to other trunk and classified inter-urban roads should be maintained.
I should here like to make the point that the construction of motorways and fast trunk roads is not, of course, the only problem. The greatest congestion on our roads is in the towns; and whether the destination of a vehicle be a factory or a port or, indeed, a private house, it is very likely, though not virtually certain, that that vehicle would have to go through a town to get to its
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destination. So, in planning roads for the future, I urge the Government to give due weight to the proposals contained in the Buchanan Report about the need for ring roads and a network of primary distributors; otherwise, whatever is done by way of new motorways and trunk roads will largely be set at nought. The evidence for the need of a greatly expanded road programme is thus overwhelming.
The only body that does not appear to be convinced are the Government. I should like to examine for a few minutes their record in this field. Of course, it is true that while the present Government were in Opposition they criticised the then Government's road programme as inadequate, and promised, should they form an Administration, that they would expand it. But what, in point of fact, has happened since October 1964? In March 1965 the then Minister of Transport said:
" We are determined not to cut the programme ".
But four months later, in July, due to curtailment of public expenditure announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we learned that the starting dates for schemes worth £30 million (well over half the motorway and trunk road schemes due to start during the following months), as well as an additional £25 million worth of classified road schemes, would be deferred for six months. That makes a total of £55 million.
Thus, within a year of taking office, the present Government saw fit to cut back in the vital field of road development—something its predecessors never contemplated during the thirteen years they were the Government of this country. I find it at least surprising that such action should come from the Party that, at the time of the last Election, boasted that it was the Party that would modernise Britain—for, surely, the modernisation of our road system, as much as anything else, has a vital role to play in any national plan to make this country efficient and able to pay its way in the world. Yet here we have, within months of their taking office, these disastrous cutbacks in the road programme.
However, last week in another place we had a further statement on the road programme from the right honourable

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Lady the Minister of Transport in reply to a series of Parliamentary Questions. If I may, I should like to quote what the right honourable Lady said, because I find it puzzling; and I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply for some enlightenment on it:
" The recent deferment measures will result in a reduction in Exchequer expenditure of about £7 million in the current financial year and £12 million in 1966–67. From now onwards the starting-dates of new schemes will be settled only by reference to the new financial allocation and will no longer be postponed for any fixed period. These arrangements will allow the schemes originally deferred to go ahead, together with most of the schemes originally programmed for 1966–67. Moreover, there will be an acceleration of the rate of expenditure after that year if the economic situation permits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 724 (No. 44), col. 385; 9/2/66.]
I should like some enlightenment from the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, when he winds-up, on the full meaning of these words.
While it is clear from the statement that Exchequer expenditure on roads will be cut by £7 million this year and by £12 million next year, I must confess—and I read again and again what the right honourable Lady said—that I am not clear how this statement ties in with the cuts on the road programme announced in July, 1965. Does the £55 million worth of cuts stand, or not? I think I am not the only one who is anxious for enlightenment on this point. However, arising from the right honourable Lady's statement, there is one thing of which I am virtually certain. It is this. In view of what was learnt from the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently and in view of yet another turn in the "stop" rather than the "go" spiral of our economy, and from all the evidence that is already too clear as to the country's general economic situation, it is highly unlikely that the last sentence in the right honourable Lady's statement—that there will be an acceleration of the rate of expenditure after 1967 if the economic situation permits—will ever come about under the present Government. I feel it is all too likely that the £55 million cut which was announced last July will be permanently lopped-off and lost forever from the road building programme.
It is clear from the recent Study by the British Roads Federation, to which
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I have already referred, that much can be done to increase the road programme. I think it is worth quoting the first conclusion of that Study. The first few words of the Study are:
" Over the next ten years a trebling of the road programme could be achieved without having to call for a larger share of the scarce resources available to this nation."
Later, in elaboration, the Study stresses the need for an overall plan for new road building. It is clear that cuts in the road programme such as those announced by the Government have a disastrous effect on the road building industry. Again, I should like to quote from the Study:
" Throughout our inquiries we have become increasingly aware of the very serious disruptive effects caused by a discontinuous road programme. This often leads to alternative periods of shortage in the supply of plant, materials and men, followed by periods of under-utilisation. The remedy for this waste is of course to plan for the future."
To plan for the future! This is exactly what I would ask Her Majesty's Government to do.
After all, as a Party, the present Government are wedded to planning, so let them, in this case at least, practise what they are so fond of preaching. So that this country can go ahead and get the roads it so desperately needs, so that export orders can be speeded to our ports; so that the economic costs of congestion, already estimated by Professor Morgan as running at £1,000 million a year and increasing by about 14 per cent, a year, can be substantially reduced, and so that, finally, the roads of Britain become a pleasure to drive on, rather than give drivers high blood pressure or duodenal ulcers from the worry and frustration of going about their daily business. It can be done, but it requires the will and the determination to tackle the problem in an energetic and far-sighted fashion. We have been presented with a number of extremely able and far-sighted Reports. The evidence is there; the means are there; all that is now required is drive from the Government. So let us have a forward-looking policy to do away with these disastrous conditions, which are cutting back the progress of Britain in the future. Let us, for once, "Go with Labour" and see what they can do towards building the roads this country so desperately needs.

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Before I close, I would make one final subsidiary point on the 70 m.p.h. speed limit on motorways. I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government will discontinue this after the initial experimental period ends at Easter. After all, what is the point of building roads, at vast cost to the taxpayer, so that high-speed driving can be undertaken at little risk, if a speed limit is then to be clamped on them? Motorways have a much better record, so far as road accidents are concerned, than other highways. Incidentally, surely this is an additional strengthening of the argument for the greatly expanding motorways programme of which I am in favour. We want to see traffic flowing freely on the roads and it will be a retrograde step to impose an unnecessary speed limit on roads specially constructed for high-speed driving.
I would ask the Government to take action, not to be dilatory and not to hang back in this vital part of our economy. We must have modern roads, so that we can use our modern inventions and carry our modern goods to their destinations. The time for reports has ended; the time for action must now begin. I would end, as I began, by thanking my noble friend Lord Shannon for his wisdom and foresight in initiating this afternoon's debate.
4.13 p.m.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I would first join with the noble Duke in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, for initiating this important debate, and I congratulate him on stressing in his Motion the relation between the road programme and "productivity, exports and access to ports and docks". I do not think that one can overestimate the importance of roads to the industrial life of this country. It is for that reason that I regret the deferment of the road-construction programme. It may be argued that this deferment is necessary. I should be inclined to question that. I doubt whether the hold-up of the road building programme does, in fact, help the balance-of-payments problem.
Be that as it may, it is disturbing to find road construction classified as "non-industrial capital projects". That is my interpretation of the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on July 27 last. That is not only my own view,
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because I have received the following comment from one of my correspondents on this subject:
" When it became clear that among the non-industrial capital projects' were items in the road programme, a feeling of incredulous bewilderment was caused in those concerned with this country's transport problems and their effect on the national economy. If vital communications, which link the major centres of production and facilitate the flow of traffic, are not considered as high priority industrial projects, it is hard to understand what would be."
The noble Earl did not limit his comments to the present deferment, and in that respect he was right. If there is a lack of appreciation of the vital role which roads must play in industrial life in Britain, it is not peculiar to the present Government. I have been re-reading a document, published nearly thirty years ago, setting out Liberal policy for conquering unemployment in 1929, based on the famous Liberal Yellow Book. It contains a fascinating map showing the road construction which could and should have been carried out at that time of mass unemployment. I notice that it showed a proper appreciation of access to the ports. Incidentally, it is interesting to see that the total cost of this imaginative scheme of road construction was to have been £42 million—showing how the costs of road construction have gone up since then.
Unfortunately, this bold policy was not adopted. It was regarded by
the other Parties as too radical. But I think that if it had been carried out, the position to-day might have been very different. In the intervening years, we have had the war, which, of course, made expansion of our road system impossible. We had the early post-war years, when things were very difficult. I remember in the early '50s serving on a sub-committee of the Select Committee on Estimates, dealing particularly with certain aspects of the work of the Ministry of Transport. At that time I got the impression that the most we were able to do, owing to lack of finance, was to deal with the day-to-day matters. Later, we made some expansion, but there were delays. There have been times when machinery has been lying idle, when specialist teams have been broken up and when expensive capital plant has been laid up. All this kind of thing adds to the difficulties. And it

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stresses the importance of the continuity to which the noble Earl referred.
Even where there has been an expansion of the road construction programme I do not think that enough attention has been paid to the need for adequate access to the ports. That is the reason we have bottlenecks on some of the approach roads to the ports. By contrast, the major and fast-developing ports of the European Economic Community have good road facilities for drive-on, drive-off ships. At Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, to mention only three, lorries can be speeding inland by fast motorways within a few minutes of leaving ship. If and when we enter the Common Market, and if, as a result, there is an increase in trade with Europe, as I hope there will be, I can foresee chaos on the approach roads to the ports unless there is in the meantime some drastic improvement in the construction of roads.
I would say this to the Government. I welcome the motorway plan for a thousand miles of motorways by the early 1970's, but I believe that even this will leave many gaps, so far as direct access to ports is concerned. Furthermore, it seems doubtful whether existing plans have taken sufficiently into consideration the possibility of a Channel Tunnel being operational in ten years' time. In view of this, and of the extensive motorway programme within the European Economic Community, it is essential for direct links to be forged between the industrial North and Midlands and the industrial Ruhr and cities such as Genoa, Turin and Milan.
LORD BOOTHBY: If I may interrupt the noble Lord for one moment, we shall all be dead by 1970.
LORD WADE: I should not like to forecast as to whether or not I shall be dead by 1970. Time alone will show. The boldness of a number of the Continental transport plans for ports and their hinterlands compares all too favourably with some British planning. For example, the port of Hamburg, which is the centre of West German foreign trade, is now served by a main autobahn artery directly linking Hamburg with Frankfurt and Basle.
This idea of linking industrial centres with ports is not something that has just
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been thought of. I have already mentioned the Liberal Yellow Book and the proposals put forward in 1929. There was also the Royal Commission of 1930. The Royal Commission on Transport in 1930 recommended that
" in future road construction programmes, the requirements of harbour areas should receive a prominent place."
Over thirty years later, in 1962, the Rochdale Report commented, rather sadly:
"It seems unlikely that this recommendation exercised any important influence in the road programme before and immediately following World War II."
On the current road programme, the Report made this further comment:
" The instances where port traffic on its own appears to have been the decisive factor seem comparatively rare."
To-day, therefore, there is a great deal of leeway to be made up. It is in the light of this that the present deferments must be judged. We cannot afford further delay. The Road Research Laboratory estimate that road congestion costs £700 million per year—that is for delays, accidents, loss of man hours and similar factors—and this represents 2·8 per cent, of the gross domestic product. I think this confirms the seriousness of the situation.
I do not want to trouble your Lordships with a great many statistics, but I understand that there are currently 375½ miles of motorway in use in England, with a further 53½ miles due for completion this year. By the beginning of 1968 there will be 532 miles of motorway in use in England and Wales. But in order to complete the promised 1,000 miles of motorway by the early 'seventies the completion rate will have to rise to 80 miles per year, against the present average of 50. There is, I am glad to say, a growing awareness of the need to step tip the road construction programme. For example, the plan put forward in 1962 by the County Surveyor's Society, and referred to by the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, for an additional 1,700 miles of motorways and express routes would bring all the major centres of population within 25 miles of a motorway or expressway, and link the fifteen major ports with one another by first-class road connections. But surely any deferment will make it more difficult to achieve anything of that magnitude.

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There is one other serious criticism that I would put forward with reference to this latest deferment of road projects, and it is that land acquisition has been included in the deferment. This is most unfortunate, in view of the fact that one of the principal reasons given for delays in the commencement of road building schemes is the time taken to complete land acquisition procedures. This should surely have been included in the exemptions from deferment. Mr. A. C. Durie, the Director General of the Automobile Association, speaking at Bristol on October 25 last, said:
" What many people have overlooked is that the Government also placed a curb on the advance acquisition of land, and this is bound to delay the design and planning of highways far beyond the period of six months."
Assuming that these criticisms are justified—and I believe they are—there are still two questions which I am often asked, and which I think I should attempt to answer. The first is: would an expansion of the road building programme have the effect of aggravating the losses on the railways? Secondly, in view of the financial situation of the country, is not some cutting back inevitable? I believe that the answer to both these questions is, No. We are not discussing the railways this afternoon, but there is, of course, a close link between the problems of road and rail. As a motorist, I see any amount of freight traffic on the road and my first reaction, like that of other motorists, is to say: "Why on earth cannot we get this on the railways?" I have no doubt that more could be taken by rail. But this is not going to solve the problem of the roads, because the increase in vehicles is continuing all the time and will continue,
If I may digress for one moment here, I would say that, on the whole, the professional drivers, the lorry drivers, maintain a pretty high standard, and that generally it is a better standard than that of the private motorist. I noticed in past years that they were quite good at spacing out and helping faster traffic to pass. I do not know whether it is just my own impression, but recently I have found many cases of what I would call "bunching"; that is, a number of heavy lorries and other commercial traffic being driven close together, making it extremely difficult for the ordinary motorist to pass. He has either to try
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to pass the whole lot, and thereby take some risk, or to wait patiently at the back of the queue, until the road widens or there is a dual carriageway. Obviously, the second course is the right one, but it is frustrating for a motorist who wants to get to a particular destination at a particular time; and a frustrated motorist is a danger to the public. I believe that the only long-term solution to that kind of problem is to be found in better roads and more motorways. Even assuming that a higher percentage of freight traffic is taken by rail—for example, if liner-trains are put into operation, and businessmen can be sure that goods sent by train will arrive at a particular time— the total traffic will continue to rise, so that a substantial improvement in the roads is absolutely essential.
Furthermore, while I am all in favour of a co-ordinated policy for road and rail, I believe that there must be as much freedom of choice as possible. If alternative means of transport are available, only the individual user knows which is the more convenient for his purposes. This is due to the fact that a large number of considerations are relevant: how much the journey costs; how long it takes; how much it costs to pack goods; how fragile they are, and so on. The permutations are so numerous that only the user of transport facilities can know enough of the details to make a rational judgment as to the best means of transport in each particular case. Therefore, so far as practicable, there should be freedom of choice for the individual or the firm requiring transport facilities. And for various reasons many will choose the roads, unless, of course, the roads are completely blocked. To avoid that state of affairs, a great deal of planning at regional and national level will be required. I welcome the recent appointment of a Director General of Economic Planning at the Ministry of Transport, but I am doubtful about the sufficiency of transport planning staffs to serve regional economic planning councils and boards. Do regional councils and boards possess adequate resources for long-term transport planning? I shall be interested to know the answer.
Finally, turning to finance, is it not time for a new look at the whole system of road financing? After all, other countries can raise the money on the open

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market. Cannot we do likewise? The Italians came to London to raise money here on our market for the building of their roads in Italy. Surely something along those lines could be adopted here. There are several possibilities. We could have a road fund loan which could be raised and secured by a charge on income from taxation. A specific allocation could be made from taxation to be used solely for road construction. Again, tolls could be introduced on the motorways. I do not think there are any insuperable difficulties about such a scheme, and I should not object, so long as it was clear that that was not going to be just another tax on top of all the other taxes. The important point to recognise is that investment in roads is profitable. There is no question here of pouring capital into a declining industry. It is the failure to spend money on roads that is wasteful.
I would sum up in this way. It is exasperating for the motoring public to feel that they pay all these taxes, and that they just go into the common pot, and are lost sight of somewhere in the Treasury. If only to remove the sense of injustice, I would favour some specific allocation. But, of course, that is not the only problem—there is more to it than that. I would suggest that three conditions must be satisfied. First, there must be continuity. It is uncertainty about the future of the road construction programme that: can have such unfortunate consequences; some way must be found to preventing the disruption caused by periodic economic crises. Secondly, there must be long-term planning, both at national and at regional level, carried out by those who really understand traffic problems. There has been far too little of this in the past. Thirdly, there should be some kind of fund specifically allocated to road construction which will not be raided. Only in that way can we meet the challenge of the roads—and it certainly is a challenge. At the beginning of my remarks I referred to the Liberal Report published in 1929, and I do not think I can do better than conclude by quoting from it. The quotation is as relevant to-day as it was then. It is as follows:
" Time saved on the roads is money saved for the nation."
4.33 p.m.
LORD CAMPBELL OF ESKAN: My Lords, when I was quivering on the brink of my Introduction to your Lordships' House less than three weeks ago, to get me through the ordeal one of my sponsors said, "Cheer up, it isn't nearly as bad as making your maiden speech." I now see what he meant, although I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, for the encouragement which he gave me at the beginning of his speech. I only hope that your Lordships will forgive my shortcomings, as a speaker and otherwise. I think I need not apologise for the comparative brevity of what I am going to say. I must, however, apologise for the fact that I shall have to leave the House at 6 o'clock owing to an official engagement from which I cannot extricate myself.
I am speaking in this debate in the light of my experience as Chairman of the Economic Development Committee for Civil Engineering but I must emphasise that I am what is called an independent chairman, which means that I am what the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, claims to be, an amateur in this field. The road programme is the largest single sector of the civil engineering industry. It accounts for about a quarter of the whole, and it is still expanding fast. Rises in prices for new construction of 30 per cent, between 1960 and 1962, and of 9 per cent, from 1962 to 1964, were brought to the notice of the Economic Development Committee. Moreover, it occurred to us that road construction should be treated as a microcosm of the civil engineering industry, and would be the sector through which influence on the industry as a whole could be brought to bear most quickly and effectively.
Accordingly, a strong Working Party on road construction was set up under the chairmanship of Mr. J. A. Lofthouse, Engineering Director of the Nobel Division of I.C.I. This Working Party includes all those directly concerned with road construction, both central and local government, contractors, unions, consulting engineers, materials suppliers, and independent members. The job of this Working Party is to study how productivity in this relatively new and fast-expanding industry can be increased. As it represents all the interests concerned, it is in a unique position to assess what

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needs to be done, and how best to get it done.
In the subject of this debate, road construction, Government, both central and local, is in a particularly strong position to influence matters, because it is, in one form or another, the only client. The main fields of study for the Working Party are: first, the structure of the industry, including the problem of the continuity of work and utilisation of plant; secondly, planning and contract procedures; thirdly, standards of management and construction; fourthly, the relationship between the various parties involved, the Ministry of Transport, local authorities, consulting engineers, and contractors; and, fifthly, the feedback to designers from experience, including, I hope, foreign experience.
At the early meetings of the Working Party it emerged that, while a great deal was known about prices, little or nothing was known about actual costs. So ten firms of contractors have agreed to help the Working Party by throwing open their books, on a confidential basis, for examination by a leading firm of quantity surveyors which has been commissioned to study the trends in costs and will report before the end of March. It is too early to say what conclusions will be reached, but the Working Party's first report should be a significant document which is likely to affect all sides of industry.
If, when the Working Party and the Economic Development Committee have considered all this, the Government and all other parties concerned are prepared to approach their recommendation with open minds, there should be real promise of more productive relations, less dealing at arm's length between the Government and the contractors, and of much better future performance, and so of better value and more and better roads for our money, whatever the level of the road programme may be.
4.37 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to be given the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Eskan, on the occasion of his maiden speech. If this is his performance as an amateur, I am certain that we are all looking forward to the occasion when he speaks as a
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professional on a subject, which I presume will be the economics of the emergent countries.
Like the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, I declare an interest. I have no expert knowledge on the subject of roads, but as a road user I have strong views. In particular, these strong views are reinforced by the fact that I have had some experience of travelling on the motorway networks of, I suppose, the only three countries that have a true network— namely, Italy, the United States, and Germany. The first impression that I gained on going to the United States—the first thing which really struck me as being essentially different from this country of ours—was to see a large truck backing into a factory in Rhode Island to be loaded up with textiles for transport to California. Knowing our own regional system, I am reasonably certain that none of us would start loading textiles into a truck to take them across a continent. We should think of doing it another way, simply because our road network is not up to the needs of our present industrial development.
Within the last month, I have travelled across Germany from Frankfurt to the Czechoslovakian border in two hours on a new motorway which when laid down was going nowhere in particular. It so happened that the time for development had come when it was decided to put a motorway across the centre of Germany. Yet the existence of this motorway at once opens up new economic possibilities for what is, at the moment, the underdeveloped area in Germany. I think that is the factor that we must bear in mind when we debate this subject. We cannot underestimate the economic significance of a motorway network in a highly industrialised country such as ours. The noble Earl, Lord Shannon, introducing the debate, eschewed statistics, but I should like to give two figures from the Ministry of Transport's most recent Report. Of all goods moved in this country, seven tons out of ten are moved on the roads; nine people out of ten are also moved on the roads. This, surely, puts the size of the problem in perspective. Perhaps it also puts the recent dispute within the railway system in perspective.
The Government are urging us to modernise our industry. We must never

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forget that road transport is an integral part of the industrial process. If we are to modernise industry, we must also modernise the communications between the various industrial units of the country, and in particular between those units and the ports from whence the products are to be sent overseas. It is an essential part of the process of renovation of our economy to get the infrastructure of our industry right; and the main element of that infrastructure is a modern road system.
Another point to be borne in mind is that modernising the road system of this country will not be as effective as it should be if the people who use it (and by that I mean the long distance road haulage drivers) do not permit the system to be used as economically as possible. What I have found most encouraging recently is the agreement which is being negotiated between the Esso Company and its long-distance road haulage drivers for a new productivity-linked wages agreement. This is of the first importance. I am delighted to think that some of these long distance drivers will earn up to £2,000 a year driving these great vehicles along the roads of our country if, as a result, we are to get cheaper transport for the goods we are sending abroad and for those within our own boundaries. This is one of the reasons why we should be grateful to the American companies which are coming to settle here, because they are introducing the change of mind which is so essential if we are to get the great benefits which can come from a modern industrial basis.
The noble Lord, Lord Wade, made a point about the importance of driving motor roads to developing areas. That, of course, has been the function of the great southern autostrada in Italy. The Italians have a problem similar to ours. We have an underdeveloped north, they have an underdeveloped south, and the first thing they have done is to drive a motorway southwards. I believe that we should be doing the same thing in this country. Do not let us underestimate the importance of linking the industrial centres. I should also like to see a motorway driven northwards into the Highlands of Scotland, because unless this happens we shall still remain two nations, divided by some hills and some history. I would suggest to my noble friend who
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is to wind up this debate, that it would not be an uneconomic process if we were now to consider planning a motorway to Inverness. I have here the Ministry of Transport's Annual Report. There is no planning for a motorway north of Carlisle or north of Newcastle, and I think this is complete nonsense. If we are to use the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain as an industrial and an economic and social unit, then we must be able to communicate; and at the moment we cannot communicate because the planning of good roads stops somewhere on the Carlisle-Newcastle level. This is not irrelevant. We are talking about developing the Highlands, and I am strongly in favour of it. We are talking about constructing a major experimental nuclear power plant next to the present reactor at Dounreay, which will produce 250 MW. That, I believe, is more power than the North of Scotland can use at the moment. If we are to do this then, for heaven's sake! let us get a road up there so that this new development in the Highlands can be used.
To deal with another small point, I was doing some simple arithmetic at the week-end. I personally average 75 m.p.h. on a motorway, whatever the existing legislation lays down. Three hours' driving from Manchester or Newcastle would get one to the Cairngorms for a week-end's skiing. I drove across Germany in three hours, and two hours' driving in this country would get us into beautiful, unspoilt country, where we could bring new prosperity to an area which needs it. So it is economically and socially of the first importance.
For these reasons, I regret that the Government have found it necessary to make minor cutbacks on our existing road programme. The object of the cutbacks (which I believe are to be £7 million this year, and £12 million next year, or something under 10 per cent.) was to slow down the rate of expenditure on capital projects, in order to help eliminate the balance-of-payments deficit and maintain the strength of sterling. I believe this is an irrelevancy. The building of roads is part of the modernisation of the British economy, and a £12 million cut in road building, which does not involve a substantial volume of new imports, must, I believe, be a retrograde step.
LORD OGMORE: Before the noble Lord leaves the question of the main roads, with which, I may say, I entirely agree, would he also support the proposal I have made for years, without any success, namely, to have a major roadway from the north to the south in Wales, thus developing mid-Wales, which is becoming depopulated?
LORD W1NTERBOTTOM: I think the noble Lord has made the same point that I was making. This is entirely essential. If there is a remote farm, and you want to make it economic, you build a road to it, and what is true of a farm is true of a nation like Wales. To illustrate the point, the M.6 now goes into the Lake District, and suddenly at week-ends the Lake District is filled with people trying to escape from our nineteenth century conurbations into the fresh air. It is a pity that they all decant into the Lake District; I should like to see them decanting into all the magnificent, unspoilt parts of the United Kingdom, where they can recreate themselves. Compared with the gross national product and the other irrelevant things upon which we spend money, I suggest that this is something which we should reconsider immediately.
In conclusion, I am pressing my noble friend to try to impress the views of the House upon the Government to give to road building the significance that it should have and, in particular, to do what I think the noble Lord, Lord Wade, stressed: Let us get on with the business of advance acquisition of land for road building, so that we can get a rolling programme going, so that contractors do not have to have "stop-go" in their own industrial planning, and so that the maximum use of the existing labour forces can be achieved for creating a road network which we urgently require.
4.49 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, for initiating this debate this afternoon on the important subject of the future roads of this country. I should like to support the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, who referred to the record of the Conservative Government over the last thirteen years, because I think it is no mean record; indeed, it is one of which I believe the whole nation
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should be proud. We know it was not enough, but we had to start practically from scratch, and under the very able drive of Mr. Ernest Marples, the late Minister of Transport, and the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, a tremendous amount was done.
In a few moments for which I shall address your Lordships I wish to plead for a larger share of available funds of the existing road programme to be allocated to East Anglia, which in the next ten years will be greatly increased in population. For instance, the population of the County Borough of Ipswich will, I understand, increase by some 70,000; and the dock area there and at Felixstowe will be greatly expanded. The City of Norwich, too, is to be greatly expanded. I should like to put forward some estimates, which I believe are approximately correct, for the four-year rolling programme. I think the House will agree that if East Anglia is to grow in population to a considerable extent in the next few years the figures in the estimates are completely inadequate.
The population of East Anglia, which comprises Norfolk, the City of Norwich, Great Yarmouth, East Suffolk, the County Borough of Ipswich, West Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, and Cambridge City, is about 1,378,000. The next four-year rolling programme, estimated on schemes of over £50,000, is to cost approximately £1,587,000. For the Record, I will give your Lordships the breakdown of these figures. Norfolk, approximately £287,000 in the next four years; East Suffolk, £495,000; West Suffolk, £80,000; Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, £278,000; the City of Cambridge, £447,000. Breaking these figures down a little more, they show an estimated expenditure on road works of something like 29s. per head of the population for the four-year period, or 7s. 3d. a head per year. If this area, with its vastly expanding ports, is to have that sort of allocation in the next four or five years, with the cities greatly expanding, I do not know what is going to happen to the traffic, because some of our trunk roads, especially the A.45 and the A.11, are already extremely overloaded.
We have been promised (and I hope it will not be many years before it is

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done) a bypass around Huntingdon, which is a link from the North, via the A.l, and there will also be a link from the South Midlands to East Anglia; and also a bypass around Cambridge, which has not been done. With regard to the bypass around Newmarket, I was sorry to see that the other day the honourable Member for Bury St. Edmunds was told by the Minister that although the draft proposals will be laid this summer, and although the trial boreholes have been a success, the scheme is a long-term one, because of other urgent priorities, and we cannot look forward to an early start being made. At the moment, Newmarket has two major roads through the High Street, the A.11, to Thetford and Norwich, and the A.45, to Ipswich, and Felixstowe and Harwich Docks. There are also no immediate plans—though long-term plans have been made—for bypasses around Bury St. Edmunds and Stowmarket, on the A.45. I hope that the Minister will give this matter his serious consideration.
I am very pleased that the new Regional Board which has been set up
by Her Majesty's Government has been given, as one of its most urgent tasks, the study of communications to ports in East Anglia. I hope that when the Board has made that study and presented its report, it will suggest to Her Majesty's Government—I am sure it will —that the roads from the South Midlands to East Anglia must be improved if we are to develop further these ports, which are very good ports, as an alternative to London for the Continent. The existing roads must be improved, first by the construction of bypasses around the towns, and then by the building of dual-carriageway roads. I hope that we shall do the bypasses first, because if we do the dual-carriageways first that will make the congestion in the towns worse than it is now. Nearly all the major towns and cities on the Great North Road have now been bypassed, but there are still these other areas to be tackled, and I hope I have shown your Lordships the very insignificant sum of money allocated to East Anglia in the next four-year rolling programme. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give this matter serious consideration and will try to give a good deal more
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money to East Anglia to enable these great schemes of expansion to be carried out.
4.55 p.m.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, I would, if I may, add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Eskan, on his maiden speech. Two points particularly appealed to me: first its brevity and, secondly, the fact that he spoke from knowledge, and I hope that we may have many other similar speeches from him in the years to come.
Nearly two years ago, when I was privileged to address your Lordships for the first time, I pointed out that expenditure on communications ought to be of the highest priority because good communications were a major cornerstone in our future economic progress. Ministers, economists and industrialists have again and again emphasised the necessity for the nation to increase productivity and improve efficiency. It seems to me that one way to do this is to speed up and not to slow down the road programme, as this Government have done, contrary to their Election promises. It is perhaps another example of that false prospectus. The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, is going to reply to this debate. He has transport matters very much at heart. He is very knowledgeable. He is always so courteous and kind in the very full way he replies to Questions or answers debates of this kind, and I feel he must have a very sad heart at having to reply to this debate, in view of what his Government have done and are doing.
As productivity and industrial activity increase so does the movement of goods and people, and unless the improvement in communications is made more rapid than the increase in vehicle movement, as the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, knows very well, these congestions and delays will get worse instead of improving. That is obviously a platitude, but it cannot be stated too often in view of what is happening in the country to-day. The seriousness of traffic congestion is the adverse effect it has on efficiency of vehicles. If vehicles are standing still, or moving only slowly, then there is inadequate utilisation of those vehicles and of their drivers. This means that the costs of

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transportation go up. Furthermore, if a vehicle takes twice as long to deliver goods because of traffic congestion, that means that there are twice as many vehicles with twice as many drivers on the roads as need be.
We are in a vicious circle and by its actions the Government are worsening that vicious circle. What a sorry state of affairs, when it is known what a tremendous gain in national productivity there would be if our communications could be so improved that fewer vehicles could carry a greatly increased amount of goods and more passengers, thereby reducing traffic congestion, which again would enable greater vehicle utilisation, with a reduction instead of increase in transport costs.
Like many other noble Lords, I am a director of firms that use commercial vehicles for the movement of products manufactured in their factories, and I know from personal experience how dreadfully our costs go up when the goods have to be moved through congested places. I am also a director of a company that manufactures heavy vehicles. What can be done to reduce congestion within the present financial Budget of the country, and remove some of the bottlenecks rather more rapidly than at present?
I think that the Government ought to take another careful look at the priorities on road expenditure. Your Lordships are all familiar with the same bottlenecks which go on year after year in various parts of the country, and little or nothing appears to be done in far too many instances. Take, for instance, the case of Kendal in Westmorland. This town is the southern gateway to the Lake District, as well as being on the main West Coast route to Scotland, and the traffic congestion in that town is really quite dreadful. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on road improvements to the North and to the South, outside of the town. If this expenditure had been on a by-pass of the town, then a great deal of the present delay and frustration could have been avoided. As it is, it will still be some years before that by-pass is built and the extension of the M.6 up the Lune Valley constructed.
By getting the priorities all wrong there is a shocking waste of money because
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of traffic congestion. But this is not the end of the matter. At the southern end of the town the main bottleneck is caused by a narrow bridge over the river. About 300 yards down the river to the south a footbridge across the river joins the two road dead-ends. All that is needed is a vehicle bridge to replace that footbridge, combined with a one-way roundabout system over the two bridges, and much of the present congestion of the southern part of Kendal could be avoided. I have explained this case in detail, because at peak times—and there are many of these peak times—it now costs the operator of a vehicle 10s., instead of 2s., to get his vehicle through Kendal. This kind of unnecessary and costly delay upsets industrialists, who are continually being told about the need to increase production and how inefficient they are, when they see such glaring examples, as at Kendal, of sloth and incompetence in improving communications.
The former Minister of Transport, Mr. Ernest Marples, who did such a wonderful job during his tenure of office, told me that the first thing he found he had to do to get a move on was to take wider powers. The Government have these wider powers now. He told me that, either through ignorance or prejudice, or because of petty jealousies, schemes were held up by local authorities who were looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. Invariably when the improvement was done everybody was highly delighted. I do not know where the fault lies at Kendal, but I know that if that footbridge had been a vehicular bridge and had been washed away by a flood, a Bailey bridge would have been erected in a few days, as happened some time ago near Keswick. Cannot the Government and the local authority stop "passing the buck" and get a Bailey bridge erected at once as a temporary measure, in place of the footbridge, until that by-pass is built? The cost would be recovered in a few weeks. I hope, with the example which I have just given, I have made the point about the urgent need to look at priorities in road expenditure.
I should like for a moment to turn now to London. As your Lordships know, the Government have the responsibility for building the motorways right into London through a large area where the Greater

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London Council has responsibility for other roads. Are the Government satisfied that there is sufficiently close co-operation in the planning now being done to insure that these motorways do not end up in the wrong place? I know that there is a Working Party supposed to be watching questions of this kind, but mistakes have been made in the past, and when mistakes are made, as the noble Lord knows, they are costly. It really is essential that these motorways make contact with the proposed new inner ring road at the right places, otherwise there will be a gluepot continued from now indefinitely into the future.
I wonder whether the Government could give the House any information about the progress of this inner ring road. Much talking about it has been going on for a long time. When is something going to happen? Has any work started? If so, where? It really is frightening to realise that this inner ring road, which could do so much to relieve congestion in Central London, will not be in operation until the 1980s. We here in London seem to be lagging so badly behind the other capitals of Europe in improving our communications at a satisfactory rate.
Before I conclude, I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell me what progress has been made with alternate offset double white lines on lengths of three-lane roads? He will recall that I asked him a Question on this matter some time ago. Shortly after I first raised this matter in your Lordships' House some two years ago, an experiment was carried out on a stretch of road with which I am familiar. This road is on the Lancashire-Westmorland border, between Carnforth and Milnthorpe. I have spoken to many people who use this road regularly. Every single person to whom I have spoken considers what has been done at that place to be a great improvement. Uncertainty about overtaking is removed, thus making driving safer, and traffic appears to be speeded up. People ask me why this sensible and practical marking of three-lane roads is not far more widely done. I am unable to tell them. Can the Government tell the House why something which costs so little to do is still not in general use? Why the delay? What is stopping the greater progress of this valuable marking of the roads
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from being carried out all over the country?
Finally, I wish to support the proposals put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wade, for raising finance. Our programme of extending our roads would appear to be restricted and confined in money terms. I cannot see why it should not be possible to raise money on the market, the money so raised being serviced and amortised by tolls on roads, as is done on the Continent, or by tolls on bridges, as is done on the Mersey. People are quite willing to pay if they can save time and if costs can thereby be reduced. I should have thought that if this system advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Wade, were introduced and extended in this country, we should in the next ten years see a much more rapid construction of roads and development of communications. If that were done straight away, our productivity would go up and our inefficiency would decline. I conclude where I started, by saying that that is what the Government economists and industrialists have been urging on us. It is up to the Government to show an example in this manner.
5.12 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, disclosed to me at lunchtime that I was the only speaker in this debate who was, so to speak, against his Motion. I must say that I would feel less nervous if I were not alone, because there is a safer feeling in numbers. Nevertheless, no argument that I have heard this afternoon has changed my outlook, and I hope I shall be able to convince at any rate some of your Lordships that there is a lot more than just something in what I am going to say. I shall not try directly to dispute any noble Lord's point, for at the present stage of my Parliamentary experience I may get myself into a muddle. However, I would point out to the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, that the design speed of our motorways is 70 m.p.h. I should like to see the 70 m.p.h. limit experiment completed, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, when he comes to reply, will give us some indication of how the results are going.
I myself drive 20,000 miles a year, some of which, lately, has been for the pleasure and edification of attending your Lordships' House. To drive the 145 miles

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from my home to London takes me, on average, five minutes less than it did ten years ago. So it seems that on the route, mostly over the A.40, improvements have kept pace with the increase in traffic. I know that there are other routes where the state of affairs is not so good, but I get about a good deal and in my experience our roads are nothing like as bad, or as badly congested, as is often made out. It has been demonstrated in other countries that there is no remedy for congestion. If you relieve it in one place it pops up in another; for new roads generate more traffic than was carried by the roads they replace, and so on, until the environment is altered or, perhaps, destroyed. The ultimate in this sort of experiment is probably the Los Angeles area which, as a Times correspondent observed some years ago, is an area of about 70 miles long and 50 miles wide, with no town to go into. The inhabitants of that area are experimenting with building a city centre to try to show that there is a town there, but, meanwhile, they find that they are being stifled by their own exhaust poisons. Such are the problems of the motor age, and we must somehow learn to cope with them.
In this country there are advocates of a massive increase in road spending. They are quite powerful, and certainly vociferous. They are led by the British Road Federation, and others, including, of course, the motoring organisations and large numbers of top people, like some Members of Parliament and journalists, who regularly use their cars during the day and, just as regularly, get stuck in traffic jams. They emerge giving off as much fumes and smoke as the badly maintained lorries they rightly deplore. Their propaganda has been so continuous, and so pervasive, that it is thought by many a heresy to question the wisdom of an expanded and speeded-up road programme. But, my Lords, I think we should question it. Motorways are grandiose, glamorous and dramatic, but at a cost of £500,000 per mile of rural motorway it is not known whether they are actually a good investment. Estimates conflict and, indeed, I fail to see how one can accurately cost the use of a motorway, but it seems that, on the balance of evidence at the moment, it would be wise to treat motorways as luxuries.
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Highway engineers are very gay in their assumption that it would pay to build more motorways, but road-building is their life and their hobby—and a very fascinating hobby, too. But if they would turn their ingenuity to thinking up ways of building new roads more cheaply, they might produce a better case. As it is, motorways and road improvements are built to the very highest and most expensive standard of engineering that it is possible to think up. Much less expensive expedients bring relief, and an example is the Bailey-type of bridge thrown in a hurry over the River Monnow at Monmouth during the last war which, with a very small amount of maintenance, has comfortably carried all the traffic on that very busy industrial road ever since. There is a very posh bridge being built there now as part of a dual carriageway scheme, and I hate to think what it is going to cost. Another Bailey bridge for the other carriageway would be perfectly satisfactory if engineers were concerned about economical communications. But they are not. They build as if they were building the Pyramids. Yet, at the rate things change nowadays, we do not know whether that bridge will be needed in 50 years' time, let alone 5,000, and meanwhile we have to pay for it immediately.
One reason why motorways have been shown to be only marginally productive and, at present costs, very likely wasteful, is that the motor vehicle is the most marvellously flexible land transport implement yet invented. It can be driven long distances in nearly all weathers without great fatigue, and can adjust its pace quickly to suit any circumstances. Its great virtue is that, in conception and design, it springs directly from the horse and cart that it has all but replaced. Our roads have, for the most part, become easily adapted to take something which is much the same creature, only bigger and faster. In my experience, it is the car driver who has occasion to get frustrated, not the lorry driver. I do not know how many of your Lordships have driven a lorry. I have often, and a very pleasant experience it is. You are perched high up, with a pleasant view of the surrounding countryside, which you have time to appreciate and, except for a few passing cars, you motor in a sort of vacuum, because most of the traffic is travelling

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at about the same speed as yourself. It is the towns which are congested and slow the traffic up, and I think that our efforts should be concentrated on providing bypasses—and the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, put his finger on this point. That would help the towns, which should be given as much, if not more, consideration as the through-traffic.
It is my belief that our roads are not so much overloaded as inefficiently used, because they are far too casually and unmindfully allowed to be obstructed. In spite of so much that one hears and reads, I myself see very little bad driving, and our accident rate compared with that of other countries supports this view. But I see a lot of bad parking. When a vehicle is parked on the road it reduces the width of that road by one lane. In most cases this means half the road, and everything going in one direction has to go round it and, perhaps, stop for it.
Parking on the highway is a reprehensible, anti-social practice, and if drivers cannot be persuaded not to do so it should be legally forbidden. Besides the inefficiency and danger caused by bad parking, the various authorities concerned are far too casual about digging up the road, and lackadaisical about putting it back again. In the United States there are some road repair companies which work only at night and who pay high rates in order to get the job done quickly. We use our men inefficiently, plan the jobs badly, and pay almost no attention to the interruption to free flow which is caused. I should like to recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, that this modern brand of "stick-'em-up-highwaymen" be very strictly controlled by the Ministry of Transport.
Last, but not least, of the common obstructions is the underpowered lorry, which is probably the chief cause of congestion and frustration on the open road. Perhaps there we have a clue why the British Road Federation are so keen on the provision of new roads with their shallower inclines. I am afraid I may now get a little technical. The power-weight ratio of the average family car is about 50 brake horsepower per ton. The power-weight ratio of the average laden lorry that one comes up behind is not much more than 6 horsepower per ton. For those of your Lordships who do not
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know the jargon, this means that most laden lorries develop only a little more power in relation to their weight than a pony and trap, and not as much as a moderately fit man on a bicycle.
This is why the driver would so often get to the top of the hill more quickly if he walked, and why we have the long weary queues building up behind these crawling obstructions which are often even more difficult to get round than stationary ones. Presumably, a complete system of new roads would go a long way towards saving the British Road Federation members, and other owners, the trouble and expense of buying reasonably efficient vehicles, because one does not notice their present incapacity so much on dual-carriageways. But if it really is the swift passage of goods which so concerns them, and if this is so vital to the well-being of the economy, a very quick solution is to give their vehicles a sensible powerweight ratio, which will move them from one place to the other at a sociable pace and leave more room on the road for others.
There is one more problem, and it has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom. That is that, although the lorry drivers themselves are some of the best drivers in the world, their union does not recognise the 40 m.p.h. limit, and my information is that, because of this, the men deliberately waste time in cafes. The only exception to this are the so-called "copperbottoms". These are the piece-rate drivers who, while keeping vaguely within the law, drive long hours and distances, often in indifferently maintained lorries, at speeds which are a menace to everyone including themselves.
My Lords, I am sorry if I have been rather long, but I will sum up. First, in spite of all the urging that we should build more roads, we do not know whether they would pay, especially new rural roads. Secondly, we make not nearly efficient enough use of existing roads, because we allow them to be cluttered with obstructions. Thirdly, where we do make new roads we build them far more expensively than is necessary. Finally, there are the environmental considerations. Though I have mentioned them only briefly, because they are not strictly within the terms of the Motion, they must never be out of our thoughts.

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Vehicles are our servants, and we are their masters. They are the tools, and we are the users, or abusers, to do with them what we like, within their and our limitations. Their limitations are technical and would, in my opinion, amply repay much more study than they are being encouraged to get at the moment. Our limitations are environmental no less than they are economic. Ants, lucky things! have their comings and goings regulated for them by instinct. We have to regulate ours by laws, directions and fiscal devices. It is not for us to come to terms with the motor vehicle; we must make it come to terms with us. And unless we are to be overrun and smothered by our own clever invention, we must, I believe, approach the problem from a different angle from that adopted by the noble Earl who introduced this Motion.
5.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT TENBY: My Lords, I should like, first of all, if I may, to add my congratulations to those which have been extended to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Eskan, on his maiden speech. I had the good fortune to work in close co-operation with the noble Lord for some three years when I was at the Ministry of Food, and I think that not only this country but also the Commonwealth producers of sugar, at any rate, owe a great deal to his experience, his wisdom and his knowledge of the problems, which were freely given to the Administration of the day. I am perfectly certain, from my knowledge of him and his work in the past, that he will be a very useful contributor to our debates in the future.
I had not intended to take part in this debate at all, and whilst I am extremely grateful, as we all are, to the noble Earl who moved this Motion, it was one or two things he said which decided me to make a speech. He referred to two matters in particular. The first point he made was that roads are not up to the standard we want to-day. Then he traced the history of the past, and asked: What of the future? When he talked about the history he rang a bell in my mind, if I may put it that way, and I remembered 57 years ago when my father was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He produced a Budget which I can say, without exaggeration, was not universally
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acclaimed in this country, and there is one part of his speech which I remembered very well. I am sorry to say that it was before the noble Earl was born and I was only a boy, so to refresh my memory I went into the Library. After some searching I found the right volume of Hansard, and I should like to read a few extracts from that speech. I remind your Lordships, again, that it was 57 years ago when the speech was made. He said:
" I deal first with a source of revenue from which "—
and note this very carefully, my Lords—
" I, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, shall derive no advantage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 4, c. 502; 29/4/09.]
That was the new road tax, which has been in operation since that day.
He then went on to say that there would be an estimated yield that year of £410,000, and in those days there were, he told us, 55,000 private cars on the road and about 40,000 motor-cycles. The latest figure I have seen is that there are 7,635,000 private cars to-day and 1,400,000 motor-cycles. He then went on to say:
" the appalling list of casualties to innocent pedestrians, especially to children …demands immediate attention at the hands of the Central Government."
I do not know what he would think of the figures of casualties to-day compared with those of the time when he was speaking. He went on:
" The question of road construction, which was at one time deemed to be part of the essential development of the country, seemed to have been almost finally disposed of by the railways, but the advent of the motor has once more brought it to the front. It is quite clear that our present system of roads and of road-making is inadequate for the demands which are increasingly made upon it by the new form of traction." (col. 496.)
He continued—and this I think will amuse your Lordships—
" The brunt of the expense at the beginning must be borne by motorists…they are willing and even anxious, to subscribe handsomely towards such a purpose, so long as a guarantee is given…that the funds so raised will not merely be devoted exclusively to the improvement of the roads, but they will be well and wisely spent for that end." (col. 497.)
I do not expect the noble Lord to remember this figure, but I should very much like to have it if it is possible. How much money has, in fact, been raised since that date by the road tax and petrol

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tax, and how much has gone back to the roads, to which it was going to be exclusively devoted? Then an even better remark my father made was that:
"The expenditure will be strictly limited by the revenue we succeed in raising." (col. 498.)
The noble Earl who moved this Motion said that this matter ought to be out of politics, but despite what was almost the bitterness of Party politics in those days, the late Austen Chamberlain, who was Chancellor in the previous Conservative Administration, asked this question in the course of his speech:
"If the money is going to support of the roads, we think it is a very fair proposition, but if it is intended to take it for the general revenue then we shall oppose it."
The answer given was:
" The whole of the money raised should go to the improvement of the roads."
I hope your Lordships will forgive me for reading that to you.
To-day, our roads are carrying 1,400,000 tons of goods per annum, as opposed to the 240,000 being carried on the railways—that is, 80 per cent, on the road and 14 per cent, on the railways. We have heard a lot about guarantees even to-day, and my purpose in reading those extracts was this. I remember once reading that what experience and history teach is that people and Governments never learn from history or act on the principles deduced from it. In view of past history, it is quite ridiculuous to suggest for a moment now, I am sorry to say—I am not going to remind noble Lords who started the raid, but I remember the time very well—that the vast sums that were going to be devoted exclusively to the making of new roads and to the improvement of the old ones would be available to-day; but guarantees for the future are extremely important. First of all, we must learn from the past, and we must apply to the future whatever lesson we learn.
We have heard to-day, I think from the noble Earl himself, that motorists would not mind paying even higher duties, and other noble Lords have suggested that they would not mind paying tolls. I think that is probably true, but I think they would insist on a guarantee that, if that were done, that money would be devoted exclusively to the construction of new roads and the maintenance of old roads; and I hope that, in future,
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whatever Administration is responsible, they will see that that guarantee is fulfilled.
5.32 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF POWER (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, first of all I would join with every other noble Lord who has spoken in expressing appreciation to the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate to-day. It has been an historic occasion, because my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger has to-day become the first woman to sit on the Woolsack. Then I should like most sincerely to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Eskan, on his maiden speech to-day. He was very modest, because, in addition to being chairman of the committee on civil engineering of the Economic Development Council, he has also taken on the onerous task of serving the building industry in the same capacity—and I should not like to say which is going to be the more difficult for him.
But because, as the noble Lord has said, they have set up a Working Party which is going into the whole of the question of the road programme in all its aspects, including costs, his speech to-day has made one section of my reply redundant. We shall await his Report with very great interest, and I am certain that it will mean some quite revolutionary changes in the attitudes, in the outlook and in operation, both of the civil engineering industry on road construction and, equally, of Governments and Government Departments in their approach to this work. This is an extremely important job because, expensive as it is (as the noble Lord has said, over the last five years the costs have gone up tremendously), we all have a duty to get the greatest value for the money that is spent. I will try, so far as I can, to deal with the various points which have been raised, but if I miss any point I shall not object if any noble Lord interjects; and to-morrow I will go through the debate and get the Department to reply to any point I may have missed.
First of all, inspired, perhaps, by the slightly political tinge which the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, put on his introductory speech (I do not mind that; in fact, I am often guilty of it myself, and I ought to be the last one to

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object to others doing the same) I must make the point that the rapid expansion of the road programme is of comparatively recent origin. In 1955–56, Exchequer expenditure in Great Britain on major improvements and new construction was only £8·7 million, and it did not exceed £50 million until 1959–60. Now, despite this very slow start, we have the biggest road programme in the history of this country. Let me emphasise this: the road programme now in progress is the biggest road programme the country has ever seen. One would not have quite imagined that from the noble Duke's speech.
It is true that the previous Government, knowing full well that they would not have to implement them, announced in July, 1964, plans for the expenditure of £1,060 million on the road programme in England and Wales for the five years from 1965 to 1970. In November, 1965, the then Minister of Transport, Mr. Tom Fraser, announced that the financial provision for public expenditure on the road programme had been increased to meet rising prices. This would bring Exchequer expenditure in England to a planned level of £238 million in 1969–70, as compared with the figure, which was included within the previous Government's estimates, of £215 million envisaged for the year 1969–70. Local authorities were expected to find a further £42 million in that year from their own resources. The total planned public investment in the road programme for England in 1969–70 would thus be £280 million. This compares with £146 million public expenditure in 1964–65. The noble Duke raised the question as to why that was the figure, and why the Minister, speaking in another place, had referred only to England. For better or for worse, the Scots and the Welsh are a little sensitive in regard to some form of Government of their own country, and we have both a Secretary of State for Scotland, who is responsible for Scotland, and a Secretary of State for Wales, who is responsible for Wales. But the £148 million of Exchequer expenditure for England in 1966–67 would have been just over £180 million had it been for Great Britain—including England, Wales and Scotland.
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This summer, in announcing expenditure on the road programme for 1970–71, it is planned to introduce a new procedure whereby the figures for road expenditure announced each year will cover the following four financial years instead of five years, as in the past, but they will be coupled with planning indications for a further spread of years. This will fit in with the four-year period used for the National Plan, and it will at the same time enable local authorities, the road construction industry, and so on, to plan and prepare even further ahead than is possible at the present time. I think it is fair to comment that this will, in fact, mean that we are getting very near to the ten-year programme to which the noble Earl referred in his opening speech: a four-year definite programme always in the pipe-line, and beyond that the programme under consideration by local authorities and the Ministry, ready to come into the pipe-line if and when it is due.
Both the noble Duke and my noble friend Lord Winterbottom referred to the question of the effects of the deferment which took place last year. The effects of deferment on the road programme must, of course, be seen in perspective against the programme as a whole, bearing in mind that the measures were in any case necessary to help eliminate the balance-of-payments deficit and to maintain the strength of sterling. It is no good talking about a road programme if the economy of the country and sterling are weak.
Following the Chancellor's announcement on July 27, the start of £55 million worth of road schemes (£48 million from the national Exchequer, and £7 million from local authority expenditure) was postponed for six months. I want to emphasise, however, that there was no postponement of any schemes which had importance in regard to the access to docks; there was no postponement in the development districts, which are, of course, the districts of high unemployment; and there was not, I suggest, postponement of any work needed to avoid frustration of work already in hand. If I may, I will quote my right honourable friend speaking in another place on February 9. She then said:
"The recent deferment measures will result in a reduction in Exchequer expenditure of about £7 million in the current financial

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year and £12 million in 1966–67. From now onwards the starting dates of new schemes will be settled only after reference to the new financial allocation and will no longer be postponed for any fixed period. The arrangements will allow the schemes originally deferred to go ahead, together with most of the schemes originally programmed for 1966–67. Moreover there will be an acceleration of the rate of expenditure after that year if the economic situation permits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons) Vol. 724 (No. 44), col. 385.]
The noble Duke wanted to know what that really meant. I do not know that he will be much wiser after I have tried to help him, but I will do my best to make it clearer. Capital expenditure of this nature is not incurred in one year. Of the £48 million referred to, only £7 million would have been spent in 1965–66. The rest would have been spent in the following years. But by reducing expenditure in 1966–67 by only £12 million, we are, as the Minister said last week, beginning to catch up about one-third of the deferred schemes in 1966–67. We are helped to do that by the fact that land acquisition is going ahead.
Here, I would correct the noble Lord, Lord Wade, who, when referring to development schemes and quoting Mr. Durie, of the Automobile Association, said that in deferred schemes the land acquisition was also deferred. That is untrue. In all schemes that are approved, and have been approved, the land development and general procedures of acquisition go ahead. Some of that work has been carried out during the six months and this will enable us in the next few years to speed up some of the work. The economic situation permitting, we hope to make a catch-up each year; so by 1969–70 it will be all clear, so far as those developments are concerned.
A number of noble Lords asked why the programme could not be bigger. Some of them quoted people who felt that it ought to be bigger. I would just support the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, in his reference to the fact that some of those quotations came from very interested parties in road construction. But up to 1970, the size of the programme is fixed within the National Plan. The large back-log reflects failure to start a significant programme of work on the roads until the late 1950s. Any further expansion of the road programme up to 1970 could therefore be done only at the
1110
expense of some other programme. Even in this House, let alone the other place, we know of the pressure for expenditure on education, on schools and on housing. Even a Labour Government cannot spend money twice.
In any case, the road programme is already planned to expand at a higher rate than the average for all public expenditure. Expenditure on the roads will rise from £146 million in 1964–65 to £280 million by 1969–70. Under this programme, 1,000 miles of motorway will be completed by the early 1970s, and some 370 miles of new or improved trunk roads by 1970. Expenditure on classified road schemes, most of them urban, will increase from about £60 million in 1964–65 to £160 million in 1969–70. This programme represents an annual average increase of 15 per cent., as compared with the 4¼ per cent, annual rise for all public expenditure in the same period as forecast in the National Plan.
Beyond 1970—and any road or transport programme must look beyond 1970 —the Ministry is assessing what needs to be done to the inter-urban road system by 1980. This is being done with the advice of the Regional Planning Councils and other planning bodies, such as the National Ports Council. The Roads plan will be ready by the second half of this year. In addition, a similar study is being made of urban roads, a fact to which other noble Lords have referred in this debate. The noble Earl, Lord Shannon, the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, and the noble Lord, Lord Wade, referred to the part that must be played by the Roads programme in so far as access to the docks is concerned.
I want to emphasise again, particularly in view of what my noble friend Lord Winterbottom and the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, have said, that the roads to-day carry 89 per cent, of all passenger movement and 70 per cent, of the total inland movement of goods. For the future, it is difficult to forecast the relative shares of road and rail in the traffic of 1970 and beyond. But this must depend on the outcome of the studies on transport co-ordination. However, the present preponderance of road goods traffic over rail reflects the local or short-haul character of land-borne traffic. The average haul by road is 25 miles. As a rule, the railways cannot offer a comprehensive freight

1111
service over short distances. All the indications are that the volume of traffic on inter-urban and urban roads will continue to increase rapidly from now until 1980.
Reference was made to the work of the E.D.C. for the movement of exports. I would agree that an adequate road system is vital to speeding the flow of exports and priority has always been given to the improvement of roads of particular importance to industry and commerce. As so much reference has been made to-day to the E.D.C. for the movement of exports, which the Government have set up, perhaps your Lordships would not mind if I reminded you that the chairman is the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. Its terms of reference are:
" to examine the present movement of goods for export and to make proposals to improve and speed it."
Transport users, transport providers, independent experts, trade unionists and Government Departments are all represented on the Committee. The Committee has taken a preliminary look at the problem of road access to the docks and it will return to the subject for a fuller discussion at a later date. Such evidence as the Committee have available suggests that the main delays to export traffic take place within the docks and not on the way to the docks.
The improvement of access roads to the main ports has always held a prominent position in the Ministry's programme. Traffic management schemes in London have also paid much attention to dock traffic. Last year the Ministry sent a letter to local highway authorities inviting them to keep in close touch with port authorities about road access problems. The plans for port development contained in the National Ports Council's publication Port Development: An Interim Plan have been, and will continue to be, of great assistance to the Ministry in formulating its plan for the 'seventies for the development of inter-urban road systems.
During the debate reference has been made to the possibility of the raising of money from the public by the institution of tolls. The experience of other countries, which was brought forward, can hardly be compared with the conditions in this country, which are not on the same basis. All our motorways have a
1112
good number of intersections. I wonder whether noble Lords have thought of the cost of collecting tolls, if every intersection has to be manned 24 hours a day. It is all very well to quote the Mersey Tunnel and the Forth Bridge, but these have only two ends to be manned. I would suggest that manning the motorways at every intersection would not be practicable.
The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, asked me if I could give the total amount collected in motor tax since the Road Fund was set up by his illustrious father in 1909. I cannot tell him, but I can say that while in 1909 it was estimated to be £400,000, the amount collected in 1964 was £887 million. The expenditure on roads was £212 million. I would suggest that many motorists and many of those talking on behalf of motorists exaggerate the difference between the amount of money collected and the amount expended on new construction, because we have also to take into account the maintenance of the roads, their policing and the fire and ambulance services which are provided. Motorists also talk about the amount collected in petrol tax, but I do not think that that is really relevant.
Several noble Lords have referred to the 70 m.p.h. experimental speed limit; but as we are going to have a debate on the Question put down by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, in a short time, I suggest, with respect, that we should leave this question until then, but in case I forget it when I come to reply to the Question I would say now that the 70 m.p.h. speed limit is an experiment which is being studied by the Road Research Laboratory and by the police. We have also asked the A.A. and R.A.C. to give us reports of the observations of their road patrols on driver behaviour, and these will be taken into consideration by my right honourable friend in making decisions for the future.
My noble friend Lord Winterbottom referred to Scotland and said that there was no motorway north of Carlisle. I would remind him that there is a Secretary of State who looks after Scotland, and that the Road Report is for England and Wales only. But I am informed that, under the Scottish road programme, by the mid-1970s about 290 miles of dual carriage motorways and all-purpose route roads will have been completed,

1113
connecting the industrial areas of the central belt to one another and to the motorways network in England and Wales. I can assure my noble friend from my experience that the Secretary of State for Scotland sees that Scotland gets a fair share of whatever cake is going. In that respect, he is second only to my noble friend the Secretary of State for Wales.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that answer, but would he not agree that it is essential that the two networks should be linked so that there are motorways from the northern end of Scotland to the southern end of England?
LORD LINDGREN: I do, my Lords, but the Scots seem to get here whether there is a link or not—and most of them seem to have only a single ticket.
The noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, asked me definite questions in regard to East Anglia. I hope that he will take it in the right spirit when I say that it is a question of investment returns on the money spent on roads. We must operate the road programme on the basis of national priorities. If East Anglia is getting less than other parts of the country, this is only a reflection of the greater needs of other parts of the country and not because the Ministry does not realise the claims of East Anglia. Money has to be spent where the benefit arising from it is the greatest.
The noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, asked me a question in regard to the situation in Kendal. Frankly, I cannot tell him the answer, but I will have it looked at and write to him on the matter. The noble Lord also asked about the off-set white lines. This experiment is still going on. So far as I understand, it is successful up to the present time; but there are complaints in some areas that bunching arises where the double off-set lines finish and the single line begins; and it is suggested sometimes that the advantage in regard to getting traffic moving is not so great as is claimed for it. But in other cases the scheme is claimed to be very successful. As I say, the experiment is still going on.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL:
My Lords, can the noble Lord say that in conditions and places where the experi-
1114
ment is successful that particular type of experiment will be rapidly extended all over the country, even if in some types and conditions of trials further examination is needed?
LORD LINDGREN: At the Ministry of Transport we have to be careful when we make recommendations to local authorities. When you get local authorities—as, say, in the case of the A.1.— not only willing but anxious to undertake the experiment, we are only too pleased to help. But if you once give guidance to local authorities to implement certain suggestions, you have to be fairly certain that they will be successful when they are undertaken. I have attempted to answer most of the points your Lordships have raised, but if I have missed any, I will try to reply to them by correspondence.
6.2 p.m.
THE EARL OF SHANNON: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. Were it possible, I should like to mention all the immensely interesting points which were raised by noble Lords in their speeches but, in view of the time, and also the fact that we have an Un-starred Question to follow this debate, I hope that I may be forgiven if I mention only a few. On the whole, I was pleased that most of the speakers seemed to agree with me, as also, it appeared, did all the reports to which they referred, although we have heard that some of the Reports were perhaps slightly biased. I should like to add my now belated congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Eskan, on what was a most professional "amateur" speech.
In some of its points I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan a little difficult to follow, and although he claimed to disagree with me, I thought that we were in unison on a number of points. The noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, very ably defined my "less slow", and although I am prepared to upgrade the term, I am afraid that I still cannot let it go up to "go". The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, was also most kind in defining what I termed the prudence and foresight of the early Board of Directors, and I hope he will forgive me for referring to his father by that description.

1115
We seem to agree that proper planning, a budget, and a continuous programme is essential, and that any further revenue should go into trustworthy hands for guaranteed purposes. I am afraid that, in the view of road users, the Exchequer no longer measures up to this standard. We must also thank the Minister for his assurances. We should have liked some more, but I would merely suggest that to carry on that discussion would be one of how "stop" is "stop". I did my best, along with many other noble Lords, to try to get the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, into an impossible position, but I think a hardened campaigner such as he is relishes that kind of thing, and he extricated himself admirably, although not to our complete satisfaction. I would once again thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

MOTORISTS AND ROAD TRAFFIC LEGISLATION
6.6 p.m.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH VISCOUNT HANWORTH rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that increasingly restrictive legislation is adversely affecting drivers of cars and placing an impossible burden on the police.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. Before dealing with more specific topics, I should like to take a general look at the whole problem of road casualties. Governments, in the hope of bringing home to motorists the importance of driving with responsibility and decreasing accidents, which must be the aim of all of us, have continued to stress the death rate on the roads, and terms such as "holocaust" and "carnage" have been used. There is no doubt that, up to a point, this has been successful, and has had an effect. But I believe that it has gone too far; it has produced an atmosphere where rational approach to the problem has become almost impossible politically, and the pressure to do something, however ill-conceived or ineffective, has now become extreme.
I do not for a moment wish to minimise the seriousness of our road accident problem, but I believe that continuing
1116
to appeal to people's fears is both wrong in principle and, in the long run, is likely to be ineffective. Greatly daring, I go so far as to say that I think it would be unfortunate if it did. Life is uncertain, and I and some others believe that this is probably the way it was meant to be. But if the only thing that can influence us is fear for our own lives, how can we hold up our heads in a world where thousands are dying of starvation and preventable diseases, and how can we be worthy of our heritage? I think the approach should be to people's social conscience, not to their skins; the misery of the permanently maimed, the bereavement of families—all these things are of the essence of the problem and the measure of its importance.
Believing, as I do, that this fear publicity has gone too far, I think the time has come when we must see the problem of deaths on the road, as opposed to injuries, much more in perspective. Therefore, for those who are unduly frightened of it—and frightened people do not drive well—I should like to mention that the risk of death is little or no greater than many of the other hazards in this uncertain life: deaths from accidents in the home, suicides and the 1957 'flu epidemic are three examples. Suprisingly, fatal accidents on the roads in 1934, over thirty years ago, were running at roughly the same level as they are to-day. There were then 3½ million vehicles on the road, compared with over 12 million to-day.
We know, of course, that the injuries have vastly increased, and that again is one reason why I think our emphasis should be far more on the injuries than on the deaths. We might also take heart from the fact that the death rate on the roads of this country is proportionately less on a per vehicle basis than in any other European country, except Norway and Sweden; and in Germany it is, in fact, nearly twice as great. When we consider the number of casualties on the road, the problem becomes of much greater magnitude. The number of seriously injured is about twelve times greater than the death rate, and the total number of injured nearly fifty times as big. These figures are so large that the odds on their not affecting any individual driver become very much shorter, and I think we should base our publicity on these facts.
As individuals, if we are to remain human, we must always allow our emotions and sympathy to affect our minds, but as legislators we must look facts squarely in the face. It is simply no good taking the attitude that any measure which will reduce road casualties, by however small a margin, is justified. If it were, we could solve the casualty problem completely by imposing a 5 m.p.h. speed limit, or better still, insist that every vehicle was preceded by a man carrying a red flag. Of course this suggestion would be regarded as quite absurd by everybody, but after all it is only a question of degree. We could fix the speed limit at 20 m.p.h., and, of course, inevitably, if we were to enforce it, road accidents would decrease; but we have to weigh the cost of doing anything as drastic as that.
Looking at the matter from the national point of view, what has to be done is to weigh the cost and inconvenience of any measure against its effectiveness in reducing road casualties. If we are prepared to spend more money, accidents can be reduced in many ways: for instance, road improvements, building pedestrian subways, or improving accident black spots. It is worth remembering that pedestrians represent more than a third of the total number of persons killed or seriously injured on the roads. Moreover, well over 60 per cent, of all deaths and serious injuries occur in speed-limited built-up areas, and a large proportion, of course, occur in the 30 m.p.h. speed-limited areas. Therefore when we consider other measures, such as a 70 m.p.h. speed limit, we must remember that to some extent it is a question of diminishing returns because the number of accidents which we can affect is very much less of the total.
I know that the national income is not unlimited and if we are making funds available for one purpose then other desirable projects, such as schools or hospitals—which, incidentally, may save lives—may have to go, but the question is whether the Government are really giving sufficient priority to expenditure on improvements which will reduce road casualties. I am afraid the answer must be emphatically, "No". The course to which all Governments succumb (and this, I am afraid, is quite regardless of
1118
Party) is to place the blame on drivers indiscriminately and to resort to increasingly restrictive legislation which acts as a palliative for our completely inadequate road system and pedestrian facilities. I will return to the subject of those facilities again, because this is where a vast number of the deaths are occurring.
If we are to have restrictive legislation on the driver, and if we are really concerned with this problem of casualties, surely the time has now come when we should also consider applying restrictions to pedestrians. This is done in other countries and it would be effective. Is it that we dare not do it politically? I enjoy a bit of jay-walking myself, but I feel we must seriously consider the possibility of restricting pedestrian movements in certain cases. It can no longer be said that every road has been constructed for the pedestrian's benefit; a large number of roads are primarily for the motorist.
I should now like to deal with accident black spots. It costs on the average only about £3,500 to eliminate one black spot—I will admit that these are statistics taken from a few years ago, and I have increased the figures somewhat, but I could not say for certain that they represent the situation at the present time. No doubt the Minister will tell me if he disagrees. On purely economic grounds, this capital expenditure is more than justified, as each accident is costing something like £500 and we therefore have an amortisation period of only seven years. Several black spots have been tackled, but many remain and there are still several being created. In other words, it is not a static position. Remembering that a single accident usually results in more than one casualty, and that of fifty casualties one is fatal, it would appear that the expenditure of £130,000 is more than we are prepared to afford to save one life and fifty injuries in the year.
I should like the Minister to tell me what general planning figure he uses in deciding whether the expenditure is justified. I suspect the answer will be that the Ministry does not look at it in this way. But if it does not, I think the Minister must at least be brave enough to acknowledge the consequences of inaction and not spending this sum where it can reasonably be expected to produce

1119
results of that magnitude. In any case there are many black spots where the expenditure required has been quite negligible. For example, at the road junction of the A.20 with the A.252 at Charing fork accidents were reduced by one fatal and two serious in the year following the improvement. Another example is Watersend Bridge on the A.2, near Dover, where 200 yards of the approaches to the bridge were given a non-skid surface. The accidents between 1963 and 1964 were one fatal, six serious casualties and three slight. In the year following the improvement there were no accidents of any kind.
I should now like to turn for a moment to the question of road research. Undoubtedly some restrictive measures cannot be avoided, but the unfortunate thing is that research into the causes of accidents has not been pressed forward with the energy which it deserves, presumably again on grounds of economy. There is, therefore, surprisingly little concrete evidence on which to decide whether or not a restrictive measure is likely to be justified by results; and, my Lords, as I said earlier in my speech, that is what we, as Legislators, have to do. One must applaud the work of the Road Research Laboratory, but once again it seems to be a question of too little, far too late. I have read some of their excellent surveys, but they never seem to me to have been on a sufficiently wide basis, or perhaps one might say sufficiently expensive basis, to be conclusive, and one doubts whether many of the statistics which they require to give a really reasoned answer are, in fact, being made available. I am sure they are not.
There is always this question of who causes accidents. And, having tried to allay what I would call some of the hysteria which surrounds this subject, I would go on to the question: what ought we to do? There is little doubt that the majority of accidents are not caused by the too fast driving of the wilfully reckless driver (although we all tend to notice him): it is the simple driving error of the average man, usually caused by inattention or lack of skill, that is the hard core of our accident problem. This is well illustrated by the number of accidents caused to pedestrians on 30 m.p.h. limited roads. It is perfectly true, of course, that when a driver has an
1120
accident he is nearly always going too fast. But what is too fast? Ten m.p.h. is far too fast if the driver fails to see the pedestrian stepping off the sidewalk. In fact, any speed at all can be too fast in those circumstances.
What is needed is concentration, and I think there is a great deal in the old-fashioned maxim of, "Don't talk to the man at the wheel". Even the best of drivers occasionally make an error—perhaps through failing to look carefully enough in the mirror. Usually an accident is avoided, but none of us can claim complete immunity from such failings if all the circumstances are against us. That is one reason why I think we should think very carefully indeed before we resort to automatic penalties. They will very often—in fact, in my opinion, in most cases—hit the man who does not deserve to be hit.
The more restrictions we place on the driver using his skill and initiative, the more likely he is to be inattentive; and multiple crashes are only one important consequent example of the truth of this. The increasing number of road signs, necessary though they may be, is making it easier to be bewildered, and the extension of double white lines is leading to the assumption that it is always safe to overtake where they do not exist. In fact I know one place on Salisbury Plain, which is well plastered with double white lines, where there is a hidden dip, and it is only too easy to assume that there is nothing in that hidden dip because it has not a double white line. Not only this, but many of the newer markings, such as hatching, to indicate dead areas at turnings off mains roads, are simply not understood and are ignored by almost all drivers. There is a very definite limit to how much further we can go in this direction; again there may be the law of diminishing returns.
I believe that what we must do is to concentrate our publicity on encouraging greater driving skill by graded tests— perhaps a system of compelling accident-prone drivers to take a compulsory course of driving instruction and then be re-tested. We must remember that the learner-driver test is completely basic and is no criterion for a more experienced driver who drives faster without the beginner's caution. In other words, passing that test does not indicate that after one

1121
or two months that driver is going to be a good driver, or even a competent driver, on the roads; and if we think that accidents are caused by incompetent drivers I am all for trying to get a higher grade of test. The trouble is that as a learner-driver becomes more confident he starts to drive beyond his capacity.
As regards increased expenditure, I am afraid that, as has already been said, we must be prepared to spend more money on road improvements and on pedestrian facilities. We must have more police patrols: they have a magical effect on driving standards, and the 78 million miles of patrolling in 1964 was not enough. This means, of course, increasing the size of the police force. If we are to get the co-operation of drivers and to promote good relations with the police force, we must see that speed limits and prohibitions are reasonable and that the number of prosecutions for unintentional technical infringements of the law is reduced. Unless the authorities can get the driver's co-operation, unless he has the feeling that the limits are sensible and reasonable, he will not keep to them. And it is a very vital thing indeed—just as vital as putting on new limits—to see that those that are unreasonable are removed.
I would also suggest that the proper functioning of brakes and steering on cars is essential for safe driving. It strikes me as strange that, although we are prepared to consider stopping motorists for breath-analyser tests, in 1964 only just over 20,000 vehicles were examined on roadside checks. Of these vehicles, one quarter had defective brakes, and one in six defective steering. This seems to me an absolutely frightening figure, and it is no good hiding behind yearly tests and thinking that they will achieve results. Even a car in first-class condition can have dangerous brakes and steering only a week or two after that test. In the case of the old car, the vehicle which is on its last legs, I should think that it might be completely dangerous very soon after leaving the garage and its test. I find it very hard to see why, if we are prepared to take this very unpleasant step of having breath-analyser tests and stopping people on the roads, we are still not prepared to tackle something—brakes and steering— which may have at least an equal effect on our road casualties. Moreover, checks
1122
on brakes and steering are much more reasonable and less liable to the abuses which I believe are possible when people are stopped indiscriminately for breath-analyser tests.
As regards the burden on the police forces, I am afraid that in many ways I think the whole attitude towards the motorist is still tinged with the red-flag complex. Instead of encouraging good driving, we continue to increase the severity of penalties for what often amounts to nothing more than a technical infringement of the law. These penalties undermine the confidence of the ordinary man, but they do nothing to stop those more foolhardy individuals, and particularly those with criminal records, who are so frequently involved in the more serious accidents. The saddest result of this policy is the effect on our police forces. Not only is it impossible for them to enforce fairly the multiplicity of technical laws being created, but the trust and respect of the public, which is so important for their primary responsibilities of preventing crime, is being steadily undermined. And this particular point has been made more than once in this House.
Now I would turn to the 70 m.p.h. speed limit. To my mind, this piece of restrictive legislation is the most ill-conceived, ill-advised and retrograde step yet taken, with virtually no evidence to suggest that it will do anything to help the situation. The Government can surely have decided to introduce it only as a panic measure, on the ground that any action was better than none. Caught by the propaganda—and I use that term deliberately—put out by the present and previous Governments, the Government felt that a measure was required which would affect only a minority of road users and would appeal to those who do not possess a car that could safely exceed this speed or who resented being passed by those who drove faster.
However this may be, the facts of the matter are that on ordinary roads the 70 m.p.h. limit is virtually unenforceable; on motorways, enforcement will be most difficult in high-density traffic, and even if successful it will undoubtedly increase the accidents, due to the bunching of traffic driving too close at a uniform speed. In such circumstances—that is, where vehicles are driving nose to tail

1123
—attention is bound to wander, and the eye must frequently be taken off the road to look at the speedometer. I think we should remember that one of the main reasons for the construction of motorways was to increase traffic flow, by allowing the fast and slow vehicles to sort themselves out; yet this is just what we are preventing them from doing with the new 70 m.p.h. limit.
All positive evidence is against this measure. A 62 m.p.h. speed limit was tried in Germany on the autobahns, and abandoned; it was tried in France on all roads during holiday periods, and again it was abandoned. It was also tried in England on holidays and weekends, but without really conclusive results. How can the Minister believe that a higher, unenforceable, speed limit can be effective when lower ones have proved almost valueless? Am I not right in thinking that the Government themselves made just this point a few months ago? What has changed their minds?
It is also clear that the so-called experiment cannot be conclusive. I would go so far as to say that no self-respecting statistician would for a moment suppose that it could, under the conditions proposed. I believe that if the Government were truly seeking after the truth, carefully controlled experiments on some of the roads would be far more effective.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My
Lords, has the noble Lord given any con
sideration——
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I beg your Lordships' pardon.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: I do not think the results of the opinion poll on this question are really relevant. Few drivers have much experience of driving at over 70 m.p.h., and it is, after all human nature to resent being passed by faster drivers in more expensive cars. Turning to the long term effects, I am afraid that we are being led up the garden path. The real reason for the experiment is to try out the reaction of the public. But even if the public are willing to accept it, the ultimate consequences of the measure are far more serious. Our car exports have in recent years become an important factor in our national
1124
economy, built up, to an important extent, on the performance of our cars—many of them being sports models.
The damage done to the industry could be irreparable. We have only to look at Japan to see the artificial conditions there which have limited performance and hindered their car exports for more than a decade. Not only this, but if you believe, as I do, that the best hope of lessening accidents is to improve driving standards, the interest in acquiring such skills will be severely curtailed by the new regimented discipline of the motorways. If the argument for the limit rests upon speed differentials, and the Government sincerely believe that this measure will reduce accidents, why do they stop short of imposing a maximum speed limit on motorways? Why do they not make a minimum speed limit? Why, incidentally, do they not confine lorries to the two inside lanes?
To conclude, I should like to mention the proposed alcohol limit. I am not coming down on one side or on the other on this matter, but I should like to make one or two points. If the limit can be imposed and enforced, there is a good chance that it will save something around 6 per cent, of road casualties. Many of us would consider any inconvenience which this might cause well worth while. But let us make no mistake: those people who commonly drive under the influence of alcohol are just those who are prepared to take some risk of being caught. The measure will, therefore, be largely ineffective in reducing casualties unless we accept the proposal for road-side breath analyser checks. But should we? I believe it could become a real imposition upon our liberties. Just think of the police car waiting outside the "pub", or the private cocktail party. I must say that I do not like the idea at all. Incidentally, if anyone thinks that this is an exaggerated picture, they might remember the prosecutions which have occurred of drivers who, knowing that they have drunk too much, dispose of the ignition keys of their cars and yet have had to pay the penalty for their wise decision to sleep it off. It has taken us several years to put a stop to this nonsense. Should we then be justified in leaving the sensible interpretation of the law to the police?
6.35 p.m.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My
Lords, I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord for introducing this most interesting subject. I personally wish it could have been taken with the previous debate, because in my opinion the two are closely interwoven. I agree with some of the points made by the noble Lord, but with others I disagree—for instance, when he pointed out, right at the end of his speech, that he is opposed to the suggested introduction of breath analysers, although this might save 6 per cent, of the accidents. I just cannot understand his thinking.
I agree with what the noble Lord said about taking more notice of the inadequacy of the present roads. We in the rural areas are only too well aware of the danger that this can cause, with roads through villages leading to the village school, where there is not a footpath on either side for the youngsters to walk on. This is quite dangerous, and likely to cause accidents. The noble Lord also referred to "black spots", and to double white lines. Only a few days ago, when travelling on a main trunk road, I had an experience when, driving in quite a long line of traffic, well tucked in behind, some "gentleman" just "whizzed" past, cutting in and out, right over the double white lines. He completely ignored them. This is something of which I think we ought to take more notice than we do.
I have a particular interest in this subject of road safety because I have driven for a good deal more than thirty years, averaging 25,000 to 30,000 miles a year; and for two and a half years, during my Army life, I was a driver-instructor, teaching recruits coming into the Army how to drive, and trying to teach road safety. Like so many people, I have never lost my interest in this important subject. I am sure that everyone here is really concerned, as are most people, about the number of road accidents in recent years, and with the toll of death, injury, damage and loss which follows. I repeat, I believe in road safety, and would personally support any action to reduce the large number of road accidents. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, in an interjection in the previous debate, forecast that we should all "be dead by 1970. I
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would not altogether agree with that, but I believe that a good many of us can be involved in road accidents which may be fatal unless more is done in the interests of road safety and in trying to reduce this large number of accidents.
The noble Viscount's Question refers to "restrictive legislation" on car drivers and on the police. We all know, and agree, that our police have a most difficult job, which they do very well indeed, and I believe that they should be both encouraged and supported. Most people, of whom I am one, object to compulsion. But we have to concede that, in recent years, we have tried to encourage people not to drink and drive, but we have not been really successful. At Christmas time, especially, we have had posters on the hoardings and in the Press, and all sorts of advertisements, pleading with drivers not to drink—" If you drink, don't drive; if you drive, don't drink." We must admit that the pleadings so far have not been successful. Therefore, when pleading is unsuccessful, I think that we must resort to compulsion. I consider that the proposals of the Government to introduce breathalysers and the 70 miles per hour speed limit on motorways are the best alternative at present. I believe that the fear of being caught in a state of having had too much to drink will deter many drivers who drink and drive. I support the proposal which would empower the police to make snap checks on drivers and I believe all reasonable people will also. The only people who will object will be those who are likely to drink too much and then drive.
I must declare an interest because I am a non-drinker so it does not affect me. Some people may say that it is easy for me to say this because I do not drink and would not be likely to get caught. So I want to make it perfectly clear that, in my opinion, with the present volume of traffic on the roads there is no room for drink and driving together. The noble Viscount criticised the proposed 70 m.p.h. speed limit on the motorways. Although I do a good deal of driving, I have not a fast car, just an ordinary family car, but I must confess that on the motorways I have driven more than 70 m.p.h. I consider 70 m.p.h. to be a reasonable speed. It is true that when someone whizzes past you when you are doing 70, there is the temptation

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to put your foot down and take an "I'll larn him!" attitude; but, on reflection, I think that 70 m.p.h. on the motorway is a reasonable speed. Personally, I am prepared to accept this, but I have been wondering how much actual saving in time would occur as between a driver on the M.1 keeping down to the 70 m.p.h. limit and another driver going up to 100 m.p.h., as some people do. At the end of their journey I should think that the saving in time would be only negligible.
I personally am prepared to accept the 70 m.p.h. limit, and I hope that the Government will enforce it. Normally, I am not a "Yes-man", but when it comes to road safety and prevention of accidents, I am prepared to conform and be a "Yes-man". I hope my noble friend will dig his toes in on this, and see that his right honourable friend the Minister of Transport introduces these measures. I wish them every success.
6.45 p.m.
LORD ALLERTON: My Lords, speaking at this time of the evening, after a long debate which has virtually been dealing with the same subject as this Unstarred Question, it is difficult not to be repetitive. I trust your Lordships will forgive me if I bring up several points which have already been mentioned. In some quarters the idea has grown up that the only way to stop motorists from injuring themselves and others is to introduce legislation providing for harsher and harsher penalties and, in almost every case, longer prison sentences. Unfortunately, experience has shown that these measures have not been very productive of improvement. For my part I have never believed that prison is the proper place for motorists. I believe that the logical answer to these extreme cases is to remove the danger from the road by the withdrawal of the licence when the driver has proved himself to be unfit on the road.
Irritating and unnecessary legislation can only harm the relations between the public and the police, and by no stretch of the imagination can that be desirable. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, mentioned the undermining of confidence, and I am in full agreement with him on that point, for it is one of the effects of unnecessary legislation. The public should regard the police as their friends,
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not as their enemies. Our small and undermanned police force is stretched to the limit by a crime wave unprecedented in our history. Their task is made no easier by being made to enforce, or to attempt to enforce, regulations which have no great practical value.
This leads me to wonder whether there would be any advantage in having a separate force of traffic police. I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, in his reply will say whether the Government have any views on this matter. If the police were relieved of some of the more irksome and less essential traffic duties which it is their duty to perform it might be helpful to have such a force. I also feel that if the police could warn motorists more frequently and prosecute a little less they would not only receive more co-operation from the public than they do now, but also would do much to improve the general standard of driving. So many drivers err through sheer ignorance and for no other reason.
I feel that I should apologise to Lord Lindgren as I was going to say a few words about the 70 m.p.h. limit, but he has already indicated in an earlier speech that he does not want to talk about it.
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, I do.
LORD ALLERTON: Very well. The experimental 70 m.p.h. speed limit is, in my view, an example of an unnecessary regulation. There is no reason why on motorways and dual carriageways, such as the A.1, speeds in excess of 70 m.p.h. should be dangerous, although this may not be the case on the numerous and lethal three-way roads from which we suffer so much. On these roads 70 m.p.h. may be too much, and indeed I think it is. I am strongly in favour of the double white lines which alternate from one side to the other, and enable overtaking to be done in comparative safety. I feel sure that there should be a great many more of them, because in my experience they have proved to be very effective.
I read in The Times on Saturday of last week that, with one-quarter of the population of America, Britain has one-sixth of America's road casualties— though in America speed limits exist and, what is more, are enforced very rigidly. These figures do not make out a very good case for speed limits. Admittedly, the American roads and road problems

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are not easily comparable to our own, and too much should not be read into what happens there. But, be that as it may, the figure for deaths per 100,000 of the population in the United States is 25, whereas in this country it is 13·3. That is a fairly sharp improvement.
I think it is well known that we do not have enough police cars on the roads. In my view, they are of the greatest value, but they would be better employed in chasing dangerous and indifferent drivers than in being used to enforce unnecessary and irritating regulations. Unfortunately, though it may be comparatively easy to catch someone driving at 80 miles an hour on a motorway, it is extremely difficult to catch someone driving at 50 miles an hour when he ought to be driving at 15—and, as we all know, this happens only too frequently. It now seems that police time is still further to be encroached upon by having to make random tests with breathalysers. I have never believed that there are nearly as many drunken drivers as we are led to suppose, and I am sure that there are as many drunken pedestrians and, possibly drunken cyclists. Would not the police be better employed in trying to save motorists from themselves, by taking action for dangerous parking, for running a car with smooth tyres and ineffective brakes, for overtaking when unable to see ahead, and even for driving too close to the car in front?
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): At 70 miles an hour?
LORD ALLERTON: I think it would be foolish to drive too close at 70 miles an hour, although that is the effect of what is happening on the motorways. It is what I believe is known as "high-speed bunching". But I believe that even this short list of bad driving practices is far more productive of accidents than is drink. Naturally, I hold no brief for the drunken driver; no sane man would. But I do not believe there are nearly as many drunken drivers as the Ministry of Transport advertisements would seem to indicate. Certainly there are not enough to justify the random use of breathalysers.
If there are any solutions to the problems on the road, I believe that they lie
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in the direction of better driving instruction; stricter and two-stage driving tests; tests at more frequent intervals; having more police cars on the road, and the provision of better roads for us to drive on. It may be that, owing to the various acute shortages from which we suffer, these solutions are unattainable counsels of perfection. But at least it is not beyond our capabilities to devise more simple and more understanding regulations. If regulations are more simple and understanding, they are less likely to be broken, and thus the burden upon the police will be considerably eased.
6.55 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I do not disagree with a great deal that has been said by previous speakers on this Question. At the same time, I feel that the Question has been framed in a way which might give the impression that there was general dissatisfaction with the police and the way in which they enforce restrictions, and I do not think that is the view of the public as a whole. There surely can be no doubt about the need for restrictions on motor cars. They are a lethal weapon and a public nuisance.
I passed a test as a driver before I was seventeen, under the regulations applying in the First World War. Therefore, I am not unsympathetic to drivers of motor cars, and I recognise that cars are an extremely valuable amenity of modern life. But having regard, first of all, to the number of deaths in road accidents, to the number of injuries, to the congestion which traffic causes, to the noise, and to the noxious smoke which is emitted, it surely is clear that there have to be restrictions upon motor cars and their drivers.
Indeed, public opinion has moved very rapidly in this direction during the last few years. Some twelve years ago, when I was concerned with the preparation of I Road Traffic Bill, we were warned by the Whips in another place that it was very doubtful whether there would be public support for parking meters, because of the objection to making any charge to the motorist for parking on the Queen's Highway. We have moved a long way since then, and parking meters are now recognised as being of great help to the motorist as well as an economical way of using the road. And it was only in

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1960 that traffic wardens were introduced to help the police. Public opinion is demanding that there shall be adequate restrictions upon that minority of motor drivers who, in one way or another, are the cause of danger or inconvenience to the public.
In my view—and I think this view is generally shared—the police are both courteous and considerate. On occasions I have wondered whether they do not carry those virtues a little too far. But it is, of course, here that they must retain the good will of the public, and I think they have succeeded in doing so. But at a time when there is this unprecedented wave of crime, it surely is desirable to try to devise methods by which the police will have to spend less time in the enforcement of these necessary restrictions. The traffic wardens have done a great deal to take a burden off the police. Again, it is only twelve years ago that the then Commissioner of Police in London was unwilling that there should be a body of traffic wardens, but I know that the present one welcomes it. I wonder whether it might not be possible, in some respects, to widen their responsibilities and their powers in order to help the police. This is rather on the lines of the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Allerton, of a special body recruited for the purpose of traffic control. I think that perhaps a more helpful line would be to increase the responsibilities of the traffic wardens in suitable cases.
Up to 1960 the difficulties of prosecuting for a traffic offence were very great. It was necessary for the policeman to wait until the person in charge of the car came back to the car, and to take his name. It was as a result of the recommendations of the Sharpe Committee that the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act 1960 was passed:
"…to facilitate the enforcement and administration of the law relating to road traffic and to vehicles on roads by providing for the punishment without a prosecution of offences in connection with lights or reflectors on vehicles, or with obstruction, waiting, parking and kindred matters, and for the employment of traffic wardens in aid of the police;…"
Under that Act the offences for which a fixed penalty can be prescribed are very much limited. Indeed, in practice they are even more limited. At present, this applies generally, first of all, only to London, and, secondly, only to offences
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in connection with parking meters; and in both these cases, if I understand the law aright, an extension could be made by order of the Home Secretary under this Statute. It could be extended to other parking offences outside the meter zones, and to offences in connection with lights and reflectors; and I would ask the Government to consider carefully whether that might not be done and whether that would not be of substantial help to the police.
In other cases, if it were thought desirable to make an extension, it would be necessary for it to be done by legislation. Of course, clearly fixed penalties can apply only where the offence is one which is due to a clear, ascertainable fact: not, of course, to anything like dangerous driving or driving without due care and attention, which require the exercise of discretion. But it might be extended legislation to include such offences as driving over traffic lights when at red and exceeding the speed limit— and that, again, I put forward as a constructive suggestion for possible action by the Government.
I should like to ask the Minister one or two questions. The Act which is now the Act of 1960—it was the Act of 1956—authorised the towing away of cars that were causing obstruction. We believed that that was the only way to deal with what at that time was an ever-increasing abuse. I should be very glad to know from the noble Lord the Minister in how many cases towing away is now being practised, and to what extent it is the view of the Government that it is being successful.
There is a great case for much more being done to deal with unjustifiable and obstructive parking in London. In my time at the Ministry of Transport it was true to say that when people were guilty of these constant parking offences the garages of London were never at any time full; and I believe that, even after the building of the underground garage at Hyde Park, it is probably true at the present time. When motorists complain about prosecutions and of to-wings away because of the obstructive parking of motor cars, the answer is (if it is still the case, as I believe it is; and I should be glad to have the Government's confirmation) that at no time

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are all the garages of London fully occupied by cars.
My Lords, I have said that the police have a great deal "on their plate" at the present time, and I quite understand the reluctance of the Commissioner of Police to increase it, but I do think that something ought to be done about noise. There are a great many young men in sports cars who drive about at great speed with the cut-out open or with the silencer taken off. When I lived in Sloane Street I was often awakened at about 2 o'clock in the morning by some sports car going at 70 or 75 miles an hour down Sloane Street and making an appalling noise. Of course, it is an offence against the law at the present time, but it is difficult to enforce that law. First, it is difficult to overtake the offender; and, secondly, it is difficult to measure the noise. It is possible to measure the noise in a garage, but there is at present no instrument for measuring the noise in traffic when other noise is occurring in the vicinity. I would ask the Government to consider whether something more cannot be done about this.
The thing to do is to take the number of the car and then to call and inspect the car when it is in a garage; and on many occasions there are opportunities for stopping a car of that kind and examining it then and there. This is really going no further than the spot check about which the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, spoke—of stopping a vehicle on the road and examining it for defects in its brakes, lights and so on. Wanton and deliberate noise, made in many cases by tampering with cars so that they are not in the condition in which they issue from the factory, is a thing which is a great nuisance to the public, and it really ought to be tackled.
The Buchanan Report was the first official Report dealing with the problem of enabling the motor car to be so dealt with as to be reconciled with a civilised life. This involves disciplinary restraint upon drivers—I think it does on pedestrians, as well—but these restraints, in most cases on the drivers, are not only in the interests of pedestrians and residents in towns but also in the interests of the drivers themselves. I believe that public opinion is coming more and more to recognise that these restraints are
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necessary, and I should like to see them applied more rigidly. I believe there is a Committee at present sitting considering the restraint of traffic, and I should be glad to learn from the Government their terms of reference and whether we may expect a report from them in the near future.
7.9 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I listened to the speeches of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and other noble Lords with very great interest. I am sorry that the noble Viscount's Question should say that restrictive measures are adversely affecting motorists, because they are designed to make roads safe, which is in the interest of all road users. The noble Viscount took exception to the emphasis on road deaths in safety propaganda, and suggested that we should appeal more to social conscience than to fear of death. The message we try to put across has to be simple and vivid to get home to people, and should work with the strongest elements in human nature—and the fear of death is one of the strongest. None the less, we believe that positive practical advice on safety, rather than horror, may be the best form of propoganda. Nobody wants an accident, but people do need to know how to avoid them.
Government spending on road research is rising. In 1964–65 it was 12½ per cent, up on the previous year, and the provision made for 1965–66 is 30 per cent, up on 1964–65. We do not normally ascribe accidents to causes. Most result from multiple causes; an immediate cause can seldom be determined. We concentrate on identifying factors occurring in accidents, and accident statistics pick out those which recur most often, say, in all accidents, or in accidents of a particular type or in a particular place. The aim is to identify the factors whose removal or modification would do most to reduce accidents, and then to put things right.
On the elimination of black spots, to which the noble Viscount referred, I can inform the House that they are not all alike, and it is not helpful to talk of an average cost of elimination. The nature and cost of remedies vary widely. In one case better signs might reduce accidents appreciably; in another, a substantial road improvement might be

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necessary. Hence the importance of identifying recurrent factors in accident black spots before planning the remedy. The Government are spending about £4½ million a year on schemes costing less than £25,000, a high proportion of which are directed to improvements which can produce big safety returns.
Who causes accidents? Information on how far different groups have accidents is hard to come by, but it has been established that among motor-cyclists inexperience is a factor. Young drivers have accidents more frequently than older ones; the accident involvement rate per mile for drivers under 20 is more than four times the lowest rate, that is, for those aged 60–69. The question of whether there should be an advanced test was raised. The basic requirement of the driving test is that to pass it a candidate must show, in normal traffic conditions that he can properly control a motor vehicle on the road and can drive it safely and with due consideration for other road users. The standard required to pass the test has been continually rising, because the increasing amount and complexity of normal traffic over the years have imposed their own rising standards. Advanced tests or re-tests are impracticable at present. Two million driving tests are conducted annually, and there are nearly half a million applicants waiting to take the test—representing about thirteen weeks work. Recruitment of additional examiners continues, but, as in many other spheres of activity, the right types of persons for the job are in short supply.
Incompetent or inconsiderate behaviour can cause accidents on the safest roads. Good training and sound testing make their own contribution to safe driving, but neither will ensure that drivers will at all times apply what they have learnt. It is entirely a matter for the driver himself. A big step in the direction of sound training was the setting up, in October, 1964, of the Ministry of Transport's Register of Approved Driving Instructors. In recent years research into the behaviour of road users, and into the physical and psychological factors that may affect their conduct on the roads, has been intensified. The Road Research Laboratory has been studying driving behaviour— including drivers' attitudes, judgment and
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emotional responses while driving—and the effects of training on drivers' subsequent performance. If the results of these studies show that changes in the form of the driving test, or on the fines suggested by the noble Lord, are desirable and practicable, they will be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Allerton, said that there must be a certain amount of repetition. Here, I will repeat, because it is applicable, what I said in the previous debate. Up to 1970 the size of the road programme is fixed within the National Plan, and further expansion before that date could only be at the expense of some other programme. In any case, planned expenditure on the roads between 1965 and 1970 already represents an average annual increase of about 15 per cent., as compared with the average 4¼ per cent, annual rise for all public expenditure. The Ministry is assessing what needs to be done to the urban and inter-urban road system by 1980. The picture will then have to be related to the availability of resources through the 1970s and the competing needs of other programmes.
My right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Minister of Transport are agreed that more well-equipped police are required. It is becoming clear that policing the roads is an important part of the war against crime in general. However, it is by no means easy to find recruits for the police. This is a much wider national problem. I well understand why the noble Viscount asks for more spot checks on vehicles, but the difficulty in increasing their number substantially is that it would require a great many skilled inspectors and police—and here it is well to interject that only a policeman can stop a car—and this would be exceedingly expensive. The spot-check, all the same, has an important part to play in road safety.
The noble Viscount mentioned the possibility of earlier lighting-up times. This has often been considered in the past, but there is great difficulty in finding one time suitable for all parts of the country. Of course, even the clouds in the sky affect the time of dusk. Many of the regulations, especially the more technical ones, which the noble Viscount complains about, apply to manufacturers, and are enforced by Ministry of Transport inspectors. For the rest, we should

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be only too pleased to simplify the law, and attempt to make things easier where possible; for example, by introducing the new traffic signs. It is up to the police, of course, to prosecute with discretion.
I now come to the experimental 70 m.p.h. speed limit. In the early days of motorways in this country it was thought that the vast majority of drivers might settle down to a sensible speed level. The motorways therefore had no speed limits. However, from time to time doubts were raised as to whether unrestricted speeds would be acceptable indefinitely as traffic increased. In 1964 a racing car was tested on the M.1 at 180 m.p.h. Matters came to a head with the series of appalling multiple crashes in November last year. In one, near Hanchurch, in Staffordshire, 33 vehicles were involved, four people were killed and about 20 injured. Two others occurred in Lancashire: in one, 21 vehicles were involved, and in the other, 11 vehicles. One person was killed and 10 seriously injured in these accidents. Police reports showed that excessive speed was "virtually the sole" cause. It was clear that the time had come for positive action, so the Minister imposed the 70 m.p.h. speed limit as an experiment. Had he not taken such decisive action at that time, no doubt there would have been complaints of inertia.
One of the main aims of the experimental 70 m.p.h. speed limit is to see if we can create an atmosphere conducive to road safety, applying in all conditions an atmosphere that would bring home to everyone that a "free for all", with periodic mass casualties, cannot be tolerated any longer. A further aim is to reduce speed differentials between the fastest and the slowest vehicles, and so ensure that the impact of collision, if one most occur, is reduced, and casualties are consequently fewer. We shall see what the accident figures actually tell us.
It seems to me to be completely illogical for gloomy prophets to argue that the speed limit experiment should never have been undertaken because of the undesirable effects which, so they assert, it is bound to have. They say, for example, that it will not reduce accidents; that it will cause bunching; that it will send drivers to sleep; that it will divert traffic from the motorways to other roads. My
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answer is that the experiment is intended to find out about such matters—why condemn it before the results are known? We do know that on American expressways there are maximum speed limits, which are hardly ever higher than 70 m.p.h., and sometimes lower. We know that on motorways in Europe there are, in general, no overall speed limits. We know that the injury accident rates on American expressways compare very favourably with those in Europe. We know, too, that the road death rate in the U.S.A., in proportion to the number of vehicles licensed, is lower than in all countries in Western Europe except Sweden. We know that the road casualty rate in this country is still far from satisfactory. We know that speed limits, properly imposed and observed, reduce road accidents and casualties. I do not say that these facts are absolutely conclusive —what I contend is that, in the light of these facts, it is reasonable and, indeed, important, in the interests of safety, to test the effects in this country of an overall speed limit. If we do not investigate we cannot find out. If even a small number of lives is saved as a result, it will surely have been worth while.
Another criticism has been that the level of the limit is wrong—that if there must be a limit, it should be higher than 70 m.p.h. Now I do not assert that the figure 70 is fixed and immutable. What I do say is that it is a suitable one for the experiment. An American investigation has shown the average casualty rate above 70 m.p.h. to be about three times that at 65–70 m.p.h. The figure 70 is therefore, I submit, a fair and reasonable one for the experiment. The critics also say that a 70 m.p.h. speed limit will have an adverse effect on the design, manufacture and export of cars. To this I reply that an experiment for a short period could hardly have such effects. Should it appear likely at any time that the limit would become permanent, however, this important aspect would, of course, receive the further consideration that it merits. But in this connection, it is noteworthy that one of the best customers for our sports cars is the U.S.A., which has top speed limits on almost all her roads, and these limits are rarely over 70 m.p.h. I would suggest that many motorists to-day are more concerned with acceleration than with high maximum speeds.

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Another criticism has been—on what grounds I do not know—that the result of the experiment is a foregone conclusion; that the Minister will make the speed limit permanent, no matter what the outcome. I can assure noble Lords that this is not the case. The experiment is being conducted with an entirely open mind. The Minister will consider the assessment by the Road Research Laboratory, and all the evidence from other sources, properly, carefully and impartially. She will be prepared to extend the limit, change it, or drop it altogether on the basis of what is found. I put it to your Lordships, therefore, that in the interests of road safety and the saving of lives, we should all await the outcome of the experiment—and I must emphasise that it is an experiment—with co-operation and understanding, and I think we have a right to expect this.
As to the general criticism that restrictions on motorists are proliferating unnecessarily, I really cannot accept this imputation. Throughout history laws have tended to increase with population density. Their object is to preserve the most important human liberties by the deliberate sacrifice of the less important. And so it is with the motor car. As vehicle density increases in relation to the road space available, so must rules be increasingly imposed. The object of these is to preserve, so far as possible, for the motorist the basic liberty of keeping alive by the sacrifice of the minor liberties or, let us say, overtaking on corners or unlimited speeds in towns. New laws have often been represented to be unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject. But, when the general interest is taken fairly and fully into account, I think that those in the field of road safety have come to be recognised to be in the defence of liberty, and essential to its preservation.
The noble Lord made a number of interesting observations about the part to be played by the police under the proposals relating to drink and driving, contained in Part I of the Road Safety Bill which is at present being considered in another place. I should not like to embark upon a discussion of the Bill's provisions before it has appeared before your Lordships. The noble Lord has in fact highlighted one of the most important provisions of a major Bill upon which
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I should guess we shall in due course have an interesting and possibly lengthy discussion, and I think it might well prejudice that discussion to anticipate some part of it now.
Perhaps the only general remark I should make at this stage is that the noble Lord referred to a potential saving of 6 per cent, in casualties. As the White Paper pointed out, the corresponding reduction in accidents would be between 5 and 9 per cent., about half of which involve drivers with high alcohol levels; that is, 150 milligrammes/100 millilitres and above. Furthermore, accidents caused by drink tend to be serious, and the number of fatal accidents so caused could be as high as 20 per cent. Therefore, the potential saving in accidents and the deaths and injuries that result is far from insignificant, but even if it were not, I am sure your Lordships would agree that any saving would be worth while.
Reference was made to infringement of personal liberty. Here again the noble Viscount suggested that the police should have power to stop a car and test its brakes, lights and the rest. The purpose of stopping a car is to make a test. Does the noble Viscount say that in stopping a car to test its brakes you are imputing that the car is not properly maintained and the brakes are ineffective? Equally, in so far as stopping a car in regard to drinking and driving. As a Member of another place, many times when going home at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, I was stopped on the road by the police who politely asked where I had come from and where I was going and whether they could see my driving licence and my certificate of insurance. I did not think it was an interference with my liberty. I was only pleased that the police were on the job protecting property against those who might interfere with it. If a person is in the right, then he need not fear being questioned.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, asked me a number of questions and he made some interesting remarks about the fixed penalty system. As he says, it is only imposed in Inner London and the City and 47 other areas. The possibility of ex-lending its application will be considered, but I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate that when one takes a case out of the courts there is a reduction in the

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liberty of the citizen to defend himself and it is a matter which will have to be seriously considered.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, if the person does not plead guilty he is always able to have the case tried in the court. It does not diminish the liberty.
LORD LINDGREN: But it involves an agreement on the types of cases. After all, there is the Magistrates Act, as the noble Lord knows, and a person can plead without attending court and his case is heard without his being there. But this procedure takes up time even under the Magistrates Act. The noble Lord asked me a question in regard to cars towed away. I agree with him as to obstruction. One of the problems is that there is no one more unkind to the motorist than another motorist—or more inconsiderate if not unkind; and their behaviour in parking is appalling. So far as the metropolitan area is concerned, in 1965 49,573 parked cars were removed by the police. That is a number which is important in itself, but I should like to emphasise that because of the physical nature of removing cars, and because in fact the police have plenty of other things to do, they do not remove cars unless they are causing an obstruction or are likely to cause danger or injury to persons. A car that is left in the wrong place may be dealt with by other means.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, also referred to the question of noisy vehicles. It is not only the teenager on a motorcycle who is the offender here, although sometimes he gets a lot of blame. So far as the police are concerned, there are difficulties. The noble Lord referred to one, and that is the question of the measurement of noise. But, in any case, the police have to be on the spot and able to take a number and give evidence of having seen and heard the incident, or they must have evidence of some other person who is prepared to come forward.
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Therefore, there are limitations. But the prosecutions in 1962 numbered 6,370; in 1963, 8,603; and in 1964, the last year
for which I have any figures, 9,732. So they are rising; but, of course, the num ber of vehicles on the road also is increasing.
The noble Lord also asked me about prosecutions arising from diesel fumes and the issue of smoke from vehicles. Again, there are two types of investigation into this. Prosecutions by the police in 1962 totalled 2,777; in 1963, 2,867; and in 1964, 2,713. But where there is a prosecution, let us be clear that it is only
where it is a flagrant case in which there is possible danger to life and limb of other road users, or danger to property. Perhaps a more significant test is that of the Ministry of Transport examiners
who examine vehicles by their special smoke tests. In 1965 they examined 75,000 vehicles for smoke. Of those 75,000, 8 per cent., were bad enough to warrant an immediate prohibition notice and had to be withdrawn from service.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, and the noble Lord, Lord Allerton, referred to the possibility of a special traffic police corps. I can assure both noble Lords that this matter has been under consideration on a number of occasions, and is always before the Home Office and those associated with police forces throughout the country. There are difficulties; there are attractions, too. But I can assure noble Lords that this will be considered in the same way as the question of traffic wardens was considered. First of all, the traffic warden's duty was to deal with stationary vehicles. Now he has been given additional powers in regard to the control of moving traffic. We have not a closed mind on the proposal for a special traffic police corps. It is a question of how it can best operate, and it will be considered.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before eight o'clock.